THE CATHOLIC PART IN CIVIC PROGRESS 273 



of the lowly people and lead them on to better things, and 

 hence there could be but little active participation in the line 

 of civic progress, except as exemplified in the orderly conduct, 

 devotion and patriotism of that very lowly class which com- 

 prised the bulk of the Catholics. 



Yet even in the days of the early formation of our coun- 

 try — in its closer knitting of colonial confederation, in its 

 mutual safeguarding of human interests, in the struggle for 

 independence and the foundation of the infant republic — 

 Catholics took a large part in the civic progress and develop- 

 ment of the nation. We had a Dongan who gave in those 

 days to New York the freest charter which she ever had, a 

 Lord Baltimore who was the forerunner of religious liberty 

 and freedom of worship throughout our broad land, a Carroll 

 who was the staunchest defender of the rights of the colonies 

 to resist oppression and set up independent government, and 

 the leaders of armies and navies in our subsequent contests on 

 land and sea in defense of our struggling and growing nation. 

 The mass of Catholics in colonial times and for the first fifty 

 years of our national life were sore beset with the menacing 

 problems of mere livelihood, with the honest, eager endeavor 

 to get on in the material sense of the word and yet keep true 

 to the principles and teachings of their Faith and too busied 

 thereby to have much leisure and to have, still less, material 

 means to devote to the higher questions of civic progress and 

 development except as exemplified in the individual. But that 

 they thought of it, and that Catholic Faith and philosophy re- 

 quired it, the names we have mentioned of those more for- 

 tunately situated than their fellows fully attest. 



But as time has gone on the fortunes of the Catholic por- 

 tion of the citizens of this great land of ours have improved. 

 A few have become wealthy ; most of them are more or less 

 well to do in the sense that the struggle for mere existence 

 has ceased to be a problem, whilst all of them are hopeful, 

 earnest and sanguine of the future of their common religion 

 and their varied races in our land. The expansion and de- 

 velopment of the faith is provided for in the ever-increasing 

 number of churches and religious institutions throughout the 

 country, works of charity and benevolence are ever widening 

 and reaching out towards all classes requiring their minis- 

 trations, schools, colleges and universities under Catholic aus- 



