Appendix C. Letter From S. Bower to the Editor of the Fremont (Ohio) Weekly Journal
Appendix C. LETTER FROM S. BOWER TO THE EDITOR
OF THE FREMONT (OHIO) WEEKLY JOURNAL
Fremont (Ohio) Weekly Journal, 9 April 1869.
[Communicated.]
MR. DOUGLASS’ LECTURE
The proverb and truism “He who is silent when he is bound to speak seems to
consent,” forces the undersigned to make some remarks to the honorable public on
the late lecture of Mr. Fred. Douglass, at Birchard Hall, Friday eve, April 2d—
“William the Silent.”
1st. Mr. Douglass, after highly eulogizing William of Nassau, making almost
an apotheosis of him as an asserter of civil and religious liberty, and the savior of
the Netherlands, &c., made the unblushing statement “that the Pope pronounced a
benediction, or blessing, on the purpose of his (William’s) assassination at the
hands of a fanatic.” And then apostrophizing Catholics present, he called on them
sneeringly, insultingly, and with repulsive ostentation and arrogant presumption,
telling them that they could not overcome or disapprove that fact. This wrong
statement, babbling up from a deep, but poorly disguised, fountain of inexcusable
prejudice, not bearing, even slightly, upon his subject, throwing no light on any
point he tried to make, aggravated, beside, by the occasion, at which it was made,
i.e., before a mixed audience—Catholics being listeners, that came to pay and
honor him by their presence—and imbittered by the unmannerly way it was
thrown at the audience’s face, was highly abusive and merits an indignant rebuke.
2d. There are three kinds of facts: certain, doubtful and fictitious. For a public
lecturer before a mixed audience, it becomes a matter of paramount necessity, by
all rules of prudence and comity, to have a decent regard for the feelings of the
parties present, whose opinions, customs, or particularly cherished faith, are
interested, or wounded, in his applications of history. Only certain facts should be
adduced in his illustrations, if needed; and then they should be introduced with
great moderation, prefaced with a few winning words, and with a most apparent
readiness to mitigate and excuse the roughest outlines if possible. Delicate sub-
jects ought to be handled with silken gloves. It is hard enough to hear simply
unpleasant truths; but when enunciated with the unsavory exultations, that tells by
tone and action, “This time I can give you a spiteful hit,”—then they become
revolting and will operate in an opposite way to that intended by the speaker.
Doubtful, and at the same time injurious facts, cannot by any means be made
use of by him. It should always give with kind alacrity, the benefit of the doubt to
those, who, by their statement, would be wounded. If his intellect, and erudition,
in the vast field of undoubted events of the checkered past are not sufficient to him
to treat his subject acceptably, he has no business to presume to be a lecturer, nor
the vocation to teach. It is not needed to state, that the allegation of hurtful and
fictitious facts, is absolutely disallowed.
Summing up the remarks in paragraph 2d, I say, that to state, first, painful
facts of history, when beyond dispute, in an unsympathysing manner—is un-
gentlemanly and unmannerly; second, when doubtful—ungenerous and unchris-
tian; third, when untrue—baser calumnious and highly criminal.
3d. After this preliminary, let us come again to the assertion of Mr. Douglass
of the purported blessing of the Pope on the wicked intention of an assassin. This
allegation is fictitious, false. Mr. Douglass may have raked up the kennels of
history—as Archless Purcell so fitly expresses the conduct of these historical
chiffoniers—the filth of historical by-ways, the slanderous concoctions of some
malignant hater of “Rominish Antichrist,” to find some shadow of ground for the
assertion, following the footsteps of so many ready to fearlessly falsify, to serve up
just such a purpose as Mr. Douglass had in view. I will not say that Mr. Douglass
lied, no; he only babbled after another.
