textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/mccabe13.xml

<xml><p> 30 page printout</p>

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

<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>

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

<p>Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</p>

<p>THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL No. 13</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> THE ROMAN CHURCH, THE POOREST IN CULTURE
AND RICHEST IN CRIME</p>

<p> by Joseph McCabe</p>

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

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

<p> CHAPTER</p>

<p> I Who Are the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> 300000000 ........ 1</p>

<p> II The Minimum of Scholarship and Maximum of Crime ..... 9</p>

<p> III <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> Loves the Poor Illiterate ......... 18</p>

<p> IV The Myth of Its Patronage of Learning ........ 24</p>

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

<p> Chapter I</p>

<p> WHO ARE THE CATHOLIC 300000000?</p>

<p> It occurred to me while I was revising the manuscript of the
preceding book that most readers would like to have, before I
proceed further, a full and clear statement of the grounds on which
I challenge, in fact disdainfully reject, the total numbers of
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in the world that are usually given. These numbers vary
in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers and standard works of reference from
250000000 to nearly 400000000. The figure given in the new
Encyclopedia <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na by a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> expert is 294583000. The
figure in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Directory, which may be described as an
official publication of the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> authorities, is
398277000. Authoritative works of reference, which take amazing
pains to ascertain exactly how many tons of steel are produced
annually in, or tons of rice imported into, <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States give
world-totals which similarly differ from each other by tens of
millions when they turn to "the venerable <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>."</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
1
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> Does it matter? Yes, it matters very seriously for three
reasons. First, these big figures are an essential part of the
bluff which priests put up when they claim, as they do in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>,
special consideration and privileges for their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Secondly,
they are an important part of the deception which these priests
practice on their own followers, since they give, and are intended
to give, <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> a vague impression that their creed has not
merely been that of the civilized world for fifteen centuries but
is endorsed by the largest body of men and women in the leading
countries of the modern world. Thirdly, the publication of these
figures by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers and authorities affords a rich
illustration of that recklessness and untruthfulness of statement
which it is the aim of these booklets to expose.</p>

<p> The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> knows within very much closer limits how
many members it has. Every priest makes an annual report to his
bishops -- I have assisted in this job -- and these reports provide
national totals which are forwarded to <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>. Two things, amongst
others, are reported: how many <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in the loose sense --
baptized persons -- there are in the parish and, particularly, how
many of them are real <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> as testified by attendance at
church on <ent type='LOC'>Sundays</ent> and the number of confessions at Easter. But
neither local prelates nor the Vatican ever publish these results.
The nearest approach to an official international annual is <ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>us, and it gives no world-total; though if you add up the
statements for each country the total runs to about 350000000.</p>

<p> The sum-total is therefore usually compiled by an entirely
dishonest method, but even professors of sociology who include the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es as socially valuable agencies never condemn this.
Countries which, from geographical or historical conditions, never
accepted the Reformation are still called <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries, and
the whole population is usually included in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total or
only from 1 to 5 percent is allowed for Protestants, <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, and --
though they generally form the largest body -- skeptics. These
countries (<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and its colonies, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and its former
colonies, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and its colonies, <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, and generally
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>), with a total population of more than 200000000 make the
bulk of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> figure. For other countries the figures are
equally fantastic. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer in the Encyclopedia
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na gives 11000000 to <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, where no <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> claims more
than 3000000 and there are now certainly not 300000: 39000000
to <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and Hungary, which have had for quarter of a century a
total (mixed) population of only 15000000: 24000000 to <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>,
where the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is in ruins: 35000000 to <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, which is at
least five times too much.</p>

<p> In examining these figures we must clearly understand the
conditions. What is a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> or a member of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>? The
Canon Law is simple and peremptory: everybody who once received
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> baptism. <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers are uneasy about this
arrogant theory of their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that you cannot secede from it, and
they are shifty and evasive in defining what they mean when they
claim that there are more than 26000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent>
States. In a fantastic -- <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> call it a scientific -- work,
Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? (1925), Fr. G. <ent type='PERSON'>Shaugnessy</ent> says
that by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> he means one who has received <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> baptism, </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
2
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>marries in the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and has his children baptized, and at death
receives the last sacraments. He at once admits that the third
condition is "rather theoretical" -- he is perfectly aware that it
is not taken into account -- and he ought to know, and probably
does know, that <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, and other <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> commonly marry
in the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and allow the mothers or relatives to have the
children baptized though they have definitely abandoned it. From
quotations given in Moore's 'Will <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> Become <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>?' (1931)
it appears that in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> periodicals Fr. <ent type='PERSON'>Shaugnessy</ent>, a professor
at a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> college, is accustomed to give the usual definition
of a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>: one who was baptized in infancy. This is the strict
law of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and it is the guiding principle of the priests
who compile the parochial statistics from which the national and
world-totals are compiled.</p>

<p> Now we have no objection to <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> making fools of
themselves by repeating "Once a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> always a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>," which
entails that in their opinion I, whom they call "the bitterest
enemy" of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, am a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. Hoodwinked as they are, they
do not see that the real purpose of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in laying down this
seemingly extravagant proposition is so that when a country which
had disowned the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and has been reduced by violence, as so
often happened in the 19th Century and has happened in a score of
countries today, it can break the rebels by jail, torture, or
execution. They are its subjects. We do not blame <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> for not
knowing that, but at least, we can expect them to say, when they
boast that there are 20000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and
300000000 in the world, that they include tens of millions who
though baptized in infancy, rejected the creed when they grew to
manhood or womanhood. We shall see presently cases in which
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n bishops and canonists have incited priests
deliberately to include these <ent type='ORG'>seceder</ent>s in their statistics.</p>

<p> The general public, in short, is grossly deceived, and is
meant to be deceived. In common honesty and common sense "members
of a <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>" means men, women, and children who accept its creed,
are in touch with its local organization, and more or less
regularly attend its services. What I have said in earlier books --
what I have proved by official statistics -- about the spread, for
instance, of atheistic Communism and Socialism in the last 20 years
shows that at least 50000000 adults who are included in the
figure of 300000000 loathed and despised the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and creed as
long as they were free to express their sentiments. But apart from
these there are, especially in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, millions of others who have
thought their way out of the creed and quietly severed their
connection with the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> The only real test is attendance at church. There are two
vital differences to bear in mind in comparing Protestant and
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statistics. Many <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es do not baptize children and by
"members" they mean the adolescent and adult, but the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> counts babies a week old. The second difference is that a man
may be a genuine member of a Protestant <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> yet attend the
services very irregularly. A <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> cannot. He is, unless there
is "grave reason" (illness, etc., not a social engagement or
tiredness.), bound to attend every <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> morning as stringently as
he is prohibited adultery and much more stringently than he is </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
3
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>forbidden to lie, get drunk, be cruel, or rob this neighbor. It is
only a rare and abnormal type of mind that, holding this belief,
can miss Mass <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> after <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> -- hell every time. though the
sentences run concurrently since they are eternal -- for frivolous
reasons; and to question the law is to question <ent type='ORG'>the authority</ent> of
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> or the whole distinctive structure of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> teaching.
Thus the distinction between "practicing" and "non-practicing" (or
floating") <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> is a mere trick of apologists to excuse
dishonest statistics.</p>

<p> Now take the various national constituents of the grand total
of 300000000 or 350000000; and, as all these figures refer to
the period before Papal-Fascism destroyed freedom in a score of
countries, we need not worry about the obscure situation in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, etc., today. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> is, in all these totals, credited with
39000000 or 40000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in a total population of
41000000. It is amazing how <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> swallow this.
Until the political alliance of the Vatican and the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
government began in 1919, on the Church's promise to curb rebellion
in <ent type='GPE'>Alsace</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Lorraine</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> had thundered against that "government of
<ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Freemasons</ent>" for 50 years. It had ruined the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> and defied the Pope's. And it had the vast majority of the
people with it, since, in free elections, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> could
hardly get a deputy, much legs a statesman, in <ent type='ORG'>Congress</ent>. <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
culture was solidly anti-<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>. Its hundreds of scientific men were
nearly all <ent type='NORP'>Atheists</ent> -- even <ent type='ORG'>Pasteur</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Fabre</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Bernard</ent> were not
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> -- and of its leading writers nine-tenth's were anti-<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>.</p>

<p> But I need not labor the point. Reviewing the position
carefully in 1937, after 18 years of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> influence of
<ent type='GPE'>Alsace</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Lorraine</ent> and the government's encouragement of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>,
-- I found <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers agreed with me. <ent type='PERSON'>Andre Goddard</ent>
(Le surnaturel contemporain, 1922) described his country as
overwhelmingly irreligious and said that in no other age had
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent>men been "so little interested in the truth." <ent type='PERSON'>Georges Goyau</ent>
(L'effort <ent type='ORG'>catholique dans</ent> la Franee d'aujourdhui, 1922) gave an
account of all the supposed triumphs of his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> since
1919 (so much admired in the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press) and finally
left it open "whether there are in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> today ten million
practicing <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, as some say, or only five million, as others.
say." <ent type='PERSON'>Denis Gwynn</ent>, a strictly orthodox <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> writer and, as an
important foreign correspondent in <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent> a high authority, agreed
with <ent type='PERSON'>Goyau</ent> and distrusted the higher figure of 10000000. This
agrees with my finding after a severe analysis of the evidence in
my 'Decay of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>' (1909). I said that there were
5000000 to 6000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>. The eminent <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
authority on religion P. <ent type='PERSON'>Sabatier</ent> insists that I was too generous:
that the figure was 4000000. The incorporation of <ent type='GPE'>Alsace</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Lorraine</ent>
in 1919 raised my figure to 7000000, and this is supported by the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Goyau</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Gwynn</ent>. Now that <ent type='GPE'>Alsace</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Lorraine</ent> have gone
the figure drops again to between 5000000 and 6000000. Take the
more generous figure. We strike off, with the leading <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
experts in agreement, 33000000 from the number of <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in the world-total.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
4
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> Of <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> I have written so mush recently that I will be
brief. There never were in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> the 24000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> claimed
in Orhis <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>us and the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na. The election-figures and
explanations which I gave in <ent type='EVENT'>the First Series</ent> of these booklets
proved that beyond question <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> were one-seventh, not one-third, of the adult community or, including children a little more
generously, about 10000000 to 12000000. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> papers which
I quoted admit that they are far less today, but we will avoid the
present compared period. The 24000000 <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> included
in a world-total of 300000000 or more were not in reality more
than 12000000. We strike off a further 12000000, or, if the
biggest <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> figure is pressed upon us, we strike off
20000000 on the ground of indisputable facts and statistics.</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s (42000000) are "practically all <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>,"
Says the <ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent>, though the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na claims only 32000000.
Strange how these mighty <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> majorities are so helpless
politically until some <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> thug is called in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> had
for 50 years (from 1870 onward) a government and a monarchy which
were under the ban of excommunication. I traveled all over <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> in
1904 as a delegate to a <ent type='ORG'>Congress</ent> of Freethinkers, and my yellow
ticket evoked friendly smiles and reductions of price everywhere:
except, I regret to say at the Vatican. Nine-tenths of the leading
novelists, poets, and dramatists as well as the scientists were as
in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, Freethinkers. . . . But enough. The electoral figures I
gave in No. 1 of the Appeal to Reason prove that at the time when
innocent foreigners were talking about 40000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s
they were not more than a third of the population. Strike off at
least 20000000 (<ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent>, Socialists, and <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>) from the
grand total.</p>

