Making Catholic America: Religious Nationalism in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 9781501771002

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: T he Catholic Work of Nation Building
1. Reconstructing the Catholic West: Catholics, Protestants, and the State on the Mission Battlegrounds
2. Catholics in the White City: The Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893
3. American Catholicism and Philippine Colonization: A Study in Religious Imperialism
4. Catholic Gatekeepers: The Church, Immigrants, and the Forging of an American Catholicism
5. Toward Tri-Faith America: Catholics Confront the Politics of Anti-Catholicism
Conclusion: American Catholics in Catholic America
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

MAKING CATHOLIC AMER­I­C A

MAKING CATHOLIC AMER­I­C A

R E L I G I O U S N AT I O N A L I S M I N T H E G I L D E D AG E A N D P R O G R E SS I V E E R A

William S. Cossen

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2023 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu. First published 2023 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cossen, William S., 1986– author. Title: Making Catholic America : religious nationalism in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era / William S. Cossen. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022045307 (print) | LCCN 2022045308 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501770999 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501771019 (epub) | ISBN 9781501771002 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Catholic Church—Social aspects— United States. | Catholic Church—Political aspects— United States. | Catholic Church—Influence. | Catholics—United States—History—19th century. | Catholics—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC E184.C3 C67 2023 (print) | LCC E184.C3 (ebook) | DDC 305.6/827309034—dc23/ eng/20221014 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022045307 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov​ /2022045308

For Kristina, Catherine Elise, and William—­it’s all for you

C o n te n ts

Acknowl­edgments  ix

Introduction: The Catholic Work of Nation Building

1

1. Reconstructing the Catholic West: Catholics, Protestants, and the State on the Mission Battlegrounds

16

2. Catholics in the White City: The Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893

49

3. American Catholicism and Philippine Colonization: A Study in Religious Imperialism 63 4. Catholic Gatekeepers: The Church, Immigrants, and the Forging of an American Catholicism

93

5. ­Toward Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca: Catholics Confront the Politics of Anti-­Catholicism 113 Conclusion: American Catholics in Catholic Amer­i­ca Notes  149 Bibliography  183 Index  199

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Whenever I read a monograph for the first time, I flip immediately to the acknowl­edgments section. I enjoy learning about an author’s intellectual influences, and I also enjoy seeing the myth of the solitary scholar undermined by the personal and professional networks that sustain the years of research and writing that go into the creation of an academic book. So without further ado, I am tremendously excited to fi­nally have a chance to enter the hallowed halls of monographic acknowl­edgment authorship. Breaking with the academic tradition of first recounting one’s intellectual debts, I would like to highlight ­those individuals who played the largest role in the successful completion of the book you have in your hands: my f­ amily. They have given unceasingly of their time and energy to support me in the now decade-­long pro­cess of writing this book. The biggest thank-­you of all goes to my wife, Kristina, and my ­children, Catherine Elise and William. Their patience and love have sustained me in ­every way imaginable. I love you all more than words can describe. I would next like to offer a tremendous thank-­you to the editorial staff at Cornell University Press for shepherding this book through the long publication pro­cess, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions, which helped me improve my work and turn it into something far better than it ever could have been without their valuable engagement with my research. Thank you as well to Kate Mertes for her exceptional indexing. My sincerest thanks and deepest re­spect also go to my gradu­ate school advisors, Amy S. Greenberg and Philip Jenkins, who are model historians and ­people in ­every way. They continue to set standards of impeccable scholarship to which I can still only hope to aspire. My thanks also go to the other two members of my doctoral committee, Daniel Letwin and Roger Finke, whose dedicated support and feedback ­were invaluable. Thank you as well to the administration of the Gwinnett School of Mathe­ matics, Science, and Technology for their ongoing support of my research and writing. It has been an im­mense privilege to work alongside my tremendously ix

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talented colleagues in the Social Studies Department, which continues to provide a wonderfully supportive place for me to grow as a teacher and scholar. None of the research that serves as the foundation of this book could have been completed without generous financial assistance from several institutions and organ­izations. Research funding came from the American Catholic Historical Association, the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca, the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, the Filson Historical Society, the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, and the Pennsylvania State University’s Department of History. Many archivists and librarians also provided their time, advice, and assistance. I would like to offer par­tic­u­lar thanks to the following: Maria Mazzenga and William John Shepherd at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca; Shawn Weldon at the Catholic History Research Center of the Archdiocese of Pennsylvania; Kathy Shoemaker at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library; Jennie Cole, Jim Holmberg, Aaron Rosenblum, and LeeAnn Whites at the Filson Historical Society; J. Leon Hooper, S.J., and Scott Taylor at the Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections; Craig Wright at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum; and Peter Lysy and Joseph Smith at the University of Notre Dame Archives. Thanks also go to the interlibrary loan staff of the Penn State University Libraries, whose members tracked down numerous obscure items for me. Grateful acknowl­edgment goes to the Catholic University of Amer­ic­ a Press and the journal U.S. Catholic His­ torian for permission to include material from a previous article of mine, “Catholic Gatekeepers: The Church and Immigration Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” U.S. Catholic Historian 34, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 1–23, in this book’s fourth chapter. The Penn State Department of History provided me with a wonderful home as a gradu­ate student, and even though I graduated several years ago, I still miss its friendly halls and have tremendous re­spect for its faculty, both pre­sent and former, who made me the historian and educator I am t­ oday. ­David G. Atwill, Kathlene Baldanza, William A. Blair, Tobias Brinkmann, Solsiree Del Moral, Alan Derickson, Sophie De Schaepdrijver, Greg Eghigian, Lori D. Ginzberg, the late Anthony E. Kaye, Michael Kulikowski, Joan B. Landes, Thomas Christopher Lawrence, Daniel Letwin, Kate Merkel-­Hess, Michael Milligan, Catherine Wanner, and Nan Woodruff: I am proud to be a historian and teacher ­because of you. I also have the honor of offering my gratitude to many other colleagues and friends, past and pre­sent, who have all contributed in varied ways, both



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known and unknown, to the creation of this book: Gabe Andrews, Erin Bartram, Taleisha Bowen, Mary Bryan, W ­ ill Bryan, Michael Burbine, Peter Cajka, Laurent Cases, Joy Ciofi, Brian Clites, Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, Renee ­Covin, Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Spencer Delbridge, Jack Downey, Katie Falvo, Michelle Fowler, Elfi Funk, Andrea Gatzke, Lauren Golder, Ben Gulley, Chris Hayashida-­Knight, David Hensley, Seth Hersch, Phil Hnatkovich, Jeff Horton, Antwain Hunter, Jobie Johnson, Kelly Knight, Susan Kohanek, Kevin Lowe, Rebekah Martin, Paul Matzko, Bill McAuliffe, Gráinne McEvoy, Monica Mercado, Rachel Moran, Chad Morgan, Catherine Osborne, Stephen Paul, Andrew Prymak, Lesley Rains, Patrick Rasico, Carden Rice, J. Adam Rogers, Evan Rothera, Thomas Rzeznik, Adam Schultz, Emily Seitz, John Seitz, Rob Shafer, Hannah Sharpe, Michael Skaggs, Tyler Sperrazza, Anslie Spitler, Chris Staysniak, Jason Strandquist, Charles Strauss, Lisa Tilley, Sean Trainor, Peter Van Lidth de Jeude, Alfred Wallace, and Eric Welch. I would fi­nally like to extend my gratitude to three individuals who made a special mark on my scholarship and ­career. The first is Carolyn Hellams, whose high school history classes encouraged me to pursue a history major as an undergraduate. Next is Walter L. Adamson, whose undergraduate history seminars taught me how to write clearly and analytically. Fi­nally, my thanks go to Mark D. Jordan, who, when I was in my final undergraduate semester, introduced me to the field of Catholic studies. His seminar in modern Catholicism completely changed my academic and professional trajectory. None of this would have been pos­si­ble without Dr. Jordan providing me with the initial spark of interest in the field and the encouragement to pursue gradu­ ate studies.

MAKING CATHOLIC AMER­I­C A

Introduction The Catholic Work of Nation Building

When Charles J. Guiteau approached James A. Garfield in a Washington, DC, train station on July 2, 1881, drawing his revolver and firing two shots at the president, the assassin was sure that he was saving his country from a corrupt administration. When questioned by police ­after he had committed his foul, evil deed, Guiteau proclaimed that he was a “stalwart among the stalwarts” and that General William Sherman and Vice President Chester A. Arthur w ­ ere at that moment on their way to rescue him from his captors and restore order to the nation.1 What he did not tell detectives ­after his arrest was that he was also fulfilling the destiny of a long line of reformers reaching back to Martin Luther. The murder of Garfield functioned, then, as the ninety-­sixth thesis nailed to the modern church of Wittenberg. This is clearly a fantastic account. If true, it would revise historians’ understanding of the Garfield assassination and the Gilded Age and would revolutionize several centuries’ worth of scholarship on the Protestant Reformation. This notion of Guiteau as a legatee of Luther, however, was not pulled from thin air. Isaac Hecker, one of American Catholicism’s most notable converts, proposed it. As Hecker noted in 1887, “[When] Guiteau was condemned by an American judge and jury as a murderer, and this verdict to all appearance was ratified by the American ­people, then and ­there the standpoint of Protestantism was also condemned. . . . ​And now a bronze statue is about to be erected, or is already erected, in honor of Martin Luther, in the very city which 1

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hanged as a criminal, upon an infamous gallows, his logical child!”2 Hecker granted that church reform was a regrettable necessity in Luther’s day, placing the German priest in the pantheon of “true reformers,” which included Hildebrand, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Charles Borromeo. He would go no further, however, instead arguing that the moment Luther rebelled against the authority of the Catholic hierarchy was the moment of his effective damnation, and the author made a dizzying leap to the late nineteenth c­ entury by connecting what he called the “free-­individualism of Protestantism” to a host of other social ills of his day, including presidential assassination, child murder, Unitarianism, and spiritism. The latter, Hecker argued, “leads directly to the entire emancipation of the flesh, resulting in free-­lovism, and sometimes ending in diabolism. Spiritism is Satan’s master-­stroke, in which he obtains from his victims the denial of his own existence. ­These are some of the ­bitter fruits of the separation from Catholic unity.” According to Hecker, Protestantism was the root of all evil in American society, and its “dogmas [­were] foreign to republicanism and [led] to a theocracy in politics.” By contrast, that society’s ideological and spiritual parent and necessary savior was Catholicism.3 Hecker made ­these comments at a time when Catholics ­were becoming a force in American politics, culture, and public life and at a moment when Catholic leaders ­were demarcating church bound­aries, reworking the meaning of Americanism, and redefining Catholicity on the eve of the twentieth c­ entury. Although scholars have analyzed Catholics as outsiders in American history, historians have devoted far less space to the inverse questions of how Catholics claimed the mantle of Americanism and how they worked to achieve mainstream status. Making Catholic Amer­i­ca describes how Catholics worked in the years following the Civil War to entrench their claim to belonging in the American nation. They did so by demonstrating the integral roles they played in a variety of connected imperial, po­liti­cal, and public reform proj­ects and by engaging in a rhe­toric of anti-­Protestantism against Protestants, who frequently regarded themselves as the model Americans. The postbellum era was a period of im­mense cultural, economic, po­liti­ cal, and social change. It was also a time of significant transformations in the country’s religious life. Catholics, whose church became the country’s largest by 1890, reconceived of their own places in the American nation between the Civil War and the ­Great Depression. Catholics in this period argued that their church was the country’s most faithful supporter of freedom and constitutional liberty and that Catholicism had birthed American in­de­pen­dence. They attacked the loyalty of Protestants to highlight their own and spoke of their leadership of the American nation as self-­evidently apparent and appropriate. As one Catholic author wrote in 1875, “American history testifies with

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gratitude to the names of Rochambeau, De Grasse, De Kalb, Pulaski, Lafaye­ tte, and many more; all Catholic heroes, who nobly led on their gallant troops in our cause, and obtained speedy triumph, even at a time when the odds w ­ ere against us.” This author, who went by the name of “A Resident,” asked rhetorically of t­ hese Catholic Revolutionary War figures, “­Were they enemies of liberty? ­Were our Catholic forefathers cowards, who stood bravely in the fight and fought with their noble leader De Kalb, while the Protestant lines of ­Virginia and North Carolina, with Gen. Gates at their head, fled from the field of Camden?” “A Resident” answered, “History ­will testify that Catholic citizens fought when ­others fled,” and argued that Catholics continued to demon­ strate their devotion to the Union and to the newly consolidating nation through their ser­vice in the Civil War.4 Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul told his fellow Catholics in 1889, the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American church’s first diocese, that they should stand proud as members of a power­ful religious community. “We number ten millions,” Ireland reminded them. He described American Catholics on the eve of a new ­century as “a power­ful army” ready to convert the nation and take their place as leaders of an enlightened society.5 Converting the nation to Catholicism was an avowed goal of Ireland and other similar Catholic leaders of the period. Ireland and his fellow bishop, John J. Keane, argued in an 1886 memorandum to the Vatican’s Propaganda Fide, its Congregation for the Evangelization of ­Peoples, that the “conversion of American Protestants” was “a vital ­matter for our religion. The Church ­will never be strong in Amer­i­ca; she w ­ ill never be sure of keeping within her fold the descendants of immigrants, Irish as well as ­others, u ­ ntil she has gained a de­cided ascendancy among the Americans themselves.”6 Laypeople also expressed this confidence in the conversion of the nation to Catholicism. James L. Meagher of Cazenovia, Minnesota, wrote in 1892 to Archbishop Ireland, “The time is coming when the English-­speaking ­people ­will enter the church in crowds.” Meagher praised James Cardinal Gibbons, Ireland, and Keane—­leaders of the liberal wing of the late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century US church—­ for “advanc[ing] the Cause of Catholicity in a remarkable manner within a few years last past, and if it continues in the same proportion, we may look for a breaking away from the other churches, and a wave of conversions sweeping over the En­glish speaking p­ eoples.”7 Such confidence in the making of a newly Catholicized American nation was building through the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and would serve as the foundation for further Catholic empowerment in the twentieth-­century American po­liti­cal mainstream. In a recent work, one historian argues that post–­Civil War Catholics worked to create “a separate American Catholic subculture in the United States” and

4 I NT R OD U CT I ON

that their general attitude can be described as “an instinctive defensiveness born out of their encounter with antebellum nativism.”8 It may be true that some Catholics retreated to defensive ghettos in the late nineteenth ­century, but such a perspective silences the numerous stories of antebellum and postbellum Catholics who routinely went on the offensive against non-­Catholics and the forces of nativism. By assuming that ­these Catholics viewed themselves as outsiders, scholars may be in danger of tacitly accepting the view of Protestants as the normative Americans, which Catholics of this period did not accept. Instead of privileging Catholic difference and separateness over Catholic similarity and inclusion, Making Catholic Amer­i­ca brings more balance to the picture of late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century US Catholicism as an empowered and influential po­liti­cal and cultural force, despite its members’ linguistic and devotional practices, which may have differed from t­ hose of many other Americans. Instead of assuming that Catholics sought ac­cep­tance, this book suggests that such a perspective is based on faulty assumptions. Perhaps Catholics sought no ac­cep­tance at all ­because they felt it would be illogical to assimilate into a nation of which they believed they w ­ ere already a part and which they considered an outgrowth and creation of their own religious community. The Civil War c­ areer of Catholic chaplain Peter Paul Cooney provides an instructive example. In his war­time diary, Cooney portrayed Protestant chaplains as being poor at their jobs and as questionable Christians. He characterized them as unmanly cowards who shrank from their patriotic and religious duties in the face of battlefield horrors and described their faith as “empty.”9 Cooney defended a deathbed baptism of a Methodist soldier who supposedly requested the sacrament and claimed that the soldier asked him “with more than ordinary energy, ‘Where then is our ministers—­where is their words of consolation for the poor departing soul. I see them nowhere in the hospital.’ ” Cooney blamed the entire war on one of the bedrocks of Protestant theology: “Private Judgment.” He extended his critique of Civil War–­era Protestantism to the competitive, American religious marketplace, blaming private judgment for the United States becoming “the prolific ­mother of sects, from ­Free Love to Mormonism up to the ribald & flexible creed of Episcopalianism & down again through the ravings of Miller & his Snow oil theory, to the irrational princi­ple of Presbyterianism that some men are born to be damned.” This led to a “spirit of disobedience to both Divine & Civil laws.” “Private Judgment,” Cooney argued, “is the fatal apple of the ­human race—­the production of a corrupt tree nurtured by the corruption of ­human Nature—­its end is death.”10 Protestantism, then, was the wellspring of disunion and disaster, whereas Catholicism was the source of united, national power and order.11

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In the view of many Catholics of the nineteenth ­century, the American nation was made by and for Catholics, as evidenced by Cooney’s contrasting of the faithful, patriotic Catholic priest with the faithless, disloyal Protestant minister. As Catholic priest Patrick Cronin of Buffalo, New York, exclaimed in his speech, “The Church and the Republic,” given at the Columbian Catholic Congress in 1893, “This land, discovered by Catholic genius, explored by Catholic missionary zeal, baptized in the blood of the Catholic revolutionary heroes, and preserved in unified glory by the prowess of Catholic arms on many a gory field—is it any marvel that the Church should have phenomenally grown and flourished ­here?”12 Catholics had in­ven­ted the nation; it was their proper inheritance; and it should thus not seem remarkable that the Catholic Church would have grown so substantially by the turn of the twentieth ­century. The subjects that make up this book’s narrative core—­western expansion and US Indigenous policy; turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century world’s fairs; extraterritorial imperialism; immigration reform, regulation, and restriction; and judicial and po­liti­cal ­battles over the public role of religion in the Progressive Era—­served as essential components of the postbellum nation-­building proj­ect. They functioned as the nexus in which Catholicism, Protestantism, and the state vied for influence and power in defining the physical extent, ideological character, and demographic composition of the nation. Under­lying them all was an ever-­present critique on the part of nationalist Catholics, which held that the nation was far more dynamic an entity than was described by the Protestants of their imaginations. This critique also argued that Catholics should play an integral role in spreading Christian civilization across the American frontier, extending it beyond the western hemi­sphere, and then advancing the civilizing proj­ect within their own ranks to prove to non-­Catholics that Catholicism was a quintessentially American community worthy of taking its place alongside Protestantism in the administration of the country’s civil religion. Through their conflicts with Protestants over religious liberty and control of Indigenous agencies and reservations in the US West, Catholic missionaries, bishops, and laypeople active in the western missions sought to leverage power over federal bureaus and over Native Americans, who ­were frequently their Catholic coreligionists. Through this activity, Catholics assisted in shaping national borders during Reconstruction and into the Gilded Age. In the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth ­century, Catholics continued their ­battles with Protestants over schools and missions in the islands and once again portrayed themselves as the true defenders of the Constitution and American values, in contrast with Protestants, who sought allegedly to subvert public order. They built on their imperial training on the western reservations to colonize the Philippines, and they played central roles, alongside federal officials

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and the Protestants they sought to supplant, in projecting national power across the Pacific. ­These nationalist Catholics also harnessed their church to prevailing ideas of white racial superiority and immigration regulation and directed them inward. Their national belonging, then, was dependent in part on delimiting the American nation within Catholicism. Fi­nally, Catholics in the first three de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury kept alive their religious nationalist proj­ect through their continued contributions to western missions, extraterritorial imperialism, and immigration policy. They worked successfully through the judiciary and the po­liti­cal pro­cess to continue demonstrating their belonging in the national community. T ­ hese venues of debate and public policy—­ Native missions, Philippine colonization, immigration regulation, and the anti-­Catholic revival and Catholic backlash in the Progressive Era—­were connected by the common theme of the enduring Catholic challenge to Protestant power. They played a collective role in Catholic participation in the reconstruction of the postbellum American nation through the related proj­ects of border formation, power projection, and defining of national membership, and Catholics redefined the national mainstream as essentially Catholic.13 In this revised narrative of American Catholic nation building, many Catholic leaders of the postbellum United States w ­ ere comfortable putting a distinctively Catholic spin on imperialism and colonization, scientific racial theories, immigration regulation, and national boundary formation. Historians have typically regarded the ideas of whiteness and race, religious nationalism, and Manifest Destiny as the sole domain of middle-­and upper-­class Protestants. This book, on the other hand, argues that the provenance of t­ hese concepts must be broadened to include the Catholics who played an appreciable role in formulating them. The Catholics at the heart of this book—­many of whom ­were part of the church’s Gilded-­Age and Progressive-­Era liberal wing—­were t­ hose individuals, both lay and clerical, historian Thomas T. Mc­ Avoy argues, who supported “the adaptation of Catholic practices to the American milieu . . . ​­whether they ­were of American, Irish, French, or German birth.” ­These included leading clerical figures, McAvoy explains, such as “Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, ­Father [Isaac] Hecker, Bishops [John] Ireland and [John J.] Keane and [James] Cardinal Gibbons,” who “­were making determined efforts in speeches and articles . . . ​to show the American p­ eople that American Catholics ­were united with them in their efforts to improve the civic and social welfare of the country.” In several of their forays into public and po­liti­cal life, they w ­ ere opposed by conservatives, including prelates such as “Archbishop [Michael] Corrigan, Bishop [Bernard John] McQuaid, and Bishop Ignatius Horstmann,” who “felt that ­these adaptations ­were heretical.” This ­battle between conservatives and liberals was a theological and po­liti­cal power

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strug­gle with an extensive reach in the United States, which also crossed the Atlantic Ocean to share in larger transnational disputes then raging across Catholic Eu­rope.14 Numbers on ­either side, especially when taking into account the mass of Catholic laypeople, for which no systematic public opinion polling exists, are difficult to determine. What this book argues, though, is that numbers are not as impor­tant as real-­world impact. The liberal Catholics, though perhaps smaller in number than their conservative, neutral, and ambivalent counter­ parts on the po­liti­cal battlefield, had an outsized effect on shaping public policy and influencing a broader, popu­lar perception of supposedly outsider Catholicism as an inside creator of American nationalism from Reconstruction through the Progressive Era. Significantly, conservative figures in the church often replicated liberals’ assumptions about the nature of the American nation, indicating a pervasive power of the Catholic nationalist position, even when ­those expressing it ­were unaware of or perhaps even opposed to its origins. Diverse Catholic figures, despite their significant ideological differences, could still find themselves on the same side in certain instances. It was not impossible for a theological conservative of the period to argue, for instance, that ethnic groups remain distinct and separate as Catholic Americans while still holding that Catholicism was the fountain and most perfect expression of Americanism (see chapter 4 for further elaboration of this theme). Furthermore, even ­after the old-­guard liberals had passed away or faded from the scene of national Catholic leadership, their ideas on Catholic American nationalism lived on into the late Progressive Era and into the Cold War period’s forging of a religiously pluralistic, demo­cratic culture. While McAvoy views this conservative-­progressive power strug­gle within late nineteenth-­century American Catholicism as primarily a theological and clerical one, Making Catholic Amer­i­ca instead demonstrates that laypeople—­ figures such as Katherine E. Conway, Mary Theresa Elder, William James Onahan, Rachel Ewing Sherman, Al Smith, and Alice Timmons Toomy—­were also leading players in the defining of public Catholicism. They did not simply react to the decisions of their bishops and priests, but instead played proactive roles in creating a new sense of American Catholic nationalism. This book argues, then, directly against McAvoy’s contention that Catholics of this period “took their dogmas and moral code on the authority of their pastors and particularly from the infallible Pope and did not quarrel with their teachers.”15 This is a contention, furthermore, that can have the unintended consequence of reinforcing the long-­standing anti-­Catholic position that Catholics w ­ ere unquestioning followers of a despotic, clerical hierarchy. This was also not a story that began around 1890 and ended shortly a­ fter the papal condemnation of the heresy known as

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Americanism at the end of that de­cade, as McAvoy and other scholars commonly assess it. Historian Philip Gleason, for example, notes, “It began in the mid-1880s and came to an abrupt end in 1899 when Pope Leo XIII condemned certain ideas that, as he put it, ‘some comprise ­under the head of Americanism.’ . . . ​ As a distinctive religious idea or pastoral strategy, ‘Americanism’ had been ­stopped cold and nothing further was heard of it ­until it became an object of scholarly curiosity two generations ­later.”16 This story is rather one with roots formed out of the Civil War and postbellum Reconstruction policy, which played a defining role in the making of a more pluralist American religious realm ­after World War II. Fi­nally, as opposed to McAvoy’s focus on the East, the pre­sent book expands the scope of American Catholic nationalist activity westward, even beyond the country’s borders, to encompass the spread of the American empire in the twentieth ­century. This allows for the introduction into this historical narrative of Catholic Americanization of figures such as Dennis Cardinal Dougherty and Charles B. Ewing—­individuals just as responsible for the fusion of Catholicism and Americanism in their own time as ­were Gibbons, Hecker, and Ireland in theirs. Turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century Catholics built on a decades-­long intellectual foundation. This intellectual tradition portrayed Catholicism as an eminently American denomination and Protestantism as a promoter of religious intolerance. Benedict Joseph Fenwick, an antebellum bishop of Boston, described Mary­land’s colonial Catholics as the progenitors of religious liberty and of equal protection of the law in the ­future United States. ­These Catholics tolerated differences of religious belief and practice, Fenwick argued, noting, “With a nobleness of soul and a generosity unparalleled, the utmost freedom was allowed in religion to Christians of all denominations. . . . ​Sufferers of ­every persuasion ­were alike protected by the laws.” Fenwick contrasted Mary­land Catholics with Mas­sa­chu­setts Puritans and ­Virginia Episcopalians who, rather than being the intellectual ancestors of the US Constitution’s First Amendment ­free exercise and disestablishment clauses, he described as religious persecutors.17 Rev. John McCaffrey, the president of Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmittsburg, Mary­ land, went further than Fenwick, labeling his state’s Catholic found­ers “the ­Pilgrims of Mary­land” and sanctifying the memory of their ships, the Ark and the Dove, in much the same way that descendants of the Puritans memorialized the Mayflower. According to McCaffrey, who was speaking at his college in 1842, the Mary­land Catholic Pilgrims w ­ ere neither subservient followers of their religious superiors nor subversive concerning the wall of separation between church and state. New E ­ ngland’s Puritans, McCaffrey argued, actually “ma[de] the State subservient to the Church” and “exhibit[ed] their piety by blind submission to their preachers.”18 The country’s first Catholic bishop, John

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Carroll of Baltimore, argued similarly to Fenwick that the exception of religious tolerance represented by Catholics in the colonial period ran headlong into the rule of religious intolerance represented by Protestants.19 In the de­cades leading up to the Civil War, Catholics proved increasingly skilled at turning anti-­Catholic rhe­toric back on the Protestants and nativists who propagated it. This was seen most strikingly in the controversy surrounding the 1836 publication of Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosures of the H ­ otel Dieu Nun­ nery, a lurid tale detailing alleged abuses carried out by Catholic priests and nuns against unsuspecting, vulnerable, young ­women—­a tale that Catholic commentators and their Protestant allies exposed as fraudulent.20 The Monk controversy might have ended with the proof of her book’s lies, but Catholics hit on a strategy that would continue through the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, and into the Progressive Era: they could engage in concerted efforts directed t­ oward transforming anti-­Catholicism into Catholic anti-­Protestantism; mastering the politics of nativism, exclusion, and nation building; and claiming the right to participate in the building of the American nation.21 Scholars of the antebellum period have done a fine job investigating relations between Catholics and Protestants.22 Ultimately, however, many historians of antebellum relationships between Catholics and Protestants seem to evince “a general reluctance to treat Catholicism as one portion of a larger American religious milieu.” As I have argued in a previous work, “antebellum Catholics . . . ​shared in the religious trends of their time and frequently responded in a similar manner as evangelicals when faced with disestablishment of state religions and the subsequent revivalism of the Second G ­ reat Awakening.”23 Similar to t­hose of the antebellum period, several excellent studies of postbellum Catholic-­Protestant interactions have focused principally on Protestant perceptions of Catholics.24 What is missing in many of ­these works is a focus on the rhetorical, orga­nizational, personal, and po­liti­cal strategies that Catholics used to claim membership in the nation. ­There has also been ­little work on how Catholics made sense of the Protestants in their midst. This Catholic work of nation building has been largely neglected in the historiography of American religion, a scholarly gap that is most apparent in the study of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Additionally, historians have tended to overlook the ways turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century Catholics interacted with prevailing discourses of whiteness and Anglo-­American racial superiority. This is not to say that ­these subjects have never been explored. They indeed have been studied, but ­earlier works e­ ither serve as chronological bookends to the period covered by this book or have difficulty accounting for the ways that Catholics w ­ ere able to conflate their definition of freedom with an American idea of the concept and convince non-­Catholics of the propriety of such a

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merger.25 The previous work most closely related to my own, John  T. McGreevy’s Catholicism and American Freedom, falls mostly in the latter category. Making Catholic Amer­i­ca does not seek to overturn McGreevy’s scholarship, but rather to add more nuance and further layers of complexity to it. Whereas Protestant-­influenced American society valued personal autonomy and individuality, as McGreevy argues in Catholicism and American Freedom, Catholics saw proper freedom as the ability to always choose what one ­ought to do, which, for the most part, was acting in conformity to the Catholic Church’s moral and teaching authority and out of a concern for the common good. This portrayal of competing meanings of freedom for Catholicism and Protestantism is convincing. The model has a harder time, though, accounting for the ways that Catholics redefined Americanism as Catholicism. For the nationalist Catholics of the pre­sent book, it would not be proper to speak of Catholicism and American freedom. Rather, the correct formulation would be Catholicism as American freedom. This difference in terminology is more than semantic. Catholics w ­ ere often successful in persuading non-­Catholics that their conceptions of freedom and nationalism ­were legitimate and able to bring about policy changes at the federal level to suit the aims and visions of Catholic leaders. Making Catholic Amer­i­ca moves the scholarship in a new direction by exploring Catholicism as a complex identity, through which Catholics could variously take on the role of beleaguered minorities ­under constant attack, true Americans leading the charge against the forces of intolerance, and Progressive reformers who sought to Americanize their own church. Through all of this, Catholics often used rhe­toric and racial theories that, ironically, they shared with a number of contemporaneous, anti-­Catholic, reform-­minded intellectuals and public officials. This book moves past previous studies of “the Catholic question” in the antebellum and post-­Progressive periods and begins to explore what can be termed “the Protestant question” in the eyes of late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century American Catholics and how ­these same Catholics responded to the Protestant question with the answer of Catholic inclusion and national leadership. The book proceeds mostly chronologically from the introduction of President Ulysses S. Grant’s Peace Policy in late 1869 through the immediate aftermath of Al Smith’s 1928 presidential campaign. Chapter  1 examines the Catholic role in the federal government’s attempts following the Civil War to conclude its decades-­long conquest of the continental United States. Reconstruction was not confined solely to the former Confederate states but extended to the Pacific coast and eventually beyond.26 The 1870s and 1880s served as the setting of the final stages of the violent subdual of vari­ous Indigenous ­peoples in the American West and of the creation of an extensive

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reservation system that ended Native empires, which gave way to a fully realized, extraterritorial American empire at the turn of the twentieth c­ entury.27 An impor­tant component of postbellum federal policy was the government’s decision to collaborate with Christian denominations to oversee the religious instruction of Native Americans. This policy led to contentious fights between Catholic and Protestant missionaries, teachers, and civic leaders over the power to win souls and public influence. Catholics took the opportunity presented by a government partnership to play a role in consolidating the nation, and they used their missionary experiences as a rehearsal for their participation in Philippine colonization beginning in 1898. This chapter, then, demonstrates how Catholics played a leading role in carry­ing out the work of continent-­wide reconstruction ­after the Civil War. A central focus of the chapter is the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM). Scholars have discussed the BCIM, but it remains an understudied organ­ization in the histories of American Catholicism and Native policy. E ­ arlier works, though valuable, have significant limitations. Much of the scholarship on late nineteenth-­century Catholic missions focuses narrowly on specific government agencies, reservations, missions, religious ­orders, or regions. This book adopts a broader geographic scope and connects federal policy to the larger power strug­gle between Catholics, Protestants, and the state. Rather than conceiving of Catholic attacks on Protestants as attempts to overcome “their position of inferiority” or to achieve ac­cep­tance in “a Protestant nation,” as historian Francis Paul Prucha suggests, I argue instead that Catholics ­were aiming for something dif­fer­ent: the yoking together of Catholicism and American nationalism and the formulation of an imperialist ideology that reached its fullest expression during the period of Philippine colonization.28 While some Catholics in the West ­were focused on promoting the Catholic faith and education on reservations, o ­ thers sought to advance American Catholic nationalism, and still o ­ thers sought to one-up their Protestant rivals. ­These positions ­were not mutually exclusive. Individually and collectively, the mass of western Catholics could be motivated si­mul­ta­neously by a combination of nationalism, religion, and the desire to gain power and influence in the state—­ all intertwined strands of the making of Catholic Amer­i­ca. Chapter 2 examines Catholics’ roles in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which served as the cele­bration of the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Amer­ic­ as and pointed the way ­toward f­uture American expansion. World’s fairs allowed middle-­and upper-­ class, white Americans to make sense of and justify imperialism, colonialism, industrialization, new technologies, and the rapid advance of capitalism. They also gave members of the working class the opportunity to imagine themselves

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as part of a new order, albeit one that was not always conducive to their material or social well-­being. The expositions put on display the increasingly popu­lar theories and imagery of white racial superiority. The Chicago fair, or White City as it was also known, hosted two notable meetings in the histories of American Catholicism and religion in the United States, the World’s Parliament of Religions and the Columbian Catholic Congress.29 The former represented the birth of the modern international ecumenical movement. It also included official Catholic repre­sen­ta­tion, a rarity in this time and a development that James F. Cleary argues “­ought to be considered as an outgrowth of the liberal vision of the place of the Church in Amer­i­ca.”30 The same leaders who oversaw Catholic participation in the fair—­prelates such as James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul—­were also instrumental in organ­izing Catholic missions among Native Americans and l­ater formulating their church’s response to imperialism and immigration restriction, subjects of subsequent chapters. The Columbian Catholic Congress met concurrently with the World’s Parliament of Religions and served as an organ­izing space for Catholic laypeople intent on “claiming their place in Amer­i­ca’s past as well as in con­temporary society.” Historian Deirdre M. Moloney has explained how the Columbian Catholic Congress served as the initial spark that brought forth the Catholic lay reform movements of the next several de­cades. This book expands on Moloney’s concept of lay leaders’ “Catholic critique” of their Protestant counter­ parts by connecting this critique to a longer history of American Catholics’ conceptions of Protestant identity that began much ­earlier than 1893.31 This tradition stretched back to the writings of such Catholic intellectuals as Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker, the b­ attles between Catholic and Protestant missionaries on reservations, and the antebellum era. This chapter, which functions as a thematic interlude between chapter 1, on western expansion, and chapter 3, on extraterritorial imperialism, reconstructs the Catholic presence in White City, with special attention paid to Catholics’ opinions on Protestants, religious liberty, American history, immigration, and the nation, which are themes that recur throughout the book. It also positions Catholics on a national stage as the authors of a strategy to include their religious community in the work of nation building, a significant contribution to scholarship on this period of American Catholicism, which has paid comparatively l­ittle attention to the role of the Columbian Catholic Congress as a nationalist tool for US Catholics.32 The Congress reintroduced the Catholic Church to non-­ Catholic Americans at a time when Catholics w ­ ere asserting themselves comfortably as full-­fledged Americans who had a duty and divine right to direct the course of their country’s reservation, imperial, and immigration policies.

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Chapter 3 argues that the US colonization of the Philippines was influenced partially by Catholics seeking to gain power at the expense of Protestants, who ­were increasingly opposed to the large waves of Catholic mi­g rants making their way to the United States around the turn of the twentieth ­century. T ­ hese immigrants, discussed in the next chapter, ­were often seen by con­temporary racial theorists as inferior biologically, culturally, religiously, and socially. American colonizers in the Philippines brought the Catholic-­Protestant rivalry to their country’s newest imperial acquisition. In this context ­there emerged a cohort of Catholic leaders who sought to prove to non-­Catholics in the United States that their religious community held a rightful place in the work of American imperialism. This was similar to the goals of many Catholics affiliated with missions in the US West and of the lay reformers at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. They worked si­mul­ta­neously to sell the war in the Philippines to Catholics who opposed their country’s role in colonizing an already largely Catholic nation. In reconciling Catholicism and American imperialism, Catholic colonial theorists and officials effectively whitened American Catholics by joining with non-­Catholic Americans in a shared racial ideology, while working to establish an equivalency between Catholicism and American values, to the exclusion of Protestantism. As with the western missions described previously, pro-­colonization Catholics had mixed motivations. While some acted to serve their church, ­others acted to serve the American empire, and some may have done both. ­These motivations may not have been contradictory in the eyes of nationalist Catholics. In fact, some may have seen no essential difference between t­ hese two motivations—­another reflection of the idea that for out­spoken Catholic leaders of this period, Americanism and Catholicism ­were often one and the same. H ­ ere, Catholicism and Americanism could sanctify and justify one another. The role of American Catholics in shaping the course of Philippine colonization and US imperialism has often been muted in previous works on the Spanish-­American and Philippine-­American Wars. Exceptions include scholarship that focuses principally on Catholic opinions on public schooling in the new colony or that interprets Catholics as uniformly reluctant to support imperialism, and recent work that has focused on the role of American Protestants as imperial administrators.33 Ultimately, much of the recent scholarship on the subject, while more attentive to Catholics’ roles in advancing American imperialism, centers the perspectives of the Protestant figures who used Catholicism to build an empire and assumes that Catholics consciously accepted Protestant leadership.34 One major exception in recent scholarship is historian Matthew Frye Jacobson’s analy­sis of Catholic opposition to Philippine colonization in his book

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Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States. Jacobson is correct to point out the fierce opposition of many US Catholics to the exclusionary Anglo-­Saxonism (although not necessarily to an emerging conception of pan-­European whiteness) at the foundation of American imperialism in the Spanish-­American War and its aftermath. Catholic laypeople such as James Jeffrey Roche, the editor of Boston’s leading Catholic newspaper, the Pi­lot, and many publications such as the Irish World aiming at largely immigrant readerships offered staunch re­sis­tance to racialized colonization. Jacobson’s narrative, though, is largely confined to the two years immediately following the war, and he does not consider the prominent Catholic leaders who, if they did not w ­ holeheartedly embrace imperialism in the Philippines at the outset of the war, certainly did come to support a strong American Catholic presence in the colony afterward. It also does not focus on ­those Catholics who did use Anglo-­Saxonism or Anglo-­Americanism as a means of claiming Catholic leadership in the American empire.35 Making Cath­ olic Amer­i­ca, on the other hand, provides a voice for the Catholics who attempted to merge their faith and their nation’s imperial ambitions, and it goes beyond the newspaper-­driven narrative of Jacobson’s study to include a much deeper, archival look at the personal papers of American Catholic promoters of colonization. Catholicism appears less as a merely useful tool of colonization or as simply an anti-­imperial counterpoint to an empire promoted solely by Protestants, but rather can be considered a leading force in the imperial drama in its own right. Chapter 3 of this book, then, does not so much overturn previous scholarship, but rather serves as a corrective to t­ hese narratives, which often privilege the perspective of anti-­imperial over imperial Catholics, despite the latter ultimately shaping policy in much more tangible ways. Chapter 4 argues that many prominent Catholics attached their religious community to the period’s prevailing theories of white racial superiority and claimed them as their own. This was part of a larger intellectual movement that was also apparent in American Catholic colonization of the Philippines. By supporting immigration regulation and demonstrating their compatibility with the emerging Progressive order, native-­born Catholics ensured that their church would continue to gain influence in the larger society and that they would have a firmer grasp within their own church over the new immigrants, whom they perceived as threats to the hard-­won power that Catholics had gained since the Civil War. Historians have paid much attention to the second wave of Eu­ro­pean immigration, which lasted from roughly 1880 ­until the Immigration Act of 1924, but scholars have devoted less space to examining views of the new, Eu­ro­pean, Catholic mi­g rants held by native-­born and naturalized US Catholics. Even

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though the historiography of American Catholicism has explored ethnic divisions within the country’s wider Catholic community, previous works on the subject often fail to grapple with Catholics’ shaping of the ideologies of whiteness and racial supremacy at the turn of the twentieth ­century.36 Chapter 5 shows that although Catholic leaders had been successful in gaining concessions for their church and had embraced dominant racial theories and immigration regulation, anti-­Catholicism had not dis­appeared entirely. Over the first three de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury, it underwent a remarkable resurgence. Anti-­Catholicism remained fash­ion­able among many intellectuals for some time to come, and it also received an added boost from the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 and the Klan’s subsequent nationwide growth into the 1920s. In the midst of this revived anti-­Catholic climate of the Progressive Era came Prohibition and the Immigration Act of 1924, viewed by many Catholics as discriminatory legislation targeting their church. However, as discussed in chapter 4, ironically, many native-­born Catholic leaders contributed to the Progressivism that made pos­si­ble the work of the Dillingham Commission and the popularization of racial science in the 1910s and 1920s as well as the ratification of the Eigh­teenth Amendment and the passage of the Volstead Act. Perhaps unsurprisingly, especially given the numerical growth of the Catholic Church in the United States, which was due largely to immigration, this period saw a popu­lar revival of exposés and convent narratives written by supposed ex-­nuns and renegade priests, a literary genre that had its heyday in the antebellum years.37 Coming on the heels of a school controversy sparked by the Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922, this new, Progressive-­Era anti-­Catholicism reached its apex in 1928, in response to New York Governor Al Smith’s nomination as the first Catholic presidential candidate on a major-­party ticket.38 Like their e­arlier counter­parts in the antebellum period, however, Progressive-­Era Catholics w ­ ere prepared to fight back. Chapter 5, therefore, explores how Catholics conceived of Protestants as the parties responsible for the new wave of anti-­Catholicism and examines the extent to which Catholics themselves mastered the politics of anti-­Catholicism, particularly in their reactions to the continuing tension between public and parochial schools, their use of state tools to gain power, and their participation in Smith’s presidential campaign. Much of the previous scholarship on Smith has been biographical or has discussed the role of anti-­Catholicism in the election. Historians, however, have neglected to analyze how Catholics perceived the campaign’s anti-­ Catholic features. They have also not discussed how Catholics used the election to keep alive their challenge to Protestant power—­a preview of the forging of a tri-­faith public sphere ­after World War II.39

C h a p te r   1

Reconstructing the Catholic West Catholics, Protestants, and the State on the Mission Battlegrounds

During Reconstruction, the constitutional right of ­free exercise of religion was u ­ nder assault. A state church had been established. An “outrageous tyranny” had taken hold of a country already reeling from four deadly years of civil war and that was still attempting to reconstruct the former Confederate states. This religious despotism brought “disgrace” to the US government, and it operated “in open contradiction of ­every American princi­ple.” ­Those brave souls who attempted to defend the First Amendment’s religion clauses and who strug­gled “to withstand the power of the mightiest machinery that has existed since the days of the Roman empire” brought on themselves “the enmity and opposition of sects, numerous, wealthy, and cunning, and ready . . . ​to be the occasion of strife and bloodshed rather than permit to the Church of God that freedom which is allowed her by the Constitution of the United States.”1 ­Whether the f­ ree exercise of religion was threatened in the post–­Civil War years is open to debate. For one group of Americans in this period, though, ­there was no debate necessary. In their eyes, a cherished American freedom was threatened by corrupt federal officials who sought to engineer the collapse of institutions that had existed in the American West for centuries and who collaborated with this group’s religious rivals to effect a church-­state fusion. This group was composed of Catholic missionaries and their lay and clerical supporters, and their chief rivals w ­ ere Protestants. T ­ hese Protestants, 16



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Catholics argued, had been working to seize control of Native reservations and government offices to expel the Catholic Church from the West, from public life, and from the American polity. This was a mirror image of the same accusations of a threatened religious takeover of government and society that Protestants had often directed t­ oward Catholics since colonial days. Catholics, though, who had gained confidence through their successes in e­ arlier ­battles with Protestants in the antebellum period and through their demonstrations of loyalty to the Union during the Civil War, ­were not prepared to sit idly while their missions faced the threat of Protestant conquest. Catholics sought to gain influence in government through President Ulysses S. Grant’s Peace Policy and through the work of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM). Catholic bishops founded the BCIM in 1873 to ­counter perceived government favoritism ­toward Protestant missionary organ­izations and provide a unified voice in Washington, DC, for Catholic interests. Catholics’ attempts to supplant their Protestant rivals in the halls of national power and to work with, through, and occasionally c­ ounter to the state w ­ ere part of a larger effort to gain power for Catholicism as a major player in the postbellum proj­ect of reconstructing the American West. This effort culminated in a projection of American power outward at the end of the nineteenth ­century. A nexus of Catholic, Protestant, and state actors drove the institution of Grant’s Peace Policy in 1870 as well as the dramatic widening of the American overseas empire in 1898, and Catholics thus played a significant role in extending the campaign of Reconstruction westward. This activity served as training for American Catholics’ participation in the expansion of their country’s empire in the Philippines at the end of the 1890s.2 Through their concerns for the western missions and the colonization of the Philippines, Catholics claimed the power to formulate what Matthew McCullough calls “Christian nationalism.”3 It may be difficult for many Americans of a ­later period to comprehend religious officials feeling entitled to federal monetary support, given modern understandings of the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, the Grant administration worked with churches and missionaries to operate schools for Native Americans with an eye ­toward assimilating their c­ hildren into white, Christian society. This was one facet of Grant’s larger agenda for dealing with Native Americans, which is known as the Peace Policy.4 In his first State of the Union Message to Congress in 1869, Grant provided the broad outline for the program: I have attempted a new policy ­toward ­these wards of the nation, (they cannot be regarded in any other light than as wards,). . . . ​The building of railroads, and the access thereby given to all the agricultural and

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mineral regions of the country, is rapidly bringing civilized settlements into conflict with all the tribes of Indians. No ­matter what ­ought to be the relations between such settlements and the aborigines, the fact is they do not harmonize well, and one or the other has to give way in the end. A system which looks to the extinction of a race is too horrible for a nation to adopt, without entailing upon itself the wrath of all Christendom, and engendering in the citizen a disregard for ­human life and the rights of ­others, dangerous to society. I see no substitute for such a system, except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as can be done, and giving them absolute protection ­there.5 Native Americans, in the president’s eyes, w ­ ere not citizens, w ­ ere not functional adults, and ­were incapable of self-­care. It fell to the federal government, which presided over the rapid spread of capitalism and the machinery of industry, to oversee the introduction of Native Americans into this postbellum world. As historians Heather Cox Richardson and Richard White have observed, Reconstruction did not occur only in the former Confederate states but also extended westward. The government’s removal of Native Americans to reservations, Richardson argues, along with their killing at the hands of the US military and settlers, was an impor­tant component of this western Reconstruction, which created a white, middle-­class, industrialized nation in its wake.6 By way of Grant’s Peace Policy, the Catholic Church and its missionaries played a leading role in promoting this reconstruction of the West and in building the new American nation following the Civil War. As early as his State of the Union Message, Grant contemplated using missionaries to further his administration’s Native American policies. The president notified Congress that he already relied on Quakers to administer some reservations. The Quakers’ “opposition to all strife, vio­lence and war” and their “strict integrity and fair dealings” appealed to Grant, especially b­ ecause the Quakers’ “white neighbors of other sects, in other sections, ­were constantly embroiled” in conflicts with the Native Americans. “The Society of Friends,” on the other hand, was “well known as having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians, in the early settlement of Pennsylvania.” Grant placed “the burden of the se­lection of agents upon the Society itself,” which was the same procedure followed when the Peace Policy incorporated the Catholic Church and several Protestant churches into the agency management system.7 This led to frequent power strug­gles between Catholics, Protestants, and US officials. The Office of Indian Affairs, or the Indian Office, which was headed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and operated within the Department of the



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Interior, was tasked with establishing partnerships with churches and religious organ­izations to operate the federal government’s schools. The Indian Office listed the vari­ous organ­izations and denominations operating ­these “contract schools”: “the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, and the American Missionary Association (Congregational) . . . ​the Friends, Lutherans, Unitarians, and Mennonites. The Episcopalians have a large school work among the Indians, which is assisted by the Government, but in only two instances in the way of formal contracts.” The Commissioner of Indian Affairs gave lofty praise to the Indian Office’s religious partners, specifically noting that “the Catholics, the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, and the Episcopalians have invested large sums” in constructing new schools, which paid dividends in the form of an “increase in enrollment and in attendance.” He judged the “management of t­ hese contract schools” as “in almost all cases excellent, and the good work which they are d­ oing has been referred to in the highest terms by inspectors, special agents, and private individuals who have visited them.”8 Many Catholics marched in lockstep with Protestants and most other white Americans in approving of Grant’s Peace Policy and the federal government’s forcible, violent removal of Native Americans to reservations. Catholic support for the Indian Wars and the reservation policy, even if not for the government’s ­handling of the missions, extended through the end of the c­ entury. Missionary priest Eli Washington John Lindesmith of Ohio, for example, demonstrated devotion to his Catholic faith and his country’s Native policies by serving as an Army chaplain, “in which capacity he campaigned with General [Nelson  A.] Miles in the famous Sitting Bull expedition.” Lindesmith’s Indian Wars chaplaincy, in addition to his ser­vice as a chaplain during the Civil War and his descent from a Revolutionary War veteran, gave him a firm purchase on the benefits of recognized membership in the American nation. This is evidenced by his invitation in 1912 to join the Sons of the American Revolution “as the society’s youn­gest member (in point of membership) . . . ​aged eighty-­four.”9 It is difficult to imagine such a society extending membership to a Catholic priest at the height of the nativist outbursts of the 1830s and 1840s. Just as immigrants from Ireland and Germany could assimilate into the American mainstream during the course of the nineteenth ­century, even native-­born Catholics such as Lindesmith could continue to engage in such a pro­cess during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Lindesmith represents a microcosm of a larger pro­cessual whitening and Americanizing of the entire Catholic Church. By serving loyally during the Civil and Indian Wars and by demonstrating their allegiance to the country’s imperial and nationalist ambitions, Catholics undermined prevailing

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understandings of what it meant to be an American, which traditionally associated that national identifier with Protestantism. More significantly, Catholics claimed a right to redefine the contours of the nation on their own terms. This is not to say that Catholics’ attempts at nation building ­were without obstacles. Regarding federal policy, Catholic leaders expected that their missionaries would be treated on an equal footing with their Protestant counter­parts. Instead of a cooperative, equitable funding scheme, though, Catholics perceived that they w ­ ere shortchanged by federal officials, who w ­ ere alleged by Catholics to have formed an alliance with Protestants. A Catholic commentator argued that in Grant’s Peace Policy, Protestants immediately grasped the “opportunity of carry­ing on their propaganda among the Indians with ­little or no cost to themselves, and of interfering with, and prob­ably compelling the total cessation of, the work of the Catholic Church among many of the tribes.”10 Catholic missionaries in the 1870s argued that President Grant’s denominational policy was being ­violated almost as soon as it was initiated. Major A. I. Dallas of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, who was stationed at Camp Apache in Arizona in 1872, wrote to a Catholic priest the following year to apprise him of the religious situation among the Apaches. Dallas related that for some time, local Apaches had requested that the army send them a Catholic priest for religious instruction and worship. When Dallas brought Rev. Antoine Ionvenceau of France to the camp, the “reception of ­Father Antoine by ­these savages was most enthusiastic,” a description that reveals si­mul­ta­neously the alleged desire among Native Americans for the Catholic faith and the racism inherent in many con­temporary depictions of Native p­ eoples. Significantly, Dallas claimed, “The Apache Indians I found also have a veneration for the Cross. A veneration to be looked for in vain among any savage tribe christianized [sic] by Protestant influences.” According to Dallas, Protestant missionaries neglected to imbue in their converts a reverence for the chief salvific tool of Chris­tian­ity. Additionally, the major argued, local Apaches seemed distinctly uninterested in Protestant missionaries themselves, for “whilst ­Father Antonio [sic] remained at the post, they thronged his tent and ­were ­eager to talk to him, whilst when the Rev. Mr. McFarland, a protestant [sic] minister had enimies [sic] ­there, they did not come at all.”11 The veracity of Dallas’s account cannot be verified, but its tenor and content would have found a warm reception among Catholic missionaries and in the offices of the BCIM. The testimony of Dallas, an army officer and a supposedly neutral observer of Native American religion, provided welcome ammunition for Catholic missionaries seeking to make the case that Catholicism and not Protestantism offered both Native Americans and the United States the surest ave­nue of salvation.