There is no authentication of such a conduct of the Pope. No honorable
historian writes anything of the kind. William fell by the hands of Balthasar
Gerard, who was baited on by lucre and a sinful fanaticism, with which the Pope
had nothing to do. So fell the noble Gustave Wasa III, King of Sweden, on the 16th
of March, 1799, by the “Protestant” (the word is here used as an antithesis, and
not by any means in a malignant sense) Capt. D. Ankarstrohm; so fell Gen.
Kleber, the brave, at the hands of Soleyman, the turkish fellah; so fell the good
Lincoln at the hands of Booth. There are political as well as religious fanatics. No
blessing of Pope, Mufti, or Party leader is needed to impel them onward to their
nefarious deeds of blood.
Good Pope! how microscopically small are the souls of men that must help
their bad cause always, by loading upon thy shoulders, and by burdening thy
conscience, with the wrongful action of some abject miscreant.
4th. Mr. Douglass made a very ugly insinuation against Catholics, (although
he did not mention them by name,) when he spoke of the here-existing danger of a
dreaded connection between Church and State. His clear view of the Dutch (let me
call them so) middle ages, and the nebulous perception and crude insinuation of
the present, calls naturally to mind the technical “Presbyopy” of the lexicog-
raphers.
This insinuation is foolish. We Catholics have had enough of such connec-
tions in the old world. Every one conversant with the manner of thinking of the
Catholic, Hierarchy and Priesthood, and not biased by such sheets as Harper’s
Weekly, with its ridiculous and malicious hebdomadal articles on the subject,
knows how totally averse they are to such a connection. The Catholic Church has
prospered well enough in the past without such a connection, and will continue so
to prosper in the future; all it asks of the State is “Let me alone.”
I may perhaps be allowed here to make a moral reflection. I have constantly
held, as a matter of reason and historical experience, that an essential condition for
a reasonable existence of liberty in a nation, as well as in an individual, is truth.
Fraud and misrepresentation, and supine prejudice spring from a spirit of oppres-
sion, and have a direct and an immediate influence in the subversion of the order of
equal liberty, and must in a society, corrupted by them, lead ultimately and surely
to despotism. I judge a man’s right to the immunities of such a high liberty, as we
possess it under the benign influence of the Stars and Stripes, by the measure of his
impartial justice to others. And how dare he to ask the God-sent privileges of
society, if in his wantonness, even as a mendicant as yet, he so glibly and un-
scrupulously discards the time-honored and fostered privileges of others. The
sheep showing ferociousness, what may happen after the metamorphosis into a
wolf.
5. Had Mr. Douglass left out of his long and tedious lecture, all the repetitions
of “Pope,” and “Bishops,” and “Inquisition,” and “Catholic persecution,” and
all the other staple of the senseless tirade of a mob-lecturer, he could have given all
the really good sense of the lecture in 15 minutes; as it is, it lasted two long and
weary hours.
Now in conclusion permit me to say, that there are always small-brained and
narrow-hearted beings that will give expression to their joy at such stuff by satis-
factory smiles and complacent gestures; but the sober, educated and thinking are
painfully affected. The impropriety and the evincing of such bad taste, make them
feel uneasy, and the flagellation is really often not felt in that degree by the one
directly concerned, as by the sympathizing well-bred gentleman on the other side.
This is an appreciated recompense to the directly offended—a highly valued
indemnification, out-balancing an hundred fold the vituperation. I often saw cause
why I should rather pity such well mannered gentleman. They came with eager
expectation to hear a famed expounder of those principles of liberty and human
rights, that are their very soul’s life.
Every vibration of a sympathetic chord, that the lecturer strikes in their genial
heart, has an echo upon their trembling lips, and every high sentiment evoked in
their liberty-loving breast is mirrored in assenting smiles. But, alas, the lecturer
destroys his work; he forgets his place and his duty—he becomes a scold. With
depressed feelings the gentleman rises. He is not the participant of that unalloyed
intellectual pleasure anticipated, but he must carry home the small treasure of the
few good sayings and thoughts wrapt up in regret.
S. BOWER,
Pastor St. Joseph Catholic Church.