<p> The case of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> ought to be still easier. but when a non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer like <ent type='PERSON'>Seldes</ent> assures <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> that all are <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>
in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> except 100000 we wonder. At the time when <ent type='PERSON'>Seldes</ent> said
this (The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Crisis, 1939) an anti-ecclesiastical government,
established at one free election after another in spite of the
hysterical curses of the hierarchy, had ruled <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and defied the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> for five years, and it took the sweepings of
Europe, assisted by a <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> Society for Non-Intervention (or for
Protecting Intervention) and an <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Embargo, to put Humpty
Dumpty back on the wall, where he wobbles until the day of freedom
returns. The <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Jesuit -- and if you know anything more orthodox
come up and see me some time -- Fr. <ent type='PERSON'>Gannon</ent> said in the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> Times,
January 23, 1937, that there are in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> "ten or fifteen million
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>." Split the difference and say 12000000, mostly
belonging to the illiterate 40 percent of the nation, and strike
another 15000000 off the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total for Europe.</p>

<p> In that total the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na counts 26060000 for <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and
13000000 for Hungary. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer is, of course, aware
that this is a reference -- and not accurate even as such -- to the
population of <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>-Hungary before 1919. Nearly 20 years before
he wrote this article <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> had been reduced to a population of
7000000 and Hungary to one of 9000000. In <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, moreover,
the Socialists had been in the majority and held power in <ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent>
and several other cities for years, so that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, mostly
peasants, were not 93 percent (<ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent>) of the population but, </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
5
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>certainly not more than two-thirds. In Hungary, which recoiled into
Fascism after the unfortunate <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> episode, they are not
13000000 but are officially returned as 65 percent of the actual
population or 6000000. Deduct a further 12000000.</p>

<p> In <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, which the <ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent> significantly overlooks, the
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na audaciously claims 11000000 <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>! How the
... you ask. It is like so many frauds, simple. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer
refer's -- and again inaccurately -- to the <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> of more than 20
years earlier, when it ruled <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. Well, you may say, any man of
common sense will allow for that, but you do not see the point. The
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na says that <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> number 294000000 today and through
this geographical shuffle is able to count many twice. We shall see
a very pretty specimen of this pious work presently.</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> (population 8000000) is credited with 7000000
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> (<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na) or "most of the people" (<ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent>). I lived (as
a monk) for a year there, and the <ent type='NORP'>Belgian</ent> friars forbade me to
appear in my robes on the streets of <ent type='GPE'>Brussels</ent> as the ensuing
blasphemy would be painful. This was 45 years ago, and the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> have waged an even battle with the contemptuously anti-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> and Socialists ever since until the devout <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent>
murdered the Church's critics for it. <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> (7000000) is said
to be "mostly" <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. As it is still 50 percent illiterate I
would not mind much, but the fact is that it kicked out its
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> king 32 years ago and kept its angry <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> to heel until
the butcher <ent type='PERSON'>Salazar</ent> joined <ent type='ORG'>the Butchers Union</ent> of Europe. <ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent> (15000000 until 1939) is described in the <ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent> as 80
percent <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. Turn over No 5 of the last series and see how the
leading <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> weekly in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> acknowledged a loss of 2000000
in five years after 1919. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was in ruins until Hitler's
salvage Corps set it up again in <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, one of the most
illiterate regions of Europe.</p>

<p> But we need not run over all these smaller countries. The
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na says that there are 183000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in Europe. How
consoling to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns! But on the safest of grounds -- full
particulars and authorities in earlier numbers -- we have had to
strike off something like 100000000 of these and in the next
chapter we shall see the quality of what is left. Let us first get
the number.</p>

<p> We turn to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, and here the writers in the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na
ought to be careful and conscientious because, while the
Encyclopedia is weak culturally, it is great on <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
statistics. He says that there are 50000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in <ent type='PERSON'>North</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent> and 44000000 in the <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>. Not being an <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n I have
to be modest, but as the population of <ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> is about
90000000 and half its inhabitants are illiterate, I should be
inclined to grant it at least 50000000 Catholic's. On the other
hand, even if we grant the 20000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> demanded in the
States and the 4500000 claimed in <ent type='GPE'>Canada</ent>, and the 14000000
claimed in <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, I hardly see how they amount, even in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
arithmetic, to 50000000. Pray do not be impatient with my little
jokes. I am showing you how the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total is made up.</p>

<div> </div>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
6
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> To claim 90 percent (<ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent>) of the <ent type='NORP'>Mexicans</ent> is, in view of the
notorious political development of recent years, so fatuous that I
won't linger over it. Yes, I am quite aware that any sensible
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> will admit that, but does he realize that the grand
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total which he flourishes is based upon such tricks? <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, on the other hand, is too big a field to cover here. I
will be content to claim that in earlier booklets I have shown that
the middle-class is substantially skeptical though outwardly more
reverent to <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> since it entered into a
definite and highly respectable alliance with Fascism; and that the
very rapid spread of Communism after 1920 took some tens of
millions of the urban and industrial workers out of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
Nine-tenths of the population of 90000000 are usually claimed in
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> total, and at least 20000000 must be subtracted.</p>

<p> It is of greater interest here to examine the situation in the
United States. Let us first get a clear general idea what
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> means. It consists of immigrants from Europe
(and partly from <ent type='GPE'>Quebec</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>) and their descendants. And in
this connection I have to notice the funny and learned book of
Father Professor <ent type='PERSON'>Shaugnessy</ent>,'Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith?'
(1925). The zealous priest had noticed that a dozen <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
authorities asserted that there has been a monstrous secession --
their estimates vary from 15000000 to 25000000 -- from the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of these immigrants and their descendants, and he sets out
to rebuke all this nonsense by a "scientific" analysis of the
official statistics. He does not condescend to notice that I
published a severe analysis of these figures in 1909 and proved
that there was a leakage of over 15000000. Even in his lengthy
and learned-looking bibliography my book is not mentioned. That is
how <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> are treated even by their "professors." But I will
not imitate his rudeness by ignoring his book.</p>

<p> He proves triumphantly that the immigrants have kept the faith
and that there has been no serious leakage, but one illustration of
his method will suffice here. In a final summary table he gives the
number of immigrants between 1820 and 1920 as 14592613 from
"<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries" and 19062190 from "non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries."
You at once notice something peculiar. In the former category he
includes only 165000 <ent type='NORP'>Poles</ent>, and he must have known that in 1920
there were, according to the official census, 284000 persons in
<ent type='GPE'>New York</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent> alone who had been actually born in <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>!
Surely, you will say, everybody knows that there have been millions
of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> immigrants. Observe the cleverness of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
science. Before 1920 there was no <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>. The country was mainly
under <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> is a "non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>" country, so the
immigrants are all put under <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> again, which sent
nearly a fourth of the immigrants, is a "non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>" country. But
during that period it was one-third <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, and its immigrants
came predominantly from <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> provinces. In fine, if you add the
millions of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>German</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent> immigrants to the total from
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries (taking off a small percentage for non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>) you get well over 20000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> immigrants; and
since the majority of these came in between 50 and 100 years ago
they ought now to number between 40000000 and 50000000! "Where
are the snows of yesteryear?"</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
7
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> Apart from these little oddities of apologetic literature
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statistics are weird and wonderful. In the last
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was revised by
Catholic's in order to secure accuracy about their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, it is
said that the "official figure" for the year 1928 was 19689049 --
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Press Directory said 21453928 -- the "generally
accepted" figure, 22733254, and the "true" figure 25000000.
Observe the accuracy down to a unit of most of these figures,
though they differ from each other by millions. However, the
"official" figure in the latest census of religions, after ten
year's of glorious fertility of <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>German</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> families, a fair amount of further immigration, and half
a million converts, is 19914937, and the <ent type='ORG'>Orbis</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>us,
Encyclopedia <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Directory are content with
20000000. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statistics in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> are farcical and their
"remarkable growth," as <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> officials in <ent type='ORG'>the Census Bureau</ent> are
allowed to call it, is a myth. Even their own figures do not show
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> growing, in spite of its higher birth rate, at the same
pace as the general population.</p>

<p> How many really are there? They do not know themselves. The
official (<ent type='ORG'>Census</ent>) figure is made up of claims by the priests and
the bishops. The egregious Fr. <ent type='PERSON'>Shaugnessy</ent> goes so far as to say
that the parish priests often deliberately understate (which means
lie about) the number of their parishioners so that the bishop will
not be tempted to split the parish (and -- the apologist does not
say this -- halve the income of the priest). What a disreputable
suggestion! I mean, the priests do notoriously lie, or, inflate the
numbers, but it is for the glory of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and is covered by
the canonical principle that a <ent type='ORG'>seceder</ent> is still a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>.</p>

<p> I made a very thorough study of the matter, following upon the
analysis of official statistics in my Decay of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>
(1909), in No. 1 of the Appeal to Reason Library (ch. 5, 1925).
There I give <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> evidence, largely taken from J.F. Moore's
useful book 'Will <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> Become <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>?', (1931), that priests
do in fact, and are sometimes so advised by the bishops, deceive
the public by counting lapsed as actual <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>. A check on their
figures in <ent type='GPE'>Milwaukee</ent> showed that they claimed 10000 <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s and
only 1000 of them attended church. In another city 28 percent of
the supposed <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> never went to church: in a third city 42
percent: in a fourth 38 percent. There is abundant evidence that at
least one-third must be deducted from official figures. The number
of children in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> primary schools confirms this. The Black
International may object that they have not schools for all their
children, but this weakness is offset by the fact that in the
cities very large numbers quit the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> during the post-school
years. The main fact to bear in mind is, however, the emphatic
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> law and teaching that baptized persons whether they
profess to have rejected the creed or not, are members of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and must be entered in its statistics.</p>