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Jesuit missionary J. C. Imoda, who worked in the Montana Territory with the Blackfeet—­the authors of a petition to the government in 1873 that w ­ ill be discussed ­later—­wrote to fellow Jesuit Jean Baptiste Abraham Brouillet, the first director of the BCIM, to let him know that while the federal government had designated the Catholic Church to oversee a par­tic­u­lar agency in Montana, just three months l­ ater, the Department of the Interior had backtracked and gave control of the agency to Methodists. This shocked Imoda, who argued that the mission “has not been derelict or inattentive to its duties.” Imoda wondered “Why an agency, the Indians belonging to which are in a considerable number Catholic and among who ­there is not a single Methodist or Protestant Indian of any denomination what­ever should be taken from our church and given to a denomination of which the Indian [sic] know nothing, has always been a mystery to me.” Although Imoda allowed the possibility that “[t]he Catholic agent may have been removed for personal reasons,” he saw the government’s decision as just one more example of federal officials favoring Protestants and working “to prejudice the claims of the Catholic Church.” Imoda related a personal encounter he had had with the local agent, William F. Ensign, who “refused [Imoda] permission to hold Divine ser­vice in the agency buildings at the Blackfeet agency.” Even though Ensign was apparently apol­ o­getic, Imoda considered the agent’s rationale for the barring of Catholic Mass on government property to be an admission that federal officials desired to block Catholic missionaries from influencing Native Americans. Ensign, according to Imoda, explained that he acted as he did b­ ecause “he was a Methodist appointee and was afraid” that giving the Jesuit priest access to the agency “might reveal the fact in the East that the Blackfeet Indians are Catholics.”12 The BCIM shared a similar account from 1879 when “a Catholic missionary was expelled from an Indian Reservation assigned to Protestants, for the sole reason that he was intruding upon a reservation occupied by another denomination.”13 ­Here, then, was one of the main pillars of Imoda’s and many other priests’ grievances over the federal government’s ­handling of religious education among Native Americans: officials in Washington, DC, and their representatives in the scattered agencies had partnered actively with Protestant churches in an attempt to undermine the growing demographic, religious, and po­liti­cal power of Catholics in the postbellum period. Without effective countermea­sures on the part of the Catholic Church, their tenuous grasp on influence in a society that still exhibited anti-­Catholic sentiments and nativism could very well be lost for good. In Catholics’ eyes, their church had pride of place not only among missionaries in the West but also in the larger pro­cess of American westward expansion. A

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Catholic commentator described the Sacred Heart Mission in the Oklahoma Territory as “a solitary monument in the undulating wilderness, extending aloft the beacon-­light of Chris­tian­ity, hope and civilization long before the opening of the country to white settlement.”14 Bishop Thomas L. Grace of St. Paul argued similarly in an 1873 letter to Charles  B. Ewing, who would become the first Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions the following year, that successful Catholic missionary activity in the West had a long history. This history began with “the Old French voyagers who intermarried with the natives,” events predating the founding of the United States, which implied that the Catholic Church had a greater claim on the welfare of Native Americans’ lives and souls than did Protestant churches. Grace related that the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a Protestant organ­ization, had abandoned its Minnesota missionary outposts of the 1830s by mid-­century and that many Native Americans of the area maintained their Catholic faith. He attributed Catholicism’s staying power to the established tradition of Catholicism among Native Americans, stretching back to the aforementioned “Old French voyagers,” to early Jesuit missionary work, and to the ­labors of priests who made an effort to become “acquainted with the language of the Indians and speak it fluently.”15 Grace found at least one Protestant clergyman to praise. This was the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, Henry Benjamin Whipple, who, Grace wrote, should be commended “for his zealous advocac [sic] of the Cause of the Indians before the Government in Washington.” Significantly, Grace argued, one of Whipple’s greatest strengths as a voice for Native Americans, a “voice [which] was potent where a Catholic would not be listened to,” was his non-­ Catholic status. Grace’s sentiment ­here reflected a wider concern among Catholic leaders of the late nineteenth ­century that federal officials in charge of Native affairs w ­ ere e­ ither indifferent to or adversarial t­ oward Catholic missionary and educational endeavors. Grace likely spoke for many Catholics of the period who took an interest in missionary work when he expressed his frustrations with the federal government: I have repeatedly in the last 14 years proposed to the Indian agent in Minnesota and to the department in Washington, to send priests and S­ isters to take charge of the education of the Indians if ­houses ­were provided for them and the simplest maintenance allowed them. ­These proposals though made in e­ very instance at the earnest solicitation of the Indian chiefs w ­ ere never even considered as far as I am aware, and this discouraged me from making further efforts or entertain [sic] even hopes.16



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Catholic bishop Ignatius Mrak of Marquette, Michigan, expressed a similar concern that while t­ here ­were approximately three times as many Catholics as Protestants among the Native American population around L’Anse, Michigan, “[t]he Methodists although in minority, w ­ ere always favored.”17 Catholics argued that Protestants worked to weaken the authority of Catholic missionaries on reservations out of a deep-­seated hatred for Catholicism and that they took out their anti-­Catholic aggression on Native Americans, who ­were caught in the ­middle of the sectarian ­battle for spiritual dominance. An 1877 article in the Catholic World argued that “the most cruel, per­sis­tent, and petty persecution has been waged against Catholic Indians u ­ nder the charge of Protestant agents, for the reason that they ­were Catholics.” Moreover, t­ hese same government officials, who should have been reasonably expected to uphold the Constitution, ­were, Catholics charged, attempting to destroy the “rights [Catholic priests] possessed as American citizens.”18 Archbishop James Roo­se­velt Bayley of Baltimore, who played an instrumental role in establishing the BCIM in 1873, attempted to shed light on the origins of the supposed alliance between Protestants and the federal government. Bayley argued that Protestants promised the government their unswerving loyalty and obedience, even when the government acted in unprincipled ways. Bayley saw this as hypocritical be­hav­ior, which he rejected as an impossibility on the part of the Catholic Church. The archbishop’s rhe­toric served as a potent inversion of the recurring accusation in American anti-­Catholic po­liti­cal history that Catholics, not Protestants, displayed the characteristics of servile followers and that Catholics, not Protestants, aimed to effect a fusion of church and state. Bayley lamented that Catholics would never get a fair hearing in the court of public opinion, which was predicated on “the im­mense po­liti­cal, office holding power of the Government, entirely on its side ­whether it does right or wrong.”19 The issue of perceived government bias in ­favor of Protestant missionaries was not confined to the Midwest and ­Great Plains. Bishop Jean-­Baptiste Lamy of the Diocese of Santa Fe also experienced combined federal-­Protestant interference in New Mexico. Lamy informed Charles Ewing in July 1873 that even though the territory’s more than eight thousand Catholic Pueblos, who “­were civilized and converted about 300 years ago,” w ­ ere being well served by priests and despite Lamy’s flock having “never received any help from the government,” federal officials financially supported a group of Presbyterian missionaries to begin teaching the Pueblos. Lamy claimed that it was not even the Catholic clergy who lodged a grievance over this federally funded Protestant invasion, but it was rather “[o]ur catholic Indians” who “remonstrated at

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once against such an incroachment [sic] of their right.” Lamy transmitted to Ewing a petition to the federal government that was initiated by fifteen Pueblo villages and their chiefs: We the subscribers thankful for the generosity of the Government in offering us a specified amount for the education of our c­ hildren respectfully represent that we w ­ ill cheerfully accept the teachers sent to us provided they be Catholics and can teach En­glish and Spanish to our ­children. Having been civilized and converted by Catholic missionaries 300 years ago, we are satisfied in our religion, and we know that the constitution of the U.S. guaranties [sic] to us the right to follow the dictates of our consciences we value our faith above all t­hings and we wish our ­children to be brought up in it which cannot be attained ­unless we have Catholic teachers. If we admitted other teachers we may with reason fear to have the same trou­bles and dissensions quarrels which now exist in one of our large villages, La Laguna. ­These serious difficulties are the consequence of the admission ­there of a protestant [sic] teacher.20 A similar petition appeared l­ater that year, this time originating with the Blackfeet. According to the petition, the regular Catholic missionary in the area was “refused the use of the agency buildings for the purpose of holding ser­vice ­there . . . ​while a large number of Catholic Indiasn [sic] w ­ ere camped around the agency.” The Blackfeet gathered outside the government’s buildings to attend Catholic Mass to demonstrate that they ­were “not Methodists.” The petitioners stressed to federal officials that they found such government interference in their participation in Catholic worship to be “entirely opposed to the religious equality granted by the Constitution of the United States.” This latter portion of the petition is significant on l­egal grounds ­because it provides a stirring example of Native Americans demanding constitutional civil liberties over fifty years before the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. The thirty-­four signatories concluded their petition by emphasizing again, “[A]s much as it is known to us, none of the Blackfeet Indians belong to the Methodist Church.”21 John O’Farrell of Salt Lake City, a Catholic layperson, related a similar account to Ewing in August 1873 of a priest and a Catholic agent being expelled from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho, with the result that “the Catholic Indians [­were] put in charge of a Methodist preacher.” O’Farrell claimed that the Native Americans w ­ ere “not satisfied” with this state of affairs and that they “want[ed] back their Catholic priest and Catholic Agent.” He intimated that the Native Americans w ­ ere discontented with the federal government. As he put it, “They do not want the G ­ reat F ­ ather at Washington to send any preacher to them, but a Catholic priest, nor any Agent to them but a Cath-



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olic Agent.” O’Farrell was confident that Ewing would achieve satisfaction for the Catholic Church through his lobbying efforts in the federal capital and that Catholic missionaries would return to their positions of prominence in the agencies, necessarily evicting their Protestant rivals in the pro­cess.22 In another petition authored by Catholic Native Americans in June  1873, which attacked federal-­Protestant collusion, the “chiefs, headmen, and heads of families belonging to the Nez Perce tribe of Indians” in Lapwai, Idaho Territory, affirmed their Catholicism to President Grant. They complained that their repeated requests for a Catholic church on their reservation had been unsuccessful. They demanded a building that could hold over five hundred congregants “and a ­house for our Black-­gown,” the local Catholic priest. In a period during which Native Americans experienced innumerable outrages perpetrated against them by the federal government, the US Army, and white settlers, the Nez Perce Catholics demanded that Grant provide, at the very least, protection for their religious practices. They resented the reservation agent, John  B. Monteith, whom they accused of dishonesty and alleged had informed them that “the ­Great Chief Grant wants us to be Presbyterians.” Their petition was endorsed by 127 “citizens and settlers of the Nez Perce Country,” who argued that “they deserve what they ask for, to wit: a church and a school of their own.”23 Monteith appeared to have misinterpreted the feelings of the Nez Perce in the period leading to the petition. The agent reported in August 1872 to Francis Amasa Walker, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, “During the past year the Indians of this tribe have been quiet and well disposed.” Monteith criticized “the superstition of the Indians” and mentioned that ­earlier that summer, he suspended “for cause” the Rev. H. T. Cowley, who headed the reservation’s school. Two months l­ater, Monteith reported that the Native Americans w ­ ere “highly pleased” with money granted by the federal government, some of which was earmarked for the construction of two churches.24 It is unknown if the money was misappropriated; if churches w ­ ere built, but w ­ ere not Catholic churches; if the Nez Perce petitioners had mischaracterized the controversy; or if the money was simply sitting unused, with no a­ ctual plan to build a church of any kind for the reservation. What is apparent, though, is that the agent and the reservation’s residents ­were not in agreement when it came to government appropriations and the aspirations and beliefs of the Nez Perce. A group of Osages of the Indian Territory also petitioned President Grant in June 1873 for a return of Catholic missionaries to their reservation. While the vast majority of ­these Osages ­were Catholics, the Catholic World newspaper of New York claimed that the local agency was ­under the control of Quakers. ­After receiving no response from the president, the Osage governor and other members of the nation traveled to Washington, DC, to meet with the

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assistant secretary of the interior to lodge a protest. This del­e­ga­tion complained that “[o]ur w ­ hole nation has grieved ever since t­hese missionaries have been taken away from us,” and the petitioners warned that the government’s attempts to bring civilization to the Osages would be for naught: “Since the missionaries have been taken away from us, we have done but ­little good and have made poor advancement in civilization and education.” Once again, their petition was met with silence.25 It is unclear how much of a role Catholic priests had in encouraging or overseeing the writing of ­these petitions. It is significant, though, that in the case of the Pueblos, Lamy referred to the petition writers as “[o]ur catholic Indians,” giving explicit voice to a paternalism that was pre­sent, ­whether above or below the surface, in many missionaries’ dealings with Native Americans. This paternal infantilizing of Native Americans was rife in the lit­er­a­ture produced by many writers, both Catholic and non-­Catholic, of the period. Historian Carol Berg argues that even when they had “the best of intentions, most missionaries failed to re­spect Indian culture for its own worth.”26 Lamy blamed a mendacious, anti-­Catholic federal agent, W. F. McArny, for fomenting the Protestant takeover of what the bishop considered his rightful spiritual domain. According to Lamy, McArny “paid well a friend of his as a protestant [sic] teacher; But never gave one cent for a Catholic teacher.” Lamy accused McArny of ­going beyond financial misfeasance, charging the federal agent with ­actual malfeasance in his encounters with the Pueblos: “This [sic] poor Catholic Indians of Laguna are insulted in their worship for their ceremonies and pictures. They have been even threatened to be punished if they would persist in their determination in not accepting protestant [sic] teachers.” T ­ here is no reason to doubt Lamy’s concern for the Native Americans in this case, but beyond their long-­term welfare and beyond the question of who—­ Catholics, Protestants, government officials, or none of the above—­actually had Native Americans’ best interests at heart, Lamy summed up his immediate concern, arguing that “it is nothing but just that the government should give us a chance the same as they give to protestant [sic].”27 H. Quigley, a Catholic missionary in Wisconsin, was frustrated by this perceived lack of fundamental fairness. He wrote directly to President Grant to obtain federal support for Catholic missions. Quigley also argued to Charles Ewing in 1873 that t­here w ­ ere double the number of Catholic Native Americans near La Pointe than had been previously figured and was indignant that on one reservation, a Protestant teacher was tasked with educating a population that was exclusively Catholic. Quigley used extraordinary language in a personal attack on this Protestant teacher, claiming she “was and is a ­woman of loose morals” who neglected her official duties. He indicated that he was



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merely speaking on behalf of the interests of the “Catholic Indians [who] prefer[ed] to bring up their c­ hildren in ignorance rather than send them to be taught by a wh—­—. I state ­things plainly.” At another school u ­ nder the control of Protestant missionaries ministering to a majority Catholic population, Quigley complained, “some old maids” earned a salary of $2,500 per year for providing education for the local ­children. “[A]ll the teaching the ­children get,” Quigley alleged, “is to help the said old ­woman [sic] to work, weed the garden and chop wood.” In the priest’s view, instead of receiving a Catholic education, Native Americans w ­ ere having foisted on them a shoddy, inferior version of the Protestant work ethic. The ultimate blame for this situation, though, did not rest with the Protestant missionaries but rather was to be located with the federal officials who allowed such corruption to occur. Quigley argued that the federal government gave Protestants “control of farm schools and an unlimited privilege to rob and defraud the Indians,” all of which was conducted u ­ nder the supervision of a federal agent named Clark, who was a “notorious drunkard.” If Quigley’s account is accurate, the most depressing part of this story was surely the fate of the Native Americans, who “in many instances starved ­under [Clark’s] neglect. Some committed suicide from famine.”28 Missionaries like Joseph Giorda, the Jesuit superior of the Indian Missions in the Rocky Mountains, kept precise tallies of the spiritual dispositions of the Native Americans in his region. Giorda wrote to Ewing in 1874, ­after the latter’s appointment as Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, to let him know that of the 715 Spokanes living in the vicinity of a planned government agency in Washington Territory—­one that Giorda heard was rumored to be placed in the hands of Protestants by Interior Department officials—391 (almost 55 ­percent) w ­ ere Catholics according to census figures from 1870. Giorda classified the remainder as ­either Protestants or “dreamers, i.e. of no form of Chris­ tian­ity.” He stressed to Ewing that he and the Catholic missionaries whose work he oversaw prided themselves on constructing a church for the Spokanes “without any help having been asked or received from Government,” which contrasted with the Protestants, who Giorda noted had no churches in the area.29 Giorda, however, seemed to have a short memory regarding his propensity to ask for government assistance in r­ unning his missions. Although the church for the Spokanes may have been funded in­de­pen­dently, in 1863, the Jesuit superior wrote to Hutchins, the agent for the Flathead in Portland, Oregon, to ask for an advance to pay “for the commencement and school implements.” Giorda remarked that, given “the practice of other Indian schools, ­there should be an appropriation for boarding, clothing, medical attendance, &c.” While Giorda may appear to have been grasping for as much money as he could to adequately run the missions, he also expressed philosophical and

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moral support for the government’s overall program, praising its “civilizing scheme” and remarking that “the poor Indians” depended on Hutchins’s “fatherly care, as well as the highly laudable intentions and dispositions of the United States government.”30 To priests such as Giorda and Quigley, the fruits of their years of missionary work seemed to be disappearing ­because of collusion between government officials and Protestant preachers and teachers. The Department of the Interior, which administratively ­housed the Board of Indian Commissioners, was not sympathetic to such Catholic complaints. In 1873, for instance, Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano and Felix R. Brunot, the Board of Indian Commissioners’ chairman, agreed that although t­ here may have been over one thousand Catholic Chippewas at the Lake Superior Indian Agency and even though the Catholic Church had maintained a missionary presence in the area since the seventeenth ­century, “it would be inexpedient to disturb the pre­ sent arrangement”—­which entailed the agency remaining u ­ nder Protestant control—­“­unless the agency is administered improperly, or in any m ­ atter detri­ mental to the welfare and best interests of the Indians.”31 Where Catholics identified religious prejudice, federal officials saw the continued, smooth functioning of government. Federal agents may have paid scant attention to Catholic grievances, but to the Catholic priests and bishops making complaints about the perceived unethical relationship between the US government and Protestant churches, ­these ­were not just petty gripes. For Catholics with an interest in their church’s missionary endeavors, this dispute went beyond spiritual m ­ atters and the welfare of Indigenous p­ eople and revolved around fundamental questions of equal membership in the national polity; religious liberty and freedom of worship; church-­state relations; and spiritual and cultural power. Such complaints came to a head when US Catholic prelates founded the BCIM in 1873 to c­ ounter perceived prejudice t­ oward Catholics and favoritism ­toward Protestants. The Catholic hierarchy appointed Charles Ewing, a Union general during the Civil War and member of the po­liti­cally prominent Ewing ­family of Ohio that counted among its members General William Tecumseh Sherman, as the Catholic missions’ principal representative in the nation’s capital.32 Archbishop Bayley chose Ewing for the job of Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions ­after his fellow prelates asked him “to appoint a responsible person residing in Washington, as their representative near the Department having charge” of Native American missions.33 Ewing described his office’s role as “the representative and the agent of the ­whole Catholic Missionary Church among the Indians.”34 The BCIM gave US Catholicism a more unified public face, which was fitting for a church that prided itself on orga­



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nizational solidity and chafed against internal fractures.35 Bayley expressed to Secretary of the Interior Delano that “­g reat injustice” had been “often done ­towards the Missions,” which Catholic bishops believed was predicated on “erroneous information sent to the [Interior] Department.”36 Somebody like Ewing, who was well positioned po­liti­cally and socially to tackle the difficult task of defending Catholic interests in Washington, DC, seemed like the ideal person for the job. Ewing justified the BCIM’s existence as “absolutely necessary, not only for the prosperity of our Missions, but to save them from utter ruin.”37 The survival of the Catholic Church’s “more than forty Mission Houses, with over three hundred stations, at which full 100,000 Indians are often visited and receive from our missionaries religious instruction and the sacraments of the Church,” was at stake in the face of repeated depredations visited on them, Catholics argued, from a corrupted federal government operating to set up Protestantism as the state religion of the country’s reservations.38 Most government agents, Ewing claimed, w ­ ere working actively to prevent the Catholic Church from ministering to Native Americans. He proclaimed that the principal “cause of the trou­bles that have come upon our Indian Missions, is the disregard, the practical denial, of the ­great princi­ple of religious liberty,” which, he argued, was itself part of the patrimony that Catholicism bestowed on the United States and which the Catholic Church was now forced to protect.39 In 1880, the BCIM argued to the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs that “the officers of the Government have no right to prescribe a form of worship for any tribe or nation ­under their control” and that Native Americans had a right to avail themselves of the constitutional protection of f­ree exercise of religion.40 The BCIM claimed success in its campaign for religious liberty when, in 1883, Hiram Price, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, announced that “any religious society is allowed to engage in missionary work upon any Indian reservation, provided they do not undertake to interfere with the conduct of Agency ­matters.”  41 Catholics appeared happy to accept rival Protestant missionaries at their agencies so long as they could enjoy the same privilege at Protestant agencies, an indication that by the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, Catholics ­were confident that they could compete successfully with their Pro­ testant rivals in the American religious market.42 Ewing explained that by establishing the BCIM, the Catholic Church was only ­doing what Protestant churches had already done. “The Protestant churches of the United States have their Boards of Missions,” Ewing noted, “which are their representatives and agents, who speak and act in their names, secure unity of action in the management of their affairs, and, keeping constantly informed as to their means and wants, direct their action.” 43

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The fundamental prob­lem, as Ewing saw it, was not with Grant’s Peace Policy, which was embraced warmly by Catholics and Protestants alike, but rather arose out of its poor administration and from the creeping of anti-­ Catholicism into the structures of the US government.44 ­These shortcomings, Ewing argued, had ironically brought about a shameful state of affairs in which Catholics ­were “in danger of being forced to abandon four-­fifths of [their] Missions by the very policy that should have increased their number.” 45 The Catholic Commissioner for Indian Affairs claimed that the Catholic Church, “­because it was the first and only successful missionary among the Indians,” was deprived illegally of the power to appoint “more than thirty agents.” The government had given this power “to favorite Protestant Churches, by whom they are still held despite the protests of the Indians and of our Church.” 46 The BCIM maintained that if Grant’s Peace Policy had been caried out faithfully, the Catholic Church would have received more government agencies than any other denomination. This was b­ ecause in 1870, when the policy went into effect, Catholics “had at their several missions something over 100,000 Catholic Indians or Indians of Catholic ancestry; while missionaries of all other denominations together claimed only some 15,000.” Catholics, therefore, should have been entitled to the control of thirty-­eight of seventy-­two agencies since they “­were the first to establish themselves” at ­these locations. Yet they received only eight agencies, and the remainder to which they felt entitled w ­ ere handed over to Protestants.47 Catholic author Rachel Ewing Sherman argued that “this system would have operated well in a country entirely Catholic.” Even on paper, however, the program should have worked to the Catholic Church’s advantage since Catholic Native Americans or ­those of Catholic descent, Ewing claimed, outnumbered their Protestant counter­parts.48 J. B. Agnozzi, pro-­secretary of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, held out hope that federal officials, in handing over the agencies to Protestants, w ­ ere operating “with a view to the public good, as it seemed to them,” but he also recognized the possibility that they w ­ ere 49 “actuated by religious prejudice.”  The Catholic World wrote of the rapaciousness of “the sects”—­that is, Protestants, as opposed to “The Church,” meaning Catholicism—as they snatched up as many of the Catholic agencies as they could in the early days of Grant’s Peace Policy. The newspaper declared, “So fierce was their onslaught, and so rapidly ­were their demands conceded by the then commissioner [of Indian affairs], that, almost before the authorities of the church had been informed of what was g­ oing on, no less than 32 of the 40 agencies which, by any fair interpretation of the President’s policy, should have been assigned to Catholic care, ­were divided among the sects.” Catho-



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lics feared that if their church was deprived of the ability to appoint agents to reservations with majority Catholic populations, priests would be expelled and forced to maintain what­ever churches they could afford to build “[o]n the borders of the reservation.” The result would be that “Catholic Indians on the reservation might be—as they have been—­forbidden to cross the line in order to visit their priests and to receive the sacraments.”50 Not only had Catholics lost what they considered their rightful missions, but, as Bishop James McGolrick of Duluth argued at the Columbian Catholic Congress, many Catholic Native Americans “­were handed over, body and soul, to t­hose who w ­ ere in many cases hostile to Catholicity.”51 Additionally, the Native Americans, Ewing maintained, had become entirely dependent for their survival on the increasingly infrequent benevolence of federal officials. ­These officials, moreover, may not have even been qualified for the job of reservation agent since “­these appointments w ­ ere the rewards for po­liti­cal work.”52 One of Ewing’s relatives argued similarly that before the Peace Policy, “Indian agents . . . ​­were appointed from among the friends of the existing administration, which took this way of rewarding not a few of its po­liti­cal henchmen.”53 Patronage and the spoils system had resulted in state-­sanctioned corruption, through which “the Indians received but a small per cent. of the money or other annuities sent out to them.” This mishandling of federal monies by the government officials tasked with properly distributing them, according to Ewing, led to President Grant’s decision “to call upon the Christian Churches of the United States to help him in caring for the Indians, by uniting the Christian influence of the Missions to the influence of the Government.”54 Far from being only a state establishment of religion on the reservations, Ewing explained that the denominational policy was also a program of civil ser­vice reform and a church-­led war on government corruption and financial mismanagement. This is not, however, to discount the impor­tant role that religion played in the government’s administration of the reservations. The Peace Policy, according to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, “ ‘contemplates the moral and religious culture of the Indians,’ ” and Ewing reminded the public that “the Board of Indian Commissioners in their official report, state that the agents and employees” of the government “should be honest Christian men and w ­ omen, who w ­ ill make successful missionaries, and who, while pursuing their avocations in a faithful manner, ­will, by precept and example, preach chris­tian­ity [sic] and morality.”55 Within a month of his appointment as Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Ewing already took issue with the Department of the Interior’s decision to place Catholic Pottawatomies of St. Mary’s Mission in Kansas u ­ nder the watch of Quaker missionaries. Ewing wrote to the Interior Secretary to express

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his disappointment since the Pottawatomies’ Catholicism, the Catholic Commissioner argued, was beyond doubt. Ewing presented testimony from multiple government agents, but not from Pottawatomies, to demonstrate that Catholicism had maintained an institutional presence among the Pottawatomies for almost forty years, while the Baptists had already given up their missionary work in the area. Ewing must have taken par­tic­u­lar satisfaction in drawing the Interior secretary’s attention to the fact that the Baptist school at the mission received more money from the federal government than did its Catholic counterpart, yet still failed b­ ecause, Ewing argued, “the Pottawatomie made known clearly their preference for the Catholic Church by sending their ­children to Fr. Schultz and thus breaking down the Protestant mission, and rendering it altogether useless.” Ewing told the Interior secretary that if the government cared about the “best interests of ­these Indians it must return them to the care of the Catholic church [sic] or count all evidence as worthless and set down the reports of the Indian Bureau which I have quoted as false from beginning to end.”56 The Interior secretary’s choice, Ewing suggested, was s­ imple: would he believe the accounts of his own government agents and support Catholics’ claims to the missions, or would he discount federal reports supporting the Catholic Church? Ewing placed the secretary in an unenviable position, for if he chose the latter, he would confirm what many Catholics already believed, namely, that the Peace Policy was revealing itself to be tilted in f­avor of Protestants, while choosing the former could alienate Protestant missionary organ­izations. Catholic leaders did not rely solely on the work of prominent lobbyists such as Ewing to strengthen their home missions. Ewing, in a message to the Catholics of the United States shortly ­after his appointment as Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, suggested that he considered them his partners. To impress on his coreligionists the gravity of his mandate from their church’s prelates, Ewing told them that “[t]he Protestant churches that have responded to the call of the President, not one of them having a tenth of the missions that we have, and the majority of them having but very few Indians belonging to their creeds, make liberal appropriations for the prosecution of this work, and the wealthy members of t­ hese churches make liberal donations to this cause.” The Catholic commissioner urged his fellow Catholics to give generously and to follow “[t]he Quakers [who] give $20,000 a year for their Indian Missions; the Episcopalians $50,000, and the Presbyterians and other Protestant churches in proportion.” Ewing’s uses of boosterism to demonstrate the numerical superiority of both Catholic missions and Native American converts and his request for donations to avoid falling ­behind Protestant rivals would, he maintained, ensure the success of the Catholic home mission proj­ect. Moreover, Ewing argued, the missions had already “earned by long



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and faithful ser­vices” Catholics’ monetary support, “which they must have to save them from destruction.”57 The hierarchy also appealed directly to Catholic laypeople, priests, and religious to accept some of the burden of bringing the Catholic faith to both Native Americans and African Americans, whom the hierarchy considered to “have very special claims upon our charity.”58 The US bishops who assembled in 1884 at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore “directed that on the first Sunday of Lent in each year a special collection be held . . . ​for benefit of the negro and Indian missions.”59 As early as 1875, a group of Catholics from Washington, DC, in­de­pen­dently or­ga­nized the Catholic Indian Missionary Association. The organ­ization was “composed of persons contributing annually the sum of one dollar or more for the benefit of the Catholic Indian Mission.” Rachel Ewing Sherman explained that the association’s mission was “the preservation of the faith among the Indians heretofore converted to Catholicity, and the Christianizing and civilizing of all the Indian tribes in the United States.” However, their concern was not simply for the spiritual welfare of the Native Americans. The ­women who founded this organ­ization, much like the officers of the BCIM and the missionary priests, w ­ ere also dismayed that Catholics w ­ ere “on e­ very hand outstripped by the dif­fer­ent religious denominations in zeal for the Indians.” ­These denominations had “at their disposal the greatest influence, ability, energy, and means, and this latter mainly through the earnest work of their w ­ omen; while we are idle, and give nothing.” ­After the BCIM’s first de­cade in operation, the bureau had received as donations, from the Catholic Indian Missionary Association and other sources, almost $35,000. The monies collected by the association, which ­were gathered as the Catholic Indian Mission Fund, ­were placed ­under the stewardship of the Board of Control, whose first members ­were appointed in 1876 by Archbishop Bayley of Baltimore and whose fiscal operations would be monitored by the Archdiocese of New York. The board appears to have managed the Catholic Indian Mission Fund well. The fund was still out of debt by the end of 1883, and the money raised by the Catholic Church for the support of the US home missions had substantially expanded the Catholic mission schools system from just “2 Boarding and 5 Day Schools, supported by the United States Government at an expense of $8,000” to eigh­teen boarding schools a de­cade l­ater. ­These Catholic expenditures w ­ ere aided by government support in the amount of $74,320 for nine Catholic agencies during the 1873–1874 fiscal year alone. Catholic w ­ omen, while playing a leading role in organ­izing their church’s campaign for donations to the Catholic schools, w ­ ere notably absent 60 from the Board of Control. Although the Office of Indian Affairs and the BCIM generally, albeit perhaps begrudgingly, tolerated each other, despite accusations from Catholics

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that the federal government demonstrated anti-­Catholic bias and favoritism ­toward Protestants, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs flipped ­these accusations. Apparently, according to the commissioner’s office, ­there had been made a “charge that in making school contracts the Indian Bureau has discriminated in ­favor of the Catholics.” This surely must have come as a surprise to the Catholic hierarchy and the BCIM, which expended much time and effort to obtain relief from what they perceived to be discrimination in f­ avor of non-­Catholics. The commissioner wrote in 1888, “Catholics [had] contracts for the greatest number of pupils,” which was “not due to discrimination in their f­avor, but to the fact that they have expended larger sums of money than any other denomination in the erection of school-­buildings and in the establishment of schools, and therefore have been enabled to accommodate more pupils ­under contract.” T ­ hese expenditures by the Catholic Church ­were indeed substantial. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs shared figures reported by the BCIM indicating that the latter organ­ization “expended $115,000 for Indian school buildings and furnishings during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1887, and that the ­whole amount invested by the Catholics in such buildings is about $1,000,000”—­evidence of growing Catholic financial power in the continued reconstruction of the West.61 For its part, the federal government rejected claims that t­here was any discrimination against Catholics in its administration of Native policy. President Benjamin Harrison himself wrote to Archbishop John Ireland in 1889 to protest any accusation that he had “appointed any one to office ­because he was a member of any par­tic­u­lar church communion; nor do I intend that any one now in the public ser­vice ­shall be prejudiced by reasons of religious beliefs.” Harrison reminded Ireland of his rec­ord of Catholic appointments and signaled how much he valued the archbishop’s opinions, also a signal of the rising Catholic influence in Washington, DC.62 Rev. D. Manley, a priest writing for the Catholic World, admitted that in 1891, the Catholic missions had received $363,349 of a total of $570,218 of government spending on the contract schools. Manley was proud that his church’s missions accounted for over 60 ­percent of t­ hese expenditures. It was evidence for the priest of the success of Catholic missions relative to their Protestant rivals, which he argued led to frivolous complaints that the Interior Department had demonstrated “undue ­favor” ­toward his coreligionists and “unfair discrimination against Protestants.”63 This was very dif­fer­ent from the situation just a de­cade ­earlier, when the Catholic Young Men’s National Union argued, Not a single Catholic representative is to be found in e­ ither (1) the committees on Indian Affairs of the two Houses of Congress, which frame



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the laws; (2) the Board of Indian Commissioners, which shapes the administrative policy in accordance with the supposed philanthropic p­ eople of the country; (3) the Indian Bureau, which determines and directly administers the policy of the Government, or (4) the corps of Indian inspectors, which investigates charges of maladministration or grievances. The young Catholic men ­were convinced that the Peace Policy had for “the past thirteen years . . . ​been administered by and in the interest of the Protestant churches.”64 By the end of the de­cade, however, Manley and ­others seemed pleased with the general trend in the administration of the contract schools system. Manley warned Catholics, though, that the entire edifice “rest[ed] upon a foundation of sand, inasmuch as it depends on politicians and politics, and t­ hese are as changeable as the winds.”65 Senator Henry  M. Teller of Colorado argued similarly in Congress on July 25, 1890, in f­avor of the Catholic mission schools and to reject claims that Protestants w ­ ere suffering as a result of favoritism shown t­ oward the Catholic Church by government officials: “­There has been . . . ​a good deal of complaint in the country that the Catholic Church had monopolized a large portion of the educational facilities for Indians. . . . ​I have observed . . . ​that the Catholics have been the most successful educators of the Indians of any ­people in the country.” Jesuit priest Lawrence Benedict Palladino interpreted this to mean that “Catholics have had more contract schools b­ ecause they have been more successful in educating the Indians,” and they did so “at less cost to the Government and the ­people.”66 This challenged the common Catholic refrain that ­there was a conspiracy afoot in which federal officials allied with Protestants to deprive Catholics of their mission schools. At the same time, this information substantiates the argument that by the Gilded Age, the Catholic Church was well on its way to achieving a significant degree of prominence and influence in public life in the United States. Its institutional wealth and demographic power ­were only increasing as the end of the ­century approached, as was its ability to influence the work of late nineteenth-­century nation building. Despite such evidence that the Catholic missions w ­ ere d­ oing well u ­ nder the contract system by the end of the 1880s, many Catholics still perceived, as Palladino described it, “a narrow, bigoted, and, let us say the word, anti-­Catholic spirit with regard to Indian schools” that had reemerged “­under the name of non-­sectarianism.” Palladino attacked the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for veiling anti-­Catholicism ­behind the cover of supposedly secular education, which would manifest itself, Palladino claimed, in the teaching of irreligion to Native American students.67 Historian Francis Paul Prucha explains that by the 1890s, Protestants, who had been strong supporters of the contract system and

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a central place for religious denominations in the administration of reservations, became the contract system’s chief opponents. They saw evidence of growing Catholic prominence in schooling for Native p­ eople, most clearly evidenced by Catholics receiving “by far the largest part of the funds granted to contract schools.” This, coupled with a substantial increase of Catholic immigrants from southern and central Eu­rope in the same period, “led to a serious questioning of the ­whole system.”68 The anti-­Catholic American Protective Association (APA), according to historian Harry J. Sievers, acted as the “moving spirit b­ ehind the reduction and abolition of the contract school,” and ironically, the APA’s victory led to a backlash from Catholics that may have played a role in President Benjamin Harrison’s defeat in his reelection bid in 1892.69 Protestants began calling for secular education in an attempt to head off Catholic missionaries before they became too power­ful, and Catholics argued that this would result in secular education in name only. Catholics maintained that this dubiously secular education would be the same sort that predominated during the school wars of the nineteenth c­ entury—­that is, schooling with a distinctly Protestant bent.70 Prucha explains, “­Little by ­little, Congress wore away the contract school system. In 1896 the funds ­were reduced to eighty per cent of the previous year, and by 1900 the government support of church-­run schools for the Indians was cut off altogether.”71 The BCIM confirmed the dire situation facing the schools, noting that “[a]fter 1895 the Government appropriation was ­every year reduced by twenty per cent., and, in consequence, the number of ­children attending the schools gradually grew smaller,” from 2,995 students in 1896 to 2,000 students in 1900. The bureau explained to Catholics that ­unless they dug deep into their pockets to support their church’s home missions, they would lose ground against the “Protestants of ­every description,” who “seem to find but ­little difficulty in raising ample funds for missionary purposes.” Significantly, the BCIM’s acting director, Rev. William  H. Ketcham, connected his bureau’s b­ attle with Protestants in the western missions to his church’s related war for religious power in the American overseas empire. In an appeal to US Catholics to support reservation schools, Ketcham warned, “At the pre­sent time the Protestants of this country are enthusiastically engaged in collecting large sums of money to be used in perverting the Catholics of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands.”72 Archbishops James Gibbons of Baltimore, John Murphy of New York, and Edmond F. Prendergast of Philadelphia, writing in the second de­cade of the twentieth ­century, also made a connection between Catholic reservations and Philippine missions, arguing that Catholics had the moral obligation to support all their church’s missionary endeavors, “­whether at home or abroad.” They warned their flock to avoid ­going the way of “the Pro­



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testant Churches of the olden times,” which, instead of tending faithfully to their missionary proj­ects, had supposedly given themselves over to the vices of “plea­sure” and “ambition.”73 The Catholic-­Protestant strug­gles in the US West and in the American extraterritorial colonies ­were, in Catholic leaders’ estimation, one and the same. Similarly, in 1902, the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian ­Children, which the BCIM oversaw, began issuing the Indian Sentinel. This publication was produced to draw Catholics’ attention to the missionary work being carried out by priests and ­sisters on reservations and in schools across the Midwest and West and to provide a forum for Native Americans to offer their perspectives on religious education and the Catholic faith. In the inaugural ­annual edition, the society appealed to Catholics to “Help Save the Indian ­Children!” by donating just twenty-­five cents per year, presumably a small enough sum of money to allow ordinary men and ­women to support the society’s work, and by praying for the society. Gibbons assured his fellow priests that the “excellence” of the society’s work was self-­evident and that a lack of support for the society’s missionary proj­ects would lead to one inexorable conclusion: “the loss of many c­ hildren to the Faith.”74 Archbishops Dennis Dougherty of Philadelphia, Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, and Patrick J. Hayes of New York issued a similar appeal in 1924, assuring Catholics that while they ­were “not unmindful of [their] past generosity, still, it is manifest that comparatively ­little is being done in our country for our Indian and Negro Missions.” Dougherty, Curley, and Hayes emphasized the monumental task of supporting the over five hundred thousand Indigenous Catholics living in dioceses with missions being funded by the Catholic Church. This was funding that seemed to always fall short of providing missionaries with the resources they needed.75 Although the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, through the shift away from sectarian schools, sought allegedly to Americanize the Native Americans, Palladino argued that to secularize the schools would amount “to eliminat[ing] the one f­actor without which the civilization of the red man is an utter impossibility.”76 In the commissioner’s proposed plan to move Native American students from religious, contract schools to government-­operated, secular institutions, Palladino saw only one inevitable result: “Catholic Indian youths are to be driven back to moral and religious barbarism, whence Chris­tian­ity rescued them through infinite toil and sacrifice.”77 The federal government, Palladino argued, was de-­Americanizing the Native Americans, and it fell to the Catholic Church to complete the connected tasks of Americanizing and Christianizing the ­children attending Catholic schools. ­Legal scholar Mark E. Brandon argues that if the federal government was attempting sincerely to assimilate Native Americans into white American society, then “[s]chools ­were

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essential” to accomplish that task. Brandon notes that this would only work “if they ­were effective,” which they w ­ ere not. “In truth,” Brandon argues, “most Indian schools w ­ ere a travesty.” The Peace Policy and the government’s associated partnership with Christian missionaries operated for the Native Americans, Brandon points out, as “a double-­edge sword; for, having sequestered most of the tribes, the United States now tried to demolish them.”78 Logically, then, the BCIM and its Protestant counter­parts ­were implicated in this campaign of social and cultural destruction of the Native Americans, a historical irony for Catholics in light of the fact that throughout the nineteenth ­century, historian Philip Jenkins argues, Protestants’ “anti-­Catholic assumptions s­ haped views of Indian religion.”79 To bolster his argument that the Catholic missions w ­ ere effective and did not need to be eliminated by the allegedly anti-­Catholic Office of Indian Affairs, Palladino, in his 1892 pamphlet, “Education for the Indian,” quoted approvingly from a speech given by Senator George Vest of Missouri on May 12, 1884, on the status of Catholic missions in Montana. Vest visited the missions at the behest of the US House of Representatives. The senator reported to his colleagues that during his trip, he “saw but one ray of light on the subject of Indian education.” He reminded the Senate, “I am a Protestant—­born one, educated one, and expect to die one—­but I say now that the system a­ dopted by the Jesuits is the only practical system for the education of the Indian, and the only one that has resulted in anything at all.”80 To further establish his bona fides as a good, Protestant American, Vest noted that he did “not speak with any sort of denominational prejudices in f­ avor of the Jesuits. I was taught to abhor the ­whole sect. I was raised in that good old-­school Presbyterian Church that looked upon the Jesuits as very much akin to the devil.” According to Vest, the Jesuits mastered the colonization of the West and the civilization of the Native Americans. This indicated that that the Jesuits had become the quin­ tes­sen­tial teachers of what it meant to be an American. It may have pained Vest to admit, again, “as a Protestant,” that where the Native Americans “had Protestant missionaries they had not made a single solitary advance ­toward civilization—­not one.” Catholics must have been pleased to hear a Protestant of significant po­liti­cal standing speak so positively about the Jesuits, who had been regarded in dark, conspiratorial terms by anti-­Catholic forces for some time.81 “The Jesuits,” Vest declared, “have the key to the ­whole prob­lem,” which depended on establishing patriarchy and h ­ ouse­hold management among the Native Americans through the use of “boarding-­schools and industrial schools upon the Reservations.” Vest explained that the Jesuits instituted equal education for boys and girls in their reservation schools, which graduated an equal number of both. This resulted in the following: “boys and girls are both



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educated, [and] by their similarity of tastes and by their advance in civilization, they become husband and wife,” at which point the priests and the government partnered to “build them a ­little ­house, break up a piece of ground, and the single c­ ouple became a nucleus of civilization and of Chris­tian­ity.” Vest envisioned a complementarity of the sexes, arguing that “[y]ou must educate both sexes in order that the one ­shall support the other, in order that they may go out to ­battle against barbarism hand in hand.” The Jesuits, Senator Vest explained, won the “­battle against barbarism” in their missions.82 Disturbingly, the priests achieved this victory by keeping Native American ­children from their families. Palladino quoted Senator Vest, who argued approvingly that “[i]t is utterly impossible . . . ​to educate an Indian if you let him go back to his f­ amily each day.” The reason, Vast maintained, was that “Indians are utterly averse to the idea that a boy should work.”83 Palladino concurred in this racist depiction of Native Americans as lazy non-­producers, writing, “The Indian has a g­ reat, deep, natu­ral aversion to work and manual exercise of any kind,” which must be destroyed by way of continuous, industrial training and manual ­labor. Palladino opposed educating the Native Americans in any subjects beyond the most basic training in “spelling, reading, and writing with the rudiments of arithmetic,” which he argued “would be detrimental, not beneficial” since it would “encourage [Native Americans’] natu­ral indolence.”84 Charles Ewing similarly propagated some of the same rhe­toric that had been used in the earliest days of Eu­ro­pean colonization in the Amer­i­cas to justify seizing land from Native Americans.85 Most Native Americans ­were “­children of nature,” Ewing argued, “and take from her open hands what she offers, knowing no rights of property in the individual, beyond the most common articles and ­things of life.” He continued, “They have no artificial mea­ sure of values, or mode of transferring titles and, consequently have no commerce, beyond what is sustained between contiguous tribes, by the barter of animals and the products of the chase.”86 Reverend Manley also criticized the “experiment of book-­learning” for Indigenous students, raising the specter of Native Americans’ return to a state of savagery: “Educated Indians, when left to shift for themselves, fare as the vegetables of our gardens when remanded to the freedom of nature. They soon become wild again.”87 Native Americans, with few exceptions, ­were not being trained for equal membership in the American nation, but rather for lives in the low-­skilled working class. In the face of families’ potential objections to having their ­children removed from their h ­ ouse­holds and taken to work u ­ nder the supervision of priests, a key component of the government’s Peace Policy, Palladino assured readers that the home of a Native American, “is but a complex of positively uncivilizing forces.”88 Benedictine priest Martin Marty complained

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that placing Indigenous ­children in mission schools would be useless if they ­were “permitted at frequent intervals to return to their rude f­ amily circles in which existing evils have not been remedied.”89 Any complaints lodged by the ­children’s parents, then, would be overturned by the missionaries as illegitimate since, in the latter’s eyes, the concern of the Catholic Church for the welfare of Native American ­children was self-­evidently stronger than that of the ­children’s ­actual families. Senator Vest agreed that “it is simply impossible to do anything for t­ hese ­people, or to advance them one single degree u ­ ntil you take their ­children away.”90 Palladino made one allowance for familial involvement in the reservation schools. The boarding schools themselves would not force ­children to relocate but would rather be situated near the students’ homes so that “the parents can see their ­children daily at church, in the class-­room, at play, at work in the shop or in the field; and, in case of sickness, can sit up with them, care for them, and watch at their bedside.” The priest even argued that “no parent on earth was ever more fond of their c­ hildren” than ­were Native American parents. This was a surprising claim in a period when the cult of domesticity among white, middle-­class Americans was strengthening and when parents in ­these homes regarded their ­children as innocent objects of devotion to be ­shaped and molded into carriers of bourgeois ethics, instead of serving merely as ­labor power to support their ­house­holds.91 It is troubling that Palladino could declare that Native American homes ­were not actually homes in the white, middle-­class mold yet still recognize that Indigenous parents wished to see their c­ hildren grow to maturity and care for them in their times of need. This may appear to have contradicted Ewing’s instruction that the contract schools should only “educate the ­children in the faith of their parents.”92 At the same time, though, it seems that Ewing contemplated serving only Native Americans who w ­ ere already Catholics or who thought of converting to Catholicism. Such ideological inconsistencies ­were common among missionaries of the postbellum period, and Palladino attempted to resolve this seeming discrepancy by arguing that Native Americans’ parental love was nothing more than “a natu­ral and necessary consequence of [their] uncivilized state and condition.” In the priest’s view, Native Americans’ ­family values represented the height of illogic and of “man’s animal nature unchastened and unrestrained by right reason and higher motives.”93 Even when appearing to praise their charges, missionaries could easily turn their compliments into backhanded insults designed to dehumanize ­children and their families and to justify the Catholic Church’s participation in the federal government’s subjugation of the Native Americans—­a rhetorical justification that would also be used by US Catholic colonizers in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth ­century.



