256 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



onstration that we have become an integral and indispensable 

 part of this country. It is a witness to the liberality and fair- 

 mindedness of our fellows, but it is also a tribute to the 

 earnestness and devotion of all who have contributed to the 

 result. 



We Catholics intend to be whole-souled and energetic citi- 

 zens of every great commonwealth of this still greater land ; 

 we intend to march in the van of all that is to the interest of 

 this republic and which may contribute to its solidity and its 

 well-being ; we declare boldly our Faith in this land of the free 

 and home of the brave, its institutions and its progress, its 

 virtue and morality, and its everlasting witness of the watch- 

 fulness of God Almighty over the destinies of man. 



Our sun of earthly glory is rising to its zenith, and the bril- 

 liancy of our temporal prosperity has suffused the world. Our 

 fathers in the science of government and the constitution laid 

 broader and deeper foundations than they dreamed. The 

 fabric of our empire has risen to gigantic proportions; it has 

 reached a point where mere axioms of law and written statutes 

 can hardly suffice to hold it cemented together. When this 

 point is reached, reaction may set in. On the one hand, a 

 strongly centralized — nay, a well-nigh despotic government — 

 may seem to be the only recourse to hold the country to- 

 gether, while on the other, ruin may ensue by lawless license 

 instead of liberty. This is when prosperity may menace us 

 more than adversity ; and the menace be so disguised that we 

 fail to recognize it. 



We have already arrived at the point where the parting of 

 the ways may be dimly discerned. On the one hand, the 

 growth of privilege and power resulting from the combina- 

 tions and monopolies of commerce and industrialism seem to 

 threaten the well-being of the nation and the prosperity of 

 its citizens. The only remedy so far devised is the stern curb- 

 ing of such organizations by a series of enactments which 

 lodge all power in the most inquisitorial fashion with the cen- 

 tral government, whether it be at Washington or at the capi- 

 tal of the state. It is needless to say that a reduplication of 

 such powers of government may in the end reduce the citizen 

 to a state of vassalage and nullify the guarantees of life, 

 liberty and happiness embodied in our constitutions. 



The other alternative is scarcely better. There is a growth 