<p> Let us still be generous and take off only one-quarter: a very
modest deduction when we remember that the claims of these priests
for other countries are as we saw, exaggerated by from 100 to 600
percent. There are not more than 15000000 genuine <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. There are possibly not more than 13000000 or one-tenth </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
8
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>of the population. The world-total of <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> is not 390000000
or 290000000. It is not 200000000 and is probably round about
180000000. These are the contributing members of an economic
corporation the governing caucus of which at <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, apart from the
national branches, gets something like a billion dollars a year,
and largely in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n money, for its international plotting and
for the comfort of the <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> hierarchy.</p>

<p> Chapter II</p>

<p> THE MINIMUM OF <ent type='ORG'>SCHOLARSHIP</ent> AND
THE MAXIMUM OF CRIME</p>

<p> My <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> papers report today (March 13) that "<ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> has
protested to the Vatican 'because it is encouraging' a Jap Bid to
Stir up Trouble." What precisely the State Department objects to is
not clear but the public is informed that it is to "the
establishment of relations between <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> and the Holy See, as asked
for by <ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent>." Those relations were, as I have repeatedly
explained, established year's ago. Five years ago I told how the
Vatican entered into friendly relations with <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> after the
<ent type='NORP'>Manchurian</ent> outrage (1931), when it was vital to the future of
civilization that the bandits should be condemned and punished by
the whole world, and how the friendship ripened into a cordial
diplomatic alliance (1935) with exchange of ambassadors and the
most graceful courtesies, exactly in proportion as the Japs sank
deeper into crime and corruption. In booklets (No. 2 and No. 4) of
the first series on <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> I traced the whole
story and told from the Pope's own newspaper, how one of the vilest
of <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese agents <ent type='PERSON'>Matsuoka</ent>, fresh from the final meeting of the
bloody conspirators in <ent type='GPE'>Berlin</ent> (1941), was received with special
honor and warmth at the Vatican and granted a gold medal by the
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>.</p>

<p> And the press would now like us to believe that after ten
years of this unconcealed courtship <ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> has just discovered,
presumably through its <ent type='ORG'>Secret Service</ent>, that the Japs have
approached the Vatican! What is really wrong about the matter? Very
certainly <ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> knew every step in the development of the
relations of the Vatican and the Japs, and there must have been few
editorial offices of any importance in <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States in which
they were not known. Why were they concealed from the public or
mentioned only in obscure paragraphs as items of little
significance?</p>

<p> We are not fanatical and do not ascribe every evil of our time
to <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent>. The interest's of trade had a good deal
to do with the suppression of discussion as far as <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> is
concerned. But there was little to discuss in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> seeking an ally
in Europe. The monstrous thing was the closer and closer approach
of the Vatican to <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> as it strode foully and bloodily from one
province of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent> to another. Can there be the slightest doubt that
one of the advantages the Japs sought in the alliance was that the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> influence should counteract in all countries, and
particularly in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, the growing concern of serious people at
their aggressions! That, at all events, is what happened.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
9
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> It is one illustration of the evil that is done by the Black
International in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> in putting its own interests before
national interests or those of the race. The aspect of this that
concerns us here is that press and politicians say that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is so important an institution in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> that they are
bound to consult its wishes and are naturally reluctant to see
anything wrong in its proceedings. Most of us will not accept the
apology. Many <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n papers told in 1935 how the Vatican and
<ent type='GPE'>Tokyo</ent> were arranging an alliance; and many others told in the same
year how <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> seethed with patriotic societies, some of them two
to three million strong, which demanded the expulsion of all
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns and Europeans from <ent type='LOC'>Asia</ent>, and how tableaux depicting just
such a destruction of part of the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n fleet as occurred
recently in <ent type='LOC'>Pearl Harbor</ent> were publicly exhibited to jubilant crowds
in the chief streets of the cities. But there were no editorials or
feature articles pointing out the connection such as there were
denouncing <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>. The world-press bears a terrible share of the
responsibility for the world-tragedy; and one reason is that it is
to a lamentable extent under the influence of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.</p>

<p> One of the chief aims of the present series of booklets is to
show that in submitting to this influence the press took the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
at its own valuation yet could, if it had taken half the trouble it
takes over an obscure murder, have discovered that the valuation is
monstrously false. We have now seen this as far as the size of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is concerned. There are not 25000000, not 20000000, but
something less than 15000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has
not 390000000 but less than 200000000 subjects. Seeing,
however, that the chief excuse given for subservience to the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is that it contributes materially to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n civilization,
it is still more important to examine the quality of the Pope's
subjects.</p>

<p> We have already seen the hypocrisy of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> claim of moral
influence. The priests are very eloquent about sex-matters, in
regard to which <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> do not appear to be different from other
folk, while the theories of ancient history with which they try to
prove a connection between sexual freedom and the decay of
civilization ought not to impress even a politician. Of the evils
which do deeply affect the social welfare -- crime, corruption, and
greed -- they take no effective notice. They are, in fact, amongst
the stoutest defenders of the greed which forbids the full
development of our resources and the betterment of the condition of
the mass of the people.</p>

<p> But the cultural pretensions of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> are even
worse. It puts, and has always put, a blight on the higher culture
which assuredly is a valuable element of civilization, and at every
level it restricts the mental development of the people in its own
interest. There is a well-known analysis of the religious
"preferences" of the 40000 <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns, presumably of distinction,
in Who's Who in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. We recognize the limitations of the work.
Whether or no it is true that any clergyman or any nun who has
written a book or two can get into that <ent type='PERSON'>Valhalla</ent> of the living by
pledging himself to buy a copy of the book every year, as is the
case with some books of reference, it is obvious that the business </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
10
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>of the work is to supply information about any man or woman who at
the time is in the public eye or ear, whether they be singled out
for skill in literature, sport, the cinema, church-organization,
banking, or striptease.</p>

<p> With this qualification we see a pregnant significance in the
analysis of the names which Professors Huntington and <ent type='ORG'>Whitney</ent>
published in their Builders of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> a few years ago. They found
that <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> are represented in Who's Who by only 7.4 per 100000
of their body (7 men and 0.4 women), and these are very largely --
but the professors do not point out this -- ecclesiastics. You will
gather what this means when I add that even the <ent type='ORG'>Mormons</ent>, with 11
men and 5 women to the 100000, outshine them; while the Methodists
have 18 men and 0.6 women. The <ent type='NORP'>Episcopalians</ent> have 156 men and 18
women: the <ent type='NORP'>Unitarians</ent> (who are largely freethinkers in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>)
have 1185 men and 103 women per 100000. In other words, the
farther a <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is removed from the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> -- belonging to the
<ent type='NORP'>Episcopalian</ent> is, of course, a matter of respectability -- the
higher its cultural distinction.</p>

<p> What do the <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> say to that? They say that it merely
shows the snobbishness of non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> and the manly modesty of
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>! I should like these <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers who have this fine
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n contempt for snobbery to study the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. Who's
Who. It is, at least, published in <ent type='GPE'>London</ent>, but Al Smith and other
"great <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns" figure in it. In discussing this cultural poverty
of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, to which he quotes several <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
witnesses, J.F. <ent type='PERSON'>Moore</ent> (Will <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> Become <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>?) speaks of
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>ism in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> as more distinguished. There are, he says, no
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writers in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> to compare with <ent type='PERSON'>Chesterton</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Noyes</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Shane Leslie</ent>, Benson, (Father) <ent type='PERSON'>Martindale</ent>, (Father) <ent type='PERSON'>Knox</ent>, and
Sheila Kaye-Smith. If you have read these you will reflect that the
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> body must be very poor indeed, in illumination if
it is outshone by that galaxy: especially as Chesterton's
brilliance -- if you care to use the word -- was increasingly
dimmed and his influence increasingly more mischievous after he
joined the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> and became a sort of pensioner of it. The
"brilliance" of Father <ent type='PERSON'>Martindale</ent> and father R. <ent type='PERSON'>Knox</ent> must be a
little joke of Mr. Moore's, as he is usually judicious. However,
against these <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> giants of the pen <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> can, he
says, put only <ent type='PERSON'>Joyce Kilmer</ent> -- what a pity he died nearly a quarter
of a century ago -- though he elsewhere adds <ent type='PERSON'>Carlton Hayes</ent>, Michael
Williams, G.W. Schuster, <ent type='PERSON'>Kathleen Norris</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Agnes Repplier</ent>. You
will have heard of some of them. He adds that <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism
is still poorer in science. A score of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n physicists have an
international reputation, and none of them are <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, while on
the biological side the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is still poorer.</p>

<p> We will return presently to the question of distinction in
science. It is much easier for an artist to be a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. He has
none of these intellectual prejudices about truth and reality and
is as ready to embrace any creed that is prettily dressed as
anything that is pretty undressed. So we do not wonder at the
number of artists. To the literary artists (<ent type='NORP'>British</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>)
given above add <ent type='PERSON'>Belloc</ent>, sir P. Gibbs, <ent type='PERSON'>Compton Mackenzie</ent>, W.
Meynell, <ent type='PERSON'>Christopher Dawson</ent>, and a few other good second-raters.
Then there are devout artists like Sir <ent type='PERSON'>Seymour</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Lady Hicks</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Charles Laughton</ent>, sir F. Brangwyn, Sir <ent type='PERSON'>John Lavery</ent>, and Sir G.G.
Scott.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
11
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> But the chief reason why I recommend you to see this <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Who's Who is because you will find it the most amusing Book of
Snobs on the market. I should explain that, although it is
published in <ent type='GPE'>England</ent> it has no patriotic limitations. Chiefly, I
imagine, because the compilers felt that there are a few scurvy
folk who would count how many real intellectuals there are amongst
the thousand names and all that they could find in Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>
were three or four teachers of chemistry or mathematics at minor
universities, they searched the whole <ent type='GPE'>Empire</ent> on which the sun never
sets and the whole English-speaking world, ransacked Eire and <ent type='GPE'>Malta</ent>
(which are as full of titles as fleas), and dipped into <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and a few other countries. So they got together a
body of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scientists, with your <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Dr. J.J. Walsh as
the supreme representative, who would almost fill a Junker plane.
I forgot how many laborious days it took me to collect from the
book just as many <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> teachers of science in the area covered
(total population about 250000000) as I can count on the fingers
of two hand's.</p>