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Above all, many Catholic missionaries and BCIM officials seemed to regard their collective role in the West as being the one party responsible for bringing the frontier ­under civilized control, and they characterized Protestants, in contrast, as purveyors of irreligion and barbarism. As opposed to the allegedly venal, immoral, and criminal federal agents and Protestant missionaries who directed Native affairs, Catholic priests portrayed themselves as the prototypical, industrious, morally upright American pioneers who opened the West for Manifest Destiny and late nineteenth-­century US imperialism. Whereas Protestants and government bureaucrats sought to put an end to Christian education on the reservations in f­ avor of nonbelief or even anti-­ Christianity, Catholics argued, it was the Catholic Church that stood alone in defense of Christian civilization, religious liberty, and ordered democracy. Walter Elliott, a member of Isaac Hecker’s Paulist F ­ athers, delivered a paper at the Columbian Catholic Congress in 1893 entitled “Missionary Work of the Church in the United States” in which he identified the characteristics of a successful Catholic missionary. ­These ­were not virtues one might expect to find delineated in the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a papal encyclical, a pronouncement from Propaganda Fide in Rome, or a handbook produced by the BCIM. Instead, Elliott suggested, the proper qualities of a Catholic missionary ­were “the American virtue of self-­control, in­de­pen­dence of character, love of liberty and of intelligence,” which the missionary must make to “shine out with a Catholic lustre.” “To them,” Elliott continued, “must be added other natu­ral virtues dear to our countrymen, such as truthfulness, candor, temperance, industry, fair dealing.” Elliott contrasted t­ hese loyal American Catholic missionaries with the “[s]elfishness” endemic to Protestantism, which “proved its ruin.”94 The westward expansion that so many white Americans celebrated throughout the nineteenth ­century was viewed by them as divinely ordained and as a positive good for ­those ­peoples who became subject populations of the United States through both interior and extraterritorial expansion and conquest. Whereas in his 1893 address to the meeting of the American Historical Association—­which, like Elliott’s, also took at place at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago—­Frederick Jackson Turner looked back on American expansion and saw successive stages pushing back the frontier, beginning with hunters and traders, Catholic commentators writing at the same time flipped Turner’s Frontier Thesis on its head by pointing out that Catholic missionaries operated across borderlands far in advance of Protestant colonists. Charles Ewing argued that religious liberty was a concept “that Catholics first proclaimed, and alone maintained on this continent, u ­ ntil it won advocates and fi­nally became a part of our National Constitution.”95 Catholics demanded,

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in effect, that non-­Catholics recognize the formative role played by Catholicism in the creation of, as Turner put it, “a new product that is American.”96 For some Catholic missionaries, mitigating or eliminating the threat posed by Protestant rivals was not always just a pleasant by-­product of their work in the American West but rather seemed to serve as a primary motivator for their missionary experiences. Any opportunity to share the stories of Catholic successes in the face of Protestant opposition was taken with enthusiasm. Even though such accounts may have been occasionally exaggerated or fabricated, the under­lying idea of Protestants as interlopers whose plots to steal Native Americans from Catholic salvation could be foiled only by faithful, selfless, patriotic Catholics was a strong one in postbellum American Catholic rhe­toric. Eufaula, for instance, in the Indian Territory, was the site of a Catholic church founded in 1892 by William Ketcham, a priest and ­later director of the BCIM. To redirect attention from Eufaula’s Catholics, who composed a distinct minority of the town’s population and who planned to conduct a “­g reat cele­ bration” at their church with Bishop Theophile Meerschaert of the Indian Territory in attendance, Eufaula’s “Methodus Preachers” announced that they would be holding a rival cele­bration. According to a Catholic author, God favored Eufaula’s Catholics over their Protestant counter­parts, demonstrating this by “mov[ing] his ­little fin­ger, and all ­things turned out for the best.” Apparently, the Catholic writer explains, God’s hand moved to let loose the rains of heaven, which ruined the Methodist cele­bration and inspired Eufaula’s residents, including the many non-­Catholics among them, to take their chances on the far more comfortable and drier Catholic event. One leading Methodist was reported as saying that “I met the [Catholic] Bishop last eve­ning; he seems to be a very nice man; I d­ on’t think it ­will hurt us to go to the Catholic church ­today.”97 This may appear to be a seemingly trivial and perhaps fictional episode, but it is revealing of a strong current of Catholic thought of the day that regarded Catholics as God’s favored ­people, in contradistinction to the Protestants who, though numerically superior, did not represent the interests of the United States. One Catholic author named T.M. took Protestant missionaries to task for not serving the Native Americans they hoped to convert. Protestants’ removals of visual depictions of Christian teachings from their churches, T.M. explained, may have rendered the religion illegible to potential or ­actual converts without the ability to read the Bible on their own. Not only was the theological structure of Protestantism, in this author’s view, suspect at best, but the physical architecture and interior decorations of Protestant churches may have also been guilty of leading Native Americans astray from salvation. T.M. argued that the alleged weaknesses of Protestant missions in the West had their



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roots in the Reformation. “The vandalism of the ‘reformers,’ ” T.M. wrote, “stripped not only the churches of painting and statuary, but what is far worse, it stripped the hearts of their followers of all reverence for the church as the ­house of God.” The Reformation’s negative effects—­ namely, religious illiteracy—­stretched, T.M. claimed, from early modern Eu­rope to the Mexican-­US borderlands of the late nineteenth ­century. Betraying a significant degree of cultural and racial supremacy, T.M. portrayed a stark dichotomy that favored the spiritual health of Mexican Catholics over the spiritual decay of Native American Protestants, due principally to Catholics’ use of icons and other visual aids. The author wrote, “The illiterate Mexican may enter any of the churches of his country, and read the story of his redemption. It is ­there before him in picture-­language. How much more fortunate in this re­spect is the Catholic Aztec than his dusky Protestant neighbor on this side of the river.” Throwing in an insult t­ oward Protestants for good mea­sure, T.M. claimed that Native Americans who had been deceived by Protestant missionaries, who T.M. described as “religious cranks,” strug­gled “to gather up some of the crumbs of religion, which drop from the lips of a ‘Rev. Brudder,’ who strives to spell and thumb through a chapter ‘ob de Holy Bible.’ ”98 Many Catholics regarded themselves as having a divinely sanctioned role to play in American life, which was to unite the country’s diverse ­peoples and immigrant communities u ­ nder the banner of Catholicism. This was especially fitting, in their eyes, given their church’s formative role in the colonization of the Amer­i­cas. At a four hundredth anniversary cele­bration of Christopher ­Columbus’s arrival in the Amer­i­cas—­also the event commemorated by the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893—­the Benedictines of the Sacred Heart Mission in present-­day Oklahoma conducted a Mass in Columbus’s honor that was celebrated by “a countryman of Columbus . . . ​a genuine Genoese.” This Italian priest was joined by priests and assistants representing a wide array of nationalities: “Italy and France, Holland and Germany, Ireland and the Land of the ­Free, Belgium and the Aborigines ­were represented in this ­g rand ceremony.” Bishop Meerschaert refused to be silenced by the forces of anti-­ Catholicism, instructing the gathered congregation during his homily that they should be proud to call themselves Catholics. A Benedictine commentator on this religious and patriotic observance, M. M. Fuerstenberg, related Meerschaert’s message that “[t]wo-­thirds of the land of this glorious Republic has been trodden first by our forefathers in the Faith . . . ​and over 50 millions of Catholics in the three Amer­i­cas rise up to-­day and bless the name of Columbus, the Christ-­bearer.” Fuerstenberg made it clear that the cele­bration’s significance did not rest solely on its demonstration of Catholicism as a nationally diverse faith or on its display of Columbus as the Catholic founder of

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the New World. The deeper import of the Mass was the message it sent to critics who charged Catholics with disloyalty to the United States and with being alien to American values. Fuerstenberg chided “narrow-­minded ­people” who maligned the Catholic Church and Columbus and challenged “­every fair-­ minded person [to] judge, w ­ hether it be not true that a good Catholic is a good citizen also, be he of foreign birth or not!”99 The Sacred Heart Columbus Day program, which included pre­sen­ta­tions by the mission’s students, seamlessly blended the sacred and the secular, offering an image of Catholicism as an au­then­tic American civil religion.100 The mission’s students sang patriotic songs, saluted the American flag, and produced a play entitled “Amer­i­ca, Spain, and Italy,” all of which was interspersed with such ­music as “God Bless Our Home” and “The Angel’s Harp.” This demonstrated the leading role played by the Catholic Church in proselytizing Native Americans both civilly and religiously as well as the confidence American Catholics had in associating their faith with their country. That the program closed with the students singing “My Country ’Tis of Thee” is revealing. This civil religious tune, which speaks of “my ­fathers,” “the pilgrims,” “my native country,” and God as the “author of liberty,” had, in Oklahoma on Columbus Day in 1892, been transformed into a vehicle by which Catholics claimed an equal share in the country’s founding and an equal right to the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship at the turn of the twentieth c­ entury.101 Above all, the Sacred Heart missionaries, along with many of their contemporaries, believed that Catholicism was the foundation of modern American society. Catholic missionaries in the Gilded Age envisioned the Amer­i­cas as one body united in a common Catholic faith that was overseen by dedicated Catholic priests who worked to ensure fidelity to Catholicism and re­sis­tance to Protestant encroachment. Historian Anne  M. Martínez argues that early twentieth-­century “U.S Catholics created a space for themselves in the American empire and participated in that empire in order to sustain a long-­standing trans-­imperial Catholicism in the borderlands of empire.”102 The main point of this argument is correct. A closer look, however, at Catholic missionary activity, ­whether conducted by religious ­orders such as the Sacred Heart Benedictines or that which was overseen by the BCIM, reveals that missionaries’ attempts to sustain an imperial Catholic presence in the Amer­i­cas did not begin in the early twentieth c­ entury but reached back to the days immediately following Reconstruction. As the Indian Advocate noted in 1893, “Amer­ic­ a is, to-­day, Catholic. Before Columbus it was pagan. To-­day it furnishes one-­fifth of the w ­ hole Catholic Church and one-­fifth of the w ­ hole Christian civilization.” The Sacred Heart missionaries saw this Catholicization of the Amer­ic­ as in general and of the United States in par­tic­u­lar as an inevitable trend that would gain traction. They



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spoke in the language of religious empire building and described it in positive terms. Although admitting that the United States was “the only break in the universal Catholicity of the New World,” they also recalled “the wonderful history of Catholic conquest in the United States during the c­ entury just elapsed. At its beginning ­there was one Catholic for ­every hundred of population. At its close t­ here is one for ­every six or seven persons.”103 Catholic missionaries took any chance they could to regale Americans back East with accounts of their victories over their Protestant rivals. This served several purposes. First, it positioned Catholics as the most able Christian missionaries and advocates for Indigenous communities. Second, it reminded the federal government of the long-­standing Catholic presence in education in the American West. Fi­nally, reports of Catholic successes over Protestants may have encouraged more active financial support from Catholics for the cash-­strapped missions and schools. An account of Catholic missionary work among the Osages in the Indian Territory illustrates the multipronged approach missionaries used in detailing their ­labors, which functioned at once to belittle Protestants, shame government officials, and appeal to fellow Catholics for assistance. In his attempt to build a new mission for the diffuse Osage Reservation, a Benedictine priest was able to secure monetary backing from Katharine Drexel, a wealthy philanthropist, religious order founder, and ­f uture canonized saint, who funded, among other proj­ects, a Franciscan convent in Purcell, Oklahoma, in 1888. Unfortunately, the mission school—of which ­there ­were nine in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories—­was destroyed in a fire, but it was quickly rebuilt with another significant donation from Drexel, this time for $18,000. This donation was in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars Drexel contributed to other mission schools: “In one year she gave no less than $230,000; in another year $140,000; in fact, the amount is never looked ­after. ­Every year she is willing to make good the shortage to keep ­those schools wielding the influences of Catholic civilization and Catholic religion.” A Catholic commentator calling themself “Facts” noted that the “success of our school had been regarded with jealousy by the officials of the Government school and by a certain Methodist outfit, and e­ very effort was made to discourage the rebuilding of the mission.” The Osages attempted initially to fund the new mission on their own, but according to the author, this effort “was never approved in Washington.” “Facts” alleged in 1893 that “the ill-­will of Government officials” continued to stand in the way of Catholic educational work among the Osages for a brief time, which was not a markedly dif­fer­ent state of affairs than twenty years e­ arlier, when Archbishop Bayley of Baltimore remarked to Charles Ewing that he “[saw] no hopes of our being able to influence the Government to do us any justice, as ­things are at pre­sent.104 Another

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writer accused the federal government’s Commissioner of Indian Affairs of obstructionism when it came to the establishment of Catholic schools on reservations and of outright anti-­Catholicism, arguing that “[i]t was not ­until [Grover] Cleveland’s first administration [1885–1889] that a new era of light began to dawn, and the intolerant bigotry of the department was dispelled.”105 Anti-­Catholicism was a salient issue not just in the East and Midwest of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, but also in the ­Great Plains and Southwest. ­Battles for religious power stretched throughout the country during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and moved across sacred and secular bound­aries. The larger ­battle between Catholics and Protestants eventually made its way outside the continental United States, playing a foundational role in the growth of the US empire at the end of the 1890s. Catholics’ preoccupations with their own perceived disadvantages as compared to Protestants began in the ­battles over public versus parochial schooling that reached from the antebellum period into the twentieth ­century, then extended to mission schools on the reservations of the G ­ reat Plains and American West, and fi­nally made their way overseas to the Philippine colony. ­These strug­gles for dominance between Catholics and Protestants did not just proceed sequentially but rather built on and ­shaped each other, so that Catholics’ and Protestants’ ­battles over schooling in American cities in the East influenced related conflicts between the two sides on reservations, which in turn informed their be­hav­ior in their attempts to control schooling in the Philippines. Then the pro­cess could begin in reverse, acting as a feedback loop, with Catholics’ and Protestants’ experiences as participants in American empire building shaping their be­hav­ior on reservations and in schools back East.106 In 1892, for instance, in an article appearing in the Catholic World, the Paulist publication founded by Isaac Hecker—­a periodical that would lead the charge in ­favor of American imperialism in the Philippines just six years ­later and would champion immigration regulation in the interest of maintaining the purity of the white race, subjects that w ­ ill be discussed in subsequent chapters—­the Rev. D. Manley of Epiphany Apostolic College in Baltimore criticized white Americans’ crooked dealings with Native Americans. At the same time, though, he praised Grant’s Peace Policy as “an honest effort to deal fairly with the Indians,” despite the policy entailing the destruction of Native American customs and the coercive education of Native c­ hildren in religious schools. According to Manley, this was the only method “that can ever effect the Christian civilization of the red man.”107 The irony of bemoaning white invasions of Native lands while praising encroachments into Native Americans’ ­family lives and patterns of habitation and work seemed to be lost on Manley.



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Benedictine priest Martin Marty argued similarly in the Catholic World that “[t]he Indian is as yet l­ittle more than a savage, being at best in a transition state from barbarism to civilization.” This half-­man, half-­child, in Marty’s rendering, was utterly lost without direction from Catholic priests. Marty claimed that one of the fundamental prob­lems affecting the Native Americans was that older, conservative generations ­were holding back the “ambition of the younger men to secure the benefits of civilization and Chris­tian­ity.”108 One of Marty’s fellow Benedictines working at the Sacred Heart Mission, despite decrying the abuses heaped on Native Americans by the federal government and white settlers, ­imagined that Native Americans ­were stuck in a perpetual state of limbo between immaturity and maturity. “That the Indian is a spoiled child is but too evident,” this priest wrote. They ­were, he averred, “the wards of the Nation, like overgrown c­ hildren and minors. How heartless to take advantage of the simplicity, credulity and vices of ­children, to deprive them of their inheritance!” It was incumbent on white Americans, then, to pull Native Americans out of their “filth and ignorance.”109 Another Catholic writing in 1888 argued that Indigenous Catholics deprived of priests quickly “settled back into paganism and war.”110 Catholic commentators on their church’s work in the West w ­ ere arguing that Catholics must take up the white man’s burden to secure the benefits of civilization for their unfortunate wards—­their colonized subjects. T ­ hese arguments transposed easily to Catholic discussions in praise of the American colonization of the Philippines beginning in 1898. While criticizing the vio­ lence that some Americans contemplated using to subdue Filipino rebels during the Philippine-­American War, a Sacred Heart Benedictine in Oklahoma Territory still spoke of the Filipinos as “savages” in need of “Christianizing” in a more peaceful manner than being “shot by order of ­Uncle Sam.”111 The editor of the Sacred Heart Benedictines’ newspaper, the Indian Advocate, did not take issue with his church’s role in colonizing the Philippines, ­whether ­under American or Spanish rule, but rather lambasted Protestants who thought they could supplant Catholics as the rightful holders of the Philippines’ missionary grounds. He wrote in April  1899 that it was Catholicism that “preserve[d] the ­people” of the Philippines, whereas “Protestantism, least of all Presbyterianism never yet civilized any nation. It annihilates, but does not civilize.”112 The Indian Advocate also held the US government to its obligation to honor the contracts into which it entered with the Catholic Church to operate reservation schools by expressing hope that federal officials would meet their self-­styled “national obligation to the Philippines” following the US victory over Spain. This was a national obligation that would see the United States

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treating Filipinos in much the same way the country treated Native Americans: as wards of the state.113 J. A. Stephan, the director of the BCIM in 1899, was not optimistic that the US government would keep its promises to Catholic missionaries at the turn of the twentieth ­century, ­whether on reservations or in the country’s newest imperial acquisitions. In both arenas, Stephan argued, “[p]romises w ­ ere made to ­those high in the Church that they should have a voice and repre­sen­ta­tion,” but ­these promises ­were not kept. Stephan complained that “Protestants and ­others notoriously antagonistic to the Catholic Church” w ­ ere continuing to infiltrate the colonial governments of the US West and outside the continental United States, where, he claimed, “they went out of their way to disseminate libels upon the Catholic clergy of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands.”114 Stephan’s successor as BCIM director, William H. Ketcham, argued similarly in the midst of the Philippine-­American War that “the Protestants of this country are enthusiastically engaged in collecting large sums of money to be used in perverting the Catholics of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands,” and he connected this Protestant plot to de-­ Catholicize Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos with Protestants’ alleged campaign to see the Native Americans similarly “perverted from the true religion and . . . ​relaps[ing] into barbarism.”115 From the perspective of many Catholic leaders, the Protestant conspiracy ranged across the globe, and US Catholics needed to take a stand not only against Protestantism and in defense of their church’s missionary interests but also in affirmation of the Catholic Church’s role as an imperial denomination in its own right, albeit one whose style of conquest, they claimed, was benign. Perhaps ­these priests did not realize it, but their approbation of the cultural conquest of the Native Americans by way of religious schools on reservations; their depictions of a supposedly backward p­ eople being in desperate need of the civilization that only white Americans, especially t­ hose of the Catholic faith, could bring; and their practice of depicting Native Americans, with few exceptions, as a monolithic, homogeneous group whose members acted, believed, and thought identically to one another w ­ ere acts that engaged their readers in a rehearsal for US extraterritorial expansion and colonization at the end of the de­cade. ­Here was being laid the intellectual groundwork for US Catholic imperialism that would reach its apex in the aftermath of the Spanish-­ American and Philippine-­American Wars.

C h a p te r   2

Catholics in the White City The Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893

Amid the Catholic Church’s activity in the western missions and on the eve of its participation in the American colonization of the Philippines, ­there occurred a significant gathering in late nineteenth-­ century US Catholic history. This was the Columbian Catholic Congress. It met, with forty other denominational congresses, alongside the World’s Parliament of Religions, which was notable for ushering in the modern ecumenical movement and for introducing Buddhism and Hinduism to many Americans.1 ­These gatherings, just two of many similar auxiliary congresses, assembled in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a world’s fair commemorating the quadricentenary of Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Amer­ic­ as.2 To fairgoers, the exposition signaled the consolidation and ac­cep­tance of the new, cap­i­tal­ist, industrialized order. The over 27.5 million attendees took in a ­grand spectacle that overawed the senses and presented what historian Robert Rydell calls a “utopian vision” of the coming twentieth ­century. The exposition, Rydell writes, “became the standard with which ­every subsequent fair would be compared.”3 The congress and the parliament, the latter of which also included Catholic participants, provide evidence of growing Catholic confidence in a country that did not always accept Catholics’ presence in the national community. Catholics took the opportunity presented by their participation on an international stage to create an image of their church as one that was quintessentially American. A 49

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number of public-­minded Catholics, several of whom ­were associated with the US church’s liberal, or Americanist, wing at the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, played a leading role in the organ­ization of the congress, dominated its proceedings, and presented themselves as the public face of their church at the Parliament.4 They claimed the right to speak on behalf of the country’s wider Catholic community, and they portrayed Catholicism as a denomination rejecting ghettoization and instead embracing encounters, ­whether tolerant or antagonistic, with non-­Catholic Americans. Catholics worked at the world’s fair to reconstruct American society in their own image. The congress resided at the intersection of several strands of turn-­of-­the-­ twentieth-­century Catholic thought. Speeches at the Columbian Catholic Congress provided broad overviews of American Catholicism’s past, its situation during the Gilded Age, and its predicted trajectory over the first few de­cades of the twentieth ­century. This was a public debut for Catholic intellectuals as American intellectuals. The congress functioned for its participants as an exercise in American Catholic nation building. The planning for the congress began in the late 1880s u ­ nder the supervision of layperson William James Onahan and with the approval and enthusiastic assistance of several power­ful members of the church hierarchy. Onahan was also “one of the first to join” the Catholic Truth Society of Amer­i­ca, an organ­ization dedicated to apol­o­getics, to defending the Catholic Church against attacks, and to educating the public on Catholic teachings.5 The congress’s Committee on Organ­ization included Archbishop Patrick Feehan of Chicago, the host city for the gathering, as chairman and Onahan as secretary.6 The congress grew out of an e­ arlier meeting that led the way for laypeople to come together to discuss pressing issues affecting the US Catholic Church: the American Catholic Congress, which was held on November 11 and 12, 1889, in Baltimore, and which was also or­ga­nized by Onahan.7 This gathering celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Diocese of Baltimore, the first Catholic diocese in the United States, and took place at the same time as the “formal opening of the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca,” an indication that Catholics ­were on their way to establishing a firmer foothold in higher education on their official one hundredth birthday as members of a national church.8 The American Catholic Congress, like its successor at the world’s fair in 1893, sought to demonstrate to observers that while “[t]he congress was devotedly Catholic,” it was also “loyally American,” an astute move in a period when Catholic immigration from southern and eastern Eu­rope was beginning to increase dramatically, drawing criticisms from native-­born, non-­Catholic Americans that ­these new immigrants would damage the fabric of the nation.9 A member of

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the American Catholic Congress’s Committee on Organ­ization, St. Louis layperson Henry J. Spaunhorst, told Onahan that it was essential for Catholics to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States so that non-­Catholics could not accuse them of attempting to fracture the nation through the embrace of so-­ called hyphenated Americans. Spaunhorst argued that “when we speak of Catholic Congress, such must be outside of Nationality. We can not claim and must not refer to any National name, but represent ourselves, Roman Catholics of the United States.”10 When the gathering’s organizers published their official announcement of the meeting, they agreed with Spaunhorst’s idea that all ethnic and national divisions within US Catholicism must be subsumed u ­ nder the banner of unity, although such unity was not always as strong as the American Catholic Congress would have liked. The organizers wished to conduct the meeting “without reference to national or local lines.”11 At a cathedral ser­vice celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Baltimore, Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul set the tone for the gathering of Catholics in the city. Ireland told his audience that the Catholic Church was destined to lead the United States into the twentieth c­ entury. The church’s Protestant rivals w ­ ere of no consequence. “Pro­ testantism,” Ireland argued, “is in pro­cess of dissolution; it is without value as a doctrinal or a moral power, and it is no longer a foe with which we need reckon.”12 Ireland connected the Catholic past with the Catholic ­f uture, arguing that the “next c­ entury of the life of the Church in Amer­i­ca ­will be what we make it.”13 He told the delegates that he contemplated something more than mere excitement among them, arguing that the task ahead of them was no less than “[t]o make Amer­ic­ a Catholic.”14 Ireland was certainly not above electioneering and employing get-­out-­the-­vote strategies to ensure Catholic influence in the country’s halls of power, having campaigned hard on behalf of James G. Blaine in the 1884 presidential election, for example, and seemingly claiming responsibility for “nearly the ­whole Irish vote in Minnesota [being] cast for him.”15 The archbishop argued furthermore at the American Catholic Congress that Catholics’ task of making a Catholic Amer­i­ca was a divine one. “This is a providential nation,” Ireland explained, and he was confident that the nation’s natu­ral riches and burgeoning population would result in it being “dominant among nations.” Ireland contrasted the “native character of the American p­ eople”—­specifically Americans’ “earnest, deliberate, aggressive” nature—­with the “indifference to living interests” and the “apathy” of Eu­ro­pe­ans.”16 Ireland’s nationalist and Progressive leanings ­were made explicit in his confident expression of the idea “that a singular mission is assigned to Amer­ic­ a, glorious for itself and beneficent to the w ­ hole race, the mission of bringing about a new social and po­liti­cal order.” His religious

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fervor and patriotic nationalism ­were intertwined: “The Church triumphing in Amer­i­ca, Catholic truth ­will travel on the wings of American influence, and encircle the universe.”17 Onahan similarly joined his religion and his nation’s historical roots. He sought to connect Catholicism with the Puritans of the Mayflower, claiming that among the delegates at the American Catholic Congress, “[n]ot a few w ­ ere ­there whose ancestors landed with the ‘Pilgrims’ at Plymouth Rock,” and he emphasized that t­ here w ­ ere “­others who could proudly recall the ser­vices and sacrifices of their progenitors in the American revolution [sic].”18 Onahan, Spaunhorst, and Daniel A. Rudd, who together constituted the congress’s Committee on Organ­ization, argued in a joint statement that “civil and religious liberty” had their birth in the present-­day United States in “Catholic Mary­land.”19 Catholics, according to Onahan, had played an instrumental role in the establishment of the American nation. Daniel Dougherty, a Catholic layperson representing Kentucky as a delegate, argued similarly at the American Catholic Congress that the looming four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s New World landing “can be traced directly to the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church alone.” He was quick to point out that “Protestantism was unknown when Amer­ic­ a was discovered” and that “a Catholic named Amer­ic­ a.” Richard H. Clarke, a lay delegate from New York, brought the story of the Catholic founding of the New World back even further, claiming the Vikings as part of the American Catholic heritage: “Catholic Northmen ­were the first Christians to land on our shores, and as early as the tenth c­ entury down to the beginning of the fifteenth, the western continent had her Catholic churches, cathedrals, and a succession of seventeen or eigh­teen bishops.” Clarke replaced the Puritans with Catholics as the first Eu­ ro­pean settlers of New E ­ ngland, thus rewriting the history of Eu­ro­pean colonization by arguing, “The Vinland of the Northmen is now recognized by scholars as having been located in Rhode Island, near Newport, and t­ here Bishop Eric gave his life for the faith in the twelfth ­century.”20 At the conclusion of the American Catholic Congress, leading laypeople and prelates moved to conduct their next congress in Chicago, which gave rise to some dissension in the ranks of the lay delegates, primarily on the part of ­those “from the eastern cities.” This led to an amendment to the motion to hold the congress in Chicago, which resulted in a proposed resolution “ ‘that the next congress be convened in the city where the World’s Fair ­shall be held.’ ” The East Coast Catholics assumed that New York would get the fair, but Onahan, a Chicago resident who was confident that his city would host the exposition, “smilingly announced that he cordially accepted” the compromise, which proved ultimately to be a wise decision for the Chicago Catholics.21 In

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his parting address, Archbishop Ireland enjoined the delegates, “Go to your homes filled with the enthusiasm that has marked this first Catholic congress of Amer­i­ca. . . . ​Go back to your homes and carry with you ­there this enthusiasm and spread it through ­every state of the Union.”22 C. J. Knauf, a priest from Adrian, Michigan, wrote similarly to Onahan two weeks a­ fter the congress that it was imperative for the country’s laypeople to “not get lukewarm” but rather to continue their organ­izing work and their meetings “­every year.” This would not only build community among Catholics but would also, Knauf explained, demonstrate to their “enemies . . . ​that we are a power when united.”23 Catholics should go out boldly, then, to demonstrate both their religious faith and their patriotism in the years before the next congress in Chicago. One Catholic newspaper noted in 1893 that the time since the American Catholic Congress of 1889 “furnished superabundant evidence of the beneficial results of that assembly,” which would come to fruition at the Columbian Catholic Congress.24 The Baltimore congress also provided the impetus for the founding of the aforementioned Catholic Truth Society.25 The planning committee of the Columbian Catholic Congress contemplated having leading Catholics pre­sent papers on a variety of subjects, similar to the proceedings at the American Catholic Congress, and providing space for “diocesan exhibitions . . . ​to emphasize the past borne by Catholics in the discovery by Christopher Columbus, himself a Catholic.” Participants would have an opportunity to represent visually their ties to the country’s putative founding in 1492, and furthermore, ­these displays would drum up enthusiasm for the Chicago gathering.26 This Catholicization of the New World’s founding paid positive dividends, as it gained the notice of President Benjamin Harrison. Secretary of State John W. Foster wrote in 1892 to his Vatican counterpart, Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro, at the urging of President Harrison. Foster acknowledged the “intimate association of the Holy See with the Columbian enterprise and its results,” which he felt “linked the memory of Rome and her Pontiffs with the vast achievement of Christopher Columbus and his comrades and competitors in the work of discovery and colonization and exerted so marked an influence on the destinies and pro­gress of the New World they revealed.”27 Catholics’ efforts to recast American nationalism as a Catholic proj­ect w ­ ere having marked impacts on shifting popu­lar opinion in f­avor of Catholicism’s place in the con­ temporary national community and in national origin narratives. Foster first met with James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, the leading Catholic prelate for much of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, before writing to Rampolla. Gibbons played an impor­tant role in garnering the support of his fellow bishops for the congress, of which he served as honorary president, as well as for active Catholic participation in the ecumenical Parliament.28 At the

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Parliament, Gibbons was joined by two fellow US prelates: Archbishop Feehan, who addressed the Parliament at its opening, and Bishop John J. Keane, the rector of the Catholic University of Amer­ic­ a, who presented two papers to the Parliament: one titled, “The Incarnation Idea in History and in Jesus Christ,” and the other titled, “The Ultimate Religion.”29 Catholics’ participation in the Parliament may seem strange in light of the Catholic Church’s traditional avoidance of interreligious events in the pre–­Vatican II period. As Gibbons put it, however, when asked to justify his church’s role in the Parliament, “Every­thing depends on the point of view. Our Bishops ­were invited by the officials of the Fair to pre­ sent a statement of the Catholic faith at this parliament. . . . ​Vari­ous objections ­were made to its ac­cep­tance, but in the end, a­ fter amicable discussion, the pre­ lates de­cided to accept.” Gibbons and fellow Americanizing Catholics put their religious community more firmly on the path ­toward inclusion and mainstream status. The cardinal realized the ­great potential American Catholics had to make a case for their church on a national stage, arguing, “St. Paul preached before the Areopagus. Moreover, we reach in this parliament a peculiar audience, which may never be reached again.” Gibbons planned to display Catholicism before an audience that may have held damaging misconceptions about the Catholic Church. He maintained that his church was “too often presented to the world in apparel which makes her repulsive to the ­people. Our purpose in this and similar instances is to tear off ­these garments and let all see the Church in its true beauty. . . . ​The more the Church is known the better it is liked.”30 Gibbons, who was in ill health, mustered the strength to address the parliament’s opening session ­after Feehan. The parliament’s president, Charles Carroll Bonney, introduced him “amid loud cheering.”31 Gibbons stood on the speakers’ stage with representatives of several Christian denominations and non-­Christian religions. He gave voice to the ecumenical spirit of the event, offering “thanks . . . ​to God ­there is one platform on which we all stand united.” He “desire[d] to pre­sent the claims of the Catholic church [sic] to the observation and, if pos­si­ble, to the ac­cep­tance of ­every right-­minded man that ­will listen to us.”32 Gibbons knew a mass conversion to Catholicism was unlikely, but he was confident that Catholics would at least receive a fair hearing at the parliament. For Gibbons, the antidote to anti-­Catholicism was even more Catholicism. In his view and in the view of similarly minded Catholics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the surest path t­ oward Catholic ac­cep­tance was proving to skeptics that Catholicism was a quintessentially American religion, and participation in the parliament would go a long way ­toward demonstrating such a claim. Gibbons was unable to pre­sent his prepared speech, “The Needs of Humanity Supplied by the Catholic Religion,” so Keane delivered it on his behalf.33

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In this paper, Gibbons asserted at the outset that “[w]e live and move and have our being in the midst of a civilization which is the legitimate offspring of the Catholic religion.” He acknowledged the ­g reat works of charity carried out by Protestant churches, but he laid down a challenge to them not often seen in such friendly, ecumenical gatherings. He requested that they “have the candor to acknowledge that we [Catholics] had first possession of the field” of benevolent work and “that ­these beneficent movements have been inaugurated by us.”34 Gibbons attempted a rhetorical conquest of the work of charitable benevolence, which, in the United States, had long been associated almost exclusively with Protestants. The cardinal, then, was staking a claim to moral and social leadership in the United States in front of an interreligious, international audience. Onahan also expected that non-­Catholic observers of the Columbian Catholic Congress would see that Catholics, ­whether clerical or lay, ­were “as devotedly attached to the princi­ples of this f­ ree republican form of government, to its laws and institutions, as any citizens in the land,” and he rejected as a “bugaboo” the notion that the Catholic Church sought to gain control of the US government.35 He believed that the congress was “calculated to be an object lesson for non-­Catholics, by demonstrating how sorely the Catholic Church is maligned by ­those individuals who accuse its members of disloyalty to the country and its f­ree institutions.”36 Catholic participation in the world’s fair, however, was not without its critics. Rochester’s Catholic Journal reported in June 1892 that Protestant figures w ­ ere attempting “to prevent the Catholic Church from gaining any glory at the centenary.” A group of “fanatics” led by Baptist minister Justin D. Fulton—­a prolific author of anti-­Catholic works—­ apparently “or­ga­nized an association ‘to enlist the interest of the vari­ous Protestant religious bodies in a series of meetings to be held in Chicago during the World’s fair, as an offset to the effect of the Roman Catholic congress that is to convene in that city at the same time.’ ” The newspaper’s editor decried ­these actions as “truly un-­American.” Such anti-­Catholic sentiments galled Catholics, especially since the fair commemorated Columbus’s arrival in the Amer­i­cas, and Catholics regarded him as a “Catholic hero.”37 The Catholic Journal argued that Columbus had a desire to evangelize on behalf of the Catholic Church, and it was therefore fitting that Catholics should play an impor­tant role in honoring Columbus’s memory at the exposition named for him.38 John J. O’Shea, writing for the Catholic World, described the fair as the “apotheosis of Christopher Columbus.”39 The congress’s program argued similarly that American Catholics had a special position at the fair: “The ­g reat Genoese navigator was a zealous and devoted Catholic—­a man of ardent religious faith. . . . ​It is most appropriate, therefore, that Catholics should

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honor t­hese memories and give public testimony to the world of the pride and interest they feel in the memorable anniversary, as well as in the Columbian Cele­bration at Chicago and elsewhere.” 40 In a speech at the fair that provided a summation of a Catholic theory of American religious nationalism, Archbishop Ireland expressed his admiration of Columbus, his loyalty to the United States, and his belief that the American nation was especially blessed by God: “Behold the crowning gift to humanity from Columbus, whose caravels ploughed ocean’s uncertain billows in search of a g­ reat land, and from the all-­ruling Providence whose wisdom and mercy inspired and guided the immortal Genoese mari­ner—­the United States of Amer­i­ca!” 41 In his speech on the third day of the congress, Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York—­a conservative in the ­battle brewing over Americanism—­ described Catholic delegates at the gathering as latter-­day Columbuses who sought to spread religion and civilization to a supposedly benighted world. He told his audience about Columbus Day cele­brations held in New York and Chicago in 1892. Corrigan was comfortable in “modestly claim[ing] that ­these ­were both distinctively Catholic cele­brations.” He was proud to relate to the delegates that Vice President Levi P. Morton and New York Governor Ros­ well P. Flower “­were most favorably impressed by the numerical strength and bearing” of the Catholic youths appearing in the cele­bration, an indication that they expected US Catholicism would continue to grow with subsequent generations. According to Corrigan, Morton and Flower believed “that young men so carefully nurtured by the conservative spirit of the Church could not fail to be patriotic and sterling citizens.” 42 This episode is revealing ­because a Catholic prelate of the country’s largest city was so confident about the accuracy of his account of thirty thousand young Catholics temporarily taking over the streets of New York to claim Columbus for their church that he was willing to share it on an international stage at the world’s fair in 1893. It also indicates that on some points of American Catholic nationalism, the conservatives and liberals could stand in broad agreement. During the Columbus quadricentenary, the Young Catholic Messenger called on the church’s youn­gest members to Catholicize the country by appropriating Columbus’s historical memory. The Messenger recalled the pride felt by both Catholic and non-­Catholic Americans in celebrating Columbus’s memory. “But,” it asked readers, “did it not strike you that in spite of t­ hese g­ reat demonstrations of honor to Columbus, ­there was still one drawback? Why is not his name stamped upon our country?” The solution, according to the Messenger, was to “let the boys and girls or­ga­nize clubs, and call them ‘Young Columbians.’ Let them send in their petitions to Congress, signed by all the club members. Get up all the clubs you can, and have them numerically strong.

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Congress must listen,—­will listen. ‘WE ARE NOT AMERICANS; WE ARE COLUMBIANS!’ s­ hall be our motto.” 43 At the Columbian Catholic Congress, dioceses ­were represented on a proportional basis tied to their Catholic populations, with all guaranteed at least ten delegates and one more for e­ very five thousand Catholics in the diocese; the delegates ­were appointed by their bishops. Catholic institutions of higher learning w ­ ere also guaranteed delegates, who w ­ ere selected by the colleges’ or seminaries’ presidents and faculties. The congress opened on September 4, 1893, and concluded five days l­ater. It proceeded with “the holding of at least one daily session” devoted to par­tic­u­lar topics of discussion. Taking place just two years a­ fter the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum No­ varum, which discussed m ­ atters relating to capital and l­abor, the congress’s Committee on Organ­ization explained that the meeting would keep the encyclical in the foreground throughout the week by “limit[ing] the scope of the Congress . . . ​[t]o the consideration of the ‘Social Question’ as outlined by Our Holy ­Father Leo XIII in his Encyclical on that subject, to which s­ hall be added the question of ‘Catholic Education’ and the question of the ‘In­de­pen­dence of the Holy See.’ ” 44 ­Whether congressional delegates ­were discussing “[t]he influence of the Catholic Church on the po­liti­cal, civil, and social institutions of the United States”; “[i]mmigration and colonization”; “[t]he conditions and ­future of the Indians in the United States”; or “Catholic education in the United States,” the Committee on Organ­ization’s under­lying goal was for “American Catholic laymen to demonstrate to the world their power and capacity to deal thoughtfully and thoroughly with questions of world-­wide concern.” Archbishop Feehan and Onahan asked, in the face of a rapidly industrializing world that appeared to be transformed anew ­every day—­one in which “civil and social order are seriously menaced”—­that if “[a]n entente cordiale is to be sought, and . . . ​assurance to be found somewhere”—­“Why not in and by the Catholic Church?” 45 Feehan, in his opening address to the congress, reminded delegates that their duty was to “uphold before the ­whole world the honor, the nobility, and the dignity of the Catholic Church.” 46 Archbishop Patrick John Ryan of Philadelphia was also confident that the Columbian Catholic Congress could play a vital role in bridging the divide between “the Catholic world and the non Catholic world,” between which “has rolled the ocean of prejudice—­a dark ocean.” Ryan felt that the reason for this division was that non-­Catholics set themselves in opposition “to something which it thinks is the Catholic world” rather than what was authentically Catholic. He wished that American Catholics would seize the opportunity of making their case before a worldwide audience, stating that “we only ask to be known.” 47 The archbishop reappropriated the motto “No Popery,” transforming it into a

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proud Catholic slogan, “Know Popery,” to impress on non-­Catholics that his church need not be feared but rather should be better understood.48 Catholics recognized that the eyes of the world ­were on Chicago, and they ­were prepared to claim their country’s reins of leadership, which they already believed ­were rightfully theirs. ­After the pre­sen­ta­tions of the papers, the congress facilitated breakout sessions for participants interested in discussing the papers in more depth. Onahan explained that the vari­ous congresses at the fair, including the Columbian Catholic Congress, ­were not conducted on the fairgrounds but ­were held “in the Memorial Art Palace, on the lake front at Michigan Ave­nue and Adams Street, in the business centre of Chicago,” specifically, and fittingly, in the “Hall of Columbus.” Onahan expected in attendance between four and five thousand Catholic delegates, and he hoped that t­ hese attendees would include many prelates since they ­were sent invitations and would likely be in the city for their own meeting one week ­after the congress.49 The Catholic press was ­eager to hear the thoughts of “the brightest Catholic laymen in the country,” who served as delegates.50 The preceding reference to laymen should be emphasized ­because Catholic w ­ omen, though permitted to speak at the Columbian Catholic Congress and serve as appointed delegates, also conducted their own, separate meeting in Chicago on May  18, 1893, which was called the Congress of Catholic ­Women.51 The ­women’s meeting hoped to solve the prob­lem of Catholics having an “army of lay ­women, all ­eager to help in beneficent work, but all without o ­ rders and all ignorant of the plan of b­ attle.” Delegates to the Congress of Catholic W ­ omen sought to determine what role w ­ omen should play and what activities they should undertake in their own sphere, and they maintained that the Catholic Church, not secular American society, offered ­women the surest opportunities for advancement. One of the delegates, Alice Timmons Toomy, explained that the deliberations of the ­women’s congress resulted in the formation of a Catholic ­Women’s National League (CWNL) that was dedicated to “education, philanthropy, and ‘the home and its needs,’ ” all of which would be projected through the lens of American Catholicism. Toomy argued that this amounted to the creation of a “public sphere for Catholic ­women.”52 The CWNL sought practically to serve “as a means of bringing together the vari­ous socie­ties of Catholic w ­ omen scattered everywhere throughout the land.”53 By 1898, the CWNL, according to Kathryn Prindiville, had approximately three hundred members.54 Toomy’s experience at the world’s fair confirmed for her that Catholic ­women had a leading role to play in shaping their religious community’s spiritual, social, and po­liti­cal agendas. She wrote three months ­after the Congress

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of Catholic W ­ omen that “many vital questions of morals and pro­g ress have been ably considered by experts” in response to the goals set at the Chicago fair. Significantly, Toomy grouped ­women among ­these experts and noted that “even some of t­hese w ­ omen w ­ ere Catholics. Can any one doubt that the church and the world have gained by their success?”55 At the same time, Katherine E. Conway, participating with Toomy and Eleanor C. Donnelly in a roundtable reflection on the “­woman question among Catholics” in the wake of the Chicago fair, asserted that “­woman, as ­woman, can have no vocation to public life.” Conway, though arguing against Toomy’s defense of a public sphere for Catholic w ­ omen, maintained that “the w ­ oman as an intelligence, a rational creature, responsible for her own deeds and ­free to choose her own state of life, may be or do what she can.” While “some ­women . . . ​may have a special call to some public duty,” Conway argued that this was “by virtue, not of their womanhood, but of their strong individualities, marked ability, and the demands of unusual environment.” Conway wrote that the Catholic Church had a “liberal attitude” t­ oward w ­ omen’s opportunities for learning and advancement.56 ­These diverging perspectives have an impor­tant ele­ment in common. They both support historian Kathleen Sprows Cummings’s argument that turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century US Catholic “new ­women” demonstrated that their Catholicism “serve[d] as a vehicle through which w ­ omen contested and renegotiated the par­ameters of their experience” and that ­women members of the patriarchal Catholic Church could still find a “route to empowerment” through their Catholic identities.57 In addition to the Columbian Catholic Congress and the Congress of Catholic ­Women, and serving as a reflection of American Catholicism’s participation in the emerging racial order of the Progressive Era that instituted starker color lines between Black and white Americans, a Congress of Colored Catholics met separately in Chicago, also on September 4, 1893. This meeting provided Black Catholic delegates with an opportunity to discuss issues of concern to them, albeit in a separate forum from the main Columbian Catholic Congress.58 The Colored Catholic Congress in Chicago was the fourth in a series of five Colored Catholic Congresses conducted by Black lay leaders such as Daniel Rudd and James Spencer from 1889 to 1894. “In addition to promoting evangelization,” historian Suzanne Krebsbach writes,” the lay movement advocated civil rights and education for blacks.”59 The Catholic World used the example of the Congress of Colored Catholics to strike a blow against Protestantism, the press of which had issued “many singular criticisms” of the gathering. In Catholic author A. J. Faust’s opinion, it was the Catholic Church and not Protestantism that had been the foremost e­ nemy of slavery.60 At the main gathering of the Columbian Catholic Congress, speakers also tackled the subject of “[t]he

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conditions and f­ uture of the Negro race in the United States.” The Columbian Catholic Congress eventually welcomed a del­e­ga­tion from the Congress of Colored Catholics to attend its main session.61 Furthermore, Catholic laypeople not participating actively in the vari­ous congresses as delegates ­were still encouraged to follow the example of Pope Leo XIII, who had “in the most signal manner already given proofs of the warm interest he feels in the Chicago Exposition.”62 Also planned for the fair was a Catholic Educational Exhibit, which Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria felt would provide the best opportunity for Catholics to “place before the eyes of the millions who w ­ ill visit the Exposition a clear demonstration of the ­g reat work the Church in the United States is ­doing to develop a civilization which is in ­g reat part the outgrowth of religious princi­ples.”63 American prelates believed that this would “surely serve to enlighten the public and . . . ​allay prejudice” from ­those who feared that Catholic education was subverting public order.64 Spalding, who was on the organ­izing committee for the exhibit, recognized the trepidation that many non-­Catholic Americans felt ­toward parochial schools, a subject that w ­ ill be discussed in more depth in this book’s final chapter, and he argued that the Catholic Educational Exhibit would allow Catholics to “mould opinion on the subject of education,” specifically regarding the importance of maintaining the influence of religion in the classroom.65 The exhibit was held at the fair’s Hall of Liberal Arts. ­Brother Maurelian, a member of the Christian ­Brothers described by a Catholic observer as “the Von Moltke with whom the scheme of mobilization originated,” oversaw planning for the event and was able to obtain thirty thousand square feet of space for the use of the educational exhibit. This Catholic observer argued that the exhibit demonstrated that “the Catholic way in Amer­i­ca” was “the way which is ­really the most practical of all,” in contrast to the “soulless system” of public schools. Ultimately, twenty dioceses, multiple Catholic colleges and libraries, and dozens of teaching ­orders participated in the exhibit.66 The congress opened with a sermon delivered by P. J. Muldoon, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He claimed the world’s fair for Catholicism, arguing that it was “a new gem in the crown of M ­ other Church.”67 On the first day, Archbishop Feehan celebrated the delegates and identified them “as the center of the Catholic Church.”68 It was fitting that during the congress’s opening day, one delegate delivered a speech titled, “The Relations of the Catholic Church to the Social, Civil and Po­liti­cal Institutions of the United States,” or as a ­later editor of the speeches titled it, “Catholicity and the Stars and Stripes.” One of the congress’s principal goals was to inspire confidence in Catholics that their church offered the solutions that the fin-­de-­siècle United States sought for the multitude of economic, military, po­liti­cal, and social chal-

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lenges the country faced. Another of the Congress’s goals was to demonstrate to non-­Catholics that the Catholic Church was an eminently freedom-­ loving institution. E. H. Gans, a l­awyer from Baltimore, referred to his fellow delegates as “sons of the republic.” Gans rejected the accusation that Catholicism was an outsider in the United States, and he argued that it was instead “the feverish malignity of knownothingism” that was at odds with “the true spirit of our American institutions.” He, like many other Catholics of the period who sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Catholicism and Americanism, engaged in a reimagining of US history that inserted Catholics throughout the course of the American narrative from Columbus to the American Revolution and beyond. In Gans’s view, the Catholic Church’s focus on social order and community was a perfect fit for the American form of government. Its conception of a liberty that was not unfettered but rather controlled within reasonable limits for the sake of the common good, which was frequently at odds with Protestant conceptions of freedom that focused on individual happiness and self-­actualization, was a signal contribution to the American system, Gans noted.69 For Catholics, the speaker argued, the duty to act as loyal citizens was inescapable, and it had both civil and religious dimensions: “The Catholic . . . ​is of necessity loyal b­ ecause it is his conscientious duty. Patriotism is sublimated and becomes a religious obligation.” This Catholic devotion to the country, Gans maintained, could have preserved the Union before the Civil War and was the antidote to the po­liti­cal corruptions of the Gilded Age.70 At the Congress’s conclusion on September 9, 1893, the delegates promulgated a series of resolutions for the American Catholic community. Among ­these was a strong defense of the need for Catholics to maintain their own parochial school and higher education systems, which they argued functioned as the backbone of the United States. They celebrated the schools’ ostensible responsibility for “the preservation of our national existence, the constitution ­under which we live, and all our rights and liberties as citizens.” The delegates also resolved to support the work of the Catholic Truth Society of Amer­i­ca, which was dedicated to promoting Catholic apol­o­getics. They concluded their resolutions by affirming that they ­were “true and loyal citizens” and by “emphatically deny[ing] that any antagonism can exist between our duty to our Church and our duty to the state.” The delegates quoted approvingly from the e­ arlier speech at the Congress given by the Vatican’s apostolic delegate to the United States, Msgr. Francesco Satolli, who attempted to rouse the audience on the second day of the gathering to a combination of patriotism and religiosity. He, as well as many of the delegates, perceived an inextricable connection between t­hese two concepts and considered them to function in a

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mutually constitutive fashion: “Go forward! in one hand bearing the Book of Christian truth and in the other the Constitution of the United States.”71 Satolli’s attempt to make a patriotic appeal to the assembled delegates worried some Protestants who feared growing Catholic power. The idea of the Vatican sending an Italian priest to the United States and that priest delivering an address at the world’s fair that seemed to blend Catholicism and Americanism was almost unthinkable. In Kentucky, just a­ fter the Columbian Catholic Congress, voters received a guide to an upcoming election that identified for them the Protestant and Catholic candidates for state and local offices and that proclaimed, “The man who does not give his first allegiance to our Constitution and flag should not hold office or have any part or lot in the management of the country.” The voting guide included several quotations from Catholic priests and publications that demonstrated Catholicism’s incompatibility with educational and po­liti­cal traditions in the United States. Satolli’s words ­were among the excerpts.72 Catholics may have been comfortable as Americans—­they indeed considered the nation to have an indelible Catholic stamp upon it—­but the Columbian Catholic Congress delegates still revealed that they believed in some separation from non-­Catholics through the continued expansion of Catholic schools to include ever more Catholic students. They felt the occasional need to justify their existence in the United States, despite arguing that the Catholic character of the American nation and the American character of the Catholic Church should have been self-­evident to observers. T ­ hese tensions between assimilation and separation, between exclusion and inclusion, and between Catholics-­as-­Americans and Catholics-­in-­America, operated together as fundamental fissures ­running through Gilded-­Age and Progressive-­Era Catholicism. ­These w ­ ere the tensions that informed Catholic participation in American life, ­whether on reservations, in the Philippines, in the formulation of immigration policy, in the debates surrounding school laws, or in presidential politics. It is to the Catholic attempts to resolve t­ hese nagging tensions in the growing American empire that this book now turns.

C h a p te r   3

American Catholicism and Philippine Colonization A Study in Religious Imperialism

The northeastern United States was perhaps the most advantageous place in the nineteenth ­century for a son of immigrant parents from Germany to become a baker, embrace communal living with the Transcendentalists, convert to Catholicism and become a priest, establish a new religious order and newspaper, and help lay the groundwork of Americanization for his religious community. That son was Isaac Hecker, and this ideology of Catholic American exceptionalism came into its own in the wake of one of the United States’ most dramatic statements of imperial power following its invasion of the Philippines in 1898. The decades-­long colonization of the Philippines was partially a reflection of tensions over religion in public life in the United States. It was driven by Catholics concerned with proving themselves as Americans and by corresponding Protestant anx­i­eties over seemingly endless streams of Eu­ro­pean Catholic immigrants arriving in the United States. Moreover, white racial theorists saw a large proportion of t­ hese mi­g rants as occupants of a position well below the top of the world’s race pyramid, which positioned Anglo-­Saxons as the fittest leaders of modern, progressive, Christian society. Disputes over schooling, w ­ hether in eastern cities or on western reservations, served as chapters in larger fights for influence and power between Catholics and Protestants in the United States. American colonizers in the Philippines brought t­ hese contests for religious dominance as well as the lessons they learned in their 63

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conquest of the US West to their country’s newest imperial acquisition. T ­ hese American religious debates confronted the Philippines’ own religious strug­ gles, which had been ­shaped by centuries of encounters between native Filipinos and Spanish missionaries and colonial officials. The US government drew on this complex religious environment to structure its governing of the colony, inscribing religious distinctions into its laws and throughout the fabric of colonial society.1 In this context t­ here emerged a cohort of Catholic intellectuals who sought to prove to non-­Catholics in the United States that their religious community held a rightful leadership position in the pro­cess of American imperialism. ­These American Catholic nationalists worked quickly within their religious community to set the tone of debate over the war in much the same way that they attempted to control contemporaneous Catholic conversations on immigration and national identity, and they sold the war in the Philippines to other Catholics who resisted the imposition of a colonial regime on their Filipino coreligionists.2 The Catholics at the heart of this story, who ­were associated especially with the Catholic World, the publication established by Isaac Hecker and run by the Paulists following their found­ers’ death, carried on Hecker’s work of uniting Catholicism and Americanism—­a proj­ect still in evidence among Catholics in the American empire, even a­ fter the supposed end of the conservative-­liberal theological ­battles of the 1890s. In ­doing so, they joined themselves and their church with non-­Catholic Americans in a shared imperial campaign. Isaac Hecker, in some re­spects, was the model religious traveler in the nineteenth-­century United States. He was born of German immigrants, was baptized a Lutheran, and spent his early adulthood exploring the many religious options his country offered. Influenced by his friend Orestes Brownson, another spiritual sojourner and a fellow Catholic convert, Hecker moved from Lutheranism to Unitarianism to Transcendentalism and fi­nally to Catholicism, with a few stops at George Ripley’s Brook Farm community and a brief encounter with the Episcopal Church along the way. ­After some time in the Redemptorist order, in 1858 Hecker sought and received permission from the Vatican to found a new community of American priests, the Paulists, who w ­ ere dedicated to achieving both an interior conversion for Catholics and a mass conversion of Protestants to Catholicism. As part of Hecker’s new mission, he established a periodical, the Catholic World, in 1865 to defend his church and attract new members. From 1869 to 1870, Hecker also attended the First Vatican Council, which defined papal infallibility, about which he had doubts, as an official dogma of the church. Hecker’s Catholic life spanned the papacy of Pius IX, who worked to defend the church against what he perceived to be the apocalyptic dangers of modernism,



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and a significant portion of the reign of Leo XIII, who would eventually condemn what he defined as the heresy of Americanism. The latter served as a posthumous denunciation, albeit likely misdirected, of Hecker’s teachings, but it was not a death sentence for a broader notion of American Catholic nationalism, the public influence of which continued throughout the Progressive Era, as historian James P. Bruce similarly argues.3 Hecker’s ability to influence the non-­Catholic community was not a given. Non-­Anglo Eu­ro­pean immigrants ­were not always presumed to be white and thus did not necessarily have access to the privileges that whiteness bestowed in the nineteenth-­century United States.4 Hecker was a second-­generation American of German ancestry, which may have immediately marked his f­ amily as dif­ fer­ent from and perhaps inferior to ­those who could trace their lineage to the colonial period. The Hecker f­ amily, though, had a few advantages in its ­favor. By the time Isaac was born, in 1819, his ­father, John, had already established himself in New York City as a skilled laborer, although he played an increasingly diminished role in the Hecker h ­ ouse­hold as the years went by. Even without John’s financial contributions, Isaac and his b­ rothers w ­ ere able to take advantage of the many commercial and po­liti­cal opportunities that New York offered enterprising young men of the period. His ­brothers established a relatively lucrative bakery, and Isaac hovered around Demo­cratic Party politics and strove for personal improvement and public moral reform through participation in the city’s booming lecture cir­cuit. Hecker, then, was not totally constrained by his German ancestry, and like many of his peers, the promise of manly in­de­pen­dence through hard work, personal perfection, and po­liti­cal activism was in sight.5 ­Later in his ­career, Hecker’s Americanness and whiteness never seemed to be in question, perhaps a reflection of the gradual pro­cess of whitening that had enabled German Americans and Irish Americans to move from a place of suspicion on the part of native-­born Americans, who viewed them as corruptions in the other­wise pure Anglo blood that coursed through the veins of the young republic, to a position of inclusion in “a new and improved ‘American race’ of white men.”6 In 1870, the New York Herald described Hecker as a member of a f­ amily that was “estimable, virtuous, and affectionate in their characteristics.” Even though Hecker’s German parentage did not seem to trou­ble the editors of the Herald, the newspaper was still careful to make a distinction between the “Irish” and “American” parishioners of New York’s vari­ous Catholic churches, indicating that whiteness was still being made in the latter years of the nineteenth ­century.7 Similarly, even de­cades ­after Hecker’s conversion to Catholicism, a Mas­sa­chu­setts newspaper emphasized his parents’ Protestantism as well as the Hecker ­family’s liberality of thought, business acumen, and firm place among the artisans of early nineteenth-­century New

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York, all markers of the antebellum period’s respectable, white working class.8 Harper’s Weekly described the whitening pro­cess explic­itly: As for the Irish, they can well afford to smile. Most of them have been so long in the country as to have approached a long way ­towards the American type. The physical characteristics of their race, as of the Germans, fade out in the second or third generation in this country, and they grow more and more to look like the other Americans. The caricaturists may stick to the Irishman of their imagination and of tradition for indefinite ages to come, but the Irish-­American has already drifted far away from the creature of the caricaturist’s fancy. They might as well laugh at him, for he is not ­really a member of their ­family.9 At least some observers, then, ­were aware that formerly nonwhite, non-­ Americans could somehow transform into white Americans. ­After Hecker’s death in 1888, the retrospective pro­cess of Americanization and whitening continued, with the Herald describing him as a “lover of true liberty” and as “an American of Americans,” who was so American that he could successfully bring Protestants over to the usually suspect Catholic faith.10 Several years ­later, New York’s Irish World and American Industrial Liberator had rewritten Hecker’s f­ amily history by describing him as coming from “good New E ­ ngland Puritan stock,” and it praised his Paulist order for its “Yankee touch.”11 In this creative reimagining, Hecker was no longer German but had instead become a Puritan and thus a prototypical American. Just b­ ecause Hecker had attained security as an American, though, did not mean that non-­Catholics viewed Catholicism as a denomination conformable to the American nation. Over a forty-­year period spanning 1850 to 1890, the Catholic Church increased in size from just over one million members to over seven million, overtaking Methodism as the largest denomination in the United States.12 Such national publications as Harper’s Weekly noted in 1877 that “[t]he growth of the Roman Catholic Church in New E ­ ngland has been rapid, and deservedly attracts attention.”13 Harper’s notice of Catholic growth, however, was not provided out of any special affinity for religious demographics. Its editors, along with numerous Protestants who ­were aware of the rapid rise of Catholicism, saw the supposedly foreign body as a religion perpetually at war with the United States and one that “always had a hard tussle with the Anglo-­Saxon.”14 Harper’s was specifically concerned that the Catholic Church posed a threat to public education, a per­sis­tent theme in Catholic-­Protestant interactions in the United States and one that would continue in the debate over Philippine colonization. Hecker was often singled out in t­ hese denunciations of Catholic power as a leader in the campaign to secure public funding



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for parochial schools, in which “the Romish priesthood assailed all that was American and national.”15 It is not surprising that one of Thomas Nast’s most famous Harper’s cartoons, “The American River Gan­ges,” also dealt with the schooling controversy. The cartoon (see Fig. 3.1) depicts crocodilian Catholic bishops crawling out of a river to menace ­children protected by a young man with a Bible protruding from his jacket. In the background, Nast shows a public school in ruins and an American flag flying upside down, with St. Peter’s Basilica looming over the scene and bearing the inscription, “Po­liti­cal Roman Catholic Church.”16 In this same issue of Harper’s, Nast provided a second cartoon dealing with an identical theme, which was titled, “No Church Need Apply.” The cartoon (see Fig. 3.2) shows a visibly perturbed Pope Pius IX being turned away from an American public school by a group of pupils. Their teacher, “Miss Columbia,” depicted as the goddess Columbia in the background ­behind the students, signaled that Protestants, not Catholics, ­were the au­then­tic Americans who had a direct link to Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Pius came armed with papal decrees declaring his infallibility and with a host of “foreign goods.” The caption rec­ords a dialogue between the pope and one of the students: Little Jonathan: “Miss Columbia ­will not try your teaching, as it has proved to be so injurious in Dame Europa’s school that our ­adopted ­children who left her ­don’t care to learn ­under that system again.”

