716 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 



Treasurer Perry, and Attorney-General Slo- 

 cum. Lieutenant-Governor Honey declined a 

 renomination. and was succeeded on the ticket 

 by Howard Smith. The resolutions included 

 the following : 



The constantly increasing surplus in the National 

 Treasury (estimated at nearly $100,000,000 annually) 

 which arises from unjust and unnecessary taxation 

 of the people, threatens to paralyze trade and com- 

 merce by the withdrawal from their channels of the 

 money which is needed in their operations ; reduc- 

 tion of taxation is therefore an imperative duty, and 

 should be made first upon those articles which can be 

 classed as necessaries to the whole people men, wom- 

 en, and children. The industries of Rhode Island will 

 be most efficiently fostered and protected by the in- 

 troduction into our ports free of duty of such raw 

 materials as enter into or are used in connection with 

 our manufactures; we designate wool, lumber, and 

 coal as among the most important of such raw mate- 

 rials. 



W e pledge ourselves : 



1. To secure for the people of this State a constitu- 

 tional convention, to the end that the many reforms 

 needed may be accomplished and that the abuses and 

 irregularities now existing, which have been bred and 

 fostered by the ruling element of the Republican party 

 of this State, may be abolished. 



2. To abolish 'the registry tax, which has for an- 

 other year continued to be a source of unmitigated 

 evil and fraud on the native-born voters of this State, 

 and again making money instead of intelligence ana 

 capacity a qualification for office. 



3. To abolish the property qualification which is 

 unjustly imposed upon naturalized citizens of the 

 United States as a prerequisite for voting. 



At the election, in April, the Republican 

 ticket was elected by a plurality of over 3,000 

 votes. For Governor, Taft received 20,744 

 votes; Davis, 17,556 ; Gould, 1,326. The Leg- 

 islature elected at the same time was composed 

 of 31 Republicans and 8 Democrats in the Sen- 

 ate, and 61 Republicans, 10 Democrats, and 1 

 Prohibitionist in the House. At the same 

 time the Bourn amendment to the State Con- 

 stitution, passed by the Legislature in January, 

 was submitted to the people and approved by 

 a vote of 20,068 in its favor and 12.193 against 

 it. Three fifths of the total vote cast being 

 necessary for its adoption, it secured only 711 

 votes more than the requisite number. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. The two most 

 important events in the history of the Catho- 

 lic Church during the past year were the 

 celebration of the Papal Jubilee the fiftieth 

 anniversary of the ordination of Leo XIII to 

 the priesthood and the visit of the Emperor 

 William to the Sovereign Pontiff. The first 

 event, which occupied the end of 1887 and the 

 first days of 1888 was most elaborately cele- 

 brated. All the rulers of the world, including 

 the Sultan, sent gifts to the Pope. King Hum- 

 bert was the only exception. The gift of 

 President Cleveland was particularly appro- 

 priate. It was a copy of the Constitution of 

 the United States. Brazil, in honor of the 

 festival, freed several thousand slaves. Later 

 in the year the Pope issued an encyclical to 

 the bishops of Brazil on the subject of slav- 

 ery, one of the most remarkable documents of 

 his pontificate. In connection with this unre- 



served throwing of the influence of the Church 

 against the owning of human beings, the cor- 

 dial approval of the Holy Father to Cardinal 

 Lavigerie's project for the suppression of the 

 African slave-trade makes in itself an epoch 

 in the annals of the Church which has from 

 the beginning regarded liberty as the most 

 beautiful of all things. The visit of the Em- 

 peror William to the Sovereign Pontiff, though 

 apparently deprived of all political significance 

 by the rules of papal and royal etiquette, had 

 no effect in clarifying the Roman question. 

 The Emperor seems to have avoided com- 

 mitting himself by any verbal promise to the 

 amelioration of the Pope's position. Mr. 

 Gladstone's letter to the Marquis de Riso, 

 quoted in the " Osservaton Romano," which 

 created a sensation during his visit to Naples, 

 seems to show that public opinion in Europe 

 was, late in 1888, not averse to the submission 

 of the Roman question to an international 

 tribunal. But, taking Mr. Gladstone's later 

 explanation of that letter, it becomes evident 

 that the Marquis de Riso was mistaken. The 

 position of the Pope still remains, in his own 

 phrase, "intolerable." 



The abolition of slavery in Brazil, brought 

 about by the entire sympathy of Dom Pedro 

 and his people on the subject and the counsels 

 of the bishops of Brazil, urged on by the 

 Pope, occasioned His Holiness to send the golden 

 rose sent to some royal personage each year 

 on Laitare Sunday to the Princess- Regent of 

 Brazil. The new Archbishop of Carthage a 

 see created by the Pope to revive the past 

 glory of the African Church is Cardinal Lavi- 

 gerie. The cardinal is nearly sixty - four 

 years of age, but he believes that he will be 

 enabled to lead a new crusade against the 

 slave-trade in Africa with as much success as 

 if he were half his present age. In London, 

 Paris, Naples, Madrid, and Brussels, he has 

 gained the enthusiastic sympathy of all who 

 heard him. At Rome, he aroused the intensest 

 interest in the heart of Leo XIII. He is form- 

 ing a defensive force for the protection of de- 

 fenseless tribes against the slave-traders. He 

 believes that less than a thousand well-drilled 

 soldiers would be sufficient to abolish slavery 

 from Albert Nyanza to the south of Tanganika ; 

 with an American regiment at his command, 

 he would guarantee to wipe out the bloody 

 marks which the Arabs and mulattoes make 

 each recurring year. It is computed that, out 

 of the five hundred thousand men, women, and 

 children stolen and sold every year, fifty 

 thousand die under the oppression of their 

 captors. Human life is held very cheap in the 

 interior of Africa. 



The deaths during 1887-'88 were unusually 

 numerous in ecclesiastical circles. The Most 

 Rev. Francis X. Leray died Sept. 23, 1887. 

 The death of the Rev. John Bapst, S. J., oc- 

 curred on November 4 of the same year ; Fa- 

 ther Bapst was the hero of an outburst of un- 

 American fanatacism in 1854, and of Miss 