<p> But that is incidental. The chief purpose of the book is to
give the cream -- and it is very rich cream -- of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism in
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, Eire, <ent type='GPE'>Malta</ent>, etc.: the aristocratic and semi-aristocratic
families down to junior lieutenants of the army and <ent type='ORG'>navy</ent> provided
they belong to families which never sank to the level of earning
their own living. These and the clergy nearly fill the book.
Titles, diamonds, and gold glitter on every page. The book seems to
cry at you: Look whom you may hope to meet if you join the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Next in importance are the diplomats -- the gentlemen who
kept the blinds down at <ent type='GPE'>Paris</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Brusseig</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent>, and
<ent type='PERSON'>Lisbon</ent> while the bandits armed and the traitors said their prayers
-- the naval and military commanders, and the high civil servants
and legal officials, who are all of great service to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>.
After that you will surely not be disgruntled because the men of
intellectual distinction, if you grant that description to ordinary
university professors, are less than a dozen out of the, thousands
of professors in the area covered.</p>

<p> Some <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> meet this by saying that it is a vulgar
business counting heads (unless they bear coronets), or that they
prefer to think about the really great men of science of earlier
times; especially, it seems, of the time when in the eyes of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> the only good scientist was a dead scientist. We will return
to that in a later book. These pleas are, in any case, frivolous.
The compilers of the book ranged from <ent type='GPE'>California</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>New Zealand</ent> in
search of scientists or other men of intellectual as opposed to
artistic or social distinction and they did not find enough to make
a football-team. There is another, a very impartial and objective,
way of proving this.</p>

<p> I suppose the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s have included in their monumental thefts
the seizure of the fund which <ent type='PERSON'>Alfred Nobel</ent> left in <ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent> to
provide five rich prizes every year for the world's most
distinguished workers in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature,
and the cause of peace. However, the prizes have been awarded for
nearly 40 years and apart from a little patriotic bias in favor of
Scandinavian and the little nations, the awards, based upon the
reports of competent committees in every country, are the safest </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
12
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>possible indication of distinction. The Nobel Prize is the greatest
and most coveted in the world, and the award is the most impartial,
yet I doubt if five out of the whole 200 winners are or were
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>. It is significant that the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia never
mentions the prize. Naturally the scientific recipients, the great
majority, have never written on religion, but after a careful
analysis I can find only <ent type='PERSON'>Alexis Carrel</ent> who is recognizably a
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>.</p>

<p> It is different with the 37 recipients of the literary prize.
Here we should understand that the judges stipulate for "an
idealist tendency" in the works and are themselves religious, so
large numbers of the greater writers of modern tames (Wells,
Conrad, Zola, D'Annunzio, Sudermann, Capek, Galdo's, Ibanez, Gorki,
Tolstoy, <ent type='ORG'>Santayana</ent>, etc.) have been excluded because they were
freethinkers, while a few sentimental writers belonging to small
countries and hardly known outside these countries have been
included. Yet only 4 or 5 out of the 37 could be claimed as
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> of a sort, and the one writer amongst them who definitely
claims to be a convert to the faith, Mrs. <ent type='PERSON'>Sigfrid Undset</ent>, has had
her novels chastised in the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> press for their
"vileness."</p>

<p> The awarding of the Peace Prize is not so significant because
it is sometimes given to politicians or societies and does not in
any case imply any distinction in the subject except a zeal for
peace. Nevertheless, although the award of it was loose and in some
cases frankly ridiculous, I cannot trace more than one dubious
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> in the whole 38 recipients. In short, this supreme and
impartial tribunal, basing its judgment upon annual reports from
important committees in every country, for detecting the highest
distinction in science and letters has in 40 years been able to
give its award to only about half a dozen nominal (and mostly
dubious) <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, or to only 3 who definitely claimed to be
orthodox <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>. In Who's Who <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> are represented by 7.04
per 100000 of their number: in this select gallery of men of real
cultural distinction they are represented by 1 in 100000000.</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> despise and jibe at freethinkers as a rare
and negligible species. Well, of the 37 winners of the literary
prize, the only section in which you can look for public
expressions of opinion about religion, no less than 27 were avowed
freethinkers (and more than half of them <ent type='NORP'>Atheists</ent>). In the peace
section 13 out of the 29 selected individuals were avowed
freethinkers, and most of the others are not declared. One only was
in some sense a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. In the scientific section few have given
a clue to their creed, as is the way of scientific men today, but
the great majority of those who have expressed themselves on
religion were freethinkers -- even Mme. Curie and her daughter
openly declared their secession from the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> -- and only one is
clearly a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>.</p>

<p> To put it differently, <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> claim that they are a fifth
of the race, and if we grant them five Nobel Prize winners (though
Some are doubtful) they are one-fortieth of the world's leading men
and women of intellectual distinction. But this is still too
flattering to <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, They profess to number more than </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>300000000 of the white race, from which the culturally
distinguished are almost entirely selected. In this sense they
profess to be one-third of the race yet are only one-fortieth of
its more distinguished stratum. And this agrees with what we found
from other sources and is fully confirmed by apologetic lists of
"great <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scientists." The names, when they are not
fraudulent, almost all belong to the past. Let them attempt to draw
up a list for this century. Professors of, and original workers in,
science are now ten times as numerous as ever but the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
proportion of them shrinks into invisibility.</p>

<p> Hilaire <ent type='PERSON'>Belloc</ent> said to me (with his characteristic thump of
the table) some years ago: "I don't care what you say, McCabe, the
intellect of Europe has been warped ever since the 16th Century."
It is one of his favorite themes that his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> alone develops the
intellect on sound lines or teaches folk to think clearly. In one
form or other it is a common plea of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists. Well,
there is the answer in facts. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> puts a blight on
culture and intellect. There is no other possible explanation of
the facts. Of adolescent and adult <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> (about 100000000 in
the world) about one-half are illiterate, as I will show in the
next chapter, and half the remaining have only that paltry degree
of literacy which makes their creed or opinions of no particular
interest. The cultural value of the remainder you can judge by the
number of distinguished men who emerge from the body. When you are
considering a body of ten's of millions of men and women of a score
of races and different environments, the number of them that rise
to the top is a sure indication of the cultural quality of the
body.</p>

<p> All of which points infallibly to the conclusion that the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> itself is responsible. One of those fine-natured writers who
are always trying to say a good word for <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism, which they
never study, asks all sweetly reasonable folk to see that mental
concern about religion must help to develop the mind and promote
thinking. We might admit this on one condition: that the man or
woman does really think about religion by reading both sides and
conscientiously weighing their arguments. That is just what the
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> uses its heaviest weapons to prevent. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
book is a holy book: the critical book is a "bad" book and is on
the same level as the kind of book you cannot buy openly. If we are
agreed that democracy is the ideal political form, we agree also
that to teach all people to think critically and inquire without
restriction is the only way to get it to work satisfactorily. The
law of the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is just the opposite. You must not inquire
outside your own creed and you must not think critically even
within its range.</p>

<p> The second source of blight is that <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> doctrine is so
really absurd that it repels the properly developed intellect. You
read of 40000 converts a year -- about one to every priest in the
United State's -- but you rarely hear much about their mental
quality. They are mostly either people with money and not much
brain, or artistic people who do not take creeds literally, or men
and women who pass over for social reasons (marriage, etc.). And
while you hear a lot about the 40000 a year who go in you hear </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>nothing about the 100000 a year who drop out, though even the
figures given in the official decennial census show such a lapse.
All sorts of motives draw people in, but it is always the falseness
or absurdity of the creed that drives them out.</p>

<p> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> with considerable general knowledge and mental
vitality will generally be found to take the creed with great
license. <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> Pius X, the peasant-<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>, in his blundering campaign
against Modernism was at least honest in trying to drive all these
people -- the real "bad <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>" -- out of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and there
was a notable exodus of cultivated people. Unlike the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
apologist the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> did not care two pins about cultural quality. He
wanted folk who recited the creed every <ent type='LOC'>Sunday</ent> to mean what they
said. But every history of that campaign will tell you that while
a few conscientious men like <ent type='PERSON'>Tyrell</ent> walked out the great majority
protected themselves by silence or, if they were in official
positions, foreswore the truth. "The great advantage of the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is the freedom it allows you," said a leading
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer and scholar to me. When I retorted, "Yes, if you'll
keep your mouth closed," he was silent. Most of the literary men
and artists who adorn the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> list never defend <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
doctrines (hell, original sin, etc.) in detail. You never know what
they really believe. As one of them said to me, they admire the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> "as a whole." But the man whose main interest in life is
intellectual, the man who dislikes feudal systems for the mind,
despises this attitude. Hence that appalling poverty of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
in the higher culture which infallibly betrays that it puts a
blight on thinking. And this is the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that demands privileges
in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> because it contributes so materially to the higher life
of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n civilization: the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> that keeps a staff in
<ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent> (as well as boon companions in the <ent type='ORG'>White House</ent>) to give
the government the profound advantage of "the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> view."</p>

<p> Below the college-trained -- let us say <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>-college-trained, as this is a very different matter -- stratum is the thick
stratum of the illiterate and semi-illiterate. I doubt if many
realize the importance of this in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and I leave
it for adequate treatment in the next chapter. Here let us make
clear one of the most startling facts about the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. It is very
poor in cultural distinction but exceptionally well represented in
the criminal class.</p>

<p> I have recently examined a dozen up-to-date <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n manual's
of sociology and penology. Crime, naturally, is discussed at great
length in them. Not only have the adventures of the G Men caught
the imagination of the nation but experts have worked out the cost
of the total volume of crime and shown folk that it is an
intolerable species of parasitism on the industrious community. One
result has been that in the last ten years much has been done to
create a real criminological literature in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. The division of
functions between Federal and State governments and corruption in
high places left <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> with the poorest criminal statistics in
the civilized world, but sociologists are steadily improving the
situation. We get not only gross totals but analyses which show the
incidence of crime as regards sex, age, environment, etc. But I
have not found one single sociologist who discusses, and
illustrates by statistics, the relation of crime to the religion or</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>irreligion of the criminal's. It is left to journalists, essayists,
and apologists to stamp it upon the public mind that religion is
the great corrective. But whether it is so in fact they are
incapable of studying, and the scientific experts will not help
them. Because the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es, and very particularly the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>,
do not want the facts known. The whole of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n literature is
not available to me but the more important works are, and when not
only these but such works as the Encyclopedia of Education, the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, and the Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, which ought to give the facts on this
important social-moral issue, are completely silent, I look for the
clerical censor. To adapt a phrase of Huxley's, there is a
barricade to sociological research with the notice: "No Road, by
Order of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>."</p>