Figure 3.1.  Thomas Nast, “The American River Gan­ges.” From Harper’s Weekly, May 8, 1875, 384.

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Figure 3.2.  Thomas Nast, “No Church Need Apply.” From Harper’s Weekly, May 8, 1875, 385.

The Infallible One: “Oh, you Godless, infidel vipers, I’ll be revenged on you, for I keep the keys of heaven!”17 Despite the ­limited ac­cep­tance of German and Irish Catholics, the editors at Harper’s and many like-­minded non-­Catholics still harbored deep-­seated fears of a papist plot to destroy traditional American institutions. T ­ hese fears w ­ ere compounded by the many new Catholic immigrants from Eu­rope who ­were pouring across the borders into the United States in increasing numbers toward the end of the nineteenth c­ entury. ­Because so many of t­ hese recent arrivals hailed from decidedly non-­Anglo locales—­Italy and Poland are prime



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examples—­older fears of national degradation ­were ripe for a reappearance, as ­will be discussed in the next chapter.18 Hecker, then, was well positioned to comment on and shape public understandings of freedom, religious liberty, and Catholic-­Protestant interactions. The Church and the Age, published one year before his death in 1888, served just such a purpose, acting as a summation of Hecker’s thought on the place of Catholicism in the American nation. Hecker biographer David J. O’Brien argues that the essays composing The Church and the Age “constituted the strongest affirmation of democracy and ­human rights yet written by a Catholic American.”19 The book, which was divided into twelve essays, explores varied but connected subjects, including church-­state relations in the United States and Eu­rope, Catholic apol­o­getics, and mostly negative commentaries on Protestantism. R ­ unning through each of the essays is a common question Hecker poses at the outset of the book: “How can religion be made compatible with a high degree of liberty and intelligence?”20 At the foundation of Hecker’s explorations of church and age rests a fundamental concern with the place of the Catholic Church, a hierarchical and tradition-­bound institution, in a country whose national mythos was built ostensibly on notions of rationalism, religious freedom, and a firm, albeit at times permeable, separation of church and state—or what historian Jon Gjerde terms the “Catholic conundrum.”21 Hecker set out to demonstrate that ­there was no insurmountable wall between Catholicism and Americanism and that American freedom owed its existence to the Catholic Church. ­These ­were arguments espoused by numerous Catholics at the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, which had roots in the colonial period and early modern ­England.22 The product of this intellectual work is what theologian William L. Portier has referred to as “Hecker’s genius.” As Portier explains in reference to Hecker, “That a religious figure in the c­ entury of American pro­g ress and expansion should speak of the nation’s messianic destiny or the impending arrival of God’s kingdom in Amer­i­ca was not unusual. That a Catholic priest should speak in this manner was unheard of.”23 Hecker’s task, therefore, would be a difficult one ­because, as literary scholar Elizabeth Fenton has argued, non-­Catholics believed that American society and its system of governance ­were based on an “anti-­Catholic discourse that positioned ‘Protestantism’ as the guarantor of religious liberty.”24 Hecker was at pains to prove to the Protestants he aimed to convert, and the Catholic leaders whose approval he sought, that f­ree exercise of religion and the disestablishment of state churches, two cornerstones of American constitutional liberty, ­were wholly compatible with Catholic conceptions of freedom. As early as 1855, in his book, Questions of the Soul, Hecker maintained that Catholics w ­ ere neither unquestioning followers of the pope who lacked

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f­ ree ­will nor enemies of American in­de­pen­dence and the country’s demo­cratic republicanism. “No Catholic, as Catholic,” Hecker counseled, “owes obedience to any other authority than the authority of God.”25 He argued in The Church and the Age in ­favor of the symbiotic relationship between the United States and Catholicism, expressing the idea that “[a] citizen of the American republic who understands himself is all the more loyal to the republic b­ ecause he is a Catholic, and all the better Catholic b­ ecause he is loyal to the republic. For the doctrines of the Catholic Church alone furnish him with the princi­ples which enable him to make a synthesis between republicanism and Chris­tian­ ity.”26 It seems that in Hecker’s eyes, formal entrance into the Catholic Church through the sacraments was not the only ave­nue of salvation. A loyal American, even if not baptized into the church, could still be understood as a good Catholic for the sole reason that Catholicism and Americanism ­were truthfully one and the same. He made this point even more explic­itly: “Their relationship is so intimate and vital that no attack can be made against the Church which is not equally a blow against the republic.”27 David J. O’Brien has concluded similarly, noting Hecker’s desire for Catholic religious and national dominance in the United States: “At the end as at the beginning, Isaac Hecker’s goal was the triumph of the church. Catholics, to be Catholic, must pursue the goal of a Catholic Amer­i­ca and eventually a Catholic world, when the divisions among nations and the barriers between ­people would be overcome.”28 In Hecker’s eyes, Catholicism was the lifeblood of the American nation, and the tendency of “a large class of persons in the United States who look for and seek a more spiritual and earnest life” was “one of the chief characteristics of the American ­people.”29 He argued in his 1857 book, Aspirations of Na­ ture, that Americans w ­ ere desperate “for a religion adequate to their wants, adapted to their genius, and capable of guiding them to their divine destination.” For this “country of the F ­ uture,” whose pro­g ress was guided by Providence, Hecker wrote that Americans needed a “religion coextensive with our vast extent of territory, in harmony with the spirit of our f­ ree institutions, embracing in one brotherhood the entire ­human race, and drawing its authority from the bosom of God.”30 This religion was Catholicism, which Hecker argued, in the midst of the sectional crisis of the 1850s, was the only force that could bind together the increasingly diverse, fractious American national community. Forging a Catholic American nation, Hecker announced, was a heavenly mission: “Youth of Amer­i­ca! ­Here is opened to you a new, a noble, a divine ­career. ­Here is a God-­like enterprise. An enterprise worthy of your energies, and glorious for your country.”31 What has gone relatively unnoticed by scholars of American Catholicism was Hecker’s tendency in The Church and the Age to include Catholics u ­ nder



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the broader racial umbrella of Anglo-­Saxonism and to focus on the Anglo-­ Saxon as the key to advancing humanity into a new millennium of pro­g ress.32 Hecker created a Catholicized theory of American racial/national formation. He wrote at length on the “rational ele­ment,” the “energetic individuality,” and the “­g reat practical activity in the material order” that supposedly characterized the En­glish and Germans. Hecker felt that ­these ­peoples’ main weakness was their abandonment of the Catholic faith. He was confident, however, that the Anglo-­Saxons would eventually embrace Catholicism once again, and in ­doing so, they would grant the church the ability to propagate “the divine faith over the w ­ hole world.” Hecker maintained that the “spirit, the tendencies, and the form of po­liti­cal government inherited by the ­people of the United States are strongly and distinctively Saxon; yet ­there are no more patriotic or better citizens in the republic than Roman Catholics, and no more intelligent, practical, and devoted Catholics in the Church than the seven millions of Catholics in this same young and vigorous republic.” Hecker ­here equated Catholicism with Americanism and with Anglo-­Saxonism, thus portraying American Catholicism as a superior expression of modern religious and po­ liti­cal values that held a rightful, even divine, claim to leadership in the United States and in the world’s hierarchy of races. He argued further that from its earliest days, the Catholic Church sought to “win to her bosom the imperial races,” which provided US Catholic colonizers with intellectual ammunition in ­favor of turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century imperialism.33 ­Later Americanizing Catholics modified Hecker’s theory of Catholic Anglo-­Saxonism by developing a transatlantic ideology of Anglo-­Americanism, sometimes to the chagrin of Irish Americans, who often had no love for Anglos.34 Hecker also used an essay on St. Catherine of Genoa to attack Protestantism for what he perceived to be its uncivilized treatment of w ­ omen. He wrote that in the Catholic Church, “[w]omen, no less than men, are ­free to occupy any position whose duties and functions they have the intelligence or aptitude to fulfil [sic].”35 Coupled with laments over the “sensual and effeminate” tendencies of the period, a call for “the gift of Fortitude, which imparts to the ­will the strength to endure the greatest burdens, and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism,” and a concern over “a certain falling-­ off in energy” among Catholics, it is clear that Hecker feared a diminishment of manly power in the church.36 He argued that in its fight against Protestantism, the Catholic Church sacrificed “­those virtues which properly go to make up the strength of Christian manhood.”37 This reflected a prevailing conception of the racial hierarchy of the day, which, as historian Gail J. Bederman has argued, brought together whiteness, manhood, and military conquest in a new ideology that placed white men at the top of the world’s ladder of races

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and nations.38 It also demonstrated the contributions of US Catholics to what historian Jackson Lears has described as the drive among social and po­liti­cal reformers of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era to harness rejuvenative energy in an attempt to achieve national regeneration and rebirth.39 Though Hecker would die only one year ­after the publication of The Church and the Age, his racial and national theories appeared at a time when many non-­ Catholics w ­ ere concerned with the newest tide of Catholic immigration. They also served as an intellectual foundation for the arguments that appeared a de­ cade l­ater in the Catholic World, the newspaper he founded, in support of Catholic inclusion in the American nation and of the church’s role in the shaping of American imperial policy following the victory over Spain in 1898. Hecker’s newspaper was a prominent one in the mid-­to late nineteenth-­century Catholic press. With a mixture of po­liti­cal commentary, theological and philosophical musings, poetry, and historical accounts, along with a healthy dose of apol­o­ getics and anti-­Protestant polemics, its editors worked to demonstrate to both Catholic and Protestant readers that the Catholic Church belonged in the United States and that it was far from the authoritarian, irrational, superstitious institution its detractors claimed it was. Harper’s considered it “the chief Roman Catholic organ” in the country, and Hecker was confident that it was continuously “exerting a wider and more impor­tant influence on a large class of minds.” 40 The Catholic World did not represent all Catholic intellectuals, let alone the entire Catholic community. It served, however, as a public forum for a par­tic­u­lar group of prominent, progressive Catholic thinkers at the end of the nineteenth ­century who followed in Hecker’s footsteps in their attempts to reconcile Catholicism and the American way of life. Historian Thomas McAvoy describes it as the “chief monthly magazine” propagating the “ideals of its founder ­Father Hecker who was a cultural and literary partisan for Americanization and for Catholic participation in social reform.” 41 By 1872, Hecker’s newspaper drew an ideological line in the sand, which was illustrated by Orestes Brownson’s parting of ways with the publication. Over the course of their long friendship, Brownson distanced himself from Hecker’s position regarding the compatibility of Catholicism and Americanism. Brownson told Hecker that “Catholicity & [democracy] are as mutually antagonistic as the spirit & the flesh, the Church and the World, Christ & Satan.” Unlike Hecker, who argued that in the United States, “the Church exists in her entire independance [sic] from State control,” Brownson considered “such harmony impracticable except by sacrificing the Catholic idea to the National.” 42 Following a series of personal and theological disputes with Abraham F. Hewitt, the Catholic World’s editor, Brownson ceased submitting articles to the newspaper, which served as both a symbolic and literal break between



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two dif­fer­ent visions of the Catholic Church’s place in the United States and the modern world.43 When war with Spain arrived in 1898, along with the possibility of new territories for the United States in the Ca­rib­bean and the Pacific, Catholic authors affiliated with the Paulist newspaper took the opportunity to weigh in on the growing American empire. In May 1898, the newspaper’s editors praised President William McKinley for his “wise, humane, and patriotic” leadership, but expressed fear that the war may have been driven, at least in part, by a generalized anti-­Catholic sentiment. They ­were confident, though, that the “cooler heads of the country” would prevail, guiding the United States ­toward a moderate policy in its prosecution of the war.44 John Ireland also spoke highly of President McKinley’s leadership in the conflict, particularly commending him for “giv[ing] Catholics a due repre­sen­ta­tion in the appointment of chaplains” to the US Army.45 In his study of Catholics and US colonial policy during the Spanish-­American War and its aftermath, historian Frank Reuter argues that Catholic intellectuals and clerics expressed their disapproval of American colonial policy in the Philippines primarily out of a concern that it would be used to marginalize the position of the Catholic Church in the new colony.46 This assessment is accurate, but it does not consider the extent to which some leading Catholics saw colonization as a means whereby their church could stake a claim to a stronger position in the period’s racial hierarchy. Although the Catholic World’s editors sensed a danger in the “dominant Anglo-­Saxon trait” of “acquiring new territory,” they grouped themselves and their fellow Catholics in this racial community, referring to “our racial thirst for globe conquest.” 47 White Catholics expressed their consternation over reports of mistreatment of friars and Catholic Filipinos at the hands of the American military, but they also used colonization as a venue for expressing their solidarity with white Protestants in a shared proj­ect of civilizing what they perceived to be an inferior race. At the same time, though, Catholics distanced themselves from Anglo-­Saxon expansionism when it suited their purposes. When colonization gave the church an opportunity to claim a greater degree of public power, the Catholic World could be virtually indistinguishable from a con­temporary Protestant or secular newspaper in its support for the conquest of the supposed savages who populated the Philippines. On the other hand, when its editors sensed that Catholic power was threatened in the new colonial holding, they deftly deflected any association with the “Anglo-­maniacs” who professed to preach “ ‘pure religion’ ”— in other words, Protestantism—to the Filipinos, the majority of whom ­were at least nominally Catholic. The editors even went so far as ranking Filipinos, despite their apparent love for cockfighting, above the white Protestants who corrupted “national life and morals” through the “fire-­water given to the

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American Indian,” which also made evident the view that US Indigenous and US Filipino policies w ­ ere connected components of the larger American 48 empire. The pages of the Catholic World indicate, however, that alongside their ostensible concern for the welfare of Filipinos, the writers associated with this newspaper also had a strong fear that their own church would not have a hand in continuing its colonization of the Philippines. Charleson Shane, in an article written in August 1898 that praised the work already accomplished by the Catholic Church in the islands before the arrival of American troops, described the “tremendous influence for good Catholicity has exercised over the belief, morality, and material well-­being of the natives.” Shane maintained that Eu­ ro­pean missionaries w ­ ere almost solely responsible for the moral uplift of the Philippines, although he downplayed the fact that native-­born Filipino clergy ­were actually responsible for the pastoral care of more Catholics than the Dominican and Jesuit o ­ rders combined. Altogether, Shane saw colonization as a “minor incon­ve­nience” for Filipinos, but it seems apparent that he did not interview Filipinos on the ­matter.49 Shane received some validation from a lay Catholic named Helene M. Erni, who, in a letter to the New York Times, pointed out the “won­ders accomplished by Catholicity” in the Philippines. Furthermore, Erni was confident that “[i]f our country s­ hall take t­ hese islands we w ­ ill have a most valuable possession, principally b­ ecause Catholic missionaries have labored long and earnestly among a savage p­ eople.”50 Shane and Erni make it apparent that they saw the Philippines as an object to acquire in pursuit of both national and religious glory. Numerous Catholic World writers presumed that native Filipinos welcomed Catholic missionaries warmly. Paulist priest Alexander Doyle was confident that the “natives love the padres too much,” and he took the opportunity to insult Protestantism, describing it as “a cold, lifeless religion,” an inversion of a traditional Protestant criticism of the Catholic style of worship.51 In a defense of Spanish Catholics’ administration of the Philippines before the arrival of the United States, the newspaper’s editors also commented on “the devotion of the p­ eople to the clergy.”52 Under­lying ­these views of Filipinos’ supposed loyalty to the Catholic Church ­were three key beliefs: first, a racist conception of the islands’ inhabitants as inferior, uncivilized, and in need of the guidance of a superior race, which was more or less indistinguishable from the Catholic rhe­toric dealing with Native American missions; second, the divine right of the United States to expand beyond its continental borders and to establish a government for the supposedly backward Filipinos; and third, an understanding of the Philippines as a colony rich in resources that was owed to the United States following its victory over Spain.



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The Catholic World’s racial theories extended beyond just Filipinos and white Americans. Philip  K. Nylander described Hawaii’s Japa­nese population as snakelike, “­little brown ­people” who lived in “ant-­hills.” However, he saw potential for the advancement of inferior races if they would adopt customs such as proper clothing and wage l­abor.53 Alexander Doyle considered Filipinos to be a “mongrel class” that would have remained in an uncivilized state if not for the work of Catholic missionaries.54 The newspaper’s editors ­were prepared for a generations-­long American presence in the Philippines “­until the p­ eople are taught self-­reliance and self-­government,” in much the same way that US-­ based missionaries contemplated administering Indigenous day and boarding schools in­def­initely for similar reasons of civilization and uplift.55 George McDermot, a Paulist priest, explained that “the composite origin of the Filipinos offers only types of a humanity presenting descending degrees of degradation,” with “groups or parts of groups standing in primitive conditions.”56 As another writer pointed out, though, the Filipinos w ­ ere racially predisposed to obedience, so in his view, American colonization would be a relatively ­simple task, assuming that Catholic friars, for whom Filipinos supposedly maintained a “sincere attachment,” ­were permitted to maintain their positions in the new American colony.57 Edmund Briggs, a canon l­awyer affiliated with the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca, described the view held by many Catholic intellectuals of their Filipino coreligionists: “Can it be pretended, in the face of history, that such a moral entity exists organically among the mass of Malay, Papuan, Chinese, and mongrel half-­breed inhabitants of the Philippine Islands?”58 Some US Catholics spoke of the Filipinos in the same language of immaturity used frequently to describe the Native Americans, namely, as “wards,” despite American Catholics finding much to praise in the faith and attitudes of their Filipino coreligionists.59 This praise still functioned to essentialize the Filipinos. Racist essentialization, it is clear, could take both negative and positive tones. To justify this conquest, Henry E. O’Keeffe invoked Manifest Destiny, arguing that the United States had “a special mission to extend Christ’s kingdom across the face of the earth.” As part of this mission, O’Keeffe, like Hecker before him, envisioned a “new race with the mingled blood of Saxon and Celt and Latin” that would conquer the earth and establish a benevolent empire through “humanitarian” means. O’Keeffe viewed the United States as a new Israel and contrasted his youthful, virile country with the staid “old world,” at once joining the United States and the Catholic Church to white supremacy (and rhetorically whitening Celts and Latins in the pro­cess) while si­mul­ ta­neously distancing them from European-­style imperialism. In O’Keeffe’s view, the American nation would be fully actualized through a combination of missionary work, the Catholic faith, and capitalistic, industrial colonization.60

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One of O’Keeffe’s fellow priests, George McDermot, also tried to separate US imperialism from the British model by portraying Eu­ro­pe­ans as greedy thieves and Americans as unwilling but benevolent, effective colonizers who would fulfill their duties in the Philippines.61 M. J. Riordan, like O’Keeffe, conceived of colonization as a divine proj­ect, and he defended it on biblical grounds by arguing, “[T]he methods and means of ‘benevolent assimilation’ ­were fi­nally settled and ‘the White Man’s burden’ was laid for all time when, in t­ hose days, Christ, the Holy One of Israel, spoke to his Apostles, saying, ‘­Going, teach all nations.’ ”62 According to Riordan, Christ was the first Christian colonizer, and US Catholics would therefore be wise to obey their Lord in raising up their lesser brethren in the Philippines. This is an example of the white Jesus imagery used as an instrument of racism and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.63 Catholic intellectuals also demonstrated that non-­Catholics had no mono­ poly on viewing empire as a means of accruing capital and material resources for the United States. Paulist priest Alexander Doyle made that clear, noting that the “value of the Philippines as a strategic point in the East is evident to any one whose eye penetrates into the e­ arlier years of the new c­ entury.”64 The editors of the Catholic World realized the ­great potential for exploiting the abundant natu­ ral resources of the islands and justified American imperialism by describing the supposedly wasteful, lazy, “happy-­go-­lucky disposition” of the Filipinos, who evidently had too many resources for their own good.65 Edmund Briggs argued that the United States could no longer be constrained by the country’s theoretical isolationism of previous years and saw colonization of the Philippines not as conquest but rather as his country’s just reward for its victory over Spain. At its foundation, Briggs’s l­egal and constitutional argument for annexation was predicated on a conception of an international strug­gle for power. He announced unabashedly, “We ­were the first power to establish the ‘open door’ of trade in Asia; and, ‘standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet,’ we w ­ ill be the last to abandon it. If, for this, we need to keep the Philippines, the Philippines we ­will keep.”66 One priest expressed a similar sentiment, arguing that the United States must fulfill its colonizing duties, ­whether or not Americans approved, if only b­ ecause giving up the colony “would be an injury to American citizens, to whom something is due for the sacrifices of the war.”67 The Catholic World, in an editorial note written in October 1899 in the midst of the Philippine-­ American War, provided an unapologetic defense of both Native American conquest and Philippine annexation: Most of the territory that now constitutes the United States was acquired by conquest or purchase, and by men who of all Americans ­were lovers of republican institutions. What is more, on the acquisition of this territory



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they never thought to hold a plebiscite and ask the ­favor of sovereignty from the p­ eople of the acquired territories. The American princi­ple of a government by the p­ eople can be easily affirmed in the Philippines a­ fter we have pacified the islands.68 Catholic intellectuals rationalized a policy of democracy through colonization, which makes sense, as Briggs explained, for in the eyes of pro-­colonization Americans, both Catholic and non-­Catholic alike, “the ‘Filipinos’ [­were] not a ‘­people.’  ”69 Briggs’s view was in accord with a report issued by the US Philippine Commission in November 1899, which declared, “ ‘The Filipinos are not a nation, but a variegated assemblage of dif­fer­ent types and ­peoples, and their loyalty is still of the tribal type. . . . ​Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a ­free, self-­governing and united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable.’ ”70 Some of the most revealing evidence demonstrating Catholic intellectuals’ views of their own church’s privileged position within the world of transnational empires is found in the photo­graphs accompanying several of the Catholic World’s articles defending Philippine colonization. They purport to show the higher degree of civilization Catholic missionaries brought to the Filipinos, a civilization many American Catholics claimed would as­suredly be lost if they did not pick up where their Spanish counter­parts left off. They more typically demonstrated the authors’ and editors’ views of the Filipinos as ­people e­ ither semicivilized or projecting an image of civilization though still containing within themselves the primordial instinct to return to barbarism.71 Several images claim to depict advancements in Philippine agriculture and industry, but the images actually portray the Philippines as a still-­undeveloped colony whose inhabitants used relatively rudimentary farming implements (see Fig.  3.3 and Fig.  3.4).72 Other images show scenes of Filipino ­women’s domesticity, but they tend to portray the w ­ omen engaged in physical l­abor outside the home and dressed in non-­Western clothing, thus being at odds with the white, middle-­class, domestic ideal then prevalent in the United States (see Fig. 3.5 and Fig. 3.6).73 Additional photo­graphs suggest the ever-­present potential of the Filipinos to regress without the guiding hand of Catholic missionaries and the US government. One image shows a village engaged in what appears to be a vesper worship ser­vice, which would seem to indicate Filipinos’ piety and devotion to Catholicism, but the structure in the image, which may be a home or a h ­ ouse of worship, is missing two walls and looks to have an unstable roof (see Fig. 3.7).74 Another article, which reported on the gradual advancement of Filipinos, appeared to mock the islands’ poor “rapid transit” system by showing an image of a man riding an ox, rather than on a railroad or in a carriage, as would have been common in the

Figure 3.3.  “The Natives Are as a Class Industrious.” From “The Spanish Administration in the Philippines,” Catholic World, January 1899, 533.

Figure 3.4.  “The Art of Husbandry Is Well Developed.” From Rev. W. A. Jones, “The Religious ­Orders in the Philippines,” Catholic World, February 1899, 593.



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Figure 3.5.  “Domestic Duties Are Well Discharged.” From “The Spanish Administration in the Philippines,” Catholic World, January 1899, 543.

United States in this period (see Fig. 3.8).75 Similarly, a picture of a group of men seemingly preparing to conduct a cockfight is captioned, “Their Savage Instincts Sometimes Reassert Themselves,” demonstrating the author’s view that Filipinos would always have the innate potential to return to an uncivilized state and suggesting ­there might be no logical end to American and Catholic colonization (see Fig. 3.9).76 This same author explained that the nascent Filipino nation

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Figure 3.6.  “The Native Filipinos Are Noted for Domestic Virtue.” From Rev. W. A. Jones, “The Religious ­Orders in the Philippines,” Catholic World, February 1899, 583.

­ arbored a criminal, primitive potential that could be awakened by unsavory h ele­ments who would take advantage of the supposedly docile, easily duped Filipinos.77 ­These portrayals of Filipino Catholics as being similar to us, “but not quite like us”—as historian Rebecca Tinio McKenna writes in an analy­sis of similar photographic depictions of colonized Filipinos in other popu­lar publications of the period that w ­ ere aimed at American audiences—­served to justify continuing colonization and, McKenna argues, “marked and stressed a divergence” between Filipinos and Americans.78 As far as the ­actual logistics of r­ unning the American Catholic empire in the Philippines went, Catholic leaders reached out to laypeople in the United



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Figure 3.7.  “At Vesper-­Time an Instant Hush Comes over the Whole Village.” From “The Spanish Administration in the Philippines,” Catholic World, January 1899, 537.

States to support their church’s schools in the islands and to staff them to ensure that the Catholic influence remained ­viable in the face of Protestant encroachments. T ­ hese efforts went well beyond the narrower editorial confines of the Catholic World and extended to the wider community of US Catholics. Federal officials, despite many Catholics viewing them as being in f­ avor of Protestant missionaries—­the same way Catholics regarded them during the reservation school ­battles of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s—­requested that Catholic leaders assist in providing manpower to carry out the on-­the-­g round work of colonization. Fred W. Atkinson, the general superintendent of instruction in the Philippine Islands, wrote from Manila in 1900 to Rev. Andrew Morrissey, president of the University of Notre Dame, to request the ser­vices of “a number of Notre Dame gradu­ates who would be willing to go to the Philippines for a small salary (from $600 to $1500) to take charge of elementary schools, engaging to teach for a period of three years.”79 The US government sought the best and brightest of the country’s young men to serve the United States’ civilizing mission in the Philippines, and it was confident that

Figure 3.8.  “Rapid Transit Is Not Thoroughly Developed.” From Rev. W. A. Jones, “The Religious ­Orders in the Philippines,” Catholic World, February 1899, 584.

Figure 3.9.  “Their Savage Instincts Sometimes Reassert Themselves.” From Rev. W. A. Jones, “The Religious O ­ rders in the Philippines,” Catholic World, February 1899, 586.



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Notre Dame was the place to find them. And the government meant men. C. R. Edmond, the chief of the War Department’s Division of Insular Affairs, told Morrissey in 1901, “[A] cablegram recently received from the General Superintendent of Public Instruction at Manila instructed the Department to assign no more ­women teachers than had already been sent.”80 Archbishop Ireland was sufficiently confident in the federal government’s ability to competently administer the Philippines and to deal fairly with the Catholic Church’s interests in the islands that he publicly shared his decision to vote for the McKinley-­Roosevelt presidential ticket in 1900. What­ever misgivings he may have initially felt about his country colonizing his Filipino coreligionists, he was certain that keeping the same administration in power would “contribute to the maintenance of the country’s material prosperity” and would “aid the country in bringing about the safest and most honorable solutions of the complex prob­lems” arising from the Spanish-­American War. Ireland surely spoke for many when he expressed his desire for the United States to hold on to “the exalted position which it holds at pre­sent commercially and diplomatically before other nations of the world.”81 The work of empire also operated in reverse. That is, while colonizers traveled to the United States’ new imperial holdings a­ fter the Spanish-­American War, American citizens also experienced the arrival of the colonized in the United States. This was most apparent in the 1904 world’s fair in St. Louis, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, which hosted what was effectively a h ­ uman zoo that displayed supposedly savage Filipinos for the edification of white fairgoers.82 Not all colonial encounters within the United States ­were so dramatic. As a more everyday example, in 1900, Henry D. S­ ullivan, a Catholic priest from Albion, Michigan, wrote to President Morrissey of Notre Dame to express his fear that a group of six Cubans who ­were planning to move to his town to attend a Methodist college would be lost to the Catholic faith if they fell ­under the sway of Protestants. The wishes of the Cubans ­were of no consequence to S­ ullivan. He asked Morrissey to have a Notre Dame professor who was fluent in Spanish write to the students or to a priest in their home of Remedios, Cuba, to “explain to them or him the dangers of Protestant Colleges in this country.”83 Not the students’ desires but rather the need to stem the tide of more Cubans attending Protestant institutions in the United States was ­Sullivan’s overriding concern.84 James Jeffrey Roche of Boston’s Catholic newspaper the Pi­lot, a critic of American imperialism, also wrote to Morrissey in 1904 to ­express consternation that the federal government de­cided to enroll one hundred Filipino students in public, nonsectarian schools, even though, Jeffrey argued, “­these schools have religious ser­vices,” which w ­ ere presum85 ably Protestant. In 1901, a Benedictine missionary in the Oklahoma Territory

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similarly blasted the McKinley administration as an ally of or­ga­nized anti-­ Catholicism for allowing the training of “Catholic young men from Porto Rico” at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania for the purpose of returning home to teach in government-­run schools. This irked the priest since the school’s head, Richard Henry Pratt, was, he claimed, “a rampant A.P.A.”86 ­Here, then, according to Catholics, was a clear example of the government, Protestants, and a notorious anti-­Catholic organ­ization cooperating to steal Catholics from their religious community and to train them in the ways of anti-­Catholicism to subvert their church from within in the manner of a religiously bigoted Trojan h ­ orse. Once again, just as in the western mission schools, Catholics charged the federal government with colluding with Protestants to deprive their church of what they considered its rightful authority to educate youthful “wards” of the United States, and once again, the colonized became instruments in a larger, transnational b­ attle for religious dominance conducted by American churches aiming to extend their power globally. ­Running beneath this Catholic rhe­toric of empire, nation, and race was a fundamental contest for power between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic writers who w ­ ere loyal to their church w ­ ere attuned to any perceived anti-­ Catholic insult and connected their fights against nativism at home with what they saw as its exportation abroad. Just as American colonial officials and Catholic and Protestant missionaries brought with them to the Philippines the lessons learned from the US government’s imperial campaign against Native Americans, so, too, did ­those individuals associated with Isaac Hecker’s vision of a Catholic American nation see the American tradition of anti-­Catholicism being exported to the Philippines. Where Protestants often feared Catholics meddling in public schooling in the United States, Catholics expressed anxiety over Protestants exercising undue influence over Filipino schools that had been run previously by Catholic missionaries. This was a reflection of the longer history of Catholics and Protestants struggling with one another for control of education in US public schools and in the contract schools operated by missionaries as part of the Peace Policy. The editor of a Catholic newspaper, the Indian Advocate, claimed in 1901, “The crucifixes have been removed from the public schools in the Philippines, but the Protestant version of the Bible remains in the public schools in the United States,” providing support for historian Judith Raftery’s argument that “[t]he nineteenth-­century textbook wars followed the flag to the Philippines.”87 The Catholic World was prepared for a fight. Its editors related a possibly fictional exchange between a Protestant prelate and a lay member of his church



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at a meeting of the General Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Bishop Cranston, of Portland, Ore., who returned from Manila only a short time ago, spoke upon the advisability of including the Philippine archipelago in the district of Eastern Asia. It was noticed that he pronounced Philippines with a long “i” in the last syllable. Dr. James M. Buckley, of this city, took exception to this. “The usual pronunciation,” he said, “is Philip-­peen, I believe; not Philip-­pyne.” “Oh, yes,” Bishop Cranston replied laughingly, “that’s the way the Romanists pronounce it, I know. But we want to remove e­ very vestige of Rome from the islands, and we might as well change the pronunciation of the name. I, for one, s­ hall call it Philippyne.” The newspaper’s editors vowed that this “effort to remove e­ very vestige of Rome from the Philippines w ­ ill not be awaited with s­ ilent inactivity.”88 Reflecting a concern expressed by Catholic missionaries on western reservations, Catholics w ­ ere perturbed that the American colonial government in the Philippines would allow “a priest or minister of any church established in the place where a public school is situated” to “visit the school to teach religion for half an hour at a time, three days a week, to pupils whose parents or guardians express a desire to have their c­ hildren so instructed.” The Sacred Heart Review of Boston, a Catholic periodical, attacked, in much the same way as the BCIM, “the kind of non-­sectarianism that prevails h ­ ere in Amer­i­ca with regard to the schools,” and argued that this same policy in the Philippines “seems unjust and absurd.” The newspaper lamented that a similar situation of religious neutrality that had prevailed in the Peace Policy, which it felt would only harm the Catholic Church, was now being transposed to Filipino schools. Also similar to the claims made by Catholic missionaries that Native Americans desired Catholic, rather than Protestant or secular, instruction, the Sa­ cred Heart Review maintained, “No doubt the Filipino ­people are disgusted at such a lopsided plan, and no doubt they have a right to be.” According to Catholic observers, the anti-­Catholic menace was rearing its ugly head, and again it had effected a corrupt alliance between Protestants and government officials: “It certainly looks as if the [Philippine] Commission made this plan in order to allow the proselytizers to work their way into the schools.”89 Similarly, Pittsburgh’s branch of the Catholic Truth Society argued in f­ avor of maintaining a Catholic mono­poly over the Philippine schools, using the same logic as that used by the BCIM: Catholic missionaries w ­ ere t­ here first; the majority of the students ­were Catholic; therefore, Catholics had the sole

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right to educate the colonized students in perpetuity. The Truth Society wrote to President Theodore Roo­se­velt in 1902, revealing complaints about the colonial administration that w ­ ere virtually identical to the issues with the Peace Policy that Catholics raised in the 1870s: That the Filipinos are practically all Catholics; that their spiritual welfare has been in charge of Catholic clergy; . . . ​that the United States government proposes to banish the religious o ­ rders from the islands, and take possession of their property, ­whether the ­owners are willing to dispose of it or not; that the banishment of the Catholic religious o ­ rders ­will leave thousands of the Filipinos with practically no clergy to minister to their spiritual necessities; that while the Filipinos are all Catholics, the system of education which it is proposed to establish for them is one which Catholics can not approve in conscience, or consistently accept; that Americans of no religion, or of a faith at variance with the teachings of Catholicity, are in charge of all branches of Filipino public education; that 90 per cent. of the teachers sent to the Philippines are non-­Catholics; that many of ­those in charge of the Philippine educational system are using the schools to pervert the natives from the Catholic faith; that the commission appointed by the United States government to look ­after the Philippine affairs is without Catholic repre­sen­ta­tion.90 ­ here is no reason to doubt that the Truth Society cared for the welfare of T Catholic Filipinos, but at the same time, it seems inescapable that at least part of American Catholics’ concerns for the islands’ colonized residents was animated by resentment ­toward a government that seemed to ­favor the rights and privileges of Protestant citizens. They feared losing Filipino souls to the Protestant fold and coming up short in the po­liti­cal and social b­ attle for religious dominance at home. Secretary of War William Howard Taft attempted to allay Catholic resentment ­toward perceived government bias. He argued that the reason why “a considerable majority of the American schoolteachers ­ were Protestants” was ­because of “the ­simple fact that the number of Protestant teachers disengaged and able to go to the Philippines was very much greater than Catholic teachers so situated.” Taft assured Catholics that any attempts on the part of teachers “to proselyte or to teach ­children ideas in ­favor of one religion or against another” would be met with “the severest penalty.” The separation of church and state, Taft maintained, was the order of the day: “Of course, it is the duty of this government and all acting ­under it, to treat ­every denomination with strict impartiality, and to secure the utmost freedom of religious worship for all.”91 The



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prob­lem with this argument for Catholics, though, was that it was a familiar one that was advanced frequently during the nineteenth ­century. This argument, Catholics maintained, defended public, secular schools that w ­ ere anything but secular in practice, evincing instead a de­cided Protestant bent, w ­ hether it be through the conscious or unconscious influence of Protestant teachers or through instruction from the King James Version of the Bible in the classroom. From the perspective of the US Catholic critique of Protestant power, secularism was at best a misnomer and at worst a thin justification to disguise the Pro­ testantization of society and state. This comports with religion scholar Finbarr Curtis’s conclusion that “­there is no such ­thing as religious freedom, or at least no one t­hing. Religious freedom is a malleable rhe­toric employed for a variety of purposes.” While Taft promised to defend “freedom of religious worship for all,” the Catholics demonstrated that “religious freedom,” as Curtis describes it, is “something fragmented, in tension, and u ­ nder duress.”92 Government officials worked to allay Catholic fears that they ­were being locked out of the administration of the new colony. For instance, Maurice  D. O’Connell, the solicitor of the Trea­sury and a Catholic, argued that more Catholic chaplains should be attached to the US Army and that they should even operate as “quasi-­representatives of the Government.” O’Connell feared, though, that the McKinley administration would not take this proposal seriously.93 When Theodore Roo­se­velt assumed the presidency in 1901—as well as the colonial administration of the Philippines—­Americanizing Catholics such as Gibbons and Ireland cultivated close relationships with the new president, which apparently bought Catholicism increased attention in the federal government, as Taft’s comments, mentioned previously, indicate, while also perhaps alienating other Catholics who still looked askance at any sort of partnership between their church and the imperial American government.94 Historian John Tracy Ellis argues, “In the difficult and delicate negotiations that ensued regarding ecclesiastical m ­ atters in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines the administrations of Roo­se­velt and Taft had no more helpful and enlightened adviser than the Cardinal of Baltimore. Through Gibbons’ hands ­there passed many of the principal decisions affecting the Church in the island possessions.”95 Even in more minor ­matters—­for instance, the question of ­whether Roo­ se­velt should congratulate Pope Pius X on his elevation to the papacy in 1903; Secretary of State John Hay felt that he should not—­the president often deferred to the suggestions of liberal Catholic leaders such as Ireland. In this instance, Roo­se­velt followed Ireland’s advice.96 President Roo­se­velt clearly respected this wing of the Catholic hierarchy. He worked b­ ehind the scenes

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with the Americanists to ensure smooth negotiations with the Vatican over land issues and the residence of friars in the Philippines; he instructed his secretary of war, Elihu Root, for instance, to seek out Ireland’s counsel.97 Roo­se­ velt even went so far as to suggest that he “should like to see Archbishop Ireland a Cardinal,” although he was also sufficiently aware of the impropriety of a president inserting himself in church affairs. He therefore recoiled from expressing such sentiments publicly while functioning officially as president.98 During his short retirement from politics ­after his second term as president, though, Roo­se­velt had no such prob­lem backing Ireland for membership in the cardinalate. Upon hearing of newly named cardinals in 1911—­Ireland was not among them—­Roosevelt noted, “I think that Ireland or some representative of the Ireland school should have been appointed.”99 During his presidency, Roo­se­velt felt that American Catholic criticism of his administration’s negotiations with the Vatican over Philippine policy was driven by personal animosity against John Ireland and his brand of Americanizing Catholicism. “I was prepared to be attacked by the extreme anti-­Catholic ­people for your g­ oing ­there,” Roo­se­velt wrote to Taft in 1902, “but I was completely taken aback by the violent attack made upon me by the Catholics. I think it was a move or­ga­nized by the anti-­Ireland ­people to get even with him, and they have shown that they control the larger part of the or­ga­nized Catholic socie­ties, lay and clerical, and papers which give expression to distinctly Catholic opinion.” Roo­se­velt noted that “the anti-­Ireland Catholics . . . ​called themselves anti-­liberals.” While Roo­se­velt was confident that he and Taft’s negotiations with the Vatican ­were “best for the Filipinos” and would accomplish “justice to the Church,” he was dismayed that many Catholics disagreed.100 The accommodationist position employed by Gibbons and Ireland ­toward the American colonization of the Philippines and in their cooperation with the Roo­se­velt administration—­for instance, Taft’s invitation to Ireland to assist in appointing teachers to the islands—­clearly held the upper hand in the ­actual operations of the federal government, indicating a continuing influence for the liberal wing of American Catholic nationalists into the twentieth ­century that was perhaps out of proportion compared to their absolute numbers.101 Although the United States firmly established its power in the Philippines in 1902 and church leaders such as Gibbons and Ireland exercised considerable influence in the Roo­se­velt administration, Catholics w ­ ere not confident that the religious administration of the islands was settled definitively. Much like the ­earlier Catholic World writers who saw Protestants lurking ­behind ­every textbook and American flag, ­later Catholic leaders on the islands, including missionaries, parish priests, and bishops, felt that unchecked Protestantism



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threatened the Catholic Church’s existence in the Philippines. John MacGinley, the bishop of Nueva Caceres, wrote in 1914 that the proselyter is abroad in the Philippines. With ample resources and overwhelming zeal he aims at nothing less than making that Catholic land Protestant. Devious and wily are his ways. Cunningly he seeks to engraft his propaganda on the public school system. If he can only secure the e­ ager young students, who, athirst for knowledge, throng the public high schools, his work is done; for t­ hese young scholars ­will soon be the influential leaders in a country whose masses meekly follow where their men and ­women of education lead. So the proselyter’s aim is to capture the public high school for Protestantism. The “proselyter,” though, did not stop with public schools. He allegedly used the mission hospitals as “a bait to snatch souls,” ensnaring the sick and infirm in a trap from which they could not physically escape. MacGinley feared that unscrupulous Protestants would lead Filipinos away from Catholicism and eventually from religion entirely—­charges almost identical to t­ hose made by nativists against similar Catholic institutions in the nineteenth ­century.102 Note, though, that the Filipinos’ desire to remain Catholic was assumed. In other words, it was inconceivable that a Catholic priest could be a “proselyter” seeking to disrupt religious life in the Philippines. Catholicism was the irrevocable norm. Whereas in the United States, Catholics ­were formulating a challenge to Protestant leadership, in the Philippines, they feared that their own power was faltering in the face of a combined government-­Protestant assault. As early as 1871, both Hecker and Brownson expressed their disapproval of what they saw as “the u ­ nion of Protestantism and the State” in the public schools of the United States, an almost mirror image of the fears Protestants expressed over the attempt by some Catholic clerics to secure public funding for parochial schools.103 Catholics also attacked Protestants for attempting to attach their churches to the colonial regime in the Philippines through the islands’ public schools. Dennis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia, who had previously served as a bishop in the Philippines, claimed in 1924, “­There is a conspiracy to kill Catholicity in the Philippines. Our Government has consistently worked hand in hand with the Y.M.C.A., Bishop Brent and other Protestant organ­izations. F ­ ree Masonry is rampant, open, and hostile to the Catholic Church in ­those Islands. The Masons have a grip on ­things ­there to an extent which is unbelievable if not seen.”104 A missionary, J. P. Guttemans, complained similarly a year l­ater, “An insidious anti-­Catholic Propaganda which is no longer wanted in the United States, is flooding now the Philippine Islands.”105

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Dougherty spoke for many Catholic leaders of the period when he attacked what he perceived to be a wide-­ranging, anti-­Catholic conspiracy that fused the American colonial regime with Protestantism and Freemasonry, a perennial Catholic target. Edwin V. Byrne, an American-­born priest serving in the Philippines, related to Dougherty his opinion that Masonry had infiltrated the Filipino government, noting that “Quezon is President of the Senate and Roxas the Speaker of the House. Both are Masons.” Nevertheless, Byrne felt that ­because of the influence of their Catholic wives, their Masonic leanings could be tempered. Roxas, Byrne wrote, was “tractable,” indicating that, at least to some extent, Byrne viewed Filipino politicians as pawns in a larger strug­gle for Catholic mastery. He was confident that Masonry and Protestantism ­were declining as power­ful influences in Philippine society and politics. He noted that if only more “American priests” would make their way to the islands, Catholic clerics could “easily save the students.”106 Byrne spoke of the competition between Catholics and Protestants as a war game, with vari­ous churches attempting to capture territories at the expense of their rivals. Byrne told Dougherty of the vari­ous gains and losses for Protestant institutions throughout the islands, and he expressed his “hope to visit Pototan weekly in order to cripple them.”107 Like Byrne, Catholics w ­ ere often much less concerned with the absolute separation of church and state than they w ­ ere with ensuring that their church would maintain its religious mono­poly in the colony. Dougherty (then serving as bishop of Jaro in the Philippines), in decrying in 1913 the actions of “[f]ive Protestant sects, the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Campbellites,” which had supposedly “apportioned” the Philippines “among themselves into distinct spheres of propagandism,” seemed more perturbed that Catholics might lose the war of “propagandism” than that American Catholics ­were active participants in the colonization of their Filipino coreligionists.108 Philip Nylander attacked the laziness and greed of Protestant missionaries in Hawaii to impress on his readers the need for Catholic clerics to continue overseeing the religious development of the Philippines and took the opportunity to remind Protestant readers that many non-­Catholics sent their ­children to Catholic rather than public schools ­because “[t]­here are no leaky crafts in Catholic education.”109 In a perhaps not-­so-­curious twist, Harper’s Weekly, the publication that devoted considerable space in the 1860s and 1870s to criticizing what its editors saw as undue Catholic influence over American public schools, also commented on the Catholic-­Protestant school debate in the Philippines. It disputed Catholic claims that the islands’ “new schoolmasters are converting their charges from Catholicism to Protestant forms of belief.”110 ­These opposing perspectives demonstrate that the schooling controversy, w ­ hether in the United



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States or the Philippines, went beyond mere disputes over educational policy and pedagogical theory. This was instead a question of power on a transnational scale that s­ haped late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century conceptions of religious identity and national mythmaking. Catholic priest Alexander Doyle made this evident at the outset of Philippine colonization, remarking that he supported the separation of church and state in the Philippines—­a sensible strategy for Catholics, who remained a minority in the United States and thus recognized the dangers of religious establishment—­while calling for a de facto spiritual mono­poly for his church. He commented revealingly, “­Were I in authority I would persuade ­every Protestant minister to stay away from Manila. I would select the most thorough Americans among the Catholic priests of the country and establish an entente cordiale between them and the civil authorities. I would appoint as governor-­general a broad-­minded military man—­one who understands the inner workings of the Catholic religion.”111 Doyle eventually received almost every­thing about which he dreamed in 1898, except for the exclusion of Protestants from the colony. A ­ fter public agitation on the part of lay and clerical Catholics regarding both the school controversy and the lack of Catholic repre­sen­ta­tion on the Philippine Commission, a situation that the Catholic World blamed for the insurrection and for the looting of Catholic churches in the Philippines, the Roo­se­velt administration increased the Catholic presence in the colonial government and began seeking out Catholic leaders’ opinions on Philippine policy. Taft, in a speech at the University of Notre Dame, explained that Roo­se­velt consulted with Taft’s pre­de­ ces­sor, Secretary of War Elihu Root, and the two agreed, despite potential objections from t­ hose suspicious of the Catholic Church, to send a representative of the US government to the Vatican to consult Pope Leo XIII on m ­ atters affecting Catholicism in the Philippines, as mentioned previously. Roo­se­velt selected Taft, then the colonial governor of the Philippines, for the job, and he was joined on this mission by “Judge James F. Smith, of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, a Roman Catholic . . . ​Bishop Thomas O’Gorman, the Catholic bishop of Sioux Falls . . . ​and Col­o­nel John Biddle Porter, of the Judge Advocate’s Corps of the Army.” Their mission, according to Taft, was a success. The pope agreed to sell land in the Philippines to the US government; to institute “a gradual substitution for the Spanish friars of priests of other nationalities, with the ultimate purpose of fitting Filipinos for the clergy; and [to] a proposal that all the ­matters pending should be turned over for settlement to a conference between an Apostolic Delegate to be sent to the Philippine Islands and the officers of the Insular government.”112 The editor of the Sacred Heart Review was pleased with the appointment of Smith to the Philippine Commission, although he pointed out that it was

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only “a tardy recognition of the rights of the Catholic citizens of this country to be represented in a case which has to deal so largely with interests that Catholics alone can fully appreciate and understand.”113 The increased stature of Catholics as key participants in shaping colonial policy and public opinion on empire was also made evident by the inclusion of an article by a Jesuit priest in a 1903 issue of Harper’s, a publication that had typically been no friend to Catholics in the second half of the nineteenth ­century. That Harper’s provided a forum for the Rev. John Wynne to proclaim that the US Catholic Church was fi­nally large enough to provide bishops to the Philippines, when in past years such appointments would likely have come from Eu­rope, was a telling acknowl­ edgment that an increasingly power­ful, influential Catholic Church—­one that had demanded and won a place in the US colonial regime and in the American nation—­was ­here to stay. Wynne described Catholicism as a defender of the United States “against the delusion of spiritualism, the extravagances of Zionism and Christian Science, the spiritual paralysis of skepticism, the blight of atheism or agnosticism, personal or race suicide, the materialism or commercialism that would make this world the sum of ­human destiny, and the gradual disintegration of the Christian Church.”114 Wynne built successfully on the racial, national, and religious theories of Isaac Hecker and other similarly minded Catholics who held that ­there was no clear contradiction between Catholicism and American values and that Catholicism was the defender, guarantor, and clearest expression of American nationalism. All gains, of course, have a price. Nationalist American Catholics purchased belonging for their religious community. The price, though, was steep, and it came at the expense of their Filipino fellow Catholics, for whom in­de­pen­dence would have to wait.

