National Affairs: Off The Sidewalks

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"Why, there is no greater mockery in this world today than the burning of the Cross, the emblem of faith, the emblem of salvation, the place upon which Christ himself made the great sacrifice for all of mankind, by these people who are spreading this propaganda while the Christ that they are supposed to adore, love and venerate, during all of his lifetime on earth taught the holy, sacred writ of brotherly love. . . .

"In certain sections of the country the little girls and boys are used as the vehicles for carrying false propaganda.

"Recently, in Iowa, two little girls came home to their father and said, 'We are going to have another war.' The father said, 'What do you mean?' 'Why,' they said, 'we were told at school that President Wilson started the last war and if Governor Smith is elected he is going to start another war.'. . .

"Here's one for you—listen to this: Ashland Avenue Baptist, printed in Lexington, Ky., on the front page of a church publication in a box of heavy black type: 'Recently the papers published how Governor Smith came near to a serious accident driving fifty miles an hour down Broadway while intoxicated. He was driving the car himself practicing his wet gospel.'

"Now, everybody that knows me knows that I am unable to operate an automobile. I never tried it in my life, and, what is more, I am never going to try it; and the statement that I was running the car myself down Broadway at fifty miles an hour is just as absurd as the other part of it. ...

"Of course, it is very fine for the Republican National Committee and the Republican Chairman to disown all this. It is very easy for them to say, 'We disclaim knowledge of it and responsibility for it.'

"But I haven't heard any of them disclaim responsibility for what Mrs. Wille-brandt said. She is a Deputy* Attorney General of the United States. She went before the Methodist Conference of Methodist preachers and said to them:

" 'There are 600,000 of you Methodists in Ohio alone, enough to put this election over. Write to your people.'

"There is separation of Church and State for you! . . .

"Let me make myself perfectly clear. I do not want any Catholic in the United States of America to vote for me on the 6th of November because I am a Catholic.

"If any Catholic in this country believes that the welfare, the wellbeing, the prosperity, the growth and the expansion of the United States is best conserved and best promoted by the election of Mr. Hoover, I want him to vote for Hoover and not for me. . . .

"Now, instead of all this talk—and this is the last night I will devote to it—what should we be doing?

"We should be debating farm relief . . . water power . . . flood control. . . . Reorganization of the Government in Washington in the interest of economy and greater efficiency.

"Let this debate be held, and let us put down forever in this country this unAmerican, un-Christianlike doctrine that is finding its way into this campaign."