<p> A few sets of figures have got out. In 1932 an <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> chaplain
at <ent type='ORG'>Sing Sing</ent> made an inquiry into the religion of the prisoners and
in the warmth of his indignation he sent the figures to be
published in The <ent type='ORG'>Commonweal</ent> (Dec. 14). He had found that 855 out of
1581 prisoners described themselves as <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> and were accepted
as such by him. This could be checked by a similar inquiry in the
jails of <ent type='GPE'>Detroit</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Chicago</ent>, St. Louis, and <ent type='GPE'>Philadelphia</ent>. but, of
course, no such inquiry was made. In D.C. Culver's exhaustive two-volume Bibliography of Crime and Criminal Justice (1934 and 1939),
with about a thousand pages of literature, works on "Crime and
Religion" fill a few lines and list one paltry <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> book and a
few apologetic articles. It is so much easier to talk rhetorically
about how <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> training must help to keep down crime and
dismiss these prisoners as "not real <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>"; though as baptized
persons they help to swell <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> statistics.</p>

<p> But experience in other countries shows that the <ent type='ORG'>Sing Sing</ent>
statistics are normal and reliable. In Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> the religion
of prisoners is no longer published. The clergy do not approve of
the practice. But I find in a government publication of 10 years
ago when the religious analysis was still published, that in the
jails of Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> on March 28, 1906, there were 5378 <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> prisoners in a total of about 25000, and it is stated
that this means that the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> were represented in the
criminal population by 247 per 100000 of their body. Even the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, to which large numbers of convicts profess to
belong (since officials insist on some creed) whether they do or
not, had only 118 per 100000. The Methodists had 10, the <ent type='NORP'>Baptists</ent>
9, per 100000.</p>

<p> In 1913 I discussed the subject in his office with my friend
Sir <ent type='PERSON'>Robert Stout</ent>, Chief Justice of <ent type='GPE'>New Zealand</ent>, and he got his
staff to work out for me the figures for that <ent type='ORG'>Dominion</ent>. It
transpired that while <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> were only 14.07 percent of the
total population they were 41.74 percent of the prison population.
In the same year a leading government official at <ent type='GPE'>Melbourne</ent> gave me
the figures for <ent type='PERSON'>Victoria</ent>, and they told just the same story. But
<ent type='GPE'>Australia</ent> continues to publish this religious analysis, and anybody
may see the figures. The <ent type='PERSON'>Victoria</ent>n government reported in 1936 that
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> were 18 percent of the population of the province but
29.61 percent of the criminal population. The government of New </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p><ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Wales</ent> reported (<ent type='ORG'>Statistical Register</ent>, p. 216) that 505
prisoners out of 1330 in its jails were <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, though
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> are less than one-fifth of the total population of the
province.</p>

<p> And if any man still hesitates to see that these figures mean
that the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>, with <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> training, are more apt to
become criminals than the English, Welsh, and <ent type='NORP'>Scottish</ent> -- the
English figures given above include a strong <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent> element in
<ent type='GPE'>London</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Liverpool</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Newcastle</ent>, etc. -- let him study the statistics
of crime in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries. It is impossible to get complete
figures, as <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries, being less efficient in such
matters than Protestant countries, rarely gave reliable statistics
until, recently (if at all), but the data in Mulhall's Dictionary
of Statistics for the last century and Webb's continuation of the
same work for the first decade of this century fully confirm the
truth as far as they go. Whatever allowance you make for different
standards of classification and degrees of police efficiency, the
more criminal status of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries and the far greater
success in reducing crime of non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries leap to the
eye, as the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> say.</p>

<p> One requires great caution in handling criminal statistics,
particularly in the relation of crime to religion. Countries like
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, for instance, and especially the <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
Republic's had far more crime than the figures published by the
inefficient police. I will return to the subject in the last book,
but certain undisputed facts may be given here.</p>

<p> Great <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, in which the <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> (mostly <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>) are less
than one-twentieth of the population and have no influence whatever
on the formation of the national character (except to swell the
criminal statistics) has the finest-record in the modern world in
reducing every class of crime and delinquency. The few figures
given in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (which has not
dared to touch the question of crime and religion) are confused,
but <ent type='PERSON'>Mulhall</ent> gives authoritative tables. From these we learn that
since 1840 grave crime has been reduced to one-third of what it
used to be though the population has nearly trebled. Other social
offenses have been reduced in the same proportion. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> has the
next best record in Europe, especially since 1880, when education
was taken out of the hands of the clergy, the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was shut out
of public life, and <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> fell to one-sixth or one-seventh of
the population.. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, where until the last few years <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>
claimed to be a third, and were at all events more than a fourth,
of the population, has a less flattering record; but it is better
in Protestant <ent type='GPE'>Prussia</ent> than in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> provinces. <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> had one
of the worst crime records in Europe until the <ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> was deprived
of secular rule in 1870, and it fell back -- as any, person can see
by the official <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> figures in the Statesman's Year Book --
into a terrible increase of crime when <ent type='PERSON'>Mussolini</ent> handed back the
schools to the clergy.</p>

<p> But we have to consider crime and vice in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries
in the last book of this series -- we shall find that the reproach
extends to drunkenness, bastardy, etc. -- and I will there give the
available figures. I have established the second point of the </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p>present book. The government of <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States is confronted
with a claim that it must pay special heed to a <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> who has
300000000 subjects and a national <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> which is not
only the largest religious body but the finest educational and
moral agency in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. Well, the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has not 300000000
subjects unless you care to count the millions who rot in the jails
or cower under the spiritual police in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, and <ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. The <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> compiles its
total of 20000000 by the same dishonest method and is neither an
educational nor a moral force. Its priesthood so confines the
intelligence that few men and women of real intellectual power
associate with it, and its religious-moral education is of such a
nature that it actually supplies more to the criminal class than
any other <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> does. It is the poorest in the kind of higher
culture which is a real factor in the advance of a civilization and
the richest in criminal or potentially criminal elements.</p>

<p> Chapter III</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> LOVES THE POOR ILLITERATE</p>

<p> Just as I write my mail brings me a letter in which an
estimable lady, one who is eager to have the truth about the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> known, gently chides me for the "brutality" of the way in
which I put that truth before the public. She sends me authentic
information about life today in a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country, a country whose
ruler is always treated with great respect in the <ent type='NORP'>British</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n press, which, when I hand it on -- probably in the next
book -- will make your hair stand on end. But I am urged to put it
more courteously. "Brutality" is, of course, a friendly
exaggeration, and I gather that the idea is that it would be more
effective to "let the facts speak for themselves."</p>

<p> I occasionally get such letter's. A few weeks ago a university
professor argued with me in the same vein. I "defeat my own end"
and so forth. And to all of it I reply that 45 years of experience
in such work, not bad temper, dictate the tone of my writings on
the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Forty years ago I wrote a little work on the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> which so astonished Hilaire <ent type='PERSON'>Belloc</ent>, to whom a friend
lent it, that he thought, that in view of its extreme moderation,
it must be a forgery. It was a more dismal failure than any other
book I have ever written, whereas books in which my pen was allowed
to take its natural caustic course have had numbers of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
readers and hundreds of thousands of others. Most people don't want
appeasement. When facts are brutal and doctrines are stupid say so.
Although this information which just reaches me is startlingly
picturesque and largely relevant to issues of the day no newspaper
in <ent type='GPE'>London</ent> would admit it, and no publisher would accept a book on
it. That goes also for <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>. They must not "offend <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>."
And you will not alter that by simply telling facts. You need to
kindle indignation and resentment in your readers and persuade them
to pass on the facts to others. Courteous talk about <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
matters is so often merely a sign of prudence and calculation in
the writers that the kind of man or woman I want to read me resents
or suspects it.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> If I so; often blame the press I shall not be misunderstood.
No one expects a paper to defy a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> threat to injure its
circulation or cut off its <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> advertiser's. I have worked on
several papers, as an outside member of the staff, and we
understand each other. I attack the system which imposes this
humiliating subservience on them, and more than one journalist or
publisher has wished me more power to my elbow.</p>

<p> And one of the most important moves in the attack on the
system is to expose the fraud of <ent type='ORG'>the Black International</ent> in
representing that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is far larger and more useful than it
is. Fraud? There you have at once the illustration of what I have
been saying about "strong" and "tactful" language. The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
representation is fraudulent, and you do not tell half the truth
unless you say so. Every <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> writer knows as well as I do that
his figure of 300000000 includes the 100000000 who, as I
showed, have left the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and he knows that the general public
does not suspect this, He knows as well as I do the cultural
poverty of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> and its richness in crime, and he tries to
confuse the public mind about these facts by rhetoric and
sophistry. He knows, while he represents the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> as the mother
of education, the patroness of learning, the inspiration of clear
and honest thinking, that, as I will now show, it prefers people
who do not think at all, and the majority of its actual 180000000
subjects are either children or illiterate.</p>

<p> Practically all statistics that would give us sound material
for settling such a question as the social value of religion are
either fantastic or gravely defective. Our sociologists continue to
include religion amongst the factors of civilization, and our
politicians, journalists, and essayists are quite sure of it. But
in an age in which most other statistics are precise to a doctrinal
point the statistics which bear upon this question are grossly
neglected. We saw this in regard to the number of Catholic's and
the relation of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism to crime. It is the same in regard to
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism and illiteracy; and, I Might add, in regard to
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism and drink, illegitimacy, and other relevant matters.</p>

<p> Statistics of illiteracy are in any case poor. Most countries
do not require a declaration in the census. They may report the
number of recruits when they are called up for military service or
the partners to a marriage who cannot sign their names, but the
backward countries are more apt today, when a high percentage of
illiteracy is a reproach, to give a false or arbitrary figure. Some
countries again include infants among the illiterate, some only
citizens over the age of 5, 10, or 15. With an allowance for their
difficulties I reproduce the table from the <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent> University
Encyclopedia of Education (article "Illiteracy") which is the most
reliable authority and the most recent, fairly full list I can
find. It has the advantage also that in nearly every case the
percentage of the population means over the age of ten. The list is
in alphabetical order, but the point we are considering will be
clearer if I rearrange the items in the order of educational
efficiency.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
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<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> One other caution is necessary. There are no annual reports on
this point. The leading civilizations boast of their very low
percentage of illiterates, but backward nations are coy, and you
get little help from the usual year-books such as the Statesman's
Year Book and World Almanac. This list therefore relates to the
situation in the first decade of the present century. That has its
advantages, and I will point out presently the immense alterations
which have to be made today in some cases (<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
etc.). But first let me give this impartially compiled list:</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Illiterates Illiterates</ent>
percent of percent of
Country population Country population
<ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> (over 20) 0.03 <ent type='GPE'>Serbia</ent> (over 20) 36
<ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent> 0.2 Hungary 40
<ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent> (over 20) 0.3 <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> 48
<ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent> (over 20) 0.5 <ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent> 54
<ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent> (over 20) 1.4 <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent> 57
<ent type='GPE'>Finland</ent> 1-5 <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> 58
<ent type='GPE'>Scotland</ent> (over 20) 1.6 <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> 59
<ent type='GPE'>England</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Wales</ent> 1.7 Rumania 61
United States (negroes <ent type='GPE'>Bulgaria</ent> 65
and immigrants) 7.7 <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> 70
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent> 14 <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> 73
<ent type='GPE'>Ireland</ent> 17
<ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent> 18 <ent type='GPE'>Bolivia</ent> 82
<ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> 26 <ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent> (total population)85</p>