C h a p te r   4

Catholic Gatekeepers The Church, Immigrants, and the Forging of an American Catholicism

During the nineteenth c­ entury’s second g­ reat wave of Eu­ro­pean migration to the United States, an immigration reformer expressed fear in 1886 over the plight of young girls waiting to obtain employment, and g­ oing at night to boarding-­ houses in the slums of a strange city; young men ­going to similar places, easy dupes, during ­these days of idleness, for swindlers who lie in wait for such as they; poor ­people arriving in New York without any clear notion of where to ­settle down and not knowing whither to turn for disinterested information or advice; ­people wretched, or mayhap conscience-­burdened, whom a ­little help or a kindly word of counsel would start upon the right path.1 The following year, another commentator concerned with the state of immigration to the United States was alarmed by Americans’ habit of “lavishly spending their money in aid of indifferentism and free-­thinking,” predicting that this habit would “break up this ­free republic, which, founded by Christians, can only be perpetuated by Christians.” The same author envisioned an evolutionary pro­cess that immigrants would follow, bringing them “from Irish or German to Irish-­ American or German-­American, and thus at last into American pure and s­ imple.”2 At first glance, t­ hese comments might be attributed to any number of white, native-­born, middle-­class, Progressive reformers seeking order amid the 93

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changes wrought in the United States by urbanization, industrialization, mass immigration, and laissez-­faire capitalism in the Gilded Age, and, to an extent, this would be a correct conclusion.3 What separated t­hese individuals from other social reformers of the period, however, was not necessarily their po­liti­ cal affiliations, their places of birth, their class standing, or their racial identities. Setting them apart was their religion, and in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, this could make an enormous difference for a person’s position in American society. ­These two observers of global migration w ­ ere members of the Catholic Church, an eminently international institution situated at the center of dense webs of exchange between the Old World and the New World. Their status as Catholics functioned at once as a source of strength—­recall that it was in this period that their church became the largest in the United States—­ and, in the eyes of non-­Catholics who w ­ ere suspicious of the potentially subversive power of the pope and his priests, as a source of potential weakness.4 The long-­standing contests for power between Protestants and Catholics and other supposedly outsider groups w ­ ere at the center of the making of American nationalism.5 Although it would be s­ imple to focus only on t­ hose issues that separated Protestants and Catholics, it would also be fruitful to discuss one significant area that united them, at least abstractly. This unifying issue was the subject of immigration. The nation builders in US Catholicism played a central role in Catholicizing Anglo-­American whiteness, as seen in their rhetorical justifications for the colonization of the Philippines. By remaking Catholicism as an Anglo-­American faith, however, t­ hese same native-­born Catholics w ­ ere forced to reckon with the non-­Anglo Catholic immigrants arriving in ever-­g reater numbers ­after 1880 and the many Irish American Catholics who ­were deeply opposed to Anglo-­Americanism. This necessitated working ­toward assimilating the new immigrants into their remade Catholicism. By ­doing so, they demonstrated that they ­were ­adept at claiming whiteness and racial superiority for themselves, while downplaying the inherent tensions between a largely Irish-­descended American church professing an affinity for an Anglo racial ideology. They accomplished this through enthusiastic support for immigration regulation.6 Reactions on the part of many native-­born Catholics to their coreligionists arriving from Eu­rope in ever-­greater numbers through the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century provide a revealing look at the ways that not just native-­born Protestants but also native-­born Catholics could function as gatekeepers both for their country and for their church.7 Historian Robert A. Orsi suggests that modern Catholics lived “at an a­ ngle askew to the dominant culture.”8 This notion of Catholic angularity to the American mainstream is not absolute, as

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the Catholic roles in western missions and Philippine colonization demonstrate. As far as their reactions to immigration went, many Gilded-­Age and Progressive-­Era US Catholics redefined the dominant culture itself. By supporting immigration regulation, native-­born Catholics ensured that their church would continue to gain strength in an often-­hostile country while maintaining dominance within their denomination over the mostly non-­Irish and non-­ German immigrants who threatened to remake American Catholicism. Although the Catholic Church may have been thought of by its opponents as an authoritarian, superstitious, and un-­American institution, its staunchest defenders resisted such characterizations throughout the nineteenth ­century. It was during the Progressive Era that the argument in ­favor of Catholicism as a quintessentially American religion—­and conversely, in ­favor of Americanism as a decidedly Catholic ethos—­reached its apex. Historian Thomas McAvoy has argued that American Catholics’ “spirit of freedom,” which liberal church leaders of the time identified, “arose from the freedom of Americans and had l­ittle to do with religious concepts.”9 ­There is ­little warrant for this assessment. From the Civil War era well into the twentieth ­century, numerous Catholics saw their national and religious commitments and identities existing in an intertwined manner. Cardinal Gibbons, for instance, argued that far from being a defender of despotism, “the Catholic Church has always been the zealous promoter of religious and civil liberty.” He declared to his nation, “[W]ith all thy faults, I love thee still. And perhaps at this moment t­ here is no nation on the face of the earth where the Church is less trammeled, and where she has more liberty to carry out her sublime destiny, than in ­these United States.”10 From the establishment of the American Catholic hierarchy in 1789, Gibbons argued, Catholics had been devoted to their country, its laws, and its traditions. Gibbons described the country’s first Catholic prelate, Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore, as an “ardent patriot” in the ser­vice of American in­de­pen­dence. This was an appropriate description, as evidenced by the Continental Congress’s appointment of Carroll, along with his cousin Charles Carroll of Carrolton (the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of In­de­pen­dence), Samuel Chase, and Benjamin Franklin, as a member of a del­e­ga­tion tasked with seeking Canadian assistance for the American colonists in the Revolutionary War. Gibbons noted, “Archbishop Carroll was thoroughly conversant with the genius of our po­liti­cal Constitution” and “was therefore admirably fitted for the delicate task of adjusting the discipline of the Church to the requirements of our civil Constitution.” Gibbons related that Carroll’s vision for the Catholic Church in the United States entailed the church ­developing, not alongside, but rather with, the country. Neither Gibbons nor Carroll saw any necessary contradiction between Americanism and Catholicism.

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Both welcomed friendship between Catholics and non-­Catholics. In their view and in the view of similarly thinking Catholics during the antebellum era—­for instance, the demo­ cratizing bishop John E ­ngland of Charleston, South Carolina—­and at the end of the nineteenth ­century when Gibbons was reflecting on Carroll’s legacy, all could be loyal American citizens. Gibbons approved of Carroll’s desire for Catholics, “no ­matter from what country they sprung,” to “be thoroughly identified with the land in which their lot was cast.”11 This clearly had some bearing on the immigration debates of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, in which Gibbons played a key intellectual leadership role on behalf of the Catholic Church, just as he did in the work of Native American missions and at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Archbishop John Ireland shared in Gibbons’s praise of the United States, stating that “[i]n no other land at the pre­sent time is ­there given to Catholics the freedom of action and the opportunity for work, given to them in Amer­i­ca.”12 He explained in an 1888 sermon that the United States provided the most fertile territory for the Catholic Church to fully realize its potential. “In Amer­ i­ca,” Ireland argued, “the Church is f­ ree—as the bird is f­ ree in the air to spread out its pinions and fly whithersoever it ­wills—­free to put forth all her powers, and tempt the realization of her most ambitious proj­ects for the welfare, natu­ ral and super­natural, of men.” It was the youthful United States that provided Catholicism with its greatest chance to achieve victory in its many religious and po­liti­cal proj­ects.13 Ireland embraced the spirit of progressive modernism, both po­liti­cally and theologically: “I preach the new, the most glorious crusade. Church and age! Unite them in the name of humanity, in the name of God. Church and age! They pulsate alike: the God of nature works in one, the God of super­natural revelation works in the other—in both the self-­same God.”14 He saw “providential opportunities” in the “tendencies of the age,” and he did not shy away from the potential the modern age held for Catholic and national advancement. Ireland “love[d] its aspirations and its resolves” and “revel[ed] in its feats of valor, its industries, and its discoveries.” Modern Catholic progressivism was Ireland’s guiding light. As he explained to his fellow American Catholics in 1889, “I seek no backward voyage across the sea of time; I ­will ever press forward. I believe that God intends the pre­sent to be better than the past, and the ­future to be better than the pre­sent.”15 The only previous age that surpassed the pre­sent, the archbishop maintained, was “that which witnessed the coming of God upon earth.”16 He prayed similarly in 1895 that God would “[l]et the new cycle shame the old,” displaying an unabashed confidence in the upward progression of history with the United States at the helm.17 The archbishop inaugurated the World’s Columbian Exposition’s auxiliary congresses

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by making an emphatic, public statement of Catholic patriotism, praising the United States as “[t]he nation of the ­f uture!” and then launching into the first three lines of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.”18 Gibbons and Ireland, along with a host of other like-­minded bishops, priests, theologians, and public intellectuals, w ­ ere part of a modernist tradition that gained prominence among liberal Protestants and within the Catholic Church in both Eu­rope and the United States at the end of the nineteenth ­century. As religious historian William R. Hutchison defines it, modernism was a “cluster of beliefs” that attempted to effect an “adaptation of religious ideas to modern culture,” saw God as “immanent in ­human cultural development and revealed through it,” and held that “­human society [was] moving t­oward realization (even though it may never attain the real­ity) of the Kingdom of God.”19 Archbishop Ireland expressed his faith in modernism at the Chicago fair, and he made it clear that he “trust[ed] in Providence and in humanity.” His belief in the possibility of bringing about the final, perfect stage of ­human and religious history in the material world depended on a partnership of the ­human and the divine. Ireland affirmed that the inevitability of upward ­human pro­g ress would eventually “work into an increase of goodness and happiness among men.”20 Historian R. Scott Appleby explains that a number of modernist Catholic theologians of the period ­were influenced by Hecker, Gibbons, Ireland, and other clerics “who called for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to adapt itself to the values of the modern American republic.”21 This supposed Americanist position was censured by Pope Leo XIII in his 1899 encyclical, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, and modernism was anathematized as “ ‘the synthesis of all heresies’ ” in Pope Pius X’s 1907 encyclical, Pascendi Do­ minici Gregis.22 The attempt to bring together Catholicism and dominant American beliefs and practices, though, was a power­ful proj­ect among many Catholic intellectuals not only for several de­cades leading up to the papal interventions but for many de­cades ­after. ­These Catholic modernist ideas also served as an intellectual foundation for Hecker’s Catholic World newspaper, which played a leading role in drumming up support among American Catholics for their country’s conquest of the Philippines. It is fitting that Hecker’s publication, which advocated energetically for a Catholic American nation, would first appear in April 1865, the same month that the Union victory in the Civil War placed the United States more firmly on the path to modern nationhood. The modernist writers who contributed to the Catholic World embraced several core Progressive ­causes and beliefs, including confidence in the racial and cultural superiority of Anglo-­ Americanism, as described in the previous chapter. Just as they did with colonization, this group of intellectuals also weighed in frequently on another of

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the most pressing issues of the period: the massive influx of new immigrants representing ethnicities and nationalities previously underrepresented in the United States, including Italians, Poles, Eastern Eu­ro­pean Jews, and Chinese. ­These groups, especially the Catholics among them, caused some difficulty for the old-­guard Irish Americans and German Americans who made up the bulk of the American church’s hierarchy, many of whose families had already established themselves in the United States several generations previously and had fought to claim national inclusion. As historian Jon Gjerde explains, Catholics strug­gled for de­cades to overcome the combined ethnic, po­liti­cal, racial, and sexual stigma attached to membership in the Catholic Church. Solving the “Catholic conundrum,” the prob­lem posed by a pluralist religious sphere to a church preaching a doctrine of spiritual exclusivism, was a continuing challenge for Catholics.23 Even before the arrival of ­these new mi­grants picked up appreciable steam in the 1880s and 1890s, it was apparent that immigration would serve as contested terrain in the b­ attle for religious dominance between Catholics and Protestants. In 1867, the Boston Investigator, “the longest-­lasting freethought periodical of the nineteenth c­ entury,” was pleased to report that native-­born Protestants ­were fi­ nally reproducing at a rate faster than Catholics: “already the tide has turned in ­favor of Protestantism.”24 It is apparent in hindsight that this group of freethinkers drastically underestimated the scale of immigration, much of it Eu­ro­pean and Catholic, that would begin just a de­cade and a half l­ater. From 1850 to 1880, immigration held steady with approximately 2.6 million mi­grants reaching the United States in the first de­cade of this thirty-­year period, another 2.3 million the following de­cade, and 2.8 million from 1870 to 1880. The following de­cade, however, saw an unpre­ce­dented spike in the number of new arrivals, with over 5 million making the trek from 1881 to 1890 and an even more staggering amount, 8,795,386, from 1901 to 1910. Even though Irish immigration had declined, as the Investigator was keen to point out, several new groups w ­ ere quick to take the place of the Irish. Between 1820 and 1920, over 4 million p­ eople migrated from Italy to the United States, with over 98 ­percent of the mi­grants arriving in just the final forty years of this century-­long period. From 1901 to 1910, Austro-­Hungarian, Italian, and Rus­sian migrations all far exceeded their Irish counterpart.25 Not long ­after the Investigator’s confident prediction of a Protestant demographic re­nais­sance, the Catholic World weighed in on the subject. In its “Philosophy of Immigration,” the newspaper assured readers that immigrants, no ­matter their origin, w ­ ere “destined” to join the American mainstream, in which they would all “profess one faith and speak one language.” ­These immigrants, according to the Catholic author, w ­ ere peaceful, loyal Americans-­in-­the-­making,

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who w ­ ere responsible for the rapid industrialization and economic growth of the postbellum period in both the victorious North and the rebuilding South. Although presenting an emphatically positive portrayal of immigrants, the author revealed the paper’s position as part of an emerging, bourgeois, white society that viewed “Chinamen,” for example, as “quiet and docile” workers who ­were “eminently adapted for the building of railroads.” While this Catholic perspective expressed no fears of Chinese subversion, it still represented an affinity for whiteness as the racial norm in the United States.26 What separates this article from t­hose written by many non-­Catholic authors, however, is its self-­ assurance that native-­born Catholics ­were already part of the American nation. The author claimed the Puritans as common “ancestors” for both native-­born Catholics and non-­Catholics, rejecting the idea that American society and the United States’ system of governance rested on a Protestant foundation. A similar article in the Catholic World from 1871 described the founding of the American colonies as a proj­ect carried out by a diverse, polyglot group of Eu­ro­pean immigrants. Even the founding documents of the United States, according to this piece, ­were of foreign provenance, with the Declaration of In­de­pen­dence springing from Dutch origins, the common law coming from the En­glish, and the civil law born of the French and Spanish. To fulfill the international destiny envisioned by the country’s colonial found­ers, the author maintained that Americans must re­spect and welcome with open arms the “oppressed and impoverished p­ eople of the Old World,” who ­were their “relations.” Pointing to Britain’s hostility ­toward foreigners, the author was confident that Americans would demonstrate, through a positive reception of immigrants, their superiority to Old World attitudes. In this commentator’s view, the new arrivals would turn the nation back from its increasingly irreligious ways. This would be accomplished through a re­introduction of re­spect for the Sabbath, thus confounding advocates of Sunday rest, who often attacked Catholics for their participation in the lively and sometimes raucous “Continental Sabbath.” In this article’s conclusion, however, the author demonstrated an essentialized understanding of races and ethnicities, ascribing qualities supposedly inherent to each of them. The author expressed faith in the ability of the “practical genius of Americans” to harness, control, and eventually assimilate immigrants into the national community, pointing to an outlook on racial differences shared by many native-­born Catholics and Protestants alike and an understanding of the “genius of Americans” that was just as dependent on its Catholic members as on its non-­Catholic constituents.27 Even though native-­born and naturalized Catholic leaders expressed sympathy for their fellow Catholics coming to the United States, at least in this period on the eve of the post-1880 immigration explosion, the general sentiment

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among t­hese leaders seemed to be one characterized by an ethnically conscious, almost tribal view of the newcomers. They expressed the opinion that immigrants could be assimilated into the nation, which, in their eyes, had a distinctly Catholic hue; at the same time, they saw it as the responsibility of each separate, ethnic Catholic community to welcome and mold into Americans their own coethnics. That is, the Irish would look ­after the Irish, and the Germans would look a­ fter the Germans. As for what would happen to the Italians and Poles, whose heyday of immigration had not yet arrived, was anybody’s guess. Joseph Frey, the president of the German Roman Catholic Central-­ Verein of North Amer­i­ca, praised the federal government for its “laudable work” of educating the recent immigrant “with a view to his thorough ‘Americanization.’ ” Frey objected, however, to the government’s exclusive use of public schools for such a pro­cess, and he instead proposed that parochial schools ­were the proper venues for educating the vari­ous Catholic immigrant groups making their way into American society. Frey’s principal fear was that without the church shepherding immigrants through the Americanization pro­cess, ­these recent arrivals would abandon their Catholic faith.28 The Central-­Verein argued, “The g­ reat majority of immigrants who come to this land are of the Catholic religion, and could be the more readily conducted to true Americanization ­under ­those sympathetic surroundings which the parochial school would afford.”29 The Irish Catholic Benevolent Union’s Thomas J. Daily similarly reminded his organ­ization’s members of their responsibility “to assist in a practical way ­those who, as Bishop Ryan truely [sic] expresses it, ‘come over from Ireland friendless, homeless, penniless and alone,’ who ­will naturally look to [them] for guidance, assistance and instruction on their arrival ­here.”30 At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Rev. John F. Mullaney of Syracuse read a paper dealing with similar themes by the recently deceased B ­ rother Azarias, a Catholic educator at Manhattan College. In this paper, titled “Our Catholic School System,” B ­ rother Azarias warned the assembled lay and clerical delegates of the Columbian Catholic Congress that ­unless the Catholic Church moved quickly to rein in recently arrived immigrants, they would be forever lost to the enemies of the church: “It is painful to witness in large cities the active aggressiveness of ­those who misunderstand and misrepresent our faith. They attract to their soup-­houses and night schools hordes of our Catholic Italian and Bohemian ­children and inoculate them with un-­Christian and anti-­Catholic ideas, while l­ ittle or nothing is done to counteract their machinations.” It was up to the leading Catholic laypeople of the day, ­Brother Azarias declared, to challenge Protestant domination of public colleges, which ­were turning aspiring Catholic educators against their own church.31

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The ethnic consciousness and separatism within the church was evident in the plan of Bishops John Ireland of St. Paul and John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria to form colonies in the expansive Chicago hinterland, “exclusively on railroad lands,” for the purpose of shepherding new immigrants through the sometimes-­dangerous terrain of life in the late nineteenth-­century United States. The bishops saw “no reason what­ever why” Catholic immigrants “should be lost in the crowd” when t­ here w ­ ere already in existence several successful colonies operated by vari­ous non-­Catholic groups, including the Mennonites and Mormons. Rev. Michael Callaghan claimed that since the “vast majority of immigrants have lived by agricultural l­abor in their native lands . . . ​ it would be a blessing to them and a benefit to our country if they could be transferred to the same occupation on their arrival ­here.” Colonization supporters ­were especially concerned that cities in the North and Midwest, the initial homes of many immigrants, ­were dangerous for newcomers, which reflected a common view in the Gilded Age that cities would spell the end of peaceful, virtuous life in the countryside, a pro­cess historian Robert Wiebe refers to as the decline of “island communities.”32 Undergirding this perspective was the fear that unsupervised immigrants would fall into Protestants’ clutches, an inversion of a common theme in anti-­ Catholic rhe­toric. Even before the Civil War, for instance, Bishop Thomas L. Grace of St. Paul lamented the potential loss of the Faribault, Minnesota, Catholics to the Episcopal Church. Grace expressed concern that “the wolf is prowling about.”33 In a paper delivered at the Columbian Catholic Congress, Mary Theresa Elder, a layperson from New Orleans and niece of William Henry Elder, the archbishop of Cincinnati and previously the bishop of Natchez, described the tensions and fraught connections between urban and rural life: The country is a nation’s lungs. The city is its heart. It is well that the fresh blood flow from the lungs to the heart. But it is ill, indeed, for the heart to return no blood to the lungs. . . . ​The blood from our country lungs flows into the heart of the city fast enough—­too fast, perhaps; but ­there it stays, and congests, and stagnates, and we suffer from elephantiasis, from fatty degeneration of the heart, and from a thousand other ills, and no amount of doctoring ­will cure us, ­unless it promote the f­ ree flow of blood again, and its due return to our country lungs.34 In Elder’s view, ­those unfortunate immigrants who chose the city over the country faced a multitude of perils. They would become “the slaves of monopolies and combines, the slaves of poverty and, worse still, the slaves of vice and drunkenness.” At the same time, according to Elder, rural immigrants needed to maintain some contact with cities, despite the dangers that inhered

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in urban environments. To cut themselves off from city life would open the door to apostasy and conversion to Protestantism. “­Going into the country, ­there, far from priests and sacraments,” Elder lamented, “­those immigrants prosper materially perhaps, but spiritually they starve. It is most natu­ral then that their descendants, fed only by Protestantism, become exemplary Baptists, Methodists, Campbellites, e­ tc. Hundreds and thousands of our noblest Catholic names are now borne by well-­to-do Protestants in the country, or lately from ­there.”35 In a speech also delivered at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago, Archbishop Ireland praised that city as the gateway to the modern world, situated as it was as “the central city of the nation.” It served as “the mart in which meet for mutual exchange the offerings of Eu­rope and Asia” and had the honor “to sit among all earth’s nations the admired queen, the arbiter in the arts of peace and civilization of their destinies, the magnet in resistless attraction knitting all p­ eoples into one harmonious and indestructible brotherhood.”36 Chicago was at once both wild frontier and settled civilization that could nourish agrarian pioneers, railroaders, factory workers, commodities traders, corporate executives, immigrants, and native-­born alike. It is appropriate, then, that the plan for colonization would place immigrants in close proximity to railroads, which served as the literal arteries that kept expanding urban environments alive, demonstrating Jon Gjerde’s “Catholic conundrum” in action: ­here was a desire to keep Catholics both separate from and integrated with the surrounding society.37 Priest and scholar James P. Shannon described Bishop Ireland’s colonies as “the most extensive and successful ­wholesale Catholic colonization effort in American history,” which “deserves comparison with the more famous Mormon proj­ect in Utah.”38 The five colonies also provided a striking illustration of the si­mul­ta­neously separated/integrated dynamic r­ unning through the immigrant church: The first having proved a success, Bishop Ireland established a second colony in Big Stone County, Minnesota. ­There in three months, during the spring of 1878, he located one hundred and seventy-­five families on government lands. Within the same period a church was erected, one hundred and fifty cottages w ­ ere built on claims, and around each cottage from five to ten acres of land ploughed. The colonists arrived in time to plant their corn and vegetables, the yield was sufficient to support them during the winter, and ­there has been a constant and truly astonishing pro­g ress ever since. The bishop has since started a fifth colony. He has placed 300,000 acres of the most fertile land in the possession of Catholics, who are living in thriving communities, many of them having already paid for

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their farms. Villages have sprung up. Grist-­mills have been built, and flour is sent directly from Swift County (one of the colonies) to Liverpool. The farmers find a market for their grain at the railroad depots.39 For all their distinctiveness, the Catholic immigrant-­colonists w ­ ere still connected to a transatlantic, intertwined urban and rural landscape by way of towns, railroads, and cap­i­tal­ist markets. As the Catholic Colonization Bureau reported on a colony in Avoca, Minnesota, in 1880, “When Avoca Colony was opened, the lands w ­ ere twenty miles from any railroad station. No railroad, no depot, no market nearer than twenty miles, no settlements but a few claim shanties on government lands scattered over the prairie; now we have in ­Avoca Colony two railroads r­ unning right through the colony lands, three railroad depots, and two growing railroad towns.” 40 The colony’s growth and increasing connections to transportation routes ironically thwarted the bishops’ goal of protecting Catholic newcomers from the supposed dangers of the industrialized city. As it became more apparent that immigration was increasing in the 1880s, due in large part to an “exit revolution” sweeping Eu­rope and, with it, the influx of ethnicities and nationalities previously underrepresented in American life, both Catholics and non-­Catholics expressed their concerns over how to deal with the potentially nonassimilable as well as with the Irish who continued to flock to the United States, albeit in diminished numbers.41 One western Demo­cratic newspaper expressed sympathy for Irish mi­g rants who w ­ ere desperate to escape harsh living conditions in their home country, but this sympathy was extended conditionally: the immigrants must be “muscular and industrious” and must “vote the Demo­cratic ticket.” 42 The Catholic press seemed less concerned with delivering votes to the Demo­cratic Party and more preoccupied with protecting vulnerable immigrants, particularly girls and young ­women, from the snares of city life. Similar to the non-­Catholic press and Progressive reformers, however, Catholic leaders expressed the belief that only what they considered the right sort of immigrants should be granted entrance to the United States. Building on the example of the protective colonies established by Bishops Ireland and Spalding in the Midwest, John Riordan, a New York priest, founded the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary—­one of what Catholic author Charles F. Donnelly estimated in 1893 to be “over seven hundred Catholic charitable institutions” in the United States—at C ­ astle Garden, a principal point of arrival for Eu­ro­pean immigrants before the opening of Ellis Island. Riordan was troubled by the sin and vice represented by his own city, a reputation it had held since the antebellum period.43 He feared that “virtuous young girls” who w ­ ere unfamiliar

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with American customs and the h ­ azards posed by h ­ ouses of ill repute would be “ruined for life” if not protected by a masculine Catholic priest such as Riordan, whose mission would allow him to keep “destitute immigrant girls . . . ​completely u ­ nder [his] own control and constantly u ­ nder [his] eye.” 44 This was a theme repeated in articles on urban Catholic charitable institutions. For example, the Catholic World reported in 1886 that “[a]ny person having a right conception of life in a large city such as New York ­will readily understand that in it friendless and unprotected girls, depending on their daily l­abor for a subsistence, who are out of employment, are often left homeless and in very trying circumstances.” 45 The ­Castle Garden mission thus had three principal goals: To establish . . . (1) a Catholic bureau u ­ nder the charge of a priest for the purpose of protecting, counseling, and supplying information to the Catholic immigrants who land at ­Castle Garden; (2) a Catholic immigrants’ temporary home, a boarding-­house, in which Catholic immigrants ­will be sheltered, safe from the dangers of the city, while they are waiting for employment; and (3) an immigrants’ chapel.46 Upon establishing the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary, Riordan prayed for the protection of the Virgin Mary, expressing the need for super­natural assistance in guarding immigrant ­women from the sinful city: “All hail! Holy ­Mother, / Of hope brightest pearl. / Smile down, blessed Queen, / On an emigrant girl, / Who wanders away from / Her country and home; / Oh, Mary, be with me / Wherever I roam; / Be with me, Mary, / Forsake me not, Mary, / But guide me and guard me / Wherever I roam.” 47 Progressive-­Era anti-­Catholic journalists, historian Justin Nordstrom writes, also “saw their mission as protecting weak or naïve individuals from Catholic trickery,” and they “presented depictions of victimized w ­ omen to illustrate for readers the enormity of papist cruelty,” accusing priests of subjecting ­women to “physical and sexual abuse.” 48 It is not apparent ­whether Riordan was aware that such imagery of a Catholic priest keeping young w ­ omen ­under his surveillance reflected the worst themes of nineteenth-­century anti-­Catholicism and perhaps even fueled it in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.49 It is clear, though, that Riordan and other Catholic leaders ­were convinced that the mission and the parish w ­ ere the surest ave­nues for protecting Catholic immigrants and assimilating them into what they conceived to be the American mainstream—­a mainstream that in their view was more authentically Catholic than Protestant. Basing Catholic life in the ethnic parish, however, and drawing immigrants ­under its umbrella, which would ostensibly Americanize them, also had the ironic effect of separating them from their non-­Catholic neighbors and even from fellow Catholics who happened to hail from dif­fer­ent countries.50

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Catholic leaders, though, denied that their charitable work among the new immigrants was in any way directed ­toward Catholicizing the nation. As Nordstrom explains, Progressive-­Era nativism was built on the fear that “Catholics constituted a threat to Amer­i­ca’s safety b­ ecause of misused clerical power, conspiratorial cover-­ups, and attacks on the most vulnerable members of American society, particularly ­children.”51 It was imperative, then, that Catholic clerics and intellectuals, whose principal practical concern for the immigrants at C ­ astle Garden and in the cities was to protect the most vulnerable among them from the dangers of modern American life, convince the public, especially the Protestant portion, that the Catholic Church sought only the comfort and protection of the mi­g rants and not expanded po­liti­cal power. In a discussion of the church’s vari­ous charities in New York, the Catholic World made it clear that Catholics ­were not attempting to conquer the United States or convert non-­Catholics. The city’s Catholic hospitals, for instance, did not require or even ask non-­Catholics to attend Mass. The newspaper was proud of its church’s charities for demonstrating the “most scrupulous regard” in respecting the religious preferences of “the numerous Jewish and non-­Catholic poor who come ­under their care.” It must have also taken some satisfaction reporting that at least one Catholic hospital, due to its reputation for religious tolerance, received “more Protestant than Catholic patients.”52 At the same time, even though Catholics may have been careful to avoid giving the appearance of increasing their power at the expense of defenseless non-­Catholics ­under their care, this Catholic charitable work placed the church in competition with Protestant ­women social reformers, whose activity in the late nineteenth ­century had become a distinctly class-­based endeavor dedicated, historian Lori D. Ginzberg writes, to “controlling h ­ uman inadequacies,” especially among the poor and members of the working class.53 As non-­Irish and non-­German arrivals from Eu­rope increased over the course of the 1880s and 1890s, however, the tone of much of the Catholic writing on immigration underwent some subtle shifts. Whereas ­earlier public pronouncements seemed to ­wholeheartedly welcome increased Eu­ro­pean migration, which was seen as nothing but a boon to Catholic influence in the United States, l­ater Catholic opinions on immigration became more guarded and reflected a larger Progressive-­Era concern with regulating, although not restricting, the entry of would-be Americans into the country. Po­liti­cal scientist Aristide Zolberg argues that this sentiment has actually been a common, if not dominant, one through much of US history: “The United States from the outset was both ‘immigrationist’ and ‘restrictionist.’ It wanted immigrants, and hence objected to constraints on departure imposed by Eu­ro­pean states; but it also wanted to exercise selectiveness, and thus objected to what was perceived

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as ‘dumping’ of undesirables.”54 An 1887 piece in the Catholic World argued from this perspective, noting that immigrants should be allowed to “keep their customs and traditions” but only “when they are not bad or inconsistent with their being good citizens.” The same article, while denying that the pope and the Catholic Church posed any threat to the country, recognized that new Catholics could not “be suddenly forced to be Americans.”55 Cardinal Gibbons also welcomed immigrants to the United States, but in the Progressive tradition that sought order and social harmony, he emphasized in 1916 that the country wanted only the mi­grant “who comes to advance his temporal interests and to find a peaceful home amongst us.”56 So long as immigrants, no ­matter how poor or uneducated, contributed honestly and faithfully to improving their new country through hard work, they could become Americans in good standing. As the cardinal put it, “If the immigrant is industrious and trifty [sic] he ­will make a useful citizen ­whether he be literate or illiterate.”57 John Ireland, himself an immigrant, welcomed his coreligionists from other countries to the United States, but he placed one condition on their entrance. While he would “not intrude on their personal affections and tastes,” he would also not accept t­ hese customs, “if foreign,” from “encrust[ing] themselves upon the Church.” Ireland argued that his fellow “Americans have no longing for a Church with a foreign aspect; they w ­ ill not submit to its influence.” Recognizing and reflecting the nativism coursing through American politics at the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, Archbishop Ireland maintained that “[o]nly institutions to the manor born prosper; exotics have but sickly forms.”58 In an address to the Union League Club of Chicago in 1895, Ireland described hyphenated Americanism, particularly in voting, as “an intolerable anomaly.” If certain safeguards w ­ ere instituted to protect the United States from “self-­ constituted leaders of foreign-­born citizens who speak of Americanization as a term of reproach,” then immigrants should be welcomed into the country. Above all, though, Americanization of both immigrants and native-­born Americans expressing an inordinate attraction to “foreign fashions of language and dress” was of supreme importance for the country.59 Camillus Paul Maes, the Belgian-­born bishop of Covington, Kentucky, had arrived at the same position as Ireland. He wrote to the latter in 1888, noting “the end that we have in sight: to form a true p­ eople, fervently Catholic, not more German, Irish, Polish, French, Bohemian, ­etc. but American; to create a Catholic ­people who w ­ ill be known as American Catholics, and not a perpetuation of generations strangers to the language, to the customs, and to the spirit of Amer­i­ca.” Maes argued that Catholicism was “as truly American as any Protestant sect which boasts of its patriotism.” He contemplated the building of a new American

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Catholic nation, or what he described as “an American ­people, homogeneous, fervent, Catholic in heart and in soul.”60 Other Catholic commentators shared similar assumptions regarding characteristics of dif­fer­ent racial groups and predicted a literal evolution from less sophisticated immigrant masses to a pure, virtuous, prosperous, American type. A presumably Irish American, Catholic author, Bernard Lynch, saw recently arrived Italian immigrants as l­ittle more than the “most skillful rag-­ pickers among us.” Not only did Lynch identify racial differences between Italian Americans and Irish Americans, but he also attempted to dichotomize, on racial lines, northern and southern Italians. He saw the former as full of “energy and vivacity,” while the latter w ­ ere “voluble and expansive.” Lynch claimed, though, that Italian mi­g rants w ­ ere best known for their “money-­ getting” qualities, which he felt would serve their ­children well in the acquisitive life of late nineteenth-­century New York. Overall, the author saw many obstacles in the path of Italians attempting to assimilate into American society, including having a lack of spirit, being “totally devoid of what may be termed the sense of respectability,” and being “always ready to beg”—­qualities that would not endear them to the non-­Italian, native-­born Americans surrounding them in the city. Lynch was disturbed by what he perceived as a “lack of what are known as the manly qualities” among Italians, a massive weakness in an age when exhibiting manliness, courage, and physical prowess w ­ ere essential qualities for upwardly mobile men seeking to claim the mantle and benefits of whiteness.61 Lynch also identified an evolutionary pro­cess that would make Italians into Americans, but in his eyes, this American type was characterized by its Irishness. He claimed that “successful” Italian parishes ­were ­those that w ­ ere not in­de­pen­dent of Irish control but w ­ ere instead located in the basements of Irish churches. Lynch saw an inevitable, natu­ral pro­cess at play, arguing that this move by Italians to the figurative and literal basement of Irish American Catholicism “must be so.” In this way, even if first-­generation Italian Americans could not assimilate, their c­ hildren would become Americanized u ­ nder the watchful eyes of their Irish American guardians. The northern Italians, according to Lynch, w ­ ere sure to be in the vanguard of this move up the evolutionary ladder, as many of them rejected basement dwelling and “join[ed] the Irish-­Americans upstairs,” which signaled their quick accession to Irish cultural and spiritual leadership within the larger Catholic community.62 Joseph L. Andreis, a Baltimore priest, expressed similar sentiments in a paper delivered at the Columbian Catholic Congress in 1893. Ironically, despite Columbus—­the ostensible founder of Amer­i­ca for whom the Congress and the

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entire world’s fair that year w ­ ere named—­being Italian, US Catholic prelates regarded the Italian immigrants of the nineteenth c­ entury as needing guidance on the path to becoming Americanized. In his paper presented at the world’s fair, Andreis argued that “Italian immigrants love to work, and, as a rule, are law-­ abiding.” Still, although Italians ­were “generally temperate,” the priest identified an inherent danger in the urban saloons that ­were located near immigrant tenements. Like Lynch, Andreis believed that Italians needed to be taught to become Americans, but unlike the former, Andreis proposed that Italian immigrants should be instructed ideally by other Italians. In the end, though, like Lynch, Andreis saw Italian immigrants as something less than a­ ctual Americans. “Considered socially,” Andreis said of Italian mi­grants’ ­children, “they soon learn the En­glish language—­breathe the American spirit—­and acquire American manners. In consequence, they yearn to raise themselves above their parents’ standing, and a good many even Americanize their surnames so as to pass for genuine Americans, with the view to paving their way to success.”63 Although Lynch viewed the Irish-­Americanization of Italian immigrants as a natu­ral pro­cess, tensions emerged. The Vatican, for example, was forced to send an Italian prelate to the United States to mediate “some trou­ble between vari­ous American bishops and in­de­pen­dent Italian missionaries.”64 Additionally, a group of Italian Americans from Philadelphia, which claimed to be “representing the interests of at least 15,000 Italians, principally from Naples, the Abruzzi and Sicily,” petitioned Archbishop Patrick John Ryan in 1896 to request a parish of its own. The petitioners argued, The only Church h ­ere nominally Italian, is tenanted by one-­third American and Irish, to the exclusion of Italians, who have been repeatedly turned away, and told publicly they w ­ ere not wanted b­ ecause they ­were unable to pay a regulation price for a seat, as though God’s sanctuary ­were a theatre or concert hall. With the priest in charge ­there we cannot have any sympathy, for he has none with us. . . . ​Driven from the above mentioned Church, we in ­great numbers resorted to St.  Paul’s where we ­were also expelled, the sexton t­ here having standing ­orders to turn us from the door, u ­ nless dressed beyond our means.65 In recounting the history of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in New York, Robert A. Orsi notes that German and Irish Catholics provided most of the money to construct the church. When the building was ready for use, Orsi explains, “Italians w ­ ere sent into the lower church to worship,” and ­there they stayed for thirty-­five years, during which time they “resented this basement exile.”66 Even if non-­Italian Catholics had no prob­lem relegating Italians to their basements, it seems clear that they did not consider the opinions of Italian

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Catholics in much the same way that contemporaneous US Catholic colonizers did not seek to ascertain the thoughts of their Filipino and Native American coreligionists. The Catholic World’s Laurence Franklin seemed confident that the vibrant feste of the Italian immigrants at Our Lady of Mount Carmel would quickly become a ­thing of the past. According to Franklin, “[T]he c­ hildren of to-­day already possess much less feeling of race difference than their parents, and their ­children in turn ­will prob­ably be thorough-­going Americans—or Irishmen; for strangely enough it is the Irish who seem to make the strongest impression on them.” As evidence of such sentiments among recent Italian immigrants, Franklin recounted a conversation he had with “a small Neapolitan” boy: “ ‘Are you an Italian?’ I asked, merely to open the conversation. ‘Sure,’ was his reply. ‘­Were you born in Italy?’ ‘Sure’n I was,’ he continued in so broad a brogue that had not his teacher vouched for his assertion I should have doubted his veracity.”67 Franklin and Lynch focused on environmental ­factors as the principal c­auses of a literal evolution and metamorphosis from italianità to Irishness. Given the modernist leanings of the Catholic World, it is not surprising that several of its articles on immigration exhibited Progressive understandings of racial categorization and ethnic types. In “­Handling the Immigrant,” Helen Sweeney employed ste­reo­types to describe the stream of mi­grants flowing into New York City: “Hans, with his ruddy blonde face, his thick boots, his beloved pipe, his stolid immobility, in such sharp contrast to his neighbor’s volubility; Pat is t­here with Mary and his ­little flock, a half-­humorous, half-­fearsome expression on his honest, open countenance as he moves forward with the rest, jostled by Slavonian, Pole, Scandinavian, Jew, and Austrian.” Sweeney described the vari­ous immigrant groups as blank slates ready to be ­shaped by Progressive Catholic reformers: “Hans and Luigi, Jon and Pat” are shuffled through the inspection pro­cess “as dumbly as c­ attle, and as patiently.” Catholic physician Augustus Kaiser of Detroit spoke more favorably at the Columbian Catholic Congress of “the chivalrous Spaniard, the vivacious Frenchman, the Irishman, with his profound faith, and the cosmopolitan German,” as the four cornerstones of Catholicity in the United States. ­These descriptions ­were not all negative on the surface; Sweeney, for instance, characterized Italians as having “some very valuable qualities.” Kaiser’s and Sweeney’s assumptions of in-­born ethnic and racial differences, however, as well as the confidence that the immigrants, if guided carefully by expert American Catholics, could attain prosperity and undergo a pro­cess of assimilation, ­were at the center of much of this Progressive-­Era Catholic thought on immigration and nationalism.68 In “Character Studies in New York’s Foreign Quarters,” the Catholic World’s E. Lyell Earle posited a transition on the part of the most successful immigrants

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from poverty to “a higher foreign type,” and to make his case, he used the language of evolution, a modernist theme popu­lar among Catholic intellectuals of the late nineteenth ­century. As prelate John Ireland described in the message he delivered to open the Congress Auxiliary of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the world traveled along a foreordained route that always entailed ­people moving upward to a higher state: “The history of humanity is a history of pro­gress.”69 Earle’s account of life in turn-­of-­the-­century New York’s Lower East Side is rife with racialized depictions of vari­ous ethnic and national groups, from “the omnipresent Jew” to “the dopey Celestial” and “the less aggressive sons of the Cæsars.” Earle’s essay included photo­g raphs of what the author identified as the essential “types” of foreigners pre­sent in the East Side, including the Italian “mask of Dante,” the “German-­Jewish type,” the “Russian-­Jewish type,” and the “organ-­g rinder type” (see Fig. 4.1). One of his supposedly characteristic Jews, named “Merchandise, 425,” displays, according to Earle, “all the shrewdness of a Shylock.” The Italians ­were defined by their supposedly deep religiosity. Earle reserved his most negative assessment for Chinese immigrants, remarking that “[t]­here is something dark and repellent about the average Chinaman,” characterizing them as “greasy” and “ ‘dopey,’ ” and describing the Chinese community as inferior b­ ecause of its relative lack of ­women and c­ hildren, which questioned implicitly the masculinity of Chinese men. The author’s ultimate point was to warn his readers of the dangers of throwing the country’s gates wide open and leaving immigrants unsupervised by raising the specters of “Socialistic doctrines” and “barbarism” that w ­ ere being supposedly propagated at “­every meeting of the East Side lodges.”70 The popu­lar Catholic press also expressed support for immigration regulation. New York’s Irish World and American Industrial Liberator struck a tone similar to that of Cardinal Gibbons, opening its arms only to t­hose immigrants “who are willing to cast their ­future lot with Amer­i­ca, and be loyal to her institutions.”71 The same newspaper joined Catholic and non-­Catholic Americans in beseeching the government to ensure that the world’s “refuse population s­ hall not be dumped as garbage upon our shore by foreign nations nor made a species of merchandise to be trafficked in by the dealers in ‘cheap and submissive’ l­abor and utilized for the purpose of reducing the standard of American wages down to the Eu­ro­pean level.”72 The Irish World was insistent that the country needed to remain on guard against the arrival of feared classes such as “paupers, criminals, and contracted serfs.”73 Such stark nativism on the part of Irish Catholics suggests that some still did not feel wholly secure in their position in the American workplace and perhaps saw their hard-­fought whiteness endangered by increased immigration. Like their counter­parts at the Catholic World, the Irish

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Figure 4.1.  Photo­graphs of foreign types of New York City’s East Side. From E. Lyell Earle, “Character Studies in New York’s Foreign Quarters,” Catholic World, March 1899, 783.

World’s editors agreed with Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia that immigrants had built the United States into an industrial power­house. The Irish World, though, was convinced that some immigrants had contributed more than o ­ thers to the making of the “American character.” It was thanks, in par­tic­u­lar, to “the blending of the Celtic and Teutonic blood” that ­there was “produced on American soil a type of humanity whose achievements have made Amer­i­ca what it is.”74 In this re­spect, then, at least some of the popu­lar Irish Catholic press was not only similar to liberal Catholic intellectuals in its conflation of Irishness with Americanism but was also remarkably close to non-­Catholic Progressives in its assumption of white, though non-­Anglo, racial superiority. Even though Catholics w ­ ere typically not in f­ avor of the restrictionism evident in the federal government’s ­handling of Chinese immigration and most

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strikingly in the Immigration Act of 1924, they frequently supported a variety of ideological and po­liti­cal programs that established a line of division between ­those mi­grants and their descendants who had achieved what they considered Americanization and t­hose newer arrivals who w ­ ere still expected to prove their compatibility to the nation and to the Catholic Church. Devotionalism, theology, and religious culture could act as vehicles for separating Catholics from the larger American society at the turn of the twentieth c­ entury, with Catholics erecting literal and figurative barriers to demarcate their communities. A significant number of Catholics, however, rejected ghettoization in the po­liti­cal and nation-­building realms. ­These individuals viewed their church as a strongly American institution and conversely saw the United States as an authentically Catholic country. In the pro­cess, they sometimes blurred the lines between Catholicism and non-­Catholic nativism in their reception of recent Catholic immigrants. Through this merging of Catholicism with beliefs prevailing among many middle-­and upper-­class, white Americans, they also contributed to Progressive theories of scientific racism and nationalism, which led them to erect borders within their own church. This ultimately complicated the notion of assimilation by questioning the very foundations of the communities in which aspiring Americans w ­ ere claiming spaces of their own.

