such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly jesus. and what is their attitude towards their brothers in god, the rank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels of the ecclesiastical machine? his holiness, the pope, sent over a delegate to represent him in america, and at a convention of the federation of catholic societies held in new orleans in november, 1910, this gentleman, diomede falconio, delivered himself on the subject of capital and labor. we have heard the slave-code of the anglican disciples of jesus, the revolutionary carpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his roman disciples:

human society has its origin from god and is constituted of two classes of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively represent capital and labor.

hence it follows that according to the ordinance of god, human society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and plebeians.

and lest this should not be clear enough, the pope sent a second representative, mgr. john bonzano, who, speaking at a general meeting of the german catholic central-verein, st. louis, 1917, declared:

one of the worst evils that may grow out of the european war is the spreading of the doctrine of socialism, and the catholic church must be ready to counteract such doctrines. we must be ready to prevent the spread of socialism and to work against it. as i understand, you have a society of wealthy people in st. louis ready for such a campaign. you have experienced leaders who are masters in their kind of work. they are always insistent to show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the church, and therefore it will not fail.

this, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book, which therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "nihil obstat" of the "censor theolog.", and the "imprimatur" of "johannes josephus, archiepiscopus sti. ludovici." no wonder that the "experienced leaders" of america, our captains of industry and exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be, to make use of this system of subjection. a few years ago we read in our papers how a jewish millionaire of baltimore was presenting a fortune to the catholic church, to be used in its war upon socialism. the late mark hanna, the shrewdest and most far-seeing man that big business ever brought into power, said that in twenty years there would be two parties in america, a capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the catholic church that would save the country from socialism. that prophecy was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you watched political events, a new tone of deference to the roman hierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. today you cannot get an expression of opinion hostile to catholicism into any newspaper of importance. the associated press does not handle news unfavorable to the church, and from top to bottom, the politician takes off his hat when the sacred host goes by. said archbishop quigley, speaking before the children of the mary sodality:

i'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the church in chicago. his reign would be short indeed.