<p> It need not be said that the countries -- nearly all non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> -- in which the percentage is only of the adult population
have slightly better records than they appear to have, and that the
quickening of educational work since 1900 by the pressure of world-opinion and the rise to power of <ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> governments has greatly
lowered the worse figures. From the scattered data in the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences for 1920 - 1925, moreover, I
find that still all countries with less than 1 percent illiteracy
(<ent type='GPE'>Denmark</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Sweden</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>England</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Scotland</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>) are
non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, all countries with 5 to 25 percent are non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
with a very high proportion of <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> and were formerly under
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> rule, and all countries with 30 percent or over illiterate
are solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>. It further appears that <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent> had still 32.8
percent, <ent type='GPE'>Chile</ent> 40.8 percent, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> 62.2 percent, and <ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent> 71.2
(and probably higher) percent in 1920-1925.</p>

<p> In discussing social questions, such as the genuine social
value of an institution, an ounce of fact is worth a ton of
rhetoric. In the foregoing table, the items of which are not
selected by men, but by the highest educational authority in the
<ent type='GPE'>United Sates</ent>, you have the facts, and they make a mockery of the
claim that the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is the mother or inspiration of
education. They show that it is, on the contrary, the enemy of
education. It professes a zeal for it only when a large non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> majority watches it critically. In the <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent> table all
countries with less than 2 percent had small <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> minorities of
no public influence in 1900. <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> is an exception but,
notoriously, it was Protestant <ent type='GPE'>Prussia</ent> that forced the educational
development. On the other hand all countries with over 30 percent </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>illiterates had in 1900 <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> (<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>) governments and
majorities; and the higher the figure of illiterates the higher the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> majority. The intermediate countries had smaller <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
majorities or (as in <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>) had recently secularized education.</p>

<p> If I were able to give the full figures for all countries of
Europe and <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> they would be in harmony with the above. <ent type='GPE'>Norway</ent>
has little illiteracy: the <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Republics generally have
a high percentage. So the plain teaching of facts is that where the
clergy have, or until recently had, great influence on the
government through a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> majority, education is bad.</p>

<p> And the deeper we go into the situation the worse we find it.
Thirty years ago I had occasion to study the situation in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
where an occasional rise to power of the <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> had at least done
more for education than was done in more priest-ridden <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>. I
found that the real proportion of illiterates was said by eminent
educationists to be 68 percent (78 in <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>), not 58 as reported
by <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent>, but what was called "literacy" was often so ridiculous
an accomplishment that the figure of percentage meant little.
Teachers received -- when they were paid -- $100 per year, but the
state would not pay it, and the parents generally refused. A law
was passed that there should be no, bull-fights where people would
not pay for a teacher, so in some places they gaily drove the
master to the ring and baited him instead of a bull. The schools
were barns, and the teachers had to do other work to get a living
of $3 a week. All the summer the children were wanted for
agricultural work. In short, until the Socialist-<ent type='NORP'>Liberal</ent> government
of 1932-36, which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> ruined, began real education, half the
supposed literate one-third of the nation might be dismissed as
illiterate. That is true of <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and, apart from <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Argentina</ent>, of <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> today. In <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> itself
<ent type='PERSON'>Franco</ent> and the hierarchy have demolished the splendid school-system
which the wicked <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> (with the cordial cooperation of most of the
university professors) had set up.</p>

<p> But all the figures I have given relate to the present
century, and by 1900 the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> had been compelled by the advance
of civilization to dissemble its hostility to the education of the
workers. What it did or did not do for education when it had
supreme power in <ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent> we will briefly consider in the
next chapter. All that concerns us in this book is the quality of
the 180000000 actual subjects of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>. It is, however,
necessary to be quite clear that the reduction of illiteracy in
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries points to no zeal on the part of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> but
to the pressure of critics. Study the language used by the <ent type='ORG'>Vichy</ent>
group of pious traitors today. Petain is honest, if senile, and
must embarrass the <ent type='NORP'>Darlans</ent> and Lavals, if not the Vatican. He sees
a monstrous evil in the industrial development, the growth of a
large educated urban population that very soon sees through the
imposture of the priests. The world must return to the placid,
bovine, agricultural life, so that it can be more easily ruled by
the priests and squires.</p>

<p> We must make short work of this point, and fortunately it is
easy to do so. Glance at Europe in 1800, or at the date of the
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='EVENT'>Revolution</ent>, I have shown elsewhere that except in three
countries 95 percent at least of the workers were illiterate and </p>

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<p>incredibly ignorant. The three countries of which I make an
exception were Protestant <ent type='GPE'>Prussia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Switzerland</ent>, Great
<ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent> was the next to become civilized in this respect, but its
clergy had been little better than the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> priests, and in 1800
certainly more than 90 percent of the worker's were illiterate. In
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, too, the anti-clerical, the <ent type='ORG'>Revolutionaries</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Napoleon</ent>,
had made a beginning of education, though this was lost in the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> reaction after Waterloo.</p>

<p> <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries did not for many decades, and only then
under anti-clerical pressure, show any, sympathy with this zeal for
educating the workers. The leaders in the reform -- Frederick the
Great, Tallyrand, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Roberi <ent type='PERSON'>Owen</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Bentham</ent>, etc.
-- were all skeptics. Once <ent type='ORG'>the Holy Alliance</ent> and the true <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent> or
Anti-<ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent> of those days, had extinguished idealism for the
<ent type='ORG'>Papacy</ent> in <ent type='LOC'>South</ent>ern Europe all this itching to educate the workers
was destroyed and the priests settled down everywhere to a renewed
lease, as they thought, of their medieval power and exploitation of
the people. It will be enough to consider the case of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, one-third of which was ruled by the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s and administered almost
exclusively by priests, while the southern section in addition was
in the closest touch with and subservient to the Vatican.</p>

<p> The southern part of <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, the kingdom of <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent>, is as
conspicuous a monument of the real <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> spirit as the Statue of
Liberty is of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n ideals. Before the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> <ent type='EVENT'>Revolution</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Volta</ent>irean statesmen and a liberal-minded monarch had made it one
of the most progressive areas in Europe. The troops of the
<ent type='EVENT'>Revolution</ent> overran all <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> and strengthened the anti-clerical
humanitarianism of <ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent>. But when they were forced to withdraw,
the royalty and clergy, acting in the closest collaboration, had a
fearful revenge. <ent type='NORP'>Neapolitan</ent> historians of the time, the chief of
whom was a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and royalist, insist that in the course of the
next 40 years the reactionaries slew 250000 men, women, and
children of the reform party, and tens of thousands were in each
decade packed in the horrible jails. All educational and social
work was, of course, extinguished. The party which had advocated
such work and had had even in so small a kingdom at least half a
million followers also was extinguished, and the region became one
of the most backward in Europe. And our elegant essayists instead
of looking up this bloody story of the extinction of sound stocks,
which our manuals of history will not tell today from fear of
offending <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>, talk in their charming way about the
<ent type='NORP'>Neapolitan</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Sicilian</ent> character with its "dolce far niente," its
amiable laziness and impenetrability to modern ideas as if it were
as normal a feature of the sunny land as the olives and roses. It
is, on the contrary, the work of priests.</p>

<p> The kingdom of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s in Central <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> was just as bad. It
was, according to all authorities, one of the foulest areas in
Europe from the moral-social angle. It will be enough to quote the
official figures for 1901, when the national government had been
conducting for 30 years such educational work as the poor resources
permitted. Still 44 percent of <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s over the age of 20 were
illiterate, but it is the distribution of the illiteracy that is
most significant. In the north (<ent type='GPE'>Piedmont</ent>), where the <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>ns had
not entirely neglected education when they ruled it and the </p>

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<p>Sardinian government which succeeded them had done more, the
illiterate's were 28.3 percent; and the statesmen who had thus
reduced illiteracy were under the Pope's ban of excommunication. In
the central and formerly Papal provinces (including <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>) the
illiterates were 51.5 percent, and in the southern provinces they
were 69.7 percent. In <ent type='GPE'>Piedmont</ent>, the old center of the damned
<ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>s and very anti-clerical, the illiterates were 17.69
percent: in <ent type='GPE'>Calabria</ent>, which was solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, they were 78.70
percent.</p>

<p> Well, there's the real <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> for you. That is what the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> does for education, when it runs a state or has, as in
<ent type='GPE'>Naples</ent>, absolute power over the kingdom. You will find these
figures in any of the older works of reference -- the <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent>
Encyclopedia, we saw, gives 48 percent for the whole country -- and
the facts about the condition of the Pope's own kingdom are in
every older historian, even in the standard <ent type='GPE'>Cambridge</ent> Modern
History (Vol XI). Your historians and sociologists of today won't
tell them. It would hurt the feelings of our <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> fellow-citizens -- to say nothing of hurting the circulation of the book.
So the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists break into raptures about the Church's
zeal for education, about the way in which this misguided modern
world thwarts its noble efforts to teach folk to think clearly,
about the fearlessness with which it confronts all facts and all
truth. . . . It appears that some people expect me to talk politely
about these matters.</p>

<p> <ent type='LOC'>South</ent> <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> is notoriously worse than <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent>, and the more solidly <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> the Republic the more
ignorant it is. Perhaps we shall be reminded of their poverty.
<ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent>, with a capital which is a paradise of millionaires and its
vast hinterland which is described by expert's as one huge, squalid
hospital, has the most illiteracy. Is it poor? Then find out, why
a country with such stupendous resources can be poor, and You will
come back to the refusal to educate; and <ent type='GPE'>Brazil</ent> is today the worst
area on the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Continent for the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> persecution of
idealists. Add the <ent type='GPE'>Philippines</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>French</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Belgian</ent>, and
<ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent> colonies. Notice how the little states which <ent type='PERSON'>Hitler</ent> is
permitting the Vatican to set up in the wilderness his troops make
-- <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Croatia</ent>, etc. -- are patches of deep <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism and
dense illiteracy. Read how the moment a state falls back under
priestly domination, after a spell of anti-clerical control its
educational system is destroyed or eviscerated. Ten years or less
ago <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n and international paedagogists were talking with great
admiration of the fine educational work at <ent type='GPE'>Madrid</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Prague</ent>, and
<ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent>. They are now silent. The cultural blight spreads from <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>
and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Belgium</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> provinces of <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Czecho</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, and wherever the <ent type='PERSON'>Butchers</ent> smirkingly lead back
their friends the priests to power. <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> loves the illiterate. They
are so easily persuaded to burn heretics and kiss bogus relics.</p>