C h a p te r   5

­Toward Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca Catholics Confront the Politics of Anti-­Catholicism

Even if Al Smith wound up winning the White House in 1928, he would not have had an easy time getting t­ here. The country’s first Catholic candidate for president on a major party ticket faced attacks from several groups, including the Republican Party, a number of Protestant churches and ministers, and extremist organ­izations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Many of ­these attacks centered on his religion and his ostensible support for rum, Romanism, and rebellion. One evocative anti-­Smith poem summed up many Americans’ distrust of and distaste for Catholics, immigrants, and Demo­crats: When the jackass learns to sing tenor And the rattlesnake walks on legs; When the razorback shoats grow feathers And the milch cow sets on eggs. When the bluebird mates with the peckerwood And the hoot owl mates with the wrens; When the bull frog sails on snowy wings And the sapsucker chums with the hens. When cotton grows on the fig tree And alfalfa hangs from the ­rose, 113

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When the Catholic’s rule the U.S.A. And the dagoes all grow a straight nose. When Pope Pius is praised by ­every one In the land of U ­ ncle Sam, and when; Al Smith is elected president, Our country w ­ on’t be worth a damn.1 For American Catholics of the early twentieth ­century, such expressions of anti-­Catholicism may have been unremarkable, given that their church had been suspected of disloyalty since the colonial period. Si­mul­ta­neously, though, they may have come as a surprise considering Catholics’ attempts in the postbellum period to fashion their church as an authentically American institution. Thomas  B. Minahan, the president of the American Federation of Catholic Socie­ties, spoke seriously in 1902 when he argued that it was “a most impor­tant mission” of his organ­ization “to secure the layman’s part in helping to make this country Catholic” and to finish the job started by “[i]nfedility, agnosticism, or absolute indifference” in “digging the grave of Protestantism in the United States.”2 By all indications, Catholics had come a long way since the Civil War. Compared to the widespread anti-­Catholicism of the antebellum era, it was a remarkable state of affairs when, in 1902, President Theodore Roo­se­velt, over the span of just a “few months . . . ​sent a commission to Rome to treat with the head of the Church . . . ​appointed a Catholic archbishop Indian commissioner (Archbishop Ryan) . . . ​appointed a Catholic first assistant postmaster-­ general (Wynne) . . . ​appointed a Catholic layman Indian commissioner, in Charles J. Bonaparte, and . . . ​appointed Judge and General James F. Smith, a prominent Catholic and Demo­crat of California, a member of the Philippine Commission.” For good mea­sure, just “[t]wo days ­later he appointed a Catholic bishop, the Right Rev. John Lancaster Spalding, a member of an arbitration board whose duty it w ­ ill be to arbitrate justly the coal miners’ strike.”3 Catholics fought for de­cades to take their place in the halls of American power, and in the early twentieth ­century, it appeared that they had been successful. It is noteworthy and perhaps not coincidental in light of Roo­se­velt’s avowed re­spect for the church’s liberal wing, that the Catholic archbishop who was appointed as Indian commissioner, Patrick John Ryan, was also a supporter of the Columbian Catholic Congress. Furthermore, Bishop John Lancaster Spalding was a noted Americanizing prelate, founder with John Ireland of Catholic immigrant colonies in the Midwest, and a patron of the Catholic Educational Exhibit at the 1893 world’s fair. ­These Catholic achievements in public life illustrate the success of Catholics of the Gilded Age and Progres-

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sive Era in proving their church’s American bona fides along the lines sketched out by the nationalists among them in the postbellum period and in translating this rhetorical success into ­actual power well into the twentieth ­century. This success, however, fueled the anti-­Catholicism that underwent a resurgence during the first three de­cades of the twentieth c­entury. Charles Bonaparte—­the Catholic appointed by President Theodore Roo­se­velt to serve as a federal Indian commissioner, who was active in the American Catholic Congress of 1889, and who served as secretary of the navy and attorney general ­under Roosevelt—­felt that his own federal government was an opponent of the Catholic Church. He noted in 1915, the same year the second Ku Klux Klan was founded in Georgia, “I think that ­there is an atmosphere of latent hostility and partially concealed hostility to our institutions at Washington just now, with which it is a l­ittle difficult to deal.” 4 Occasionally, the expressions of anti-­Catholicism ­were more subtle, as in the case of the 1922 amending of Oregon’s Compulsory Education Act, which required all students to attend public schools and that critics saw as an attempt to eliminate Catholic parochial schooling in the state. At other times, the anti-­Catholicism was much more overt, as can be seen in the reemergence of the Second Ku Klux Klan, which specifically targeted the Catholic Church as a violator of the Klan’s creed of One Hundred P ­ ercent Americanism. Fi­nally, in 1928, Governor Al Smith of New York, a Catholic, received the Demo­cratic Party nomination for president of the United States. This was a watershed moment in American po­liti­cal and religious history, in which Catholics demonstrated their staying power in public life. As can be seen in the poem at the start of the chapter, however, Smith’s campaign met re­sis­tance from what his fellow Catholics perceived to be a concerted effort on the part of anti-­Catholic bigots to deny their faith community its rightful leadership role in American society. A Catholic Army captain wrote in colorful language in 1915 that if Catholics did not “wake up,” they would be forced to watch the country be emasculated by a sinister cabal, with Protestants delivering the master stroke to unman the United States: “Socialism helped by venal l­ abor leaders, and masonry holds the Nation tight, the pacifists administer the anesthetic, while Protestantism deftly cuts the sack, and removes both genital glands.” Americans, without robust, fearless Catholic defense, would be rendered “neither men nor ­women, but a sort of male she.”5 Catholics had to fight against this allegedly Protestant-­led evil, or all that they had worked to achieve over the past several decades—­inclusion, power, control—­would be lost irrevocably. Catholics struck back against the anti-­Catholic resurgence by building on the examples set by their coreligionist forebears in their b­ attles with Protestants over r­ unning the western missions, conducting their country’s imperial

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pursuits, and formulating immigration policy. One observer, just four days before the 1928 presidential election, explic­itly connected Smith to his Catholic pre­de­ces­sors of the late nineteenth c­ entury who attempted to prove to their fellow citizens the compatibility of Catholicism and American values. Ellery Sedgwick, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, which played a critical role in the debate surrounding Smith’s Catholicism during the presidential campaign, opined, “To the Americanism preached by Ireland and Gibbons is now added the Americanism practiced by Smith. The Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca is in the civic sense an American church.”6 Historian William Halsey has arrived at a similar conclusion, contrasting the Americanism of the papal imagination in 1899 with the amalgamation of American nationalism and Catholicism promoted by the figures highlighted in Sedgwick’s comment: “The condemnation of Americanism in 1899 effectively put an end to the ecclesiastical controversy but it did ­little to stop the increasing Catholic absorption in the assumptions of American innocence.”7 The more nationalistic and patriotic form of Catholic Americanism was only increasing in power in the de­cades ­after Pope Leo XIII’s 1899 encyclical, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae. As Halsey writes, “Trying to condemn this kind of Americanism was as futile as attacking one’s own shadow. ­These values ­were instilled in Catholics in their parochial schools, summer chautauquas, and especially in their lit­er­a­ture.”8 Though more conservative figures such as Corrigan and McQuaid may have won the smaller theological ­battle at the end of the nineteenth ­century, Gibbons, Hecker, Ireland, Keane, and other more progressive figures w ­ ere having the last laugh in the larger po­liti­cal and social spheres through the ongoing portrayal of Catholicism as the under­lying current of the increasingly power­f ul and vibrant American nation. As the Progressive Era was waning, Catholics reversed anti-­Catholicism by producing their own propaganda and, in the pro­ cess, continued to portray themselves as loyal Americans and their non-­ Catholic opponents as threats to liberty, laying the groundwork for postwar Catholic mainstreaming in a newly pluralist American religious environment. While American Catholic theology may have become somewhat moribund in the first two de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury, energetic lay Catholic action during the same period shows that not all of US Catholic intellectual life became stunted a­ fter the papal condemnations of Americanism and modernism.9 As historian Philip Gleason explains, an “intellectual revival . . . ​dominated Catholic higher education between World War I and the Second Vatican Council,” which was owed largely to the spread of neoscholasticism in this same period.10 Halsey describes this revival among American Catholics as a “return from exile.”11 Alongside the public resurgence of Thomism in the wider Cath-

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olic world, public-­minded US Catholics in the de­cades before the G ­ reat ­Depression ­were continuing to equate Protestantism with disloyalty and un-­Americanism. Drawing on a rich apol­o­getic tradition and a lengthy history of Catholic anti-­Protestantism, Catholics of the 1910s and 1920s continued to position US Catholicism as an integral component of the ongoing pro­cess of American nation building.12 This “Catholic Re­nais­sance” of the 1920s, as Gleason terms it, included “[v]indicating the civic loyalty of Catholics” as a central component of a larger American Catholic intellectual proj­ect.13 One prime example of this continuing ­battle for religious supremacy and for the power to shape the nation occurred in the early 1920s, when Catholics, Protestants, and state officials once again found themselves arrayed on the battleground of public policy in a debate over ­matters of religion and power. On November 7, 1922, Oregon’s voters amended the state’s Compulsory Education Act to mandate public schooling for most of the state’s school-­age ­children.14 Had the amended act been allowed to stand, beginning on September 1, 1926, any parent or l­egal guardian of a child between eight and sixteen years of age who “fail[ed] or neglect[ed] or refuse[d] to send such child to a public school for the period of time a public school ­shall be held during the current year in said district, ­shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and each day’s failure to send such child to a public school s­ hall constitute a separate offense.” The only exceptions w ­ ere for ­children with ­mental or physical disabilities not allowing for their school attendance; students who had already completed an eighth-­g rade education; ­children residing more than a certain distance from the nearest public school and who could not avail themselves of state-­provided transportation; and c­ hildren who w ­ ere home-­schooled, but only with the express permission of their county’s school superintendent, who would also administer mandatory examinations ­every three months to determine ­whether the students w ­ ere being “properly taught.” With ­these exceptions aside, the punishment for breaking the amended law was “a fine of not less than $5, nor more than $100, or . . . ​imprisonment in the county jail not less than two nor more than thirty days, or . . . ​both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.”15 The Oregon law functioned, in Catholics’ eyes, as a frontal assault on one of the US Catholic hierarchy’s most trea­sured institutions: the parochial school. In 1883, Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore issued a pastoral letter on Christian education to discuss the importance of parochial schooling. He explained that separating the religious and the secular in the classroom would be responsible for “inflicting a fatal wound upon the soul” of Catholic c­ hildren. This would lead inexorably to apostasy from the Catholic faith. The potential for

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losses to the Catholic Church outweighing gains through conversions led Gibbons to conclude that “Catholic Parochial schools must be established and fostered, if we would preserve the faith of our c­ hildren.” Gibbons’s practical goal was that “­every country Parish in the diocese, consisting of three hundred souls, or more, within a radius of three miles, should have a Parish school.”16 The archbishop’s parochial school plan met with the approval of Gibbons’s fellow prelates at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884. In their pastoral letter issued at the conclusion of the council, the country’s bishops declared, “No parish is complete till it has schools adequate to the needs of its c­ hildren.”17 Ten years ­after the issuance of Gibbons’s pastoral letter on Christian education, Catholic educator B ­ rother Ambrose of Chicago’s De La Salle Institute spoke at the Columbian Catholic Congress about the need to maintain religious influence in the classroom, even in public schools. In B ­ rother Ambrose’s view, this influence would be Catholic. The inevitable complaints of Protestant parents, much less non-­Christian parents, whose c­ hildren would be exposed to Catholic teachings w ­ ere not considered. He argued that the American nation was a Christian nation, from the Constitution to the military to the country’s civic holidays. ­Brother Ambrose lamented, though, that “in our State schools the tenets of Chris­tian­ity may not be taught. The army may have its chaplains, the nation its days of thanksgiving, the ­people their churches, but the young in their class hours must be without the God whose name is graven on the dollars with which their teachers are paid.”18 This was the justification, then, for a separate system of Catholic schools, which would fulfill Catholic parents’ wishes to have religion not play an ancillary role but rather be a fundamental component of their ­children’s educations. If Catholics could not harness the public schools to their church, then they would simply have to create and support their own. Other­wise, Catholics would be deficient members of the nation since, according to ­Brother Ambrose, religious teaching was a necessary component of rearing a child for civic maturity. The American bishops felt largely the same way following World War I, explaining in a pastoral letter issued in September 1919 that “[a]n education that unites intellectual, moral and religious ele­ments is the best training for citizenship.” The bishops w ­ ere careful to note, though, that they did not contemplate segregating Catholic youth from their non-­Catholic peers and from the larger society. Just as the First Red Scare was taking off, the American bishops reaffirmed their church’s loyalty to the United States through the operations of the parochial schools, arguing that the schools w ­ ere “simply the concrete form in which we exercise our rights as f­ ree citizens, in conformity with the dictates of conscience. Their very existence is a ­g reat moral fact in American life.” This demonstrated to both Catholics and non-­Catholics what the bishops considered the par­tic­u­lar

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genius of the Catholic schools’ ability to train citizens in “the use of freedom for the advancement of morality and religion.”19 Despite the pride the country’s Catholic leaders had in their schools, many felt that their church’s educators w ­ ere already at a disadvantage compared to their Protestant and secular rivals, and thus felt the need to guard against any perceived attempt to undermine Catholic education. In 1888, J. A. Timmons of St. Mary, Kentucky, lamented to Martin I. J. Griffin, a Catholic historian from Philadelphia, that Catholics w ­ ere falling ­behind in teacher training and textbook writing when compared to their Protestant counter­parts. “Protestant teachers, as a rule,” Timmons explained, “are well paid for their ser­vices, and can afford to devote themselves to the preparation of good text books; while Catholic teachers, no ­matter how well educated, are so poorly paid that it is almost impossible for them, at least in this country, to do anything in the way of getting up books of any kind.” He emphasized the dire financial straits of many Catholic educators by quoting a priest who declared that “ ‘a man with a keg of beer can make more in a year than is received by a Catholic teacher in any of our American Colleges.’ ” Additionally, Timmons argued, Catholic teachers, in contrast to most Protestant educators, w ­ ere frequently “not to the ‘manor born’ ” and had a more difficult time understanding the mores of nonimmigrant Americans.20 The non-­Catholic perception of Catholic schools’ inferiority relative to their public and Protestant competitors had ­actual consequences for the academic and professional prospects of the Catholic students who attended t­ hese schools. A group of protesters in 1899 issued a resolution condemning Harvard University’s decision to no longer recognize bachelor’s degrees from Boston College. The resolution’s authors considered this decision to be “a covert attack on higher Catholic education in New ­England, since the University practically dictates to Catholic students where they s­ hall receive their preliminary collegiate training, and thus attempts to drive them from our colleges.” The petitioners maintained that “the standard of Boston College is not inferior to that of any college in this country.”21 In the early twentieth ­century, Catholics saw par­tic­u­lar dangers to their faith when the federal government demonstrated what appeared to be anti-­Catholic bias in educational m ­ atters in the United States, much as on the western reservations and in the Philippines. One controversy over government officials’ opinions on Catholic higher education that arose in November 1912 is particularly revealing for what it demonstrates about Catholic insecurities, Catholic education, anti-­Catholic biases, and church-­state relations in the Progressive Era. James B. Carroll, a Catholic from Springfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts, wrote to Senator Winthrop Murray Crane to express outrage over the US commissioner of education’s ranking of “Holy Cross College and ­every other Catholic college in

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Amer­i­ca in the second class.” Carroll objected to the commissioner’s “artificial arrangement,” which was allegedly determined “without consulting anybody, except a few presidents of colleges in Amer­i­ca, without any opportunity to be heard, an entirely ex-­parte and star chamber proceeding. The result is that e­ very gradu­ate of ­every Catholic college is justly incensed.”22 ­Others w ­ ere also troubled by the college rankings. A Jesuit named A. J. Maas wrote to one of his order’s provincials in New York City to inform him that two priests met with the commissioner of education to discuss the controversy. One of the priests, F ­ ather Donlon, felt that they would have to go above the commissioner’s head by speaking directly with the secretary of the interior “to stop the publication.” Donlon suggested encouraging ­others to fight against the release of the rankings, namely having “the vari­ous Colleges start in on the campaign by getting the members of Congress of their district and their Senators to make a vigorous protest to the Secretary of the Interior and perhaps the President to stop the publication.” Donlon was on the same page as Carroll when he suggested enlisting Senator Crane of Mas­sa­chu­setts to join their fight against the report. F ­ ather Gasson, the second priest who met with the commissioner, strongly recommended that the Jesuits or­ga­nize meetings with President William Howard Taft and President-­elect Woodrow Wilson to rectify the issue.23 Another Jesuit, E. De L. McDonnell, from Gonzaga College in Washington, DC, actually met with Taft to discuss the controversy. As he did previously regarding Catholic interests in the Philippines, President Taft vowed to deal with it to Catholics’ satisfaction, telling the priest, “ ‘Leave it to me. I’ll take up the ­matter.’ ” McDonnell wrote to his superior to express his confidence that Taft would act in f­avor of Catholics and to suggest that it was not “wise for our ­people to make trou­ble for Government officials, if m ­ atters can be adjusted quietly,” an indication that Catholics felt growing confidence in their ability to gain a fair hearing from federal officials, while remaining aware of their still-­tenuous position in American society in the early 1900s.24 Concerned Catholics must have felt vindication both personally and on behalf of the country’s Catholic colleges when Senator Crane discussed the m ­ atter of the rankings with Taft, who assured him “that the report has been suppressed and ­ought never to have been published.”25 McDonnell was also pleased by the news of the quashing of the college rankings, but he tempered his enthusiasm with a dose of realism by noting that the disposition of the report was up in the air since a new resident of the White House, Woodrow Wilson, would be succeeding Taft as president in just a few short months. It was unknown if the commissioner of education’s pre­sent secretary, who was held responsible for the report, would attempt to revive it. McDonnell, though, expressed “hope a Demo­crat [would] supplant” the secretary.26

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It would be instructive to consider another episode in which Catholics, claiming for themselves the mantle of Americanism, attempted to use state power to realize their goal of Catholic inclusion and to silence their critics. In 1914, James Gallagher, a Catholic attorney from Fresno, California, pleaded with US Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson to ban the anti-­Catholic newspaper the Menace from the mails. In Gallagher’s view, the common good and public order trumped the Menace’s right to spread religious bigotry. Gallagher charged the anti-­Catholic press with being a com­pany of “unprincipled blackguards and traitors.” Catholics, then, w ­ ere the loyal Americans being betrayed by their unscrupulous, backstabbing, anti-­Catholic neighbors. Employing a characteristically Catholic understanding of freedom that lionized the commonweal over an unbridled fetishization of absolute individualism, Gallagher argued in ­favor of an understanding of “liberty of the press” that also included “corresponding responsibilities” to re­spect the truth and Catholics’ rights. He was especially indignant over the Menace’s attacks on “the virtue of Catholic womanhood generally” and its “most atrocious calumnies against [the Catholic] sisterhood and priesthood.”27 Gallagher was not an outlier. In 1915, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads held a hearing to discuss two proposed bills, H.R. 20644 and H.R. 21183, which would allow the postmaster general to ban from the mails “obscene or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints, engravings, lithographs, photo­graphs, or other publications, m ­ atter, or ­thing of an indecent, immoral, scurrilous, or libelous character.” At the hearing, New York Representative James P. Maher shared the sentiments found in several letters from his constituents complaining specifically about the Menace and other anti-­Catholic newspapers. Maher was indignant that in a country with “16,000,000 Catholics” and “approximately 20,000 priests,” his many Catholic constituents faced slander and libel against their church. Maher told the committee, “I believe I voice their sentiments when I say they want protection against the slanderous and scurrilous articles that are circulated through the mails.” Maher, also a Catholic, argued that his “right to live in peace and in good ­will with my neighbors” was more sacred than the right of the Menace to attack his church. L ­ ater in the hearing, a sponsor of one of the bills, James Gallivan of Mas­sa­chu­setts, entered into a heated religious debate with a witness, Episcopal minister W. Russell Collins. The minister accused the Catholic Church of attempting to influence the legislative pro­cess from ­behind the scenes and attacked the bills as subversive of freedom of the press. Collins argued that Catholics’ devotion to the United States was suspect and that they believed the pope was the “sovereign of the world, and that his sovereignty is

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greater than that of the United States.” Gallivan challenged Collins to name a specific American Catholic who actually held this belief. Then ensued the following exchange: DR. Collins: I would like to ask you if you can give me a declaration of your own religion? MR. Gallivan: I am a Roman Catholic, and proud of it. DR. Collins: Do you now acknowledge that the Pope is the sovereign ruler of heaven, earth, and hell, and all temporalities? MR. Gallivan: My answer to this man’s questions is that he is temporarily insane, or he would not ask me that question. DR. Collins: Then the theology of the Roman Catholic Church is insane. The chairman of the committee called the hearing to order, ­after which Representative John J. Fitzgerald of New York, another sponsor of one of the bills ­under discussion, expressed a wish “to be just as emphatic as pos­si­ble in the statement, that as patriotic and as loyal men as live anywhere in the United States are to be numbered among ­those who profess the Roman Catholic faith.”28 In January 1916, opponents of the Menace attempted to convict four men associated with the newspaper of violating federal obscenity statutes. They w ­ ere ultimately acquitted by a jury in Joplin, Missouri.29 Catholics’ perceptions of anti-­Catholic sentiment on the part of public officials and the non-­Catholic public as well as a growing consciousness among them that they could use the institutions of the state to air their grievances ­were fresh in their minds when the Oregon school law passed in 1922. The Oregon act, critics charged, effectively outlawed private and especially religious educational institutions in Oregon. The US Supreme Court agreed. In a unan­ i­mous decision, with an opinion written by Justice James McReynolds, the Court de­cided, in the 1925 case Pierce v. Society of ­Sisters, that “[t]he fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its c­ hildren by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.” On F ­ ourteenth Amendment due pro­cess grounds, McReynolds argued that the amended act would “without doubt . . . ​seriously impair, perhaps destroy, the profitable features of [the Society of ­Sisters’] business and greatly diminish the value of their property.” The potential loss of business and revenue for the Society of S­ isters, according to one commentator writing on behalf of the US Catholic hierarchy’s National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC), was substantial: “Ninety-­ six members of the Society in Oregon conduct 16 elementary schools, 8 secondary schools, and 1 college. The elementary schools supply the largest part of the student body of the higher institutions. T ­ here are about 2,000

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c­ hildren in the grades. The buildings and equipment used for primary school purposes are worth over $600,000. The annual income from the grades has been in excess of $30,000.” The society argued before the Supreme Court that the act would destroy “the right of parents to choose schools where their ­children ­will receive appropriate ­mental and religious training,” and the Court found merit with this argument. As McReynolds noted, “The child is not the mere creature of the State; t­ hose who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”30 Catholics, at least ­those who expressed their opinions on the ­matter publicly, ­were almost uniformly opposed to the law. As evidence, however, of a significant shift in non-­Catholics’ public perceptions of the Catholic Church’s place in American society, Catholics found themselves joined by many non-­ Catholics who feared the growing power of the state over what they considered private ­matters and even by the Supreme Court of the United States.31 Contrast this with the antebellum period, when the use of the Bible and the practice of praying in public school classrooms served as the bases of fights between American Catholics and Protestants, the latter of which painted Catholics as destroyers of biblical literacy and American values. This shift may not have come as a surprise to Catholics, who had, over the course of the sixty years following the Civil War, almost come to expect as a ­matter of course that their position on ­matters of public morals and religious liberty was self-­evidently correct. They argued that the Catholic Church was the author of American conceptions of church-­state relations and demo­cratic freedom, which they claimed ­were being subverted by the forces of un-­American anti-­Catholicism. The NCWC declared in 1924 that if the Oregon case reached the US Supreme Court, ­there would be “no question of the outcome” since the Catholic schools’ cause was, in Catholic leaders’ eyes, so patently just.32 One public school teacher, calling themself “An American,” related in a pamphlet published by the NCWC’s Bureau of Education just three months ­after Oregonians voted to amend the Compulsory Education Act the details of a conversation with a friend, who asked, “What’s the ­matter with Oregon?” This teacher and the friend w ­ ere both “officials in Protestant churches” and “members of Masonic bodies,” hardly résumé items that would traditionally align e­ ither with the Catholic Church of the 1920s. No doubt much to the plea­sure of the NCWC, the teacher’s friend “answer[ed] his own question, and this is what he said: ‘­Either the majority of the Oregon voters have been misled or they have gone mad,’ ” to which the teacher agreed. The teacher pointed out that to avoid being accused of outright anti-­Catholicism, Oregon voters had targeted all private schools. The author maintained that the voters’ true target was the Catholic

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Church’s large network of parochial schools and argued that this campaign against private schooling was simply one part of a larger conspiracy that “owe[d] its success, thus far, to the Ku Klux Klan and other secret o ­ rders wearing the sheep’s clothing of Americanism!”33 According to this supposedly Protestant, Masonic public school teacher, it was not Catholics but rather the forces of anti-­ Catholicism that threatened the United States. Similarly, the Lutheran Schools Committee saw the law as nothing more than an attempt “to outlaw private and church schools.” This committee argued that the law would “strike at: Parental authority, Religious liberty, and Freedom in education.” The Lutherans pointed out that even if voters had the Catholic Church in mind when they de­cided to amend Oregon’s school law, the act was worded broadly enough to affect Protestant schools. They maintained that the act “would be the first determined effort in Amer­i­ca to destroy what has justly been called Amer­ic­ a’s foremost contribution to civilization, namely, its guarantee of religious liberty to all citizens.”34 This ­union of Catholics and Lutherans demonstrated that politics can make for strange bedfellows indeed.35 Catholic voices w ­ ere loudest in attacking the school law as an unconstitutional infringement of Oregon citizens’ religious liberty and parental rights. Rev. John J. Burke, general secretary of the NCWC, charged Oregon’s voters with pushing society further “­towards state absolutism and against Americanism,” accusations that had been lobbed by non-­Catholic Americans against the Catholic Church for de­cades. Catholic prelates and educators ­were also gaining more confidence through the 1920s in their ability to effect change. As Bishop Thomas J. Shahan, rector of the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca, noted to a meeting of the Superintendents’ Section of the Catholic Educational Association in 1924, “I feel that e­ very year your organ­ization is growing in influence and possibilities . . . ​and it is not too soon to create a closer relationship among Catholic educational leaders.”36 Catholic parochial schools had spread extensively across the United States. According to the NCWC, in 1920, ­there ­were in the Catholic educational system “8,706 schools of all grades, employing 54,265 teachers to administer therein the instruction acquired by the 1,981,051 pupils attending them at that time.”37 The growth of early twentieth-­century US Catholicism, though, functioned as a double-­edged sword, for this burgeoning power and demographic influence may have been what animated Oregon’s voters to attempt to curtail the spread of Catholic schools. The NCWC pinned responsibility for the Oregon law on a united anti-­Catholic front consisting of “the Ku Klux Klan, Scottish Rite Masons, Lodges of Orangemen, and other anti-­Catholic groups,” and the bishops’ council maintained that Oregonians “had been deceived by paid propagandists as to the real nature and purpose of Catholic education.” More-

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over, the law was just one of several similar pieces of legislation proposed across the country. What separated Oregon’s act from the ­others was that it was, according to the NCWC, “the one outstanding success among the many attempts made in recent years to write anti-­Catholic legislation into the codes of the vari­ous States.”38 According to Jesuit priest Michael Kenny, a professor of sociology and jurisprudence and previously an editor of the Catholic magazine Amer­i­ca, the or­ga­ nized attempt to destroy the parochial school system in the United States had been brewing for some time. In Kenny’s view, the Freemasons, Catholicism’s longtime bête noire, w ­ ere to blame for the assault on Catholic schools. Kenny, writing in 1919, also included the Car­ne­g ie and Rocke­fel­ler Foundations in his list of enemies of Catholic schooling, but he subjected the Masons to the most vigorous attacks. Kenny maintained that even though enemies of parochial schools often shrouded their arguments in the language of neutrality regarding par­tic­u­lar churches, their support for public education at all costs to the detriment of private schools had the practical effect of singling out Catholic institutions. He argued that the Masons w ­ ere the unifying force that tied together the major anti-­Catholic organ­izations and publications of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, including the “A.P.A., Guardians of Liberty, Knights of Luther . . . ​ the Menace and Watsonian dark brotherhoods.” It is fitting that Kenny would refer to Georgia Senator Tom Watson, the Populist leader who eventually shifted his rhe­toric to racism and anti-­Catholicism in the early twentieth ­century, for Kenny himself made a populist appeal to his fellow Catholics, portraying them as the loyal, patriotic, common ­people against the nefarious special interests that sought to undermine both Catholicism and Americanism. The opposition of “the ­people” to “the interests,” historian Michael Kazin has argued, was the under­lying premise of American pop­u­lism. Kenny assured Catholics that in standing bravely against Masons in defense of their parochial schools, “we s­ hall be standing on the Constitution, they w ­ ill be outside of it. Let us tell them that in our educational system we, not they, are the Americans.” Furthermore, Kenny argued, Catholics w ­ ere “the original inventors of public schools,” and they had faithfully pursued education “in the spirit of the builders of our Constitution.” Kenny urged his fellow Catholics to remain patriotic in the face of the sinister Mason, who was busy “harnessing Protestantism to his engines.” He was confident that Catholics would triumph since Catholicism was already synonymous with Americanism. Kenny affirmed the widespread belief among his coreligionists that “[w]e are the State as much as anybody ­else; and since by our higher birth-­rate in peace and our higher percentage of volunteers in war we have contributed the largest proportion of citizens to the ser­vice of the nation, we have first title to its recognition of our just

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demands.”39 Catholics, according to Kenny, w ­ ere the most au­then­tic, representative Americans. Their patriotic military ser­vice and growing numerical supremacy provided sufficient evidence for him. Masons, Protestants, and all other anti-­Catholics, therefore, had the burden of proof when it came to the argument of w ­ hether parochial schools w ­ ere antithetical to American values. In Catholics’ eyes, their schools w ­ ere central parts of the American ethos. Writing in the N.C.W.C. Bulletin in April 1925, just two months before the Supreme Court upheld the Oregon District Court’s invalidation of the school law, Charles N. Lischka recast private and parochial education rather than public schools as the essence of American schooling. Lischka portrayed public schools as immature interlopers in a country founded on private education, and he characterized the United States as a “demo­cratic empire” founded by “religious men” and as “a Christian nation.” 40 It was not just Protestants, then, who could view the United States as a city on a hill with a religious mission sanctioned by Providence. Catholics of the early twentieth c­ entury ­were also comfortable demanding for themselves a place at the t­ able of the American civil religion, which in their eyes was not self-­evidently Protestant. One month a­ fter the Court’s decision, the NCWC declared that the Society of S­ isters’ triumph was “a victory for all private schools, for all teaching organ­izations, for education in general . . . ​for the sovereign person of the individual . . . ​for sound jurisprudence, for constitutional law, for Americanism, and for democracy. Even further than all t­ hese, it is a victory for the very heart and soul of Amer­i­ca—­a victory for liberty as well as for Chris­tian­ity and religion.” The NCWC, which was a leader in the campaign against the ­Oregon law, had the satisfaction of celebrating the Pierce decision as “a rebuke for the bigots, and a blow to the forces of fanat­ic­ ism.” It was quick to remind Americans that Cardinal Gibbons regarded the Constitution as the “ ‘greatest instrument of government that ever passed from the hand of man,’ ” and the bishops’ conference felt vindicated that the Supreme Court upheld its view of the document.41 Rev. James H. Ryan, the NCWC’s executive secretary, suggested that McReynolds’s opinion in the Pierce case enshrined in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence the traditional Catholic teaching that au­then­tic citizenship and freedom required an instruction in morality that only the Catholic Church could provide. “The Supreme Court,” Ryan argued, “recalls the country to the original American standards, wherein since the days of Washington recognized the intimate dependence of education on morality.” This was in contrast with the “secularist tendency in American education,” which divorced “citizenship from religious sanctions.” 42 Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore agreed philosophically with Ryan, writing one year before the Pierce decision that education, properly

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c­ onsidered from the Catholic perspective, was directed t­ oward the accomplishment of both worldly ­labors and “eternal destiny.” Curley explained that the Catholic Church had been at the forefront of effective secular and spiritual education since the conversion of Constantine, through the reign of Charlemagne and the birth of the Catholic university system in the M ­ iddle Ages, and into the twentieth c­ entury, when Curley and his fellow prelates oversaw the mission of the Catholic University of Amer­i­ca. Curley placed his church in the com­pany of American statesmen such as George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, and Calvin Coo­lidge, in his defense of religious education, questioning the patriotism of t­ hose “whose only purpose is to drive God from the school­houses and from the heart of the child,” a defense that echoed the ­earlier Catholic complaints against non-­sectarian Indigenous and Philippine schools. The archbishop remarked with assurance that it was the Catholic Church’s enemies who sought to undermine “­every tradition of our country and its ­fathers.” Meanwhile, the members of his flock continued to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation by “paying their taxes cheerfully t­ owards the system of public school education.” Like Hecker before him, Curley argued that ­Catholicism was the backbone of the American way of life: “The Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca ­today stands as the greatest bulwark of Amer­ic­ a. The Catholic Church is Amer­i­ca’s greatest friend.” 43 ­There was almost no need to effect a fusion of church and state, for in the eyes of many Catholics of the period, much as during the late nineteenth c­ entury, Catholicism and Americanism ­were mutually reinforcing and perhaps the same. Ultimately, the Catholic Church, by way of the Society of S­ isters, argued that it had proven in the country’s highest court that, far from being an ­enemy of freedom and the Constitution, it was the progenitor and guardian of the loftiest American traditions and of the entire Eu­ro­pean intellectual heritage. Catholics ­were no longer content to pursue their grievances in the press, and they w ­ ere confident that they could rely on the American court system, sympathetic Protestants, and careful coordination among coreligionists across the country to vindicate Catholicism in the face of multiple enemies, an attitude also apparent in the Pierce case. This Catholic victory in the Supreme Court and in much of the court of public opinion would not have been pos­si­ble without a concerted, or­ga­nized public relations effort to attack the law as unconstitutional and to portray private, parochial education as a positive good and an honorable American tradition. Only two days a­fter Oregon voters amended the state’s school law, Portland’s Archbishop Alexander Christie established the Catholic Truth Society of Oregon (CTS). The CTS had a mission to defend the Catholic Church against outside attacks and explain to the public the basis and meaning of Catholic teachings. It explained its goal as undertaking “ ‘[a]n educational campaign

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in Oregon to inform non-­Catholics on what the Catholic Church ­really is and is not.’ ” It would realize this goal through the “ ‘systematic spread of Catholic lit­ er­a­ture, use of the public press, publicity given to the work of our charitable and educational institutions, lectures, ­etc.,’ ” all of which would be financed “ ‘from voluntary offerings.’ ” Rev. Charles M. Smith, the CTS’s executive secretary, claimed that just eight CTS lectures in Portland in March  1925 had attracted approximately twenty thousand attendees. Smith was confident that “a very liberal percentage of t­hose who attended w ­ ere from outside the fold” of the Catholic Church, precisely what the CTS was founded to accomplish. The CTS also availed itself of radio broadcasting so that it could be “listened to by an invisible audience that was practically innumerable.” In 1923 and 1924, the organ­ization distributed almost a quarter-­million pamphlets and books on a variety of topics. Capturing the spirit of the times, the CTS planned to use an “auto chapel car,” potentially including “[a] portable moving-­picture machine and stereopticon” to “bring the truth into the smaller towns and remote districts.” Catholics, far from being uniformly opposed to pro­gress, as argued by anti-­ Catholic detractors, embraced new technologies to strengthen their church’s foothold in the marketplace of religious ideas. Smith felt that the most significant threat to Catholic strength in Oregon was “lethargy” in the face of anti-­Catholicism. “Bigotry is not dead,” he argued in July 1925, “but sleeps and waits for the next anti-­Catholic wave to rouse it up again,” which would have kept fresh in the minds of Catholics the danger posed by the Oregon law to their church’s parochial schools, a danger that was not eliminated by the Supreme Court ­until the previous month. This reflected a fear expressed by the NCWC that if Catholics did not educate themselves in the teachings of their church regarding the relative virtues of public versus parochial schooling, they would be in danger of having their own parochial schools “Oregonized.” The NCWC warned that ­there existed the potential for an anti-­Catholic campaign to “amend the Constitution of the United States forbidding Catholics to maintain their separate system of schools.” Smith placed anti-­Catholicism in the United States within a much longer historical, international context: “Is the A.P.A. dead? Yes, for more than twenty years it has slumbered in an unhallowed grave; but the venom still lives in many minds. Is the Know-­Nothing movement dead? Yes. For three-­quarters of a c­ entury, and yet it lives in the lies which it set in motion. Is the Reformation past? Yes, for more than four centuries, and yet the intolerance it aroused still courses through the veins of millions.” 44 Once again, the Catholic Church was not the deceiver its non-­Catholic foes accused it of being. Instead, Catholics maintained, non-­Catholics needed to hold up a mirror to themselves to view the ­faces of bigotry and anti-­Americanism.

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By the mid-1920s, the anti-­Catholic pump had been primed by the Ku Klux Klan and other or­ga­nized anti-­Catholic groups as well as by the controversy surrounding the Oregon school law. Additionally, the 1920s witnessed a revival of exposés of the Catholic Church by alleged ex-­nuns and ex-­priests.45 Similar accounts of self-­proclaimed former nuns—­most notably, Maria Monk and Rebecca Reed—­had their heyday in the antebellum period. They gave rise to a literary genre known as the convent narrative.46 As evidence that old habits tend to die hard, the convent tale returned in the 1920s on the eve of the first campaign for president by a Catholic candidate on a major party ticket. As early as 1902, a Baptist minister named J. J. Crosby claimed that “he was fifteen years in a monastery” and had taken up residence at a church in Howell, Michigan, where, the local priest declared, “he is most vile in his attacks against the Church.” 47 One Catholic commentator expressed consternation in 1927 that Monk’s book, The Awful Disclosures of the ­Hotel Dieu Nunnery, which had been discredited almost a ­century previously, had just been republished “and is enjoying a large sale.” 48 This anti-­Catholic revival of the Progressive Era had a transnational component. Dennis Dougherty, while bishop of Jaro in the Philippines in 1913, complained that Protestant missionaries w ­ ere handing out to Filipinos “Protestant Bibles, tracts and such lit­er­at­ ure as the works of ­Father Crowley and Maria Monk.” 49 The spirit of Maria Monk was clearly not resting in peace. If anti-­Catholicism was already ripe by the time of the 1928 presidential election, then so too was the Catholic counterattack against religious intolerance. Georgia Senator Tom Watson, for instance, enraged the NCWC when he, as the Catholic bishops’ organ­ization put it, “resorted to the vilest slander imaginable against the priesthood of the country and the Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd” by arguing that “the 65,000 girls reported missing in the United States during the past year ­were kidnapped by priests and confined in ­houses of the Good Shepherd, ‘where they became victims of priestly immorality.’ ” Disturbingly, the NCWC seemed to call for Watson to be lynched by white southern men for this attack on Catholic ­women, yet another entry in Watson’s “own previous satanic rec­ord in inventing anti-­Catholic slander.” Lynchings ­were often conducted, perpetrators claimed, to protect pure, white womanhood from the supposed danger posed by Black men, and it appears that the NCWC bought into and approved of this myth. The NCWC felt that it could gain sympathy for Catholic religious ­sisters by reminding the South of its self-­professed obligation to preserve the honor of the s­ isters and to punish Watson as a transgressor of the South’s sexual norms, one who had “stabbed the South in the back”: “We think that all who read the filthy libel w ­ ill agree

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that if the manhood of the South is not to turn its back on its traditions, it cannot permit this crime against good ­women by one of its most highly placed representatives to pass without the reparation which true chivalry would be quick to accord.” Meanwhile, according to the NCWC, the chaste ­sisters suffered in silence as the victims of outrages and “dev­ilish indignity put upon them by the Senator from Georgia.”50 Bishop of Harrisburg Philip Richard McDevitt, who would, l­ ater in the de­ cade, blame Protestant ministers for propagating anti-­Catholicism during the 1928 presidential election, cautioned Catholics that attacks against their religious community would not cease with their victory in the Oregon school affair. He warned, [W]e Catholics should not assume that all danger to our rights in education and to our rights as citizens is past. To think so is to be blind to facts. All over this country ­today are individuals who ­were in full sympathy with the attempt in Oregon to destroy the Catholic school. The action of the Supreme Court has not changed the convictions of t­ hose who are opposed to the Catholic Church and especially to her system of education. Such ­people are as determined as ever to use their power to rob the Catholic child of a Christian, Catholic education. They are not less intent upon depriving Catholics of their rights as citizens.51 Many Catholics w ­ ere prepared for such ­f uture strug­gles, and they ­were able to further hone their response to anti-­Catholicism through an episode that served as a fitting close to a de­cade that witnessed revitalized Catholic-­ Protestant b­ attles for power. In 1928, the Demo­cratic Party nominated for president the brown derby–­wearing, happy warrior from New York, Governor Al Smith. A Progressive reformer during his many years of gubernatorial ser­vice, Smith was also a Catholic. His opponent, Republican nominee Herbert Hoover, was a Quaker. As several scholars have noted, Smith’s religion emerged quickly as a controversial point of debate. Historian Allan J. Lichtman argues that “voter co­ ali­tions in 1928 ­were skewed by a uniquely strong division between Catholics and Protestants,” who ­were separated by “a deep-­seated cultural conflict.”52 A Catholic University of Amer­ic­ a faculty member, John M. Cooper, correctly predicted one year before the election that Smith’s religion would be used by both supporters and opponents. Cooper wrote to John J. Nilan, the bishop of Hartford, “It is likely . . . ​that politicians, both his friend [sic] and his enemies, ­will try to make po­liti­cal capital out of his religion, if he is nominated. And it is unfortunately likely that they ­will succed [sic] among a minority of the voters, perhaps to the extent of a million or two of votes both ways.”53 Another

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commentator noted in 1936 that Smith faced a “hideous wave of bigotry” and that he “was punished . . . ​for his religion as few have been.”54 A Smith opponent before the election expressed just such a sentiment of anti-­Catholicism that “[w]hen Smith was a boy he was being carefully inculcated in St. James Catholic Church to regard all Protestants as hellish heretics, unfit to be associated with, e­ ither in church or school.” This detractor contrasted Smith with Hoover, who “[w]hen [he] was a mere lad . . . ​was being groomed in the religious training of the Quakers, to feel at peace with the world and love all men as ­brothers.”55 Although this tidy story of good Protestants versus evil Catholics was inaccurate, many Catholics saw the election as one that pitted Catholicism against Protestantism in a ­battle for control over what it meant to be an American. One Catholic, writing about the election a month a­ fter Smith’s defeat, viewed it as a contest between “a Catholic . . . ​­running for office, bearing the brunt of a vile campaign of bigotry” and a “Protestant who is the beneficiary of that awful intolerant attack.”56 In 1927, when he emerged as a frontrunner for the Demo­cratic nomination, Smith was presented with the opportunity to test arguments in defense of Catholicism’s compatibility with dominant American values. That year, an Episcopal attorney named Charles C. Marshall published an open letter to Smith in the Atlantic Monthly that used Catholic canon law and papal writings to reach the conclusion that a committed Catholic could not be loyal to both the religiously pluralist United States and the religiously exclusivist Catholic Church.57 Before Smith could respond, Boston’s archbishop, William Cardinal O’Connell, blasted Marshall’s challenge as one befitting an ­earlier, less enlightened period whose time had passed: “ ‘Let us pay no more attention to such innuendoes . . . ​for we refuse to be questioned for being Catholics. I think now that e­ very man, Catholic and Protestant alike, considers the ­matter settled forever. It should have no further consideration from any man, and I hope that such an answer never ­will be called for again.’ ”58 Smith did not take Cardinal O’Connell’s advice, for he did give further consideration to Marshall’s queries. Smith’s reply, the title of which, “Catholic and Patriot,” summed up the growing consensus among Catholics and many non-­ Catholics too that Americanism and Catholicism w ­ ere not mutually exclusive, rejected Marshall’s charges on the grounds that they ­were illogical and ran contrary to the lived, everyday experiences of Smith and other Catholics. Smith explained that his religious life and his concept of national duty ­were built on shared princi­ples. He wrote to Marshall, “I am unable to understand how anything that I was taught to believe as a Catholic could possibly be in conflict with what is good citizenship. The essence of my faith is built upon the commandments of God. The law of the land is built upon the commandments of God.

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­ here can be no conflict between them.” Smith also pointed out that Catholics T had served as chief justices of the US Supreme Court and that countless ­others had demonstrated their loyalty to the country by offering their lives while serving in the military. He explained to Marshall that Catholics ­were not uncritical followers of the pope and that the church allowed ­free thought among its members. Smith admitted that many of the issues raised in Marshall’s challenge ­were so immaterial to his life as a Catholic—­and likely to the lives of a ­great many other Catholics as well—­that “I never heard of them ­until I read your letter.”59 One Catholic newspaper portrayed Smith as a quasi-­Christ figure who stood up bravely against his enemies and as a scrupulous public servant who recognized when and where it was appropriate to inject his faith into public life: “In effect, Governor Smith said what Christ told His tormentors ‘To Caesar belong the t­ hings that are Caesar’s to God the ­things that are God’s.’ ”60 During his campaign in 1928, Smith worked to convince the nation that his Catholicism should not be a ­factor in any consideration of his eligibility or suitability to become president. In an address to supporters in Oklahoma City on September 20, he gave an extended, impassioned defense of his membership in the Catholic Church. He si­mul­ta­neously denied that he would show favoritism to fellow Catholics if he w ­ ere elected president and excoriated opponents who would attempt to institute a religious test for officeholders—­a test, it should be noted, which would be applied only when a non-­Protestant was ­running. Smith, although admitting the importance of religion in the public sphere, argued for a separation of the two insofar as campaigns w ­ ere concerned. The governor struck a patriotic chord and claimed a religiously ecumenical heritage for the United States, noting, “I can think of no greater disaster to this country than to have the voters of it divide upon religious lines. It is contrary to the spirit, not only of the Declaration of In­de­pen­dence, but of the Constitution itself.”61 In Smith’s view, the country’s founding documents ­were imbued with a spirit of religious tolerance. They did not necessarily call for a strict wall of separation between church, politics, and the state, but rather for an atmosphere of neutrality. Smith found the brand of anti-­Catholicism associated with the Ku Klux Klan to be totally “out of line with the spirit of Amer­i­ca.” He described for his audience in Oklahoma City a vision of American history tied together inextricably with demo­cratic ideals and a broad Christian ethic. It was not Smith’s Catholicism that was un-­American. It was precisely the supposed 100 ­percent Americanism of the Klan and other anti-­Catholics that was at odds with both American and Christian values. “Nothing could be so foreign to the teachings of Jefferson. Nothing could be so contradictory of our w ­ hole history. Nothing could be so false to the teachings of our Divine Lord Himself,” Smith ex-

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plained. “The world knows no greater mockery than the use of the blazing cross, the cross upon which Christ died, as a symbol to install into the hearts of men a hatred of their brethren, while Christ preached and died for the love and brotherhood of man.” Smith was indignant that members of the Klan ­exhibited such “effrontery” in hypocritically describing themselves as loyal Americans while attempting to convince Demo­cratic Party delegates to vote against him b­ ecause of his religion.62 Smith was distressed by what appeared to be, at best, Republicans’ acquiescence to the Klan’s campaign of intolerance and, at worst, their collusion in propagating religious bigotry. He made explicit this charge of a Republican-­ Klan alliance: “­There is abundant reason for believing that Republicans high in the councils of the party have countenanced a large part of this form of campaign, if they have not actually promoted it. A sin of omission is some times as grievous as a sin of commission.”63 He also countered accusations that during his gubernatorial ser­vice, he packed New York state offices exclusively with fellow Catholics by noting that “in the cabinet of the Governor sit fourteen men. Three of the fourteen are Catholics, ten Protestants, and one of the Jewish faith,” which also pointed the way ­toward an emerging understanding in the eyes of some Americans—­both scholars and nonscholars among them—of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews as the pillars of what historian Kevin M. Schultz terms “Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca,” which reached its fullest expression in the mid-­twentieth ­century.64 Similarly, Smith denied accusations that his supporters had encouraged Catholics to vote for him ­because of their shared faith. In his view, this would be an illegitimate rationale for one’s po­ liti­cal ideology, as it would dangerously mix the po­liti­cal and the religious. Nevertheless, a vote in ­favor of Smith’s Catholicism was still better than a vote against his faith. As he put it, “I cannot refrain from saying that any person who votes against me simply ­because of my religion is not, to my way of thinking, a good citizen.”65 Still, though, it was apparent that Smith’s conception of church and state provided for some fusion of the two, despite telling his audience in Oklahoma City that he believed in an “absolute separation of State and Church.” He argued against his opponents who sought to institute an informal religious test for office seekers, but he based his argument on the foundation of a citizenship informed by his faith and a faith informed by his citizenship. Smith maintained that the separation of church and state was an essential “part of the fundamental faith of ­every true American.” This civil religion allowed Smith to “attack ­those who seek to undermine” the ban on a religious test, “not only ­because I am a good Christian, but ­because I am a good American and a product of Amer­i­ca and of American institutions. Every­thing I am, and every­thing

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I hope to be, I owe to ­those institutions.”66 Smith, then, argued for a wall of separation between church and state and for an understanding of responsible citizenship that included a pluralistic re­spect for p­ eople’s individual religious convictions and for a place at the American ­table for Catholicism and its members. In this re­spect, he was a legatee of his church’s late nineteenth-­century Americanists. Recall that Isaac Hecker, for instance, wrote in 1887 that a “citizen of the American republic who understands himself is all the more loyal to the republic ­because he is a Catholic, and all the better Catholic ­because he is loyal to the republic.”67 Smith supporters ­were also dismayed by the attacks on both the presidential candidate and Catholicism, and they appealed to church leaders to take an affirmative stand on Smith’s behalf. In Philadelphia, for instance, which was the home of one of the country’s largest Catholic archdioceses, a lay Smith supporter, “A True Born Catholic for Al Smith,” wrote to Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, who had e­ arlier called for maintaining Catholic leadership in the Philippines in the face of growing Protestant influence, to ask him to take up a secret Sunday collection to support the Smith campaign. This letter writer felt that the American church’s “­f uture is at stake, but not ­because Al Smith is ­running but ­because of the hatred for Catholics.” ­Because this hatred ran so deep and b­ ecause of the long history of suspicion that Catholics aimed to take control of the country’s government, it was impor­tant that this money be raised in such a way that “no one know about it.” To impress on the cardinal the grave importance of a robust but cautious response to anti-­Catholic attacks, the Smith supporter wrote, “It is not Democracy at Stake but we Catholics and the Catholic Church.”68 Another concerned Catholic counseled Dougherty to make a public statement to the effect that the church was not taking an open po­liti­cal role in the election. This person, calling themself “One of the R.C.,” noted, “I personally know that the altars of the CATHOLIC CHURCH are for discussions of FAITH and the teachings of CHRIST ONLY and it makes me boil when I hear t­ hese damaging statements.”69 This may have been recommended to deflect charges that Catholic priests w ­ ere ordering parishioners to vote for Smith. Oliver D. Street, the chairman of the Republican State Campaign Committee of Alabama, for example, made a distinction between the Catholic Church’s religious doctrines and its po­liti­cal participation. Street argued that Catholicism wished to effect a fusion of church and state and was an e­ nemy of po­liti­cal and religious freedoms. He maintained that as far as its po­liti­cal stances went, the Catholic Church was “absolutely subversive of our American form of government,” and as such, it was “not un-­ American to inquire how any candidate for office stands on ­these questions.” Street concluded that if Protestant Americans found the Catholic Church to

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be “obnoxious,” it was “­because its po­liti­cal, civic, and social princi­ples, and not its religion, have made it obnoxious.”70 It is not surprising that Street’s arguments, which drew on a long tradition of both Protestant and secular opposition to po­liti­cal Catholicism, may have encouraged some Catholics to shy away from overtly campaigning on Smith’s behalf. Another Smith supporter pleaded with Dougherty to c­ ounter Protestant and Republican attacks on Smith and the Catholic Church. This Smithite, however, put some of the blame on Catholics themselves, specifically ­women, for their relative inaction. The correspondent wrote, “The Church is not in politics but if they dont [sic] be in politics in this coming election it w ­ ill be an everlasting disgrace for us. If Al Smith is g­ oing to be defeated it w ­ ill be the Catholic ­women of Amer­ic­ a that ­will do it to him.” The author felt that if Catholics did not defend Smith and their church, all that would remain a­ fter the election would be a self-­satisfied “army of ninny doughballs” who would “cross their hands and tell you how Catholics are discriminated against.” The anonymous writer did not explain how Catholic ­women should lead the way for Smith to the White House, especially since they did not support the franchise for w ­ omen. They knew, though, that something must be done on the part of ordinary Catholics to c­ ounter anti-­Smith and anti-­Catholic sentiment ­because t­ hose on the other side of the religio-­political divide ­were not lazy in getting out the vote. “Our Republican S­ isters,” the author wrote, “are not taking it so easy. Mrs. Warburton & Mrs. Altmus millionaires are giving up their vacation to Hooverize Phila. I won­der how many of our Catholic ladies would give up their vacations to Smithize Phila.” The letter writer encouraged Dougherty to abandon the church’s discomfort with open electioneering by musing rhetorically, “I won­der if any body has gone down to l­ ittle Italy to tell them how to vote.”71 At least one Catholic w ­ oman, a Mrs. Wright of Philadelphia, did her part to convince other Catholics to stand up in support of Smith. She requested that Dougherty send a letter to his parishes to instruct “­every Man & ­Woman and grown up ­Children [sic] that has reached the age of 21 yr Male & Female to [do] t­ here [sic] part in helping Our Beloved Friend Alfred E. Smith,” who Wright noted had promised “to bring Catholic Faith back in Mexico.”72 Wright’s confidence that Smith, as president, would fight to strengthen Catholicism in Mexico is indicative of the confidence of many American Catholics of the period in their creation of what Anne M. Martínez calls a “Catholic borderlands.” This “reveal[ed] a Catholic proj­ect committed to countering U.S. Protestant activity within the American empire” as well as growing Catholic knowledge that “they belonged in the United States and that their concern—­religious liberty—­was ­every bit as relevant and legitimate as the concerns of other Americans.”73

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Dougherty was not optimistic about Smith’s chances on the eve of the election. He wrote to a Jesuit priest from the periodical La Civiltà Cattolica in Rome that a combination of the wealth of the Republican Party, the social and religious power of vari­ous Protestant churches, and the influence of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan could pose an insurmountable obstacle to growing Catholic power in the United States. Dougherty argued that the main reason for Hoover’s eventual victory was “anti-­Catholic prejudice on the part of Protestant denominations,” but what was more dismaying was “the fact that even some Catholics are opposing Smith.”74 In Dougherty’s view, Catholics should unite to support their coreligionist Smith in opposition to the threat posed by an alliance between Republicans, Protestants, and extremist organ­izations such as the Klan. The Philadelphia prelate saw the latter group as a potent threat, even prior to the 1928 election. As early as 1923, Dougherty described the Klan as “a numerous body who, in contravention of the princi­ples of American democracy and the law of the land, burn, torment, and kill according to their own perverse ­wills, and wish to wrest to themselves the authority vested in the Government itself.”75 Just two years before the election, a priest in Dougherty’s diocese reported that [t]he Shrine of The ­Little Flower, in Croydon, was totally destroyed by fire. The evidence shows that the doors ­were forced open and pulled down, with large letters “K K K” painted on the doors. Gasoline or some explosive was liberally scattered around the building and ignited. A notice, also, was placed on a sign board adjoining the School Building in Croydon, announcing an indignation meeting of the “K K K” ­will be held in Cornwells on Wednesday. The letters “K K K” was [sic] also, found on the Church Ground at Cornwells.76 The Klan advertised this planned gathering in Cornwells as a “monster out-­ door meeting” for “white, Gentile, Protestant Americans.”77 ­Whether consciously or not, then, Protestants and Republicans in 1928 found themselves allied with what Dougherty described as an “inhuman” group that threatened the country with “civil war.”78 Recall from the previous chapter on American colonization that, owing to his former appointment as a bishop in the Philippines, a missionary field whose affairs he still followed from Philadelphia, Dougherty was aware of the contest for power in American public life then being waged between Catholics and Protestants.79 Much like Catholic missionaries in the Philippines with whom he corresponded, he saw evidence of a sinister plot to de-­Catholicize the Philippines and convert it into a Protestant stronghold, which was precisely what he

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thought was also occurring during the presidential election in the United States.80 The anti-­Catholicism of the Progressive Era, in Dougherty’s eyes, developed transnationally as the American empire expanded. Charles Beurms, a Catholic priest stationed in Manila, reported to Dougherty in 1928 that his main task was “to stem the flood of protestant [sic] propaganda” and explained that the “Methodists even more than the Episcopalians are d­ oing their utmost to imbue the good p­ eople, not with religious ideas (theirs is fake-­work) but indifferentism and at least paralyze our efforts.”81 The same priest described Protestants in evil terms and charged that they “spare[d] no pains to sow zizania [wild rice] in the field of the Lord.” Rather than conceiving of Protestants as fellow Christians, this Catholic missionary was “pained to be obliged to let Protestants lay hands on so many good souls.”82 One member of Dougherty’s flock in Pennsylvania, who identified themself as “Grieving,” complained similarly that local Protestants w ­ ere trying to lure Catholics to their churches and described t­ hese proselytizers as “evil spirits and their minions.”83 A year before the election, Catholic author Dominic Francis argued that it was not always easy to identify the primary movers of anti-­Catholicism. Francis explained that anti-­Catholicism was a wide-­ranging conspiracy and a diffuse impulse, but its vari­ous component parts overlapped. As a movement, then, it was at the center of a nexus of several other movements united in their hatred of Rome. The principal anti-­Catholic actor both historically and in the twentieth-­century United States was Protestantism, Francis claimed. He portrayed Protestantism as one undifferentiated mass of denominations whose internal fault lines w ­ ere insignificant. He declared that even though t­ hese “non-­ Catholic sects” had “apparently lost sight of their own religious aims,” they ­were united by being “still set solidly against Rome, and the hatred and mistrust of all ­things Catholic continue[d] to be the distinguishing mark of the modern Protestant.” In Francis’s view, anti-­Catholicism was both the historical and con­ temporary defining princi­ple of Protestantism. He argued that Protestantism, not Catholicism, was the true proponent of a combination of church and state and that Protestants aimed to “dominate the educational system of Amer­i­ca.” Protestants, not Catholics, ­were lobbying actively for po­liti­cal power, and they attacked Catholics, Francis wrote, to hide their own duplicity. Francis argued, much as did many Smith supporters, that Protestants found themselves in league with Masons, socialists, atheists, and other allegedly un-­American and anti-­Christian groups. Their ignorance of such an alliance, Francis explained, was unfortunate: “Thousands of good Christian p­ eople are lending themselves to the anti-­Catholic campaign, saturating themselves with anti-­Catholic propaganda, in complete and blissful ignorance of the real bearing of the movement

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against the Catholic Church. They are being used as ignorant tools in the hands of ­those who wish to destroy the Catholic Church ­because it is the chief representative of the Christian Religion.”84 Rochester’s Catholic Journal, which operated out of Smith’s home state of New York, argued in March 1928 that Protestant ministers, not Catholic priests, attempted to influence politicians in Washington, DC, and Protestants, not Catholics, engaged in boycotts of their religious rivals’ businesses. The newspaper maintained that despite longtime Protestant fears that the Catholic Church would conquer the United States, it was actually Protestants who had engaged in outright politicking. The Catholic Journal turned its attention to Methodists, who the editor argued ­were “full of the virus of bigotry” and “po­liti­cal trickery.”85 Philip Richard McDevitt, the bishop of Harrisburg, lamented similarly that anti-­Catholic sentiment was not confined to the “back woods and country districts of Amer­i­ca.” It also “existed in ­those parts of the nation where Catholics are numerous and are associated with their non-­Catholic fellow citizens in business and social life.” In McDevitt’s view, Catholics ­were besieged by bigotry on the part of their Protestant neighbors and friends, chief among them the ministers who used religion as a po­liti­cal weapon during the campaign.86 Eleven days before the election, the Catholic Journal argued that it was not Catholics but rather Protestants who sought to dominate American life b­ ecause [t]he Protestant churches in the United States are interested in the continuation of a Protestant or Protestants in the Presidency of this country. Why? ­Because they fear the power of Rome in American affairs? No! A thousand times no! B ­ ecause they fear Papal domination or they appear cautious about American ideals? No! A thousand times no! ­Because they are interested in the preservation of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, or the enforcement of the Volstead statute? No! A thousand times no! T ­ hese are not the fundamental reasons. The Protestant Church in the United States has existed upon the unestablished fact that this is a Protestant country. It has clung to that fallacy as a ­dying man to a straw. It has hoodwinked its members into believing it, and it has bellowed the statement so loud that many Catholics have accepted it without proof. . . . ​The self-­evident proof that this is false rests upon the failure of Protestantism to include over 50 per cent. of our population in its membership, and the other evident proof that the nomination of a Catholic in the stronghold of Protestantism, shows the trend away from the sects that have destroyed their own right to recognition by destroying the spirit of liberty, which was first planted by Catholic colonists in American soil.87

