258 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



nature, I need hardly give examples. The newspapers are 

 full of the details of high financiering, many of the particu- 

 lars of which are hardly bounded by the limits of the penal 

 statutes. These fine examples are merely the ones which 

 are found out and exposed to the pubUc gaze; but every man 

 knows whispers of many others which do not come to the 

 surface. It is even exploited as a motive power for our 

 daily press; since descriptions of the violations of the Ten 

 Commandments make "snappy" articles. 



Now, it is these very things which may wreck our nation 

 and ruin our body politic. It is a question whether we can 

 keep up our standard of citizenship and preserve the institu- 

 tions which we have inherited. I am one of those who firmly 

 believe that we can, and I believe that every effort should 

 be made to do so. And there is no organization of men in the 

 world, upon whom such a standard of citizenship should rest 

 more than upon Catholics in general and upon the Knights of 

 Columbus in particular. When we studied our elementary 

 catechism, we learned, as primary truths, "Thou shalt not steal" 

 and "Thou shalt not covet," and that among the sins which cry 

 to Heaven for vengeance are the oppression of the poor and 

 defrauding laborers of their wage. On these may be built 

 the entire economic and political history of the modern state. 

 All the material ills that cry for reform are but a variation o^ 

 these two themes. 



For the past five years our newspapers, our magazines and 

 numerous books have teemed with the story of unrighteous 

 gain, oppression of the weak, and the unholy greed manifested 

 by corporate expansion. In the Middle Ages, feudal rank 

 grew great by the assumption of privilege ; to-day the corpo- 

 ration and its coterie of majority holders do the same thing. 

 The gradual monopoly of the necessaries of life, of the means 

 of transportation, and of even the means of diffusion of knowl- 

 edge, threatens our national life and liberties, far more than 

 the encroachments of kings and nobles in the worst decline 

 of feudal times. Then, at least, they had as a working the- 

 ory, the idea that they were the guardians of the people, 

 exalted perhaps by caste, but nevertheless in theory bound to 

 look after the welfare of their subjects or vassals. 



To-day, however, we are more individualistic ; the theory to- 

 day is a shorter one : "What is there in it for me ? Where do 