<p> Above all examine carefully this sacred fury of the Vatican
against <ent type='ORG'>Reds</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Communists</ent>, or <ent type='NORP'>Bolsheviks</ent>. As I have earlier pointed
out, the Vatican dare not say that its anger is kindled by the
political and economic theory of the <ent type='NORP'>Marxists</ent>; nor can we suppose
it to be particularly interested in their choice of a color. The
bitter hostility to them which was roused by the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s throughout </p>

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<p>the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> world was based upon a tissue of lies about outrages
and one admitted fact -- that wherever Communism spread the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> lost millions of followers. And the reason why people fell
away from the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in such crowds was that for the first time
their eyes had been opened -- by formal education in the school
(child and adult) followed up by special enlightenment on religion.</p>

<p> Is this a coincidence? When, as I told in an earlier booklet,
the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> opened his campaign, he said that <ent type='NORP'>Bolshevism</ent> must be
destroyed in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>; and at that time the
educational world everywhere was discussing with lively interest
the remarkable progress in education that was taking place in
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, and the <ent type='NORP'>Communist</ent> provinces of <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>! The
<ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> would have added <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> but he had already got his agents in
<ent type='GPE'>Vienna</ent> and their <ent type='NORP'>Fascist</ent> allies to destroy that great social
enterprise. He could count upon his "chivalrous" <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese friends
to undo the work in <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, and he blessed the savage vandalism of
his allies in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, where for three years educational progress had
commanded the respect of all experts. There remained two countries
in which education was making rapid progress, <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
and the Vatican and the whole <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> continued to shriek for
the blood of these.</p>

<p> It is not a point on which I can linger here, but I say, and
have proved in earlier works (especially in the Appeal to Reason
Library), that the most rapid and devoted work in the world in
educating the workers was found ten years ago in <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>China</ent>, and that there is no dispute on that point in
paedagogical literature. We have seen what the Vatican did in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>
and <ent type='GPE'>Austria</ent> and tried to get done in <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent>. I say again that the
most wonderful educational work in all history was being done in
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>, as leading educationists in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> admitted, and the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> was one of the guiltiest agencies in the world in slandering
<ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent> and calling upon <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent> to annihilate the
government and all its work. On the other hand, the vilest
prostitution of education in modern history was at the same time
proceeding in <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. And the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> pressed his
affection upon the <ent type='NORP'>Nazi</ent>s, cooperated in education in <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and
gave gold medals and paternal blessings to the <ent type='GPE'>Japan</ent>ese. But I
remember my manners and will just conclude politely that I really
do not think that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is a friend of education.</p>

<p> Chapter IV</p>

<p> THE MYTH OF ITS PATRONAGE OF LEARNING</p>

<p> We are now in a position to reply to the question which I put
on an earlier page of this book: Who are these <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>?
They claim a privileged position in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> on the ground that they
are the largest religious body in the country and their <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> is
the largest and most important in the world. On the first point we
reflect that the fact that <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> form one-eighth -- it is
probably nearer one-tenth -- of the population of <ent type='GPE'>the United</ent> States
seems an amazing reason for seeking, as they do, to interfere with
the lives and literature of the non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> seven-eighths and for
thinking that they ought to be consulted by the head of the state. </p>

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<p>That they do so interfere we have seen in every chapter. They
dictated policy on <ent type='EVENT'>the Civil War</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and attempted to dictate
it in regard to: <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and the European War. They fly at medical
and civic authorities who would relieve non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> mothers of
excessive child-bearing, take the lead in fomenting racial
bitterness against the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, dominate the school-system (even non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>) in some cities, arrogate a most insolent control of
public instruction by newspapers, books, and libraries, impose
their narrow-minded views on all theaters and cinemas, and so on.
It is really extraordinary how the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n who boasts of his
freedom and independence submits to this sort of feudal insolence.</p>

<p> Back of it all, apparently, is respect for the larger claim,
that the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> really is unique in its colossal
membership, its world-wide organization, and its massive service.
In this book I am exposing the fallacy of this idea. On the face of
it there is a monstrous deception of the public because priests
know, and are aware that the public does not know, that the total
of 300000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> contains at least 100000000 who have
left the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. The simplest analysis of the figures at once shows
that, as we saw. It is reasonable to put the genuine total at
something like 180000000.</p>

<p> Of these 180000000 a little over one-fourth are children
under the age of 10. The official <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n census gives that as the
proportion. As <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> generally leave the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> after that age
and many seceded parents let their women-folk or relatives have the
infants baptized -- a good booze hallows every cause, to paraphrase
<ent type='PERSON'>Nietzsche</ent> -- the proportion of children under ten is probably
higher in the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, with its high fertility-rate in
backward countries. However, we will, as usual, be moderate and say
that about 50000000 of the 180000000 are children under 10
whose allegiance to the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> is not very clearly a thing to boast
about.</p>

<p> This applies also to many millions over the age of 10 and
under 20, but what we learned in the last chapter opens up a
different perspective. The fact is, apparently, that of the
130000000 subjects of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> over the age of 10 at least
90000000 are totally illiterate. Turn back to the table I gave.
Taking one <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent>-<ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n Republic with another the gross
illiteracy of the whole 80000000 people is over 60 percent. The
Encyclopedia <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>na gives <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent> 68, <ent type='GPE'>Nicaragua</ent> 60, and so on.
For the whole, 60 percent is moderate, and it will hardly be
disputed that these illiterates are not the millions of workers
who, joined by many men of a middle-class which has a long
tradition of anti-clericalism, made the Vatican shudder 10 years
ago. You can very safely say that 50000000 adult <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> from
<ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> to <ent type='GPE'>Patagonia</ent> are as illiterate as babies of a weird and
wonderful ignorance. The state of <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>Portuguese</ent>
possession's is as bad, and particularly all the illiterates of
<ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent> are good <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>. Add the millions of the
<ent type='NORP'>Philippine</ent> Islands, the West Indies, <ent type='GPE'>Croatia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Slovakia</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Poland</ent>,
Eire, and the foreign missions. The grand total of illiterate
subjects of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> must approach 100000000. Add these to the
50000000 under the age of ten.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p> Pray do not think me as snobbish as the <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> who write
glittering Who's Who. I have had many a friendly talk with these
folk in <ent type='GPE'>Mexico</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Cuba</ent>, in <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>. But when your <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
friend throws his 300000000 at your head you would like to know
just how significant the number is. Perhaps between 30000000 and
40000000 of them could sign their names or read a newspaper. I am
sorry if I am wasting your time but I fancy that that is news to
you. Yet it follows inexorably from the facts I have given in this
book. The <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> has certainly not 50000000 subjects who could
write their own names. And, not to put too fine a point on it, what
is the value or significance of the beliefs of most of the
"literate" 30000000 or (if you prefer) 40000000? The majority
in <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> countries -- and even in <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent> -- are peasants; and
you probably know more than I do about the majority of the <ent type='NORP'>Irish</ent>,
<ent type='NORP'>Polish</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>, etc., <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> workers of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.</p>

<p> In short, in how many cases is the faith of even a literate
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> intellectually impressive? I described the work of the
school; and very few of those who pass through it have the courage
to defy the prohibition under pain of hell or read in later years
a book that tells them the truth about their creed and <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s. Their
colleges and academies are just as narrow, and the youths and young
women in their Normal <ent type='ORG'>School</ent>s naturally learn history only as they
have to teach it. The kind of lecture on science, history, or
philosophy that is delivered in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> University you can
judge at any time by the publications of the professors and by the
articles in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia. The upshot of it all is
plainly seen in the miserable representation of <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> in higher
culture which I described. There is a blight on the whole system.</p>

<p> I sometimes imagine myself getting an <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n statesman in a
quite corner and putting these things to him. I fancy he would nod
and listen and then say: "You damned fool, they have 10000000
votes and those are worth more than a hundred scientists and
philosophers." If I tried an editor he would point out that they
have rich advertisers and a shocking power to shift a body of
readers from any paper they denounced to one that plays up to them.
If I turn to a publisher he reminds me, regretfully, that <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>
forbid the press to bring my, name or my works to the notice of the
public. And this pernicious system will explain to you the vague
reputation which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has -- for learning and the patronage
of learning. Its apologists can say what they like with little fear
of contradiction.</p>

<p> Their case, when they go into detail, is the usual mixture of
mendacity and sophistry. First, it was the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> that,
when it emerged from the catacombs, "gave the world schools." And
since there is not a manual of the history of education, not an
encyclopedic article, published in the last 50 or more years that
does not describe how the pagan <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='GPE'>Empire</ent> had a system of
universal and free schools for the people, "mendacity" is the only
word to use here. The few paltry schools which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> opened in
one or two cities, were, of course, like the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> schools
today, to prevent their own children from going to the pagan
schools. And there is no more dispute about the fact that the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
school system was entirely destroyed when the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> obtained
power over Europe, and that during the next five centuries you
could count on your fingers the schools existing at any time.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
26
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> Next is the hoary old untruth that after all the monks of the
Dark Age "preserved the classics for us." lt took <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent> scholars
nearly two centuries to dig up such <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> classics as we have, and
some of these and all the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> classics were not preserved at all
in Europe. The leaders of this enterprise -- <ent type='PERSON'>Petrarch</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Boccaccio</ent>,
etc. -- despised the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s, and the work was nearly complete when
the first <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent> to take an interest in it, the not very religious
<ent type='ORG'>Engenius</ent> IV, mounted the Papal throne.</p>

<p> Well, says the apologist, these classics were in very large
part, if not for the most part, erotic poetry and comedy -- the
works of <ent type='PERSON'>Aristotle</ent> were got from the <ent type='NORP'>Arabs</ent> and those of <ent type='PERSON'>Plato</ent> from
the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>s -- and the revival led to a terrible lot of immorality.
Was that why the good monks preserved them? Never mind that, says,
your apologist, but think of the zeal for schools and learning
which beyond any question swept Europe (except <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent>, let me
interject) from the 11th Century onward.</p>