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This is an impor­tant argument that reveals much about Catholic thought of the period. The newspaper was imploring Catholics to wake up to the fact that their church had become the country’s largest denomination and to realize the power this signified. Catholics, the newspaper argued, w ­ ere the sole protectors of American liberty, having allegedly brought it to the United States from Eu­rope centuries before. If anything, in the view of many Catholics, what was an established fact by 1928 was that they had a moral and demographic right to national leadership. A Catholic reader of the magazine Amer­i­ca from Utica, New York, described as a “disgrace” the actions of “scores of Protestant magazines and pastors” in attacking Smith on religious grounds in the run-up to the election and argued that Catholics needed to “enlighten them with all the modern means we have, so that such a disgrace . . . ​­shall never again cast its repulsive shadow over the U.S.A.”88 This attitude si­mul­ta­neously depicted Catholicism as a force for modernization and Protestantism as a backward influence and portrayed Catholics as loyal Americans, in opposition to the Protestants, who arrayed themselves against American values. One New York City resident, g­ oing by the name of “H.A.J.,” argued just two months a­ fter the election that “Protestants resort to very venal methods of ensnaring Catholics.” In H.A.J.’s view, Protestants w ­ ere a dangerous, corrupting group who drew Catholics away from their church and into damnation. H.A.J. revealed some of their alleged means of converting Catholics: “By the offer of candy and cake—­a strong allurement for some poor p­ eople; by profane entertainments (very profane, some of them!)”89 William McGuckin, a staff member at St.  Louis University, reflected one year ­after the election that Catholics’ prob­lems went far deeper than the po­liti­cal realm. Indeed, he felt that the survival of his church and that of his country ­were in peril b­ ecause of the specter of Protestant domination: “[W]e in Amer­ i­ca are becoming more and more Protestant e­ very day. The solvent is at work. Protestants are stealing bits from our liturgy, our devotions even.” McGuckin placed some of the blame on his fellow Catholics, however, noting that “Catholics are absorbing ­wholesale the Protestant—­when it ­isn’t pagan—­viewpoint on every­thing else—­sociology, education, morality even.”90 Whereas McGuckin equated parts of Protestantism with paganism, some Catholics of the period regarded Protestants as more dangerous than atheists. One Protestant from Wilmington, Delaware, was shocked, while attending the confirmation of a Catholic friend, to hear the city’s Catholic bishop, Edmond J. Fitzmaurice, speak of “ ‘[o]ne of the non-­Catholics whom we sometimes refer to as Protestants, who poison the very air that Catholics have to breathe.’ ”91 George Caruana, then serving as bishop of Puerto Rico, wrote to Dougherty in 1924 to discuss the state of religion in the territory’s public schools. “Your

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Eminence knows from experience,” Caruana explained, “what harm could come to the c­ hildren of the laborers and to the Church if the teachers have no religion at all, or, still worse, if they become Protestants.”92 Following Smith’s defeat, Catholics had a chance to think about the lost opportunities presented by his presidential bid, namely, the wider ac­cep­tance of Catholics, and to reflect on the growing influence of their church in politics and public life. M. J. Buck, a Catholic from Pittsburgh, wrote to Herbert Hoover one week ­after the election and requested that he consider offering Smith a cabinet position as a demonstration of goodwill following the acrimonious presidential race. He argued that the preceding campaign was one “largely of religious fanat­i­cism and bigotry,” and he asserted that Hoover was now able to heal the nation’s sectarian divide. Buck maintained that Catholics ­were a body of loyal Americans “owing allegiance to the Stars and Stripes,” and to demonstrate their potential power, he mentioned that Catholics in the United States numbered twenty million members, or “one sixth of the population.” Buck underscored the Catholic Church’s devotion to the country by noting that “[i]n e­ very conflict she has always passed her quota.”93 Jesuit priest Leonard Feeney penned an open letter to Smith to express disappointment over his defeat and to offer his opinion on the role of Catholicism in the election. Feeney argued that “we Catholics w ­ ere a tremendous liability” for Smith and regretted that the candidate had “been so humiliated on our account.”94 Like several other Catholic commentators, Feeney blamed US Catholics for not countering the attacks on Smith’s faith and described Smith as a sacrificial Christ figure rejected by his own followers: You stood by us. You ­wouldn’t desert or disown us no ­matter how much it cost you. You learned long ago in Sunday school the meaning of a ­little emblem we always carry close to our hearts. It is a crucifix, and on it is transfixed another Happy Warrior who was welcomed by the crowds in Galilee and Judea in His day. He had His Palm Sunday too. But when they balloted to see ­whether He should live or die, all the votes ­were against Him.95 Feeney, though, did not blame only his fellow Catholics for Smith’s loss. He targeted a host of ­others, including US Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt (a staunch defender of Prohibition and a strong supporter of Hoover who campaigned actively against Smith), “the erudite Mr. Marshall” (who previously had engaged Smith in a print debate on the place of Catholicism in American life), the Anti-­Saloon League, and the Ku Klux Klan.96 Feeney also related to Smith just how deep anti-­Catholic sentiment ran during the preceding campaign by telling a story of a “convent of cloistered nuns who

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made a novena—­not that you would be elected (for it d­ oesn’t make much difference to them who is President, as long as he lets them say their prayers)—­ but in order that you w ­ ouldn’t be assassinated.”97 Not all Catholics, though, felt that members of the church should have been expected to support Smith or that his religion was the cause of his defeat. In response to Feeney’s letter, one Catholic from Mas­sa­chu­setts explained that their support for Hoover was ­because of Smith’s stance on Prohibition. They ­were dismayed that Smith had sold out his “race” by advocating a return to the pre-­Volstead Act days, a period when “rum . . . ​scourged the Irish for generations,” and took to heart Smith’s advice that Catholics should not offer him their support simply b­ ecause they w ­ ere members of the same church. Overall, they took issue with the general anti-­Protestant sentiment that they saw evident among Catholics in the days a­ fter Smith’s defeat and counseled Catholics to examine their own character before attacking that of Protestants.98 William E. Kerrish, another Mas­sa­chu­setts Catholic, rejected the sentiment among some of his coreligionists that Smith was “ ‘our candidate’ ” and explained that the church should ­favor no ethnicity, nationality, or po­liti­cal party. Kerrish argued further that the Catholic Church was responsible for the country’s “ideals of liberty and justice for all” and that it had a central role to play in the creation of a national melting pot. He echoed the Heckerite position that Catholicism and American values w ­ ere not only compatible but w ­ ere mutually constitu99 tive. A critic of Feeney felt that by attributing Smith’s electoral defeat to his religion, Catholics played directly into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. To accept the Klan’s argument that they brought about Smith’s downfall “would have the result of strengthening and perpetuating this odious order.”100 One year ­after the election, the editor of the Pittsburgh Catholic tried to find the bright side of Smith’s loss. The editor counted Smith lucky to avoid residing in the White House during the outbreak of the G ­ reat Depression, as Hoover shouldered much of the public’s blame for the economic catastrophe. Following the settlement of the Roman Question with the Lateran Pacts in 1929, the author wrote, if Smith had won the election, “it is safe to say that the ‘anti-­Romanists’ would long ago have attempted to launch a revolution to save this country from being turned over to the Holy ­Father.” Additionally, many of the most vociferously anti-­Smith and anti-­Catholic Hooverites had since “been eased out of the picture.” This Catholic editor, with a year’s hindsight, was able to overlook the anti-­Catholic atmosphere that surrounded the previous election and was willing to “wager a farthing or two that Old Al considers himself mighty lucky that he escaped being elected President, and that he w ­ ouldn’t trade places right now with Herbert Hoover for all the money in the world.”101

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Similarly, Patrick Henry Callahan—­a Catholic, Prohibitionist, and Smith critic—­understood why his coreligionists would be upset over the anti-­Catholic attacks that appeared during the campaign, especially considering the country’s history with this par­tic­u­lar brand of intolerance, which had been expressed variously by “the Know Nothing movement, the A.P.A. campaign, the Guardians of Liberty flare up—to say nothing of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.” Callahan argued that ­these groups ­were “all indorsed and encouraged by many Protestants and in some instances led and directed by their ministers.” He was careful to note that t­ hese Protestants represented a minority among their religious community. Callahan recognized that Catholics had some justification for adopting a besieged mindset, but he rejected the idea that Smith’s Catholicism was the sole or even principal reason for his defeat— he thought it was Smith’s opposition to Prohibition—­and explained that some of the more extreme examples of a “separatist attitude” among angry Catholics w ­ ere “most unfortunate.” In Callahan’s view, a Catholic call for ghettoization was both un-­Christian and un-­American. Such separatism would only strengthen the anti-­Catholic forces that sought to marginalize Catholics from public life. “A separatist policy in a mixed population like that of the United States,” Callahan argued, “so far from dissipating the prejudices which vari­ ous groups have inherited from their ancestors, is the most effective means of keeping ­those prejudices active and accentuating them.” Callahan rejected the mutual antagonism between Catholics and Protestants and maintained that the election, despite the disappointing outcome for Smith supporters, was a blessing for Catholics. Taking the position that any publicity is good publicity, he explained that Catholics should take advantage of this newfound attention by “manifest[ing] before their fellow-­citizens the high standards of Catholic life,” which would lead ultimately to friendlier relations with non-­Catholics.102 Smith’s electoral defeat was neither a long-­term disaster for the Demo­cratic Party—­witness Franklin Roo­se­velt’s ascension to the presidency just four years ­later—­nor a sign that Catholics should resign themselves to never occupying the White House—­see John F. Kennedy’s electoral victory in 1960. Smith’s run and its aftermath signaled the increasingly vocal, public presence of Catholics in the United States and their frequent interactions, w ­ hether friendly or hostile, with non-­Catholics in newspapers, on the campaign trail, in convention halls, in churches, and in everyday life. Catholics’ actions and words during the anti-­Catholic revival of the Progressive Era demonstrate that many of them ­were not content to quietly accept Protestant dominance. They sought to reshape the public sphere to claim power for their church and to renegotiate the terms of American national identity to render it indistinguishable from Catholicity. Catholics thereby claimed for themselves positions of national pri-

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macy they believed ­were rightfully theirs, thus laying an impor­tant foundation for the even more dramatic growth of Catholic cultural and po­liti­cal influence that would take place in the ensuing de­cades.103 Peter Foote, a real estate investor from Chicago, wrote in 1932 to Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, editor of the Jesuit magazine Amer­i­ca, to express his dissatisfaction with the “Southern Demo­cratic bigots”—­members of his own party—­“who ­were so extreme in their hatred of Catholics as to bring about Republican victories in certain states, principally Texas.” Like many other Smith supporters who, though they may have been disappointed with the outcome of the presidential election, w ­ ere defiant in their critique of anti-­Catholicism, Foote revealed “a slogan that many of us have pasted in our hats, ‘REMEMBER’!” This likely alluded to the image of Texans’ defeat at the Alamo a c­ entury ­earlier. Notably, though, this was a defeat that afterward served as a rallying cry in ­future ­battles. Foote concluded his recollection of southern Demo­cratic perfidy on a poetic but defiant note: “The Lone Star State in 1928 / Served the Klan and gave Smith the gate, / The worm has turned and we now wait / To watch ­these boys receive their fate.”104 Catholics would not fade away from public life with Smith’s unrealized presidential dreams and would prove to be an increasingly power­ful electoral force over the coming de­cades.

​Conclusion American Catholics in Catholic Amer­ic­ a

“ ‘It is all in a single word, Mr. Ware,’ she proceeded in low tones. ‘I speak for ­others as well as myself, mind you,—we find that you are a bore.’ . . . ​‘We w ­ ere disposed to like you very much when we first knew you,’ Celia went on. ‘You impressed us as an innocent, ­simple, genuine young character, full of ­mother’s milk. It was like the smell of early spring in the country to come in contact with you. Your honesty of nature, your sincerity in that absurd religion of yours, your general naïveté of ­mental and spiritual get-up, all pleased us a ­g reat deal. We thought you ­were ­going to be a real acquisition.’ . . . ​‘I can understand that all the while you ­really fancied that you ­were expanding, growing, in all directions. What you took to be improvement was degeneration.’ . . . ‘Tell me this, ­Father Forbes,’ the other demanded, with impulsive suddenness, ‘is it true that you ­don’t want me in your ­house again? Is that the truth or not?’ ‘The truth is always relative, Mr. Ware,’ replied the priest, turning away, and closing the door of the parlor ­behind him with a decisive sound.’ ” —­Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination (1896)

In his 1896 novel, The Damnation of Theron Ware, author Harold Frederic details the fall from grace of the title character, a Methodist minister. Theron was previously idealistic and theologically rigid ­until being awakened to new ways of thinking by the worldly Celia Madden and to historical biblical criticism and religious skepticism by his town’s Catholic priest, ­Father Vincent Forbes. In the book’s climax, Theron, who had begun questioning his faith and whose marriage appeared to be falling apart, is forced by Celia to confront his decline. Theron, Celia argues, was l­ittle more than a 14 4



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curiosity, a quaint relic of a bygone era. He is crushed by Celia’s rejection, and when he then comes face-­to-­face with ­Father Forbes, the priest shuts Theron out of his circle of friends and out of his figurative h ­ ouse, rejecting him as a lost cause and a retrograde who no longer fits in the modern world. F ­ ather Forbes’s ­house was the American h ­ ouse, and it was the Catholic priest who would define the truth and determine who could reside in his dwelling. This was a striking rendering of Catholicism, which had long been accused by Protestants of being an irrational, corrupt religion, leading the way into the forward-­thinking Progressive Era and Protestantism being left ­behind in the corrupted Gilded Age. Frederic’s novel serves as an astute commentary on the religious, social, and po­liti­cal tensions that characterized much of American life at the turn of the twentieth ­century.1 A Catholic priest and a Methodist minister encountered one another, but amazingly, it was the Catholic priest who attained mastery over his Methodist counterpart. It was Catholicism rather than Protestantism that proved to be more comfortable with relativism, intellectual flexibility, and experimentation. It was the Catholic Church that represented modernity and Protestant churches that signified regression. Protestants like Theron Ware ­were rendered as bystanders in a rapidly Catholicizing world. They ­were stranded in the past while Catholics moved into the ­f uture. Such are the themes that are also discussed in this book. Following the Civil War, American religious communities experienced dramatic changes, in much the same way that the country itself was reconstructed—­and ­these alterations ­were linked. Catholicism played host to strongly contested internal b­ attles between modernists and traditionalists during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era that not only set the course for the US Catholic Church in the twentieth ­century but had profound effects on social and po­liti­cal life in the country. Catholics battled Protestants for national leadership in the Native American missions of the US West and in transnational American empire, but Catholics also strug­gled with one another to redefine their religious community’s place in the larger national community. Catholics’ intellectual self-­fashioning as not only American nationalists but the very foundation and image of Americanism reached a public pinnacle at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, but the ideologies developed by ­these late nineteenth-­century American Catholic nationalists had true staying power, which served Catholics well as they ­were forced to confront a resurgent anti-­Catholic bigotry in the late Progressive Era and as they prepared to make a stronger push for cultural leadership ­after World War II. Protestants, though, had since colonial times frequently characterized the Reformation as the intellectual ancestor of the freedom and liberties that American citizens would ­later claim as the bedrock of the US constitutional

14 6 CONCL U SI ON

system. Many of t­ hese same Protestants also described Catholicism as the antithesis of this system of natu­ral rights that was protected by the rule of law. Insiders in a national community often seek to identify outsiders, for insider status is incoherent without some outsider against which to contrast it. As nationalism scholar Anthony D. Smith argues, nations rest on the foundation of a “­legal and po­liti­cal community” containing “common institutions and a single code of rights and duties for all members of the community.” This community of “reciprocal rights and obligations among members” entails “the correlative exclusion of outsiders from ­those rights and duties.”2 For many Protestants, Catholicism served just such an outsider role in the colonial period, the early republic, and the antebellum era. Occasionally, this assumption of Protestants as the American mainstream is reinforced in historiography. It is easy to assume that Protestantism constituted the only voice in public debate when Catholics, Jews, and other perceived outsider groups are assumed to be outsiders on the strength of evidence produced by Protestants. Historians often uncritically reproduce historical power and silences found in the sources they use by transposing them into their scholarship. This includes the historiography of American religion, which frequently, historian Leslie Woodcock Tentler argues, leaves US Catholics “on the margins.”3 Importantly, though, Catholics also offered spirited attempts to define themselves as insiders, claiming the right to stand at the helm of the American nation and to re-­create the nation itself. I have thus attempted in this book to both complicate the notion of religious and national insiders and outsiders and draw attention to the religious debates that played substantive but underappreciated roles in influencing public policy in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. ­These endeavors in nation making laid a strong foundation for Catholics’ emergence at the helm of a more religiously diverse Amer­i­ca in the mid-­ twentieth c­ entury. Historian Kevin  M. Schultz may be correct in asserting that “[t]he tri-­faith idea”—­that is, the notion that the United States should be “inclusive of both Catholics and Jews in what only recently had been widely referred to as a ‘Protestant country’ ”—­made its first appearance “in direct response to the revitalized Ku Klux Klan and the nativism that surfaced immediately following World War I.” 4 Making Catholic Amer­i­ca, however, argues that the idea of a pluralistic, tri-­faith nation could not have appeared when it did ­were it not for the ideological groundwork established by nation-­minded American Catholics during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. John F. Kennedy’s cele­bration of a religiously tolerant United States in his September 12, 1960, speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association as well as the Second Vatican Council’s opening of the Catholic Church to the modern world,



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then, may be considered, in part, examples of historical continuities as far as public American Catholicism goes.5 In the United States, aggiornamento—or a bringing up to date, one of Vatican II’s dominant themes—­was just as much a culmination of American Catholics’ ongoing work of mainstreaming their religious community as it was a break with the past.6 Harold Frederic’s Damnation of Theron Ware brilliantly describes the disruption to Protestant power represented by Catholics in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. A ­ fter Theron’s dismissal by Celia and ­Father Forbes, Frederic writes, the minister was rendered profoundly disoriented: “Left alone, Theron started to make his way downstairs. He found his legs wavering u ­ nder him and making zigzag movements of their own in a bewildering fashion.”7 Just as Celia and F ­ ather Forbes disturbed Theron’s previously comfortable existence, so, too, did Catholics turn on its head the idea of national identity at the turn of the twentieth c­ entury by forcing reconsiderations of who could claim to be an American and what it meant to be one.

N ote s

Introduction

1. “Shot Down,” New York Herald, July 3, 1881. 2. I. T. [Isaac Thomas] Hecker, The Church and the Age: An Exposition of the Catholic Church in View of the Needs and Aspirations of the Pre­sent Age (New York: Office of the Catholic World, 1887), 245. 3. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 79, 232, 244–246, 263, 279–299. 4. A Resident, “To the Public of Newburyport,” November 25, 1875, box 1, folder 19, Ursuline Convent, Charlestown, MA, Collection, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of Amer­i­ca, Washington, DC [hereafter cited as ACUA]. 5. John Ireland, The Church and Modern Society: Lectures and Addresses (New York: D. H. McBride and Co., 1903), 80. 6. “Memorial of Bishops Ireland and Keane to the Propaganda, Dec.  6, 1886, Rome, The German Question in the Church in the United States,” December 6, 1886, [6], MIRE 3, John Ireland Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives, Notre Dame, Indiana [hereafter cited as UNDA]. 7. James L. Meagher to John Ireland, December 13, 1892, MIRE 4, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 8. William B. Kurtz, Excommunicated from the Union: How the Civil War Created a Sepa­ rate Catholic Amer­i­ca (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 4, 5. 9. On Catholic manhood during the Civil War, see William S. Cossen, “Manly Sacraments and Masculine Devotion: Catholic Manhood in the Civil War,” American Catho­ lic Studies 132, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 29–33. 10. Typed transcript of the diary and recordbook (version 1)—1864–1865, July 4, 1864 (p. 7); July 5, 1864 (pp. 9–11); July 6, 1864 (p. 12); August 8, 1864 (pp. 19–20); January 4, 1865 (pp. 35–36); January 14, 1865 (p. 38), Peter Paul Cooney Papers 2/2, UNDA. 11. On Catholic arguments that Protestantism was the root cause of the Civil War, see Mark A. Noll, “The Catholic Press, the Bible, and Protestant Responsibility for the Civil War,” Journal of the Civil War Era 7, no. 3 (September 2017): 355–376. 12. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­ic­ a and the ­Great Columbian Catholic Con­ gress of 1893, vol. 2: World’s Columbian Catholic Congresses, 6th ed. (Chicago: J. S. Hyland and Com­pany, 1897), 75. 13. As a point of departure, this book uses a definition of nationalism provided by Anthony  D. Smith in his 1991 book National Identity (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991): “a named h ­ uman population sharing an historic territory, common myths 149

15 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 7– 9

and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy and common ­legal rights and duties for all members” (14). 14. Thomas T. McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism, 1895–1900 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963), x, 34, 35. On the formative ideological strug­gles between liberal and conservative Catholics, see McAvoy, The Amer­ icanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism, esp. 1–49; Philip Gleason, Contending with Moder­ nity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth C ­ entury (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 7–11. 15. McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism, 321. 16. Gleason, Contending with Modernity, 7, 12. 17. Benedict J. Fenwick, “A Brief Account of the Settlement of Mary­land,” transcripts and notes from the Woodstock Letters re Catholics in colonial Amer­i­ca, late nineteenth ­century, Peter Paul Cooney Papers, UNDA. 18. John McCaffrey, Oration Delivered at the Commemoration of the Landing of the Pil­ grims of Mary­land, Celebrated May  16, 1842, at Mt. St.  Mary’s, Md. (Gettysburg, PA: H. C. Neinstedt, 1842), 5, 19. 19. John Carroll, “Extract from Letters Relating to the Early History of the Mary­ land Missions,” Transcripts and notes from the Woodstock Letters re Catholics in colonial Amer­i­ca, late nineteenth ­century, Peter Paul Cooney Papers, UNDA. 20. On the Catholic response to Monk’s book, see William S. Cossen, “Monk in the ­Middle: The Awful Disclosures of the H ­ otel Dieu Nunnery and the Making of Catholic Identity,” American Catholic Studies 125, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 25–45. 21. My thinking on encounters between Catholics and Protestants and between outsider and insider groups has been informed by Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession 9 (1991): 33–40; Gilbert M. Joseph, “Close Encounters: ­Toward a New Cultural History of U.S.–­Latin American Relations,” in Close Encounters of Em­ pire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.–­Latin American Relations, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998): 33–46; William M. Shea, The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in Amer­ i­ca (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Michael P. Carroll, American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). 22. For example, see Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant En­ counter with Catholicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Anne C. Rose, Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Andrew  H.  M. Stern, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-­Protestant Relations in the Old South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012); Steven Conn, “ ‘Po­liti­cal Romanism’: Re-­evaluating American Anti-­Catholicism in the Age of Italian Revolution,” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 521– 548; Maura Jane Farrelly, Anti-­Catholicism in Amer­i­ca, 1620–1860 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 23. William S. Cossen, “Catholics, Constitutions, and Conventions: Bishop John ­England and the Democ­ratization of American Catholicism,” South Carolina Histori­ cal Magazine 114, no. 4 (October 2013): 322. 24. For example, see John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativ­ ism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955); Justin Nordstrom,

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Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-­Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006); Andrew S. Moore, The South’s Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007). 25. For example, see John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A His­ tory (New York: W. W. Norton and Com­pany, 2003); Anthony Burke Smith, The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popu­lar Culture from the ­Great Depression to the Cold War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010); Maura Jane Farrelly, Papist Patriots: The Mak­ ing of an American Catholic Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Jon Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­ a, ed. S. Deborah Kang (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 26. See Heather Cox Richardson, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of Amer­ i­ca ­after the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). 27. See Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963); Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-­Mexican War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008); Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008); Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Vio­lence of History (New York: Penguin Press, 2008). 28. Francis Paul Prucha, The Churches and the Indian Schools, 1888–1912 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), ix, x. Prucha provides an oddly small space to Catholic missionaries and the BCIM in his influential 1976 work, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865–1900, given their increasingly large numbers in this period and the substantial appropriations they received from the federal government. See Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reform­ ers and the Indian, 1865–1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976). 29. On liberal Protestants’ participation at the World’s Parliament of Religions, see David Mislin, Saving Faith: Making Religious Pluralism an American Value at the Dawn of the Secular Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 40–62. 30. James F. Cleary, “Catholic Participation in the World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893,” Catholic Historical Review 55, no. 4 ( January 1970): 586. 31. Deirdre M. Moloney, American Catholic Lay Groups and Transatlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 10, 14. 32. See, for example, the minimalist treatment of the Chicago fair in McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism, 70–72, which undertakes virtually no analy­sis of the planning of the event by Catholic laypeople or the content of the speeches the delegates delivered at the Columbian Catholic Congress. 33. See Frank T. Reuter, “American Catholics and the Establishment of the Philippine Public School System,” Catholic Historical Review 49, no. 3 (October 1963): 365– 381; Frank T. Reuter, Catholic Influence on American Colonial Policies, 1898–1904 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967); Judith Raftery, “Textbook Wars: Governor-­General James Francis Smith and the Protestant-­Catholic Conflict in Public Education in the Philippines, 1904–1907,” History of Education Quarterly 38, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 143– 164. Two impor­tant works on the war and American imperialism, Kristin L. Hoganson’s Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-­American and Philippine-­American War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), and Paul A.

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TO PAGES 13– 15

Kramer’s The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), include few discussions of the role played by US Catholicism in shaping ideas about racial superiority and national expansion. The treatment of Catholicism is similarly minimal in Andrew Preston’s Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). On Protestantism and American colonialism in the Philippines, see Susan K. Harris, God’s Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898–1902 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Katherine D. Moran, “Catholicism and the Making of the U.S. Pacific,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 12, no. 4 (October 2013): 434–472. 34. For examples of this scholarship, see Paul T. McCartney, Power and Pro­g ress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006); Matthew McCullough, The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-­American War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014); Benjamin Wetzel, “A Church Divided: Roman Catholicism, Americanization, and the Spanish-­American War,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 14, no. 3 ( July 2015): 348–366; Katherine D. Moran, “Beyond the Black Legend: Catholicism and U.S. Empire-­Building in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, 1898–1914,” U.S. Catholic Historian 33, no. 4 (Fall 2015): 27–51. 35. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 177–216. Note, though, that David Noel Doyle, another scholar whose work serves as an exception to the general focus on Protestantism to the exclusion of Catholicism as an engine of American empire, finds the Pi­lot’s position on the coming war to have been far more ambivalent. See Doyle, Irish Americans, Native Rights and National Empires: The Structure, Divisions and Attitudes of the Catholic Minority in the De­ cade of Expansion, 1890–1901 (New York: Arno Press, 1976). Doyle’s analy­sis agrees with my own as far as initial Catholic ac­cep­tance (however reluctant) of war with Spain goes, but as with Jacobson’s Special Sorrows, I dispute Doyle’s contention that American Catholics nearly universally stood against the Anglo-­Saxon racial ideology that was gaining ascendancy at the end of the nineteenth c­ entury. For Doyle’s treatment of the initial Catholic reaction to the Spanish-­American War, see Doyle, Irish Americans, Na­ tive Rights and National Empires, 165–223. I fundamentally disagree with his argument that historians have overestimated the impact of liberal Catholic clerics in the wider US Catholic community. He argues that “attention to them has led to misjudgment” (264). Doyle may be accurate in noting that most Catholics opposed imperialism, but he is ultimately unpersuasive in downplaying the role played by the liberals, considering the vast impact they played in the participation of American Catholics in Philippine colonization past 1901, the end point of his narrative—an end point I move well past in the pre­sent book. 36. For examples of scholarship dealing with ethnic divisions within the American church, see Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catho­ lics, 1815–1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975); Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); John T. McGreevy, Parish Bound­aries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-­Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Robert A. Orsi, Thank You, St. Jude: ­Women’s Devotion to the Patron

NOTES TO PA GES 15– 17

153

Saint of Lost ­Causes (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996); Evelyn Savidge Sterne, Ballots and Bibles: Ethnic Politics and the Catholic Church in Providence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). For an example of work analyzing the reception of immigrant Catholics by native-­born Catholics in the United States that does not engage with Progressive-­Era Catholics’ contributions to race making, see Richard M. Linkh, American Catholicism and Eu­ro­pean Immigrants (1900–1924) (Staten Island, NY: Center for Migration Studies, 1975), esp. 20–31. For an exception to the tendencies noted previously, which does an excellent job describing how one diocese interpreted and interacted with the immigrant Catholics settling within its borders, see Dolores Ann Liptak, Eu­ro­pean Immigrants and the Catholic Church in Connecticut, 1870–1920 (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1987). 37. William S. Cossen, “Anti-­Catholicism on Trial: The Catholic Response to Convent Narratives of the 1920s,” American Catholic Studies 132, no. 3 (Fall 2021): 53–77. 38. Scholars of the Oregon school law and the ensuing l­egal ­battle over the statute have typically analyzed them from the ­angle of their contribution to Supreme Court jurisprudence and parental control over public education. This book instead examines the rhetorical strategies undertaken by Catholics in defending their church, undermining their Protestant rivals, and positioning Catholicism as the exemplar of American educational traditions. For examples of this scholarship, see Paula Abrams, Cross Purposes: Pierce v. Society of S­ isters and the Strug­gle over Compulsory Public Education (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009); Mark E. Brandon, States of Union: F­ amily and Change in the American Constitutional Order (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013). 39. On Smith, see Robert A. Slayton, Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith (New York: F ­ ree Press, 2001); Christopher M. Finan, Alfred E. Smith: The Happy Warrior (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002). On religion and the election of 1928, see Allan J. Lichtman, “Critical Election Theory and the Real­ity of American Presidential Politics, 1916–40,” American Historical Review 81, no. 2 (April 1976): 317–351; Lichtman, Prejudice and the Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); Thomas J. Shelley, “ ‘What the Hell Is an Encyclical?’: Governor Alfred  E. Smith, Charles  C. Marshall, Esq., and F ­ ather Francis  P. Duffy,” U.S. Catholic Historian 15, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 87–107; Finan, Alfred E. Smith, 187–230; Rory McVeigh, The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-­Wing Movements and National Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 180–195; Finbarr Curtis, “The Fundamental Faith of E ­ very True American: Secularity and Institutional Loyalty in Al Smith’s 1928 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of Religion 91, no. 4 (October 2011): 519–544; Massimo Faggioli, “The 1928 Presidential Campaign: T ­ oward a Transatlantic and Institutional Approach to Catholic Histories,” American Catholic Studies 126, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 1–21; Finbarr Curtis, The Production of American Religious Freedom (New York: New York University Press, 2016), 87–112. 1. Reconstructing the Catholic West

1. His Youn­gest Corporal, In Memoriam. Charles Ewing (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Com­pany, 1888), 66. 2. For a broader view of the connections between western and extraterritorial expansion, see Walter L. Williams, “United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine

15 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 17– 21

Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism,” Journal of American History 66, no. 4 (March 1980): 810. 3. Matthew McCullough, The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-­American War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). 4. On the lead-up to the Peace Policy, see C. Joseph Genetin-­Pilawa, Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy ­after the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 51–72. For an institutional history of the Peace Policy and its operations, see R. Pierce Beaver, “The Churches and President Grant’s Peace Policy,” Journal of Church and State 4, no. 2 (November 1962): 174–190; Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis, 30–71. On the role of “Protestant whiteness” in the Peace Policy, see Douglas Firth Anderson, “ ‘More Conscience Than Force’: U.S. Indian Inspector William Vandever, Grant’s Peace Policy, and Protestant Whiteness,” Jour­ nal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 9, no. 2 (April 2010): 167–196. 5. Ulysses S. Grant, State of the Union Message, December 6, 1869, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States: Being the Second Session of the Forty-­First Con­ gress; Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 6, 1869, in the Ninety-­Fourth Year of the In­de­pen­dence of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1870), 17. 6. Richardson, West from Appomattox; Richard White, The Republic for White It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), esp. 103–157. 7. Grant, State of the Union Message, 17. 8. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Fifty-­Seventh Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. To the Secretary of the Interior. 1888. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1888), xiv, xv. The religious denominations operating Indian agencies for the federal government between 1870 and 1882 ­were the Baptists, Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Free-­Will Baptists, Friends, Friends (Orthodox), Methodists, Presbyterians, Reformed, Unitarians, and United Presbyterians. See “List of Indian Agencies Assigned to the Several Religious Bodies, [post-1870, pre-1882 (handwritten notation)], box 1, folder 16, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. On the contract system and for a general overview of Catholic disputes with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and their po­liti­cal consequences, see Harry J. Sievers, “The Catholic Indian School Issue and the Presidential Election of 1892,” Catholic Historical Review 38, no. 2 ( July 1952): 129–155. 9. “Aged Priest Made Son of American Revolution: Society’s Newest Member Makes Best Speech of Eve­ning at Banquet of Organ­ization,” Cleveland News, May 22, 1912, box 3, folder 5, Reverend Eli Washington John Lindesmith Papers, ACUA. 10. “Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty,” Catholic World, October 1877, 99. 11. A. I. Dallas to Rev. ­Father Drohon, January 4, 1873, box 1, folder 1, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 12. J. C. Imoda to Very Rev. ­Father Brouillet, December 15, 1873, box 1, folder 3, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA; J. C. Imoda to Rev. F ­ ather Brouillet, January 30, 1874, box 1, folder 5, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 13. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions: The Work of the De­cade, Ending December 31, 1883 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 1884), 21, box 1, folder 17, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA.

NOTES TO PA GES 22– 29

155

14. J. Pott, “Pottawatomies and Politics,” Indian Advocate, April 1893, 36. 15. Thomas L. Grace to Charles B. Ewing, March 22, 1873, box 1, folder 1, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 16. Grace to Ewing, March 22, 1873. 17. Ignatius Mrak to Charles B. Ewing, July 1873, box 1, folder 2, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 18. “Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty,” 93. 19. James Roo­se­velt Bayley to Charles B. Ewing, September 1, 1873, box 1, folder 2, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 20. John B. Lamy to Charles B. Ewing, July 10, 1873, box 1, folder 2, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 21. Petition, [December 1873], box 1, folder 4, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 22. John O’Farrell to Charles Ewing, August 20, 1873, box 1, folder 3, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 23. “To the President of the United States of Amer­i­ca,” June 21, 1873, box 1, folder 3, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 24. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Af­ fairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1872 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1872), 270–272. 25. “Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty,” 105–107. 26. Carol Berg, “Missionaries and Cultures,” U.S. Catholic Historian 11, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 31. 27. John B. Lamy to Charles B. Ewing, July 10, 1873, box 1, folder 2, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 28. H. Quigley to Charles B. Ewing, June 9, 1873, box 1, folder 2, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 29. J. Giorda to Charles B. Ewing, December 5, 1874, box 1, folder 8, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 30. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1863 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1864), 460. 31. Petition of the Catholic Church for the Agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior (Washington, DC: H. Polkinhorn and Co., 1873), 7. 32. On the Ewing ­family, see Kenneth J. Heineman, Civil War Dynasty: The Ewing ­Family of Ohio (New York: New York University Press, 2013). 33. James Roo­se­velt Bayley to Columbus Delano, January 2, 1874, box 1, folder 4, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 34. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, to the Catholics of the United States (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1874), 13. 35. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 11–12; “The Formation of the Catholic Indian Bureau” [article], [before 1888 (handwritten notation)], box 1, folder 17, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 36. James Roo­se­velt Bayley to Columbus Delano, January 2, 1874, box 1, folder 4, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 37. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner, 4. 38. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner, 5.

15 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 29– 33

39. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner, 14 [emphases in original]. 40. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 21. 41. The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 22 [emphases in original]. 42. On the concept of a competitive religious market, see Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the ­Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of Amer­i­ca, 1776–2005: Win­ ners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005). 43. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 13. 44. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 11. 45. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner, 5. 46. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 11. 47. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 2. 48. Rachel Ewing Sherman, “Catholic Missions,” Catholic World, October 1884, 106. 49. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 5–6. 50. “Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty,” 100, 102. 51. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 92. 52. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 9. 53. “The Formation of the Catholic Indian Bureau.” 54. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 9. 55. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner, 9–10. 56. Charles  B. Ewing to Columbus Delano, January  27, 1874, box 1, folder 4, Charles B. Ewing Papers, ACUA. 57. [General Charles Ewing, Catholic Commission for Indian Missions] to Catholics of the United States, February 1874, Item P001.1424, Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA [hereafter cited as CHRC]. 58. James Gibbons, P. J. Ryan, and J. J. Kain, “An Appeal: In Behalf of the Negro and Indian Missions in the United States” [ca. 1900], box 18, folder 5, Archives of the Mary­ land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections, Washington, DC [hereafter cited as Georgetown University Library]. 59. Martin Marty, “The Indian Prob­lem and the Catholic Church,” Catholic World, February 1889, 582. 60. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 5, 7–9, 13, 19; Sherman, “Catholic Missions,” 107; “Manual: Catholic Indian Missionary Associations,” [1875], 1, in Bureau of Indian Missions, Publications of the Bureau of Catho­ lic Indian Missions, January, 1879 ([Washington, DC]: Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions,

NOTES TO PA GES 34– 38

157

1879). For Catholic expenditures in the schools, see Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 13–19. 61. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Fifty-­Seventh Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, xv. 62. Benjamin Harrison to John Ireland, September 7, 1889, MIRE 4, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 63. D. Manley, “The Catholic Church and the Indians,” Catholic World, July 1892, 475. 64. Catholic Grievances in Relation to the Administration of Indian Affairs: Being a Re­ port Presented to the Catholic Young Men’s National Union, at Its Eighth Annual Convention, Held in Boston, Mas­sa­chu­setts, May 10th and 11th, 1882 (Richmond, VA: Catholic Visitor Print, 1882), 21. 65. Manley, “The Catholic Church and the Indians,” 477. 66. Congressional Rec­ord, July 25, 1890, quoted in L. B. [Lawrence Benedict] Palladino, Education for the Indian: Fancy and Reason on the Subject: Contract Schools and Non-­ Sectarianism in Indian Education (New York: Benziger B ­ rothers, 1892), 26. 67. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 6. 68. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 291. 69. Sievers, “The Catholic Indian School Issue,” 141. 70. On Catholic-­Protestant ­battles over religious instruction in nineteenth-­century public schools, see McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 7–11, 37–42; White, The Republic for Which It Stands, 319–321; Linda Przybyszewski, “Religious Liberty Sacralized: The Per­sis­tence of Christian Dissenting Tradition and the Cincinnati ­Bible War,” Law and History Review 39, no. 4 (November 2021): 707–736. 71. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 304–313, 318, 319. 72. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, An Appeal in Behalf of Catholic Indian Mis­ sion Schools (Washington, DC: Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 1901), 2, 7, 8, box 20, folder 11, Martin I. J. Griffin Papers, 1842–1911, MC-8, CHRC. 73. James Gibbons, John Farley, and Edmond F. Prendergast, “An Appeal from The Commission for the Negro and Indian Missions in the United States,” n.d. [1911–1918], Item 71.688Di, Most Rev. Edmond Francis Prendergast Papers, 1906–1917, MC-77, CHRC. 74. “Help Save the Indian C ­ hildren!,” and James Gibbons, “Letter of His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Recommending to the Clergy of the United States the Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian C ­ hildren,” Indian Sentinel (Washington, DC), 1902–1903, ii. 75. Dennis Dougherty, Michael J. Curley, and Patrick J. Hayes, “An Appeal in Behalf of the Negro and Indian Missions in the United States,” [1924], Weekly Announcements, 1922–1924, box 9, folder 4, Holy Trinity Church Archives, Georgetown University Library. Also see Wm. J. Hafey to Priests of Archdiocese of Baltimore, February 25, 1924, box 9, folder 4, Holy Trinity Church Archives, Georgetown University Library. 76. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 8. 77. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 9. 78. Brandon, States of Union, 142.

15 8 NOTES

TO PAGES 38– 44

79. Philip Jenkins, Dream Catchers: How Mainstream Amer­i­ca Discovered Native Spiri­ tuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 33. 80. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 3. 81. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 5. On the long-­standing distrust of Jesuits by Protestants, see “Circular to Americans and Protestants,” [ca. 1853], J. W. Casey, Mss. C. K., Filson Historical Society, CHRC; Jenkins, The New Anti-­Catholicism, 25, 27; Maura Jane Farrelly, Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity, 60. 82. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 4. On boarding schools and industrial education and for an astute comparative analy­sis of US and Australian Indigenous policies in the first half of the twentieth ­century, see James T. Carroll, “The Smell of the White Man Is Killing Us: Education and Assimilation among Indigenous P ­ eoples,” U.S. Catho­ lic Historian 27, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 21–48. 83. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 5. 84. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 11, 12. 85. On colonists’ rhe­toric regarding Native peoples and property owner­ship, see Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998). 86. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, 6. 87. Manley, “The Catholic Church and the Indians,” 477. 88. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 13. 89. Marty, “The Indian Prob­lem and the Catholic Church,” 581. 90. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 5. 91. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 14, 15. On this period’s new domestic ethic, see Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the Amer­ ican Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 40, 262– 263; Helen Lef kowitz Horo­witz, Rereading Sex: ­Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 384–385, 394, 399; Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern Amer­ic­ a, 1877–1920 (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009), 65. 92. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 11. 93. Palladino, Education for the Indian, 15. 94. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 57, 58. 95. Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions, Circular of the Catholic Commis­ sioner, 14. 96. Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in American Historical Association, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), 201. 97. “Pastoral Visits of the Right Rev. Theo. Meerschaert,” Indian Advocate, January 1893, 2–3 [emphasis in original]. 98. T.M., “To See Ourselves as ­Others See Us,” Indian Advocate, July 1893, 46, 47. 99. M. M. Fuerstenberg, “Columbus Day at Sacred Heart,” Indian Advocate, January 1893, 7–8.

NOTES TO PA GES 44– 49

159

100. On US civil religion, see Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in Amer­i­ca,” Dæda­ lus 96, no. 1 (Winter 1967): 1–21. 101. “Columbus Day Program,” Indian Advocate, January 1893, 8. 102. Anne M. Martínez, Catholic Borderlands: Mapping Catholicism onto American Em­ pire, 1905–1935 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 2. 103. “Fifty Millions,” Indian Advocate, January 1893, 1–2. 104. Manley, “The Catholic Church and the Indians,” 474; “Among the Osages,” Indian Advocate, April 1893, 21, 22; “What the Indian Territory Owes to the Monks,” Purcell Register, March 30, 1893, in the Indian Advocate, July 1893, 43; James Roo­se­velt Bayley to Charles B. Ewing, September 1, 1873, box 1, folder 2, Ewing Papers, ACUA; H. G. Ganss, “The Bureau of Catholic Missions: For the Preservation of the Faith among the Indians,” in The Light of the Cross in the Twentieth C ­ entury: The Influence of the Church on Modern Civilization . . . ​The Teachings of the Church Made Manifest to the Modern Mind, vol. 2 (New York: Office of Catholic Publications, 1905), 456. 105. Pott, “Pottawatomies and Politics,” 35. 106. Paul A. Kramer argues similarly regarding the mutually constitutive interplay between US race relations and colonialism in the Philippines in The Blood of Govern­ ment: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). 107. Manley, “The Catholic Church and the Indians,” 472–473, 478. 108. Marty, “The Indian Prob­lem and the Catholic Church,” 577, 578. 109. “An Indian Marriage: With a Moral,” Indian Advocate, August 1893, 65. 110. His Youn­gest Corporal, In Memoriam, 90. 111. “Are We Inhuman?,” Indian Advocate, October 1898, 10. 112. “Editorial and Local,” Indian Advocate, April 1899, 39. 113. “What about This Obligation?,” Indian Advocate, April 1899, 56. 114. “Report of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions for Year Ending October 1, 1899,” Indian Advocate, January 1900, 10–11. 115. “An Appeal in Behalf of Catholic Mission Schools,” Indian Advocate, May 1901, 131. Also see “A Chapter on Indian Education: Written by a Missionary,” Indian Advocate, March 1902, 69. 2. Catholics in the White City

1. J. W. Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Religions: The Addresses and Papers De­ livered Before the Parliament and an Abstract of the Congresses Held in the Art Institute, Chi­ cago, Illinois, U.S.A., August  25 to October  15, 1893, U ­ nder the Auspices of the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago: International Publishing Co., 1894), 953; Egal Feldman, “American Ecumenicism: Chicago’s World’s Parliament of Religions of 1893,” Journal of Church and State 9, no. 2 (Spring 1967): 180–199; Richard Hughes Seager, The World’s Parliament of Religions: The East/West Encounter, Chicago, 1893 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), xviii. 2. On US Catholics’ historical memory of Columbus and on Columbus’s role in American civil religion, see Christopher Kauffman, “Christopher Columbus and American Catholic Identity, 1880–1900,” U.S. Catholic Historian 11, no. 2 (Spring 1993):

16 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 49– 52

93–110. On the changing images, memories, and usages of Columbus by Americans between 1792 and 1892, see Thomas J. Schlereth, “Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism,” Journal of American History 79, no. 3 (December 1992): 937–968. 3. Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 40, 71. 4. On the Americanist movement, see McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy; Lawrence V. McDonnell, “Walter Elliott and the Hecker Tradition in the Americanist Era,” U.S. Cath­ olic Historian 3, no. 2 (Spring–­Summer 1983): 129–144; R. Scott Appleby, “Church and Age Unite!”: The Modernist Impulse in American Catholicism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); Philip Gleason, “The New Americanism in Catholic Historiography,” U.S. Catholic Historian 11, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 1–18; Margaret Mary Reher, “Phantom Heresy: A Twice-­Told Tale,” U.S. Catholic Historian 11, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 93–105; Gerald P. Fogarty, “Reflections on the Centennial of ‘Testem Benevolentiae,’ ” U.S. Catholic Historian 17, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 1–12; Jay P. Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 108–112; Mislin, Saving Faith, 68–74, 77–78, 79–80, 83–84. 5. William F. Markoe, “The Catholic Truth Society,” Catholic World (New York), April 1891, 114. 6. Catholic Journal (Rochester), December  19, 1891, 1; “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace, Michigan Ave­nue and Adams Street, Lake Front, Chicago: Commencing Monday, September 4, 1893: Daily Programme; Order of Proceedings; Papers, Etc.,” Columbian Catholic Congress Organ­ization IX-1-­j, William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA. 7. Catholic Journal, October 5, 1889, 1. 8. “Call for a General Congress of the Catholic Laity of the United States, to Be Held in the City of Baltimore, MD., November 11–12, 1889,” Correspondence IX-1-­a 1889/09, William J. Onahan Papers 1/03, UNDA. 9. Official Report of the Proceedings of the Catholic Congress, Held at Baltimore, Md., No­ vember 11th and 12th, 1889 (Detroit: William H. Hughes, 1889), vi. 10. H. J. Spaunhorst to William J. Onahan, April 27, 1889, Correspondence IX-1-­a nd, 1889–1889/8, William J. Onahan Papers 1/02, UNDA. 11. “Call for a General Congress of the Catholic Laity of the United States.” 12. John Ireland, The Church and Modern Society: Lectures and Addresses (New York: D. H. McBride and Co., 1903), 69, 81. 13. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 71. 14. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 73; Allen Sinclair W ­ ill, Life of Cardinal Gib­ bons, Archbishop of Baltimore, vol. 1 (New York: E. P. Dutton and Com­pany, 1922), 438. 15. John Ireland to Angela Ewing, March 26, 1885, Folder 3, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Collection, UNDA. 16. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 74–76. 17. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 76. 18. Official Report of the Proceedings of the Catholic Congress, viii. 19. “Call for a General Congress of the Catholic Laity of the United States.” 20. Official Report of the Proceedings of the Catholic Congress, 12, 165. 21. Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Religions, 984; Official Report of the Proceed­ ings of the Catholic Congress, ix–­x.