<p> As my <ent type='PERSON'>Peter Abelard</ent> (1901) is one of the chief studies of the
movement in its first stage and was for years on the reading list
of the historical section of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n universities -- I suppose
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> got it struck off -- I know rather more than the
apologist about this medieval scholastic movement. But I have
written all about it elsewhere. I will just make three points.
First, it was admittedly inspired by the <ent type='NORP'>Arabs</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Sicily</ent>,
not by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Secondly, it was at first and for about a
century a splendid if turbulent and frothy free and independent
movement, and most of its more brilliant leaders were condemned by
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. Thirdly, when heresy spread to whole provinces in the
wake of the school-movement, the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> destroyed its freedom of
speculation and its incipient teaching of <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent> science and turned
the new universities, except a few that remained more or less
independent and trained lawyers and medical men, into schools of
theology for clerics and monks: who reads today the works of the
greatest masters of these schools? Very few priests even.</p>

<p> There, says the apologist, you betray your senility and out-of-datedness. There is a remarkable revival of interest in the
school-men, as it has been discovered that the inspirational ideas
of the <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n <ent type='EVENT'>Revolution</ent> and Constitution came from them. Yes --
discovered by <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> apologists. I confess that it always puzzled
me why they could not fake a better mare's nest to discover for
this purpose than the works by Cardinal <ent type='ORG'>Bellarmine</ent> until I learned
that the chief reason was that one of Bellarmine's books was found
in Jefferson's library. My godfathers! When I die, in a few years,
they will find in my little library many works of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> or
Protestant piety, some on <ent type='NORP'>Hindu</ent> metaphysics or Theosophy, the
Little Flower of St. Fraieis, the Bible in three or four languages,
Rabelais, Mark Twain's description of conversation at <ent type='ORG'>the Court</ent> of
Queen Elizabeth. . . . I will take up the point seriously in the
fifth book. The few ideas that do not seem quite mildewed in Thomas
Aquinas were borrowed from <ent type='PERSON'>Aristotle</ent> and the <ent type='NORP'>Arabs</ent>. He was educated
within a few miles of <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>-Norman <ent type='GPE'>Sicily</ent> and all his life he read,
translations of <ent type='PERSON'>Aristotle</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Ibn Roshd</ent> (Averroes):</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
27
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> For the rest, if you want to make a substantial test of this
claim of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scholarship without having to wade through a vast
library of trash dip into any impartial histories of literature,
philosophy, and science. To begin with you may care to know that
practically all <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> works written from the 2nd Century to the
13th Century are contained in the immense Migne Collection. I
should say that the only work in that collection of 1000 years of
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> learning that anybody reads today, in translation, is
Augustine's City of God, and very few read that. Few literary men
would shed a tear if the rest were burned.</p>

<p> Anyhow, take a good short history of literature; and literary
men, as I said, accept or profess <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> doctrines more easily
than others. It will tell you of a vast and valuable literature,
only partially preserved, of the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>s and the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>s. It may then
mention <ent type='PERSON'>Augustine</ent>, but from the 4th Century to the 14th Century it
will give ten pages to <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Persian</ent> literature for any ten
lines it may give to <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> works. Then names like <ent type='PERSON'>Dante</ent>,
<ent type='PERSON'>Petrarch</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Boccaccio</ent> -- all very independent of the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>s and
the <ent type='ORG'>School</ent>-men -- perhaps Jehan le Meung, <ent type='PERSON'>Margaret</ent> of Navarre, and
<ent type='ORG'>Villon</ent> -- a very naughty trio -- <ent type='PERSON'>Chaucer</ent> (a skeptic), and a few
others will represent what are called the palmy days of <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism. <ent type='PERSON'>Cervantes</ent> (clearly not under <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> inspiration), the
monk Rabelais (not "for maids and youths"), <ent type='PERSON'>Montaigne</ent> (a skeptic),
Galileo (hounded by the <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>), and a lot of <ent type='NORP'>French</ent> writers who were
mostly skeptics like <ent type='PERSON'>Moliere</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Boileau</ent> shine in the period of
transition, and the gloom settlers again over <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> lands until
you come to the <ent type='PERSON'>Joyce Kilmer</ent>s and G.K. <ent type='PERSON'>Chesterton</ent>s of modern times.
For the last 100 years the great maority of the leading <ent type='NORP'>Italian</ent>,
<ent type='NORP'>French</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Spanish</ent> writers have been skeptics, not <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>.</p>

<p> Philosophy you need not read up. Until some recent <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
began to flatter the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> a history of philosophy consisted to
the extent of 49 percent of an account of <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Hindu</ent>, and <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>
speculations and 49 percent of an account of the systems of modern
thinkers. <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> "thinking" occupied about 1 percent of the space
between the two. What would you expect where <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> philosophy,
of which I was once professor, described itself from the start and
still describes itself as "the handmaid of theology" -- or the
slave of dogma.</p>

<p> For science take, if you like, the most learned <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n
history, that of Dr. G. Sarton. It is so little prejudiced against
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> that it notices science in the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Fathers, which
no one ever discovered before, yet it cannot make out a case for
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> period (400 to 1550). Its best selections are monks
like <ent type='PERSON'>Roger Bacon</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Albert</ent> who simply tried to popularize <ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>
science until the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> snuffed them out. The work is, like a
history of literature, really divided into three parts: <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>,
<ent type='NORP'>Arab</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Persian</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Modern Science</ent>. As to the pioneers of the modern
development -- <ent type='PERSON'>Vesalius</ent> and Pare, Galileo and <ent type='PERSON'>Torricelli</ent>, <ent type='ORG'>Volta</ent> and
Galvani, etc. -- no one really knows what most of them thought
about <ent type='PERSON'>Pope</ent>ry. They lived in an age when men of science adapted the
counsel of St. Paul and said: It is better to go to church than to
be burned.</p>

<div> </div>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
28
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p> I have before me one of the longest lists I can find of "great
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scientists." Most of them lived before the middle of the
18th Century, when science, rudimentary as it was, did not clearly
conflict with religion and when a student of science who lived in
a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> country was haunted by a smell of sulphur. What
<ent type='ORG'>Copernicus</ent> (converted by these writers into a "devout priest" when
he was neither a priest nor devout, and in any case he merely
discovered that the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>s had discovered the centrality of the
sun), thought about religion we know no more than what Galileo
thought. But let <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> have their names before 1750. You might
as well boast that all the writers of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> today are orthodox
<ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>. After that date the apologists have to use their usual
trickery. <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Italy</ent>, and <ent type='GPE'>Portugal</ent> produced no "great
scientists" until in recent times the <ent type='NORP'>Liberals</ent> broke the power of
the Inquisition. <ent type='GPE'>France</ent> had a splendid series from <ent type='ORG'>Buffon</ent> and
D'<ent type='PERSON'>Alembert</ent> (both skeptics), onward, and 9 out of 10 were skeptics.
But I have gone through the list <ent type='ORG'>Pisewherp</ent>. It is enough that when
the arc-lamp was invented "<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> scientists" became as rare as
haunted houses. Today the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> who boasts that his <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
commands the allegiance of half the white race claims only J.J.
Walsh, of whom the science-reading public would never have heard if
it were not for his position in the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>, one or two
minor chemists and mathematicians in <ent type='GPE'>Britain</ent>, none in <ent type='GPE'>Russia</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>France</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Germany</ent>. . . . They have to claim, against the testimony of
the most authoritative biographers, men like <ent type='ORG'>Pasteur</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Fabre</ent>,
Mendel, and <ent type='PERSON'>Marenni</ent>.</p>

<p> But did not the Vatican welcome science by founding a great
astronomical observatory? Yes, in the day's when it was still
understood that "the heavens proclaim the glory of God." At all
events the observatory, of which you do not hear much today,
proclaims the glory of the Vatican. Was not <ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent> enthusiastic
for historical science, in spite of his ignorance in it, and did he
not throw open <ent type='ORG'>the Secret Archives</ent> of the Vatican to the world's
scholars? Yes. After -- as the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> historian Dr. Pastor tells
us -- removing the more compromising documents. Doesn't the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> spend hundreds of millions on education? Yes, in its own
interest and to give instruction that defies every sound principle
of paedagogy.</p>

<p> But let the apologists speak. One of their chief propaganda
bodies in <ent type='GPE'>America</ent> is the Calvert Association. and Dr. N. Murray
Butler of <ent type='GPE'>Columbia</ent> and other <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>n scholars generously sponsor
it. Its chief publication is The Calvert Handbook of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Facts. This has a section titled "Great <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>." You will hardly
believe me when I say that besides a few army officers it lists
only <ent type='GPE'>Lafayette</ent> (notoriously a <ent type='ORG'>Deist</ent>, though it calls him "a pervert
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>"), Marshal <ent type='PERSON'>Foch</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Charlie Schwab</ent> and eight other rich
business-bandits!</p>

<p> But it refers the readers to a previous section titled
"Civilization and <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism." Ignoring the writers stroll through
<ent type='LOC'>the Middle Ages</ent> in search of great men (Ferdinand of <ent type='GPE'>Spain</ent>, etc.)
I find it lists as great <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>ns who were <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent> only Thomas,
Lloyd, J.J. Montgomery, and <ent type='GPE'>Holland</ent>. What, you never heard of them?
For the last 200 years of world-science it gives <ent type='ORG'>Volta</ent>, Galvani,
Ampere (who vacillated all his life between skepticism and </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
29
.
<ent type='GPE'>ROME</ent> PUTS A BLIGHT ON CULTURE</p>

<p><ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>ism), and <ent type='PERSON'>Morgagni</ent> (doubtful). It is painful to add that it
claims also <ent type='ORG'>Jenner</ent> (of smallpox fame) and <ent type='PERSON'>Roentgen</ent>: on what amazing
grounds even the bold <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia does not seem to have
discovered. And of course it claims <ent type='PERSON'>Fabre</ent> and <ent type='ORG'>Pasteur</ent>, both
apostates, and the devout <ent type='PERSON'>Abbot Mendel</ent>, who is described as a
skeptic in the only authoritative biography.</p>

<p> This list covers. 250 years -- the most recent man on it died
nearly 100 years ago -- and ranges over the whole imperial <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
on which the sun never sets. Of the claimed 300000000 <ent type='NORP'>Catholics</ent>
of today it names none. Do people expect me to write about this
sort of thing without irony and contempt? Or do you agree with me
that the only uniqueness about the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Rome</ent> is that it is the
most amazingly successful imposture in history?</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>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
30
</p></xml>