NOTES TO PA GES 53– 57

161

22. Official Report of the Proceedings of the Catholic Congress, 187. 23. C. J. Knauf to William J. Onahan, November 27, 1889, Correspondence IX-1-­a 1889/11, William J. Onahan Papers 1/05, UNDA. 24. Catholic Journal, February 11, 1893, 6. 25. William F. Markoe, “The Catholic Truth Society,” Catholic World, January 1891, 491. 26. “Around the Globe,” Catholic Journal, November 21, 1891, 1. 27. John W. Foster to M. Rampolla del Tindaro, September 15, 1892, September 15, 1892, MIRE 4, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 28. Report of Archbishops’ Meetings of November 29 and 30, 1891, Group IV Letters IX-1-­g, William J. Onahan Papers 5/03, UNDA; “The Columbian Fair,” Catholic Journal, May 6, 1893, 1. 29. Feehan’s opening statement can be found in Hanson, The World’s Congress of Religions, 23–24. Keane’s speeches can be found in Hanson, The World’s Congress of Re­ ligions, 197–204, 933–937. 30. “To Pre­sent the Truth,” Catholic Journal, August 5, 1893, 8. 31. John Henry Barrows, ed., The World’s Parliament of Religions: An Illustrated and Popu­lar Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with the Columbian Exposition of 1893, vol. 1 (Chicago: Parliament Publishing Com­pany, 1893), 80. 32. Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Religions, 24. 33. Barrows, ed., The World’s Parliament of Religions, 485. 34. Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Religions, 810, 816. 35. William J. Onahan, “Columbian Catholic Congress at Chicago,” Catholic World, August 1893, 607. 36. “The Columbian Catholic Congress,” Sacred Heart Review (Boston), August 19, 1893, 2. 37. “The Columbus Centenary,” Catholic Journal, June 11, 1892, 2. For examples of Fulton’s anti-­Catholic works, see Justin D. Fulton, Rome in Amer­i­ca (Boston: Pauline Propaganda, 1887); Justin D. Fulton, Washington in the Lap of Rome (Boston: W. Kellaway, 1888); Justin D. Fulton, Why Priests Should Wed (Boston: Rand Avery Com­pany, 1888). 38. “Catholic Congress,” Catholic Journal, February 18, 1893, 1. 39. John J. O’Shea, “The Apotheosis of Christopher Columbus,” Catholic World, May 1893: 151–163. 40. “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States: Official Call and Programme,” n.d. [ca. 1893], Invitations to the Columbian Catholic Congress IX-1-­h, William J. Onahan Papers 5/10, UNDA. 41. “Discourse of Most Rev. John Ireland: Inauguration of the Work of the Congress of the World’s Columbian Exposition,” 9, [1893], Columbian Catholic Congress—­Addresses and Clippings IX-1-­o, William J. Onahan Papers 9/01, UNDA. 42. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 67, 69. 43. “We Are Not Americans,—­We Are Columbians!,” Young Catholic Messenger, in Indian Advocate (Sacred Heart Mission, Oklahoma Territory), January 1893, 2 [emphases in original]. 44. “Catholic Congress,” Catholic Journal, February 18, 1893, 1; “The Columbian Fair,” Catholic Journal, May 6, 1893, 1; “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United

16 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 57– 60

States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace . . . ​Daily Programme,” 2, 5, William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA; Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 9. 45. “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace . . . ​Daily Programme,” 3 [emphasis in original], William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA. 46. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 14. 47. Archbishop [John Patrick] Ryan, “A Message from the Columbian Catholic Congress,” Sacred Heart Review, October 21, 1893, 11. 48. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 40. 49. “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace . . . ​Daily Programme,” 4, William  J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA; Onahan, “Columbian Catholic Congress at Chicago,” 604, 605, 606; “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace . . . ​Daily Programme,” 10, 11, William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA. 50. “The Catholic Congress,” Catholic Journal, December 10, 1892, 2. 51. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 13. 52. Alice Timmons Toomy, Eleanor C. Donnelly, and Katherine E. Conway, “The ­Woman Question among Catholics: A Round ­Table Conference,” Catholic World, August 1893: 668–684; Alice Timmons Toomy, “­There Is a Public Sphere for Catholic ­Women,” in Toomy, Donnelly, and Conway, “The ­Woman Question among Catholics,” 675, 677. 53. Aunt Bride, “Just among Ourselves,” Sacred Heart Review, March 10, 1894, 10. 54. Kathryn Prindiville, “The Catholic Life of Chicago,” Catholic World, July 1898, 484. 55. Toomy, “­There is a Public Sphere for Catholic ­Women,” 676. 56. Katherine E. Conway, “­Woman Has No Vocation to Public Life,” in Toomy, Donnelly, and Conway, “The ­Woman Question among Catholics,” 681, 682, 683. 57. Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New ­Women of the Old Faith: Gender and Ameri­ can Catholicism in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 3, 4. On w ­ omen’s roles at the Congress, see Moloney, American Catholic Lay Groups, 23–26; William  S. Cossen, “Catholic W ­ omen, Hidden Work, and Separate Spheres: The Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Pro­ gressive Era 20, no. 3 ( July 2021): 411–429. 58. “The Colored Catholic Congress,” Catholic Journal, August 5, 1893, 8. On Black Catholics’ roles at the Congress, see Moloney, American Catholic Lay Groups, 26–30. 59. Suzanne Krebsbach, “James Spencer and the Colored Catholic Congress Movement,” U.S. Catholic Historian 35, no. 1 (Winter 2017), 8. 60. A. J. Faust, “The Congress of the Colored Catholics,” Catholic World, April 1889, 94. 61. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 121–122. 62. “The Columbian Fair,” The Catholic Journal, May 6, 1893, 1. The other Catholic meetings that took place concurrently in Chicago with the main Columbian Catholic Congress ­were as follows: Congress of Colored (Negro) Catholics; Convention of the Catholic Young Men’s Socie­ties; Convention of the German Catholic Young Men’s Guilds; Convention of the Young Men’s National Union; Convention of the Socie­ ties of St. Vincent de Paul; Meeting of the Catholic Benevolent Legion; Meeting of

NOTES TO PA GES 60– 65

163

the Catholic Press; Meeting of the Catholic Truth Society; Reunion of the Students of the American College of Louvain. See “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace . . . ​Daily Programme,” 10, William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA. 63. J. L. [John Lancaster] Spalding, “The Catholic Educational Exhibit in the Columbian Exposition,” Catholic World, July 1892, 584. 64. “Catholic Educational Exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition: Chicago— 1893,” Columbian Catholic Congress Organ­ization IX-1-­j, William J. Onahan Papers 6/08, UNDA. 65. Spalding, “The Catholic Educational Exhibit in the Columbian Exposition,” 584. 66. John J. O’Shea, “Catholic Education at the World’s Fair,” Catholic World, November 1893, 186, 187, 188, 193–195, 202–203. 67. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 11. 68. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 13. 69. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 34, 36, 37. 70. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 35, 36. 71. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 46, 199, 200. The language in the text is from the translation by John Ireland. The delegates’ quotation, though only slightly dif­ fer­ent in word choice, maintains the same message as the Ireland translation: “Forward! in one hand the Gospel of Christ and in the other the Constitution of the United States.” 72. “Read before You Vote!,” [ca. 1893–1894], Folder 16, George Davidson Todd Papers, 1868–1898, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky [hereafter cited as Filson]. 3. American Catholicism and Philippine Colonization

1. On American colonizers’ use of religion as a means of organ­izing and dividing Philippine society, see Kramer, The Blood of Government, 208–214. 2. A similar dynamic was at play in the US-­Mexican War, in which US Catholics ­were forced to reckon with waging a war against a predominantly Catholic country while dealing si­mul­ta­neously with the perception that US Protestants saw the war as an opportunity to defeat the same Catholic power. As historian Amy S. Greenberg has noted, the war was one chapter in the longer history of Catholic-­Protestant clashes in the antebellum United States. See Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 203–204. 3. This biographical section draws on Thomas T. McAvoy, “Orestes A. Brownson and American History,” Catholic Historical Review 40, no. 3 (October 1954): 257–268; William L. Portier, “Isaac Hecker and the First Vatican Council,” Catholic Historical Re­ view 71, no. 2 (April 1985): 206–227; Patrick W. Carey, “American Catholic Romanticism, 1830–1888,” Catholic Historical Review 74, no. 4 (October 1988): 590–606; David J. O’Brien, Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic (New York: Paulist Press, 1992); Paul Robichaud, “Evangelizing Amer­i­ca: Transformations in Paulist Mission,” U.S. Catholic His­ torian 11, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 61–78; Franchot, Roads to Rome, 321–336; Patrick Allitt, Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 61–85, 107–126. On the staying power of Americanism in US Catholicism, see James P. Bruce, “Alfred E. Smith and the Americanization of the Catholic Church,” U.S. Catholic Historian 34, no. 4 (Fall 2016): 1–23.

16 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 65– 67

4. On whiteness and race making, see Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of Amer­i­ca,” New Left Review 181 (May–­June 1990): 95– 118; Thomas C. Holt, “Marking: Race, Race-­Making, and the Writing of History,” American Historical Review 100, no. 1 (February 1995): 1–20; Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995); Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Dif­fer­ent Color: Eu­ro­pean Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial ­Virginia, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton and Com­pany, 2003), esp. 293–387; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, 3rd ed. (New York: Verso, 2007); Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in Amer­i­ca (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). However, on the limitations of the works on whiteness by Jacobson and Roediger, see Peter Kolchin, “Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in Amer­i­ca,” Journal of American History 89, no. 1 ( June 2002): 154–173. 5. The biographical information in this paragraph comes from O’Brien, Isaac Hecker, 14–19. On the increase in German and Irish immigration to New York City in the antebellum period, see Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Cath­ olics, 1815–1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). On the role of skilled ­labor as a marker of masculinity and in­de­pen­dence, see Sean Wilentz, Chants Demo­ cratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). On the ways men made themselves masculine in the nineteenth-­century city, see Thomas Augst, The Clerk’s Tale: Young Men and Moral Life in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Brian P. Luskey, “Jumping ­Counters in White Collars: Manliness, Respectability, and Work in the Antebellum City,” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 173–219. On the interconnections between manliness, nativism, and whiteness in the antebellum period, see Elliott J. Gorn, “ ‘Good-­Bye Boys, I Die a True American’: Hom­i­cide, Nativism, and Working-­Class Culture in Antebellum New York City,” Journal of American History 74, no. 2 (September 1987): 388–410. On politics in the urban North during the Jacksonian period, see Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W. W. Norton and Com­pany, 2005), esp. 181–518. 6. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, 143. 7. “The American Order of Priests—­The Paulists and Their Founder, ­Father Hecker,” in “Religious Intelligence,” New York Herald, August 14, 1870, 11. 8. “In­ter­est­ing Sketch of Rev. I. T. Hecker,” National Aegis (Worcester, MA), December 3, 1870, 3. 9. “This Busy World,” Harper’s Weekly (New York), May 17, 1902, 638. 10. “Obituary: ­Father Isaac T. Hecker,” New York Herald, December 23, 1888, 16. 11. “A Riverside Parish,” The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator (New York), June 15, 1895, 1. 12. Figure 4.1: Total Adherents by Denomination, 1850–1890, in Finke and Stark, The Churching of Amer­i­ca, 121. 13. “Religious Intelligence,” Harper’s Weekly, October 6, 1877, 783. 14. “Sisera’s Prospects,” Harper’s Weekly, March 20, 1869, 179. 15. Eugene Lawrence, “The Romish Victory over the Common Schools,” Harper’s Weekly, December 14, 1872, 974; “The Common Schools in Danger,” Harper’s Weekly,

NOTES TO PA GES 67– 70

165

April 3, 1869, 210–211. On the central place of schooling in the formation of American Catholic identity, see Mary J. Oates, “Catholic Female Academies on the Frontier,” U.S. Catholic Historian 12, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 121–136; McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 4–11, 19–42; Sally Dwyer-­McNulty, Common Threads: A Cultural His­ tory of Clothing in American Catholicism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). 16. Thomas Nast, “The American River Gan­ges,” Harper’s Weekly, May 8, 1875, 384. On turn-­of-­the-­twentieth-­century fears that Catholic institutions would corrupt American youths, see Justin Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-­Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 107–144. 17. Thomas Nast, “No Church Need Apply,” Harper’s Weekly, May 8, 1875, 385. 18. On the new Catholic immigrants and their Americanization, see Robert Anthony Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880– 1950 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); Mary Elizabeth Brown, “The Making of Italian-­American Catholics: Jesuit Work on the Lower East Side, New York, 1890’s-1950’s,” Catholic Historical Review 73, no. 2 (April 1987): 195–210; James R. Barrett and David R. Roediger, “The Irish and the ‘Americanization’ of the ‘New Immigrants’ in the Streets and in the Churches of the Urban United States, 1900– 1930,” Journal of American Ethnic History 24, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 3–33. 19. O’Brien, Isaac Hecker, 337. 20. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 2. 21. Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­ a, 61–95. 22. See Farrelly, Papist Patriots. 23. William L. Portier, “Isaac Hecker and Testem Benevolentiae: A Study in Religious Pluralism,” in Hecker Studies: Essays on the Thought of Isaac Hecker, ed. John Farina (New York: Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983), 24. 24. Elizabeth Fenton, “Birth of a Protestant Nation: Catholic Canadians, Religious Pluralism, and National Unity in the Early U.S. Republic,” Early American Lit­er­a­ture 41, no. 1 (2006): 30. Also see Elizabeth Fenton, Religious Liberties: Anti-­Catholicism and Lib­ eral Democracy in Nineteenth-­Century U.S. Lit­er­at­ ure and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 25. I. T. [Isaac Thomas] Hecker, Questions of the Soul (New York: D. Appleton and Com­pany, 1855), 170, 171. 26. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 91. See the similar argument set forth by Catholic convert George Parsons Lathrop in “Consequences and Results of the Discovery of the New World,” a paper he delivered on the second day of the Columbian Catholic Congress: “True liberty is what the Church most inculcates, and what it most needs. It has found it at last in this country, where at first its prospect of ­doing so seemed most unlikely. . . . ​The complete separation of Church from state, which exists ­here, has been an im­mense advantage to religion, and w ­ ill continue to do so by assuring it of entire in­de­pen­dence in the pursuit of its spiritual aims.” In Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 65. 27. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 84, 87. 28. O’Brien, Isaac Hecker, 302. 29. Hecker, Questions of the Soul, 55.

16 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 70– 74

30. I. T. [Isaac Thomas] Hecker, Aspirations of Nature (New York: James B. Kirker, 1857), 48. 31. Hecker, Questions of the Soul, 293. 32. For example, see Edward J. Langlois, “Isaac Hecker’s Po­liti­cal Thought,” in Hecker Studies: Essays on the Thought of Isaac Hecker, ed. John Farina (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 74–80; O’Brien, Isaac Hecker, 336–337. An exception to this historiographical oversight is found in Allitt, Catholic Converts, 112–114, 181–182. 33. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 43, 45, 52, 53, 56–57. 34. For examples of Catholic re­sis­tance to Anglo-­Saxonism, see “Not All Anglo-­ Saxon: German and Polish Citizens Protest in Mass Meeting against Anglo-­Saxon Alliance,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, May  28, 1898, 1; “Polish-­ Americans Protest: Big Demonstrations in Chicago against Anglo-­American Alliance,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, July 15, 1899, 5; “Polish Citizens against Anglo-­American Alliance: They W ­ ill Vote and Work Against Any Po­liti­cal Candidate or Party That Advocates Such Alliance,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, July 22, 1899, 1. On transatlantic exchanges of race and empire in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, see Paul A. Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-­Saxons: Race and Rule between the British and United States Empires, 1880–1910,” Journal of Amer­ ican History 88, no. 4 (March 2002): 1315–1353. 35. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 177. 36. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 27. 37. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 16. 38. Gail J. Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). On race, manhood, and empire, also see Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood; Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 39. Lears, Rebirth of a Nation. 40. “A Mask Removed,” Harper’s Weekly, July 15, 1871, 642; Isaac Hecker to Orestes Brownson, August  21, 1869, in The Brownson-­Hecker Correspondence, ed. Joseph  F. Gower and Richard M. Leliaert (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 274. 41. McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy, 36. 42. Brownson to Hecker, August 25, 1870, in Gower and Leliaert, The Brownson-­ Hecker Correspondence, 291, 292; Hecker to Brownson, January 30, 1870, in Gower and Leliaert, The Brownson-­Hecker Correspondence, 282. 43. On the split between Brownson and the Catholic World, see O’Brien, Isaac Hecker, 242–258. 44. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, May 1898, 279. 45. John Ireland to D. E. Hudson, August 14, 1898, MIRE 6, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 46. Reuter, Catholic Influence, esp. 60–105. 47. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, June 1898, 426. 48. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, July 1898, 563–564. 49. Charleson Shane, “A Sketch of Catholicity in the Philippines,” Catholic World, August 1898, 695–697.

NOTES TO PA GES 74– 77

167

50. Helene M. Erni, “Catholicism in Philippines,” New York Times, September 5, 1898, 5. 51. A. P. [Alexander] Doyle, “Religious Prob­lem of the Philippines,” Catholic World, October 1898, 123. 52. “The Spanish Administration in the Philippines,” Catholic World, January 1899, 540. 53. Philip K. Nylander, “A Cloudy Pearl of the Pacific,” Catholic World, January 1899, 493–494. 54. Doyle, “Religious Prob­lem,” 120. 55. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, January 1899, 571. 56. George McDermot, “En­glish Administration and the Ceded Possessions,” Catho­ lic World, March 1899, 727. 57. Bryan J. Clinch, “The Truth about the Church in the Philippines,” Catholic World, June 1899, 297, 302. 58. E.B. [Edmund] Briggs, “The Philippine Insurrection, and the Voice of the Courts,” Catholic World, July 1899, 548. 59. “Plain Talk about the Philippines,” Sacred Heart Review, March 22, 1902, 6. 60. Henry E. O’Keeffe, “A Word on the Church and the New Possessions,” Catholic World, December 1898, 319–322. M.J. Riordan also envisioned the possibility of expanding the American empire into China and Mexico. See Riordan, “ ‘Benevolent Assimilation’ through the Laity,” Catholic World, January 1900, 540. 61. McDermot, “En­glish Administration,” 723, 725–726. 62. M. J. Riordan, “ ‘Benevolent Assimilation’ through the Laity,” Catholic World, January 1900, 539. On the role of Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden” in the American colonization of the Philippines, see Harris, God’s Arbiters, 129–153. 63. See Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 64. Doyle, “Religious Prob­lem,” 119. 65. “The Spanish Administration,” 532. 66. E. B. [Edmund] Briggs, “Annexation, ‘the Open Door,’ and the Constitution,” Catholic World, January 1899, 549–550, 551, 555 (emphasis in original). 67. McDermot, “En­glish Administrators,” 726. 68. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, October 1899, 140. 69. E. B. [Edmund] Briggs, “ ‘The Consent of the Governed,’ ” Catholic World, November 1899, 259 (emphasis in original). 70. “Report of U.S. Philippine Commission,” November 2, 1899, quoted in E. B. [Edmund] Briggs, “The ‘Consent of the Governed’ and the Filipinos,” Catholic World, March 1900, 801. 71. On the fear that a diminished Catholic presence would lead to a decivilizing of the Filipinos, see Doyle, “Religious Prob­lem,” 122, 124; Clinch, “The Truth,” 303; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, August 1899, 714; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, October 1899, 139; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, March 1901, 833; Catholic Truth Society, The Friars in the Philippines 1, no 5 ( January 1902) [entire issue], Item P002.0117, CHRC; William H. Johnston, “The Church in the Philippines: An Address to the Alumni Association of St. Louis University, by Capt. William H. Johnston, 16th U.S. Infantry,” Truth 1, no. 20 (May 1903), Item P002.0173, CHRC.

16 8 NOTES

TO PAGES 77– 87

72. See “The Natives Are as a Class Industrious,” in “The Spanish Administration,” 533; “The Art of Husbandry Is Well Developed,” in W. A. Jones, “The Religious O ­ rders in the Philippines,” Catholic World, February 1899, 593. 73. See “Domestic Duties Are Well Discharged,” in “The Spanish Administration,” 543; “The Native Filipinos Are Noted for Domestic Virtue,” in Jones, “The Religious ­Orders,” 583. 74. “At Vesper-­Time an Instant Hush Comes over the Whole Village,” in “The Spanish Administration,” 537. 75. “Rapid Transit Is Not Thoroughly Developed,” in Jones, “The Religious ­Orders,” 584. 76. “Their Savage Instincts Sometimes Reassert Themselves,” in Jones, “The Religious ­Orders,” 586. 77. Jones, “The Religious ­Orders,” 592. 78. Rebecca Tinio McKenna, American Imperial Pastoral: The Architecture of US Colo­ nialism in the Philippines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 128. For further elaboration on this theme of the construction of colonized Filipinos by Americans, see McKenna, American Imperial Pastoral, chapter 4: “ ‘Independencia in a Box,’ ” 111–141. 79. Fred W. Atkinson to Andrew Morrissey, June 23, 1900, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters, 1856–1906, 79/9, UNDA. 80. C. R. Edmond to Andrew Morrissey, July 31, 1901, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters 89/3. 81. “Archbishop Ireland Supports McKinley and Roo­se­velt,” October 20, 1900, MIRE 7, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 82. On the St. Louis fair, see Rydell, All the World’s a Fair, 154–183; Kramer, The Blood of Government, 229–284. 83. Henry D. ­Sullivan to Andrew Morrissey, August 27, 1900, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters, 1856–1906, 80/12, UNDA. 84. Henry D. ­Sullivan to Andrew Morrissey, August 30, 1900, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters, 1856–1906, 80/12, UNDA. 85. James Jeffrey Roche to Andrew Morrissey, October 10, 1904, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters, 1856–1906, 122/18, UNDA. 86. Indian Advocate, July 1901, 209. 87. Indian Advocate, June 1901, 180; Raftery, “Textbook Wars,” 143. On Catholic-­ Protestant conflicts over textbooks, specifically regarding the ways Catholics used textbooks to pre­sent an image of Catholicism as an American denomination, see Joseph Moreau, Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Pre­sent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), esp. 92–136. 88. “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, December 1900, 419. 89. “Why the Filipinos Are Indifferent,” Sacred Heart Review, May 11, 1901, 3. 90. “Pittsburg Catholics Appeal to the President,” Sacred Heart Review, June 7, 1902, 355. 91. William H. Taft, The Church and Our Government in the Philippines: An Address Delivered before the Faculty and Students of the University of Notre Dame, October 5, 1904. From the Author’s Manuscript (Notre Dame, IN: University Press, [1904]), 56–57. 92. Curtis, The Production of American Religious Freedom, 2, 6.

NOTES TO PA GES 87– 89

169

93. Maurice D. O’Connell to John Ireland, October 24, 1899, MIRE 7, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 94. Theodore Roo­se­velt to John Ireland, July 23, 1902, MIRE 8, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 95. John Tracy Ellis, The Life of Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834–1921, vol. 2 (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Com­pany, 1952), 139–140. 96. Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to John Hay, August 1, 1903, Theodore Roo­ se­ velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​ .­theodorerooseveltcenter​.­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=o ­ 268403, Theodore Roo­se­velt Digital Library, Dickinson State University, Dickinson, ND; Letter from John Hay to Theodore Roo­se­velt, August 5, 1903, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​.­theodorerooseveltcenter​.­org​ /­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=­o41658, Roo­se­velt Digital Library; Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to Pope Pius X, August 27, 1903, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. https://­www​.­theodorerooseveltcenter​ .­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=o ­ 185797, Roo­se­velt Digital Library. 97. Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to Elihu Root, July 16, 1902, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​.­theodorerooseveltcenter​ .­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=o ­ 182798, Roo­se­velt Digital Library. 98. Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to Leslie M. Shaw, October 22, 1902, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​ .­theodorerooseveltcenter​.­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=o ­ 183358, Roo­ se­velt Digital Library; Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to Bellamy Storer, December 27, 1903, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​.­theodorerooseveltcenter​.­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​ =­o186880, Roo­se­velt Digital Library. 99. Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to John Callan O’Laughlin, November 6, 1911, Theodore Roo­se­velt Collection, MS Am 1454.26 (18), Harvard College Library, https://­ www​.­t heodorerooseveltcenter​ .­o rg​ /­Research​ /­D igital​ -­L ibrary​ /­Record​ ?­l ibID​ =­o278421, Roo­se­velt Digital Library. 100. Letter from Theodore Roo­se­velt to William H. Taft, July 29, 1902, Theodore Roo­se­velt Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, https://­www​.­theodore​ rooseveltcenter​.­org​/­Research​/­Digital​-­Library​/­Record​?­libID​=o ­ 266072, Roo­se­velt Digital Library. 101. William Howard Taft to John Ireland, October 17, 1902, MIRE 8, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 102. J. B. MacGinley to Priests of Archdiocese of Philadelphia, July 21, 1914, Item 71.705Di, Prendergast Papers. 103. Hecker to Brownson, January 28, 1871, in Gower and Leliaert, The Brownson-­ Hecker Correspondence, 298–299; Brownson to Hecker, January 30, 1871, in Gower and Leliaert, The Brownson-­Hecker Correspondence, 299–300. 104. Dennis Dougherty to James J. Walsh, April 1, 1924, Item 80.8400, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, MC-78, CHRC. 105. J. P. Guttemans to Dennis Dougherty, September 3, 1925, Item 80.5975, Dougherty Papers, CHRC.

17 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 90– 94

106. Edwin  V. Byrne to Dennis Dougherty, November  9, 1922, Item 80.2474, Dougherty Papers, CHRC. 107. Edwin  V. Byrne to Dennis Dougherty, December  28, 1922, Item 80.2472, Dougherty Papers, CHRC. 108. D. J. [Dennis Joseph] Dougherty to Whom It May Concern [American Catholics], January 14, 1913, Item 61.294DiPh, Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan Papers, 1866– 1934, MC-76, CHRC. 109. Nylander, “A Cloudy Pearl,” 497–498. 110. “Comment,” Harper’s Weekly, July 26, 1902, 979–984. 111. Doyle, “Religious Prob­lem,” 124 (emphasis in original). 112. Taft, The Church and Our Government in the Philippines, 31–36. 113. “Editorial Notes,” Sacred Heart Review, November 1, 1902, 277; “President Roo­ se­velt and the Catholics,” Sacred Heart Review, November  8, 1902, 292; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, August 1899, 714; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World, October 1899, 139; Reuter, “American Catholics and the Establishment,” 374–381; Reuter, Catholic Influence, 163–164. 114. John Wynne, “The Outlook for Catholicism,” Harper’s Weekly, August 1, 1903, 1275. 4. Catholic Gatekeepers

This chapter is based on an e­ arlier version published as William  S. Cossen, “Catholic Gatekeepers: The Church and Immigration Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,” U.S. Catholic Historian 34, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 1–23. 1. John Jos. Riordan, “The Priest at ­Castle Garden,” Catholic World, January 1886, 563–564. 2. “Christian Public Schools,” Catholic World, March 1887, 795, 797. 3. On the social and economic dislocations and transformations to American society that took place in the postbellum period, see C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951); LaFeber, The New Empire; Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of Amer­i­ca: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age, 2nd ed. (New York: Hill and Wang 2007); Alan Dawley, Strug­g les for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991), 17–62; Barbara Young Welke, Recasting American Liberty: Gen­ der, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Lears, Rebirth of a Nation; White, The Republic for Which It Stands. 4. On the importance of transatlantic exchanges of p­ eople, goods, and ideas in this period for both Catholics and non-­Catholics alike, see Daniel T. Rod­gers, Atlantic Cross­ ings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998); Peter  R. D’Agostino, Rome in Amer­i­ca: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); John T. McGreevy, American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Reli­ gious Order Made Catholicism Global (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2016). For the rapid growth of the Catholic Church in the United States in the second half

NOTES TO PA GES 94– 96

171

of the nineteenth ­century, which was fueled largely by Eu­ro­pean migration, see Finke and Stark, The Churching of Amer­ic­ a, 117–155. On transatlantic anti-­Catholicism in the nineteenth ­century, see Conn, “ ‘Po­liti­cal Romanism.’ ” On the continuation of anti-­ Catholic rhe­toric and fears of Catholic subversion in the Progressive Era, see Sterne, Ballots and Bibles, esp. 60–107; Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep. 5. Wilfred M. McClay describes the “Protestant-­Catholic dyad” as “the reciprocating engine of American religious history.” See McClay, “The Catholic Moment in American Social Thought,” in Catholics in the American C ­ entury: Recasting Narratives of U.S. History, ed. R. Scott Appleby and Kathleen Sprows Cummings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 155. My thinking on interreligious encounters in US history has been s­ haped by Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (New York: Macmillan Com­pany, 1938); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955); R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Franchot, Roads to Rome; Paula M. Kane, Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Allitt, Catholic Converts; Anne C. Rose, Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom; Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep; Moore, The South’s Tolerable Alien; Fenton, Religious Liberties; Farrelly, Papist Patriots; Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca; Stern, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross; Dwyer-­McNulty, Common Threads; Hillary Kaell, Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage (New York: New York University Press, 2014). 6. The analy­sis of assimilation in this chapter has been influenced by Ewa Morawska, “In Defense of the Assimilation Model,” Journal of American Ethnic History 13, no. 2 (Winter 1994): 76–87; Russell A. Kazal, “Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History,” American Historical Review 100, no. 2 (April 1995): 437–471. 7. The concept of gatekeeping comes from Erika Lee, At Amer­i­ca’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 8. Robert A. Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity: How Catholics Are American,” in Catholics in the American ­Century: Recasting Narratives of U.S. His­ tory, ed. R. Scott Appleby and Kathleen Sprows Cummings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 15. 9. McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy, 321. 10. James Gibbons, The Faith of Our F­ athers: Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, 16th ed. (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1880), 265, 282. 11. James Gibbons, Pastoral Letter of Cardinal Gibbons on the Cele­bration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in the United States (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1889), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, box 2, folder 4, James Cardinal Gibbons Collection, ACUA. On Bishop John ­England’s attempts to de­moc­ra­tize antebellum US Catholicism, see Patrick Carey, An Immigrant Bishop: John E­ ngland’s Adapta­ tion of Irish Catholicism to American Republicanism (Yonkers, NY: U.S. Catholic Historical

17 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 96– 100

Society, 1982); Daniel F. Kearns, “Bishop John ­England and the Possibilities of Catholic Republicanism,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 102, no. 1 ( January 2001): 47– 67; Cossen, “Catholics, Constitutions, and Conventions.” 12. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, xxiii. 13. Sermon by the Most Rev. John Ireland, D.D., Archbishop of St. Paul (Notre Dame, IN: Scholastic Press, 1888), 14–15, MIRE 4, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 14. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 115. 15. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 83–84. 16. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 88. 17. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 212. 18. “Discourse of Most Rev. John Ireland: Inauguration of the Work of the ­Congress of the World’s Columbian Exposition,” [1893], 9, Columbian Catholic Congress—­Addresses and Clippings IX-1-­o, William J. Onahan Papers 9/01, UNDA. 19. William R. Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 2. 20. “Discourse of Most Rev. John Ireland,” 8. 21. Appleby, “Church and Age Unite!,” 7–8, 80–89, 169–206. 22. Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae: Concerning New Opinions, Virtue, Nature and Grace, with Regard to Americanism, January 22, 1899, https://­www​.­papalencyclicals​ .­net​/­Leo13​/­l13teste​.­htm; Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis: On the Doctrines of the Modernists, September 8, 1907, http://­w2​.­vatican​.­va​/­content​/­pius​-­x​/­en​/­encyclicals​ /­documents​/­hf​_­p​-­x​_­enc​_­19070908​_­pascendi​-­dominici​-­g regis​.­html. On the lead-up to the condemnation of Americanism, the condemnation itself, and its immediate aftermath, see McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy, esp. 160–299. 23. Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­ a, 61–95. 24. Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866 (Manchester, UK: University of Manchester Press, 1974), 173; “Catholic and Protestant Immigrants,” Boston Investigator, October 16, 1867, 189. 25. Data drawn from Roger Daniels, Coming to Amer­i­ca: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 124, 188, 189. 26. “The Philosophy of Immigration,” Catholic World, June 1869, 399, 401, 402, 403–404. 27. “The Ele­ments of Our Nationality,” Catholic World, October 1871, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99–100. On nineteenth-­century debates over the Sabbath, see Alexis McCrossen, Holy Day, Holiday: The American Sunday (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Also see the resolution a­ dopted by the Columbian Catholic Congress in 1893: “We have no sympathy with any effort made to secularize the Sunday. We urge upon our fellow-­citizens to join in e­ very effort to preserve that day as sacred—in accordance with the precepts and traditions of the Church.” Columbian Catholic Congress Resolutions, [September 1893], Columbian Catholic Congress—­Address by Cardinal Gibbons and Resolutions IX-1-­o, William J. Onahan Papers 8/07, UNDA. 28. Joseph Frey to Edmond F. Prendergast, September 25, 1916, Item 71.523Asc, Most Rev. Edmond Francis Prendergast Papers, 1906–1917, UNDA. 29. “The Public Schools and the Immigrant,” Press Bulletin of the Central-­Bureau of the Central-­Verein, Vol. 4, No. 11, n.d. [ca. 1916], Item 71.253Acl, Most Rev. Edmond Francis Prendergast Papers, 1906–1917, UNDA.

NOTES TO PA GES 100– 103

173

30. “Irish Immigration: Recent Activity of the Irish Catholic Benevolent Union,” Milwaukee Sentinel, December 23, 1873, 7. 31. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 121. 32. “Catholic Colonization,” Catholic World, May 1880, 274–275, 278–279; Michael Callaghan, “To the Catholic Congress Assembled at Chicago,” n.d. [September 4, 1893], 14–15, Columbian Catholic Congress—­Speeches IX-1-­n, William J. Onahan Papers 8/04, UNDA; Wiebe, Search for Order, xiii. Another Catholic World commentator expressed the sentiment that for immigrants, “the West is indeed their land of promise.” See “Irish-­American Colonies,” Catholic World, December 1880, 346. On Catholic rural colonies, see Moloney, American Catholic Lay Groups, 69–115. On the perceived dangers of the city, see William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the G ­ reat West (New York: W. W. Norton and Com­pany, 1991), 350–369. 33. Thomas L. Grace to George Keller, April 17, 1860, Folder 3, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Collection. 34. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 180; “The Columbian Catholic Congress of the United States to be Convened in the Memorial Art Palace, Michigan Ave­nue and Adams Street, Lake Front, Chicago: Commencing Monday, September  4, 1893: Daily Programme; Order of Proceedings; Papers, Etc.,” Columbian Catholic Congress Organ­ ization IX-1-­j, William J. Onahan Papers 6/10, UNDA; John Rickards Betts, “The Laity and the Ecumenical Spirit, 1889–1893,” Review of Politics 26, no. 1 (January 1964): 8–9. 35. Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Religions, 1015. 36. “Discourse of Most Rev. John Ireland,” 1–2. Compare to Cardinal Gibbons’s suggestion in his address at the Columbian Catholic Congress that in light of the world’s fair’s display of “the wonderful works of man,” p­ eople should “no longer call Chicago the Windy City but the city of lofty aspirations. Let us no longer call her Porkopolis. Let me christen her with another name; let me call her Thaumatopolis the city of won­ ders, the city of miracles.” See James Gibbons, “Address at the Catholic Congress,” September 1893, Columbian Catholic Congress -­Address By Cardinal Gibbons and Resolutions IX-1-­o, William P. Onahan Papers 8/07, UNDA. 37. Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­ a, 61–95. 38. James P. Shannon, “Bishop Ireland’s Connemara Experiment,” Minnesota His­ tory 35, no. 5 (March 1957): 205. 39. “Catholic Colonization,” 282. 40. Catholic Colonization Bureau, Catholic Colonization in Minnesota: Colony of Av­ oca, Murray County, Southwestern Minnesota (St. Paul, MN: Pioneer Press Co., 1880), 5. 41. See Aristide R. Zolberg, “The Exit Revolution,” in Citizenship and T ­ hose Who Leave: The Politics of Emigration and Expatriation, ed. Nancy L. Green and François Weil (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 33–60. 42. Daily News (Denver), May 1, 1883, 4. 43. See Donnelly’s estimate in the paper Bishop John J. Keane delivered on his behalf at the World’s Parliament of Religions, which was titled, “The Relations of the Roman Catholic Church to the Poor and Destitute,” in Hanson, ed., The World’s Congress of Re­ ligions, 539. On New York’s notorious antebellum reputation, see Wilentz, Chants Demo­ cratic; Christine Stansell, City of ­Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986); Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-­Century New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).

17 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 104– 109

44. Riordan, “The Priest at ­Castle Garden,” 563–564, 565, 566, 569. 45. “The Catholic Charities of New York,” Catholic World, September 1886, 817 (emphasis in original). Also see Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary for the Protection of Irish Immigrant Girls (New York: n.p., January 1900), Item IC0064, General Pamphlet Collection, CHRC. 46. “The Catholic Charities of New York,” 820. 47. “A Good Cause: Prospects of a ­Grand and Successful Fair to Aid the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary at C ­ astle Garden,” Irish World and American Industrial Libera­ tor, April 5, 1890, 8. 48. Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep, 113. 49. On the sexualized rhe­toric of anti-­Catholicism, see Franchot, Roads to Rome, 85– 193; Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep, 107–144; Fenton, Religious Liberties, 60–69; Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­a, 184–198; Cossen, “Monk in the ­Middle.” 50. Riordan, “The Priest at ­Castle Garden,” 568–570. 51. Nordstrom, Danger on the Doorstep, 5. 52. “The Catholic Charities of New York,” 812, 814. 53. Lori D. Ginzberg, ­Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-­Century United States (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 211. 54. Zolberg, “The Exit Revolution,” 55. 55. “Christian Public Schools,” 792, 795 (emphasis in original). 56. James Gibbons, A Retrospect of Fifty Years, Vol. 2 (Baltimore: John Murphy Com­ pany, 1916), 86. 57. James Gibbons to William Rosenau, May 5, 1912, Box 2, Folder 1, Gibbons Collection. 58. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 91. 59. Ireland, The Church and Modern Society, 183, 206–208. 60. Camillus Paul Maes to “Your Eminence” [likely John Ireland], July 10, 1888, MIRE 4, John Ireland Papers, UNDA. 61. Bernard J. Lynch, “The Italians in New York,” Catholic World, April 1888, 67, 68, 69. 62. Lynch, “The Italians in New York,” 71, 72. 63. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­ic­ a, 176–179; Rev. Joseph L. Andreis, Essay on Italian Immigration and Colonization (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1893). Deirdre Moloney’s analy­sis of Andreis’s speech is thoroughly dif­fer­ent from mine. Moloney argues that Andreis “called for greater toleration t­ oward Italian Catholics” and “for better religious instruction of Italian immigrants.” See Moloney, American Catho­ lic Lay Groups, 33. 64. “Italian Catholic Trou­bles,” Sunday Inter Ocean (Chicago), November 2, 1889, 17. 65. Italian Catholic Citizens of Philadelphia to Patrick John Ryan, December 25, 1896, Item 61.111Acl, Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan Papers, CHRC. 66. Orsi, The Madonna, 54. 67. Laurence Franklin, “The Italian in Amer­i­ca: What He Has Been, What He S­ hall Be,” Catholic World, April 1900, 77–78. 68. Helen M. Sweeney, “­Handling the Immigrant,” Catholic World, July 1896, 498– 502; Augustus Kaiser, “Immigration and Colonization: With Special Reference to German Catholic Immigration: Paper Read by Augustus Kaiser, M.D., Detroit, Mich., at

NOTES TO PA GES 110– 117

175

the Catholic Congress, Held at Chicago, Ill., September 4, 1893,” Columbian Catholic Congress—­Speeches IX-1-­n, William J. Onahan Papers 8/04, UNDA. On the formation of the New York City bourgeoisie following the Civil War, see Beckert, The Monied Metropolis. 69. “Discourse of Most Rev. John Ireland,” 7. On modernist Catholic ideas about evolution, see Appleby, “Church and Age Unite!”, 13–52. 70. E. Lyell Earle, “Character Studies in New York’s Foreign Quarters,” Catholic World, March 1899, 782–784, 788–790, 793. 71. “Regulating Immigration,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, April 12, 1890, 4. 72. “­Those Immigrants Welcome,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, May 31, 1890, 4. 73. “The Immigration Prob­lem,” Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, December 10, 1892, 4. 74. “Archbishop Ryan on Immigration,” Irish World and American Industrial Libera­ tor, January 14, 1893, 4. 5. ­Toward Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca

1. “When Al Smith is President” [Tract No. 19], n.d. [ca. 1928], box 1, folder 8, Anti-­ Catholic Lit­er­a­ture Collection, ACUA. 2. Thomas  B. Minahan, “The American Federation of Catholic Socie­ties,” 5, May 1902, box 2, folder 8, Catholic Club of Philadelphia Rec­ords, 1871–1923, MC-23, CHRC. 3. “President Roo­se­velt and the Catholics,” Sacred Heart Review, November  8, 1902, 292. 4. Charles J. Bonaparte to Charles S. Lusk, Esq., May 17, 1915, item 71.630Aso, Most Rev. Edmond Francis Prendergast Papers, 1906–1917, CHRC; “Call for a General Congress of the Catholic Laity of the United States, to Be Held in the City of Baltimore, MD., November 11–12, 1889,” Correspondence IX-1-­a 1889/09, William J. Onahan Papers 1/03, UNDA; “President Roo­se­velt and the Catholics,” 292. On the second Ku Klux Klan, see Nancy MacLean, ­Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press), 1994. 5. Ha.(?) Harrigan(?) to F ­ ather Kelly, June 1, 1915, box 2, folder 1, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 6. “Sees a Light,” Catholic Journal, November 2, 1928, 4. 7. William M. Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence: Catholicism in an Era of Disil­ lusionment, 1920–1940 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), 39. 8. Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence, 128. 9. On the decline of US Catholic higher education and theology in the early twentieth ­century, see McAvoy, The Americanist Heresy, 300–301; Gleason, Contending with Modernity, 12–17, 21–61. 10. Gleason, Contending with Modernity, 105. 11. Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence, 8–19. 12. Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence, esp. 61–168.

17 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 117– 120

13. Gleason, Contending with Modernity, 134. 14. On the campaign leading to the vote, see David B. Tyack, “The Perils of Pluralism: The Background of the Pierce Case,” American Historical Review 74, no. 1 (October 1968): 74–98. 15. Compulsory Education Act (Section 5259, Oregon Laws, 1923, p. 9), quoted in Pierce v. Society of the S­ isters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary 268 U.S. 510 (1925), n1. 16. James Gibbons, Pastoral Letter on Christian Education, Addressed to the Clergy and Laity of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (Baltimore: John B. Piet and Co., 1883), 11, 14–17, box 2, folder 4, James Cardinal Gibbons Collection, ACUA. 17. “Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States Assembled in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, to the Clergy and Laity of Their Charge,” in The Memorial Volume: A History of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, No­ vember 9–­December 7, 1884 (Baltimore: Baltimore Publishing Com­pany, 1885), 17. 18. Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 100. 19. National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, Official Attitude of the Catholic Church on Education: Being an Excerpt from the Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States Assembled in Conference, September, 1919, Education Bulletins No. 1 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, 1923), 6, 9–10, box 122, folder 1, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 20. J. A. Timmons to M. I. J. Griffin, December 1, 1888, Martin J. Griffin Papers, Box 5, Folder 3, Georgetown University Library Booth F ­ amily Center for Special Collections (emphasis in original). 21. Resolution Protesting Harvard University’s Refusal to Accept A.B. Degree from Boston College, [1899], box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth F ­ amily Center for Special Collections. On Catholic perceptions of their own institutions of higher learning falling ­behind their Protestant and secular counter­parts, also see Maurice Francis Egan’s paper presented on the fifth day of the Columbian Catholic Congress, “The Needs of Catholic Colleges,” which argued “that a crisis has come in higher Catholic education.” In Pro­gress of the Catholic Church in Amer­i­ca, 103–106. 22. J. B. Carroll to W. Murray Crane, December 2, 1912, box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 23. A. J. Maas to Fr. Rector, November 24, 1912, box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 24. E. De L. McDonnell to ­Father Provincial, November 26, 1912, box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 25. W. M. Crane to James B. Carroll, December 3, 1912, box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 26. E. De L. McDonnell to ­Father Provincial, December 3, 1912, box 96, folder 6, Archives of the Mary­land Province of the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections.

NOTES TO PA GES 121– 126

177

27. James Gallagher to Albert S. Burleson, December 2, 1914, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 28. Exclusion of Certain Publications from the Mails: Hearing before the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads: House of Representatives, Sixty-­Third Congress, Third Session on H.R. 20644 and H.R. 21183: Bills to Exclude Certain Publications from the Mails: February 1, 1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1915), 3, 17, 28–29 29. For an account of the trial distinctly favoring the Menace and opposing Catholicism, see B. O. Flower, Story of The Menace Trial: A Brief Sketch of this Historic Case with Reports of the Masterly Addresses by Hon. J. L. McNatt and Hon. J. I. Sheppard, Attor­ neys for the Defense (Aurora, MO: United States Publishing Co., 1916). 30. Pierce v. Society of S­ isters, 531, 532, 535; Charles N. Lischka, “The Appeal of the Oregon School Law,” N.C.W.C. Bulletin, April 1925, 12, box 29, folder 13 (Oregon School Law [1924–1931]), USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 31. See the compilations of statements from secular and Catholic newspapers and from Catholic and non-­Catholic public figures expressing opposition to the law that ­were published by the NCWC in February 1923: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, Public Opinion and the Oregon School Law, Education Bulletins No. 4 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, 1923); and National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, Public Opinion and the Need of Religious Education, Education Bulletins No. 7 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, 1923), box 122, folder 1, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 32. “Federal Court Decision Invalidates Oregon School Law,” National Catholic Wel­ fare Conference Bulletin, May  1924 [date handwritten], 16, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. On the NCWC’s orga­nizational and ­legal strategies in the lead-up to the Supreme Court case, see Thomas J. Shelley, “The Oregon School Case and the National Catholic Welfare Conference,” Catholic Historical Review 75, no. 3 ( July 1989): 439–457. 33. A Public School Teacher, The Oregon School Law, Education Bulletins No.  6 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, 1923), 6, 9–10, 14, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. On the Ku Klux Klan’s leading role in the passage of the law, see Tyack, “The Perils of Pluralism.” 34. Lutheran Schools Committee, “The Compulsory Education Bill Misnamed,” reprinted as The Truth about the So-­Called Compulsory Education Law, Education Bulletins No. 2 (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Council Bureau of Education, 1923), 3, 5, 7, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 35. Catholics and Lutherans also cooperated in successful efforts to defeat similar school bills in Michigan in 1920 and 1924. See Timothy Mark Pies, “The Parochial School Campaigns in Michigan, 1920–1924: The Lutheran and Catholic Involvement,” Catholic Historical Review 72, no. 2 (April 1986): 222–238. 36. “Federal Court Decision Invalidates Oregon School Law,” 15, 16. 37. “Do You Wish YOUR Parish Schools to Become ‘Oregonized,’ ” n.d., box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 38. “Federal Court Decision Invalidates Oregon School Law,” 15, 16. 39. Michael Kenny, American Masonry and Catholic Education (Brooklyn, NY: International Catholic Truth Society, 1919), 3, 7, 25, 26, 27; Michael Kazin, The Populist

17 8 NOTES

TO PAGES 126– 129

Persuasion: An American History, rev. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). On Tom Watson, see C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). 40. Lischka, “The Appeal of the Oregon School Law,” 11, 12. 41. Significance of the Decision in the Oregon School Cases,” N.C.W.C. Bulletin, July 1925, 3, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 42. James H. Ryan, “What the Oregon Decision Means for American Education,” N.C.W.C. Bulletin, July 1925, 10, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ ords, ACUA. 43. Michael J. Curley, The Church and Education (Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, n.d. [ca. 1924]), 5, 9–11, 13, 14, 15, box 122, folder 1, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA. 44. Charles M. Smith, “Educating the Public in Catholic Truth,” N.C.W.C. Bulletin, July 1925, 26, 27, 29, box 29, folder 13, USCCB Education Department Rec­ords, ACUA; “Do You Wish YOUR Parish Schools to Become ‘Oregonized.’ ” 45. This paragraph is based on Cossen, “Anti-­Catholicism on Trial.” For examples of this period’s new convent tales, see Neva Pinkham Miller Moss, ­Behind Convent Walls (St. Paul, MN: N. P. Moss, 1924); Helen Jackson, Convent Cruelties or My Life in a Convent, 13th ed. (Toledo, OH: Helen Jackson, 1926). 46. On the controversies surrounding convents and convent narratives in the antebellum era, see Oates, “Catholic Female Academies on the Frontier”; Susan M. Griffin, “Awful Disclosures: W ­ omen’s Evidence in the Escaped Nun’s Tale,” PMLA 111, no. 1 ( January 1996): 93–107; Daniel A. Cohen, “Miss Reed and the Superiors: The Contradictions of Convent Life in Antebellum Amer­i­ca,” Journal of Social History 30, no. 1 (Autumn 1996): 149–184; C. Walker Gollar, “The Alleged Abduction of Milly McPherson and Catholic Recruitment of Presbyterian Girls,” Church History 65, no. 4 (December 1996): 596–608; Marie Anne Pagliarini, “The Pure American ­Woman and the Wicked Catholic Priest: An Analy­sis of Anti-­Catholic Lit­er­at­ ure in Antebellum Amer­ i­ca,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 9, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 97– 128; Nancy Lusignan Schultz, “Introduction: A Veil of Fear,” in Veil of Fear: Nineteenth-­Century Convent Tales by Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk, ed. Nancy Lusignan Schultz (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999), vii–­xxxiii; Tracy Fessenden, “The Convent, the Brothel, and the Protestant W ­ oman’s Sphere,” Signs: Journal of ­Women in Culture and Society 25, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 451–478; Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834 (New York: F ­ ree Press, 2000); Sandra Frink, “­Women, the ­Family, and the Fate of the Nation in American Anti-­Catholic Narratives, 1830–1860,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 18, no. 2 (May 2009): 237–264; Cossen, “Monk in the ­Middle”; Cassandra L. Yacovazzi, Escaped Nuns: True Womanhood and the Campaign Against Convents in Antebellum Amer­i­ca (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 47. H. D. McCarthy to Andrew Morrissey, March 10, 1902, Notre Dame Presidents’ Letters, 1856–1906, 102/3, UNDA. 48. Dominic Francis, The Anti-­Catholic Motive: An Analy­sis of the C ­ auses of Or­ga­nized Hatred of The Catholic Church, 3rd ed. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1927), 9–10, Anti-­Catholicism—­OSV Press, Anti-­Catholic Printed Material Collection 6/07, UNDA.

NOTES TO PA GES 129– 133

179

49. D. J. Dougherty to Whom It May Concern [American Catholics], January 14, 1913, Item 61.294DiPh, Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan Papers, CHRC. 50. National Catholic Welfare Council, Senator Thomas E. Watson’s Slanders against the Good Shepherd Sisterhood, 1, 3, 6, n.d. [ca. 1920–1922], Anti-­Catholicism, 1910s, 1910– 1916, Anti-­Catholic Printed Material Collection 4/08, UNDA. On lynching, gender, and the Black male rape myth, see Diane Miller Sommerville, “The Rape Myth in the Old South Reconsidered,” Journal of Southern History 61, no. 3 (August 1995): 481–518; Crystal N. Feimster, Southern Horrors: ­Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 51. Philip Richard McDevitt, “A Review of the Year 1925,” 11–13, Sermons and Addresses by Bishop, Philip Richard McDevitt Papers 7/64, UNDA. 52. Lichtman, “Critical Election Theory,” 323, 344. 53. John M. Cooper, to The Right Reverend John J. Nilan, D.D., December 8, 1927, box 1, folder 1, Anti-­Catholic Lit­er­a­ture Collection, ACUA. 54. The Editor, “To the Point,” Pittsburgh Catholic, January 30, 1936, 6. 55. “Hoover or Smith?,” n.d. [ca. 1928], box 1, folder 2, Anti-­Catholic Lit­er­a­ture Collection, ACUA. 56. “Cath. College Grad.” to Wilfrid Parsons, December 1928, box 10, folder 26, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 57. Charles C. Marshall, “An Open Letter to the Honorable Alfred E. Smith,” Atlan­ tic Monthly 139 (April 1927): 540–549. A digital copy of this letter can be found at Charles C. Marshall, “An Open Letter to the Honorable Alfred E. Smith,” Atlantic, April 1927, http://­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­magazine​/­archive​/­1927​/­04​/­an​-­open​-­letter​ -­to​-­the​-­honorable​-­alfred​-­e​-­smith​/­306523. On the Marshall-­Smith exchange, see Shelley, “ ‘What the Hell Is an Encyclical?’; Hostetler, “Gov. Al Smith Confronts the Catholic Question.” 58. “Heed No Questioning of Catholics, Says Cardinal O’Connell,” Catholic Jour­ nal, May 6, 1927, 2. 59. Alfred E. Smith, “Text of Gov. Al Smith’s Reply to Mr. Marshall’s Challenge,” in Civil Allegiance of Catholic Citizens (Louisville, KY: Peerless Printing Co., [1927]), 5, 7, item P002.3336, CHRC. This letter appeared originally as Alfred E. Smith, “Catholic and Patriot: Governor Smith Replies,” Atlantic Monthly 139 (May 1927): 721–728. A digital copy of this letter can be found at Alfred E. Smith, “Catholic and Patriot,” Atlantic, May 1927, http://­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­magazine​/­archive​/­1927​/­05​/­catholic​-­and​-­patriot​/­306522. On Smith’s knowledge of Catholic teachings and his sense of being Catholic, see Curtis, “The Fundamental Faith,” 532–540. 60. “Governor Smith, Man,” Catholic Journal, April 29, 1927, 4. 61. Alfred E. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, September 20, 1928,” in Campaign Addresses of Governor Alfred E. Smith, Demo­cratic Candi­ date for President, 1928 (Washington, DC: Demo­cratic National Committee, 1929), 52. 62. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City,” 52, 53. 63. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City,” 56. 64. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City,” 53. On Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca, see W ­ ill Herberg, Protestant-­Catholic-­Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955); Kevin M. Schultz, Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar

18 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 133– 137

Amer­i­ca to Its Protestant Promise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); John C. Seitz, “The Mass-­Clock and the Spy: The Catholicization of World War II,” Church His­ tory: Studies in Chris­tian­ity and Culture 83, no.  4 (December  2014): 924–956; Mislin, Saving Faith; Jenna Weissman Joselit, Set in Stone: Amer­i­ca’s Embrace of the Ten Com­ mandments (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 65. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City,” 57. 66. Smith, “Address at Oklahoma City,” 58. 67. Hecker, The Church and the Age, 91. 68. “A True Born Catholic for Al. Smith” to Dennis Dougherty, October 30, 1928/ November 4, 1928 [“Oct. 30” is crossed out and November 4 is listed in the archive’s online finding aid, but October 30 makes more sense in the context of the letter], item 80.3965, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 69. “One of the R.C.” to Dennis Dougherty, n.d. [1928], Item 80.3963, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC [emphases in original]. 70. Oliver D. Street, Governor Smith’s Membership in the Roman Catholic Church and Its Proper Place as an Issue in This Campaign (Birmingham, AL: Republican State Campaign Committee, [1928]), box 153, folder 21, Herbert Hoover Campaign and Transition Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, West Branch, Iowa. 71. Anonymous to Dennis Dougherty, n.d. [1928], Item 80.3960, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 72. Mrs. Wright to Dennis Dougherty, September 3, 1928, Item 80.3961, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 73. Martínez, Catholic Borderlands, 2, 110. 74. Dennis Dougherty to O. Villa, October 18, 1928, Item 80.8360, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 75. Dennis Dougherty to J. W. Weaver, January 6, 1923, Item 80.8428, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 76. Thomas J. Nolan to Dennis Dougherty, June 19, 1926, Item 80.7579, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 77. “K.K.K. Open Air Meeting,” June 23, 1926, Item 80.7579, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 78. Dougherty to Weaver, January 6, 1923, Item 80.8428, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 79. On Dougherty’s continued interest in his church’s missionary endeavors, see examples of the correspondence from several Catholic priests, in both the Philippines and the United States, requesting Dougherty’s support for the Filipino missions and citing his rec­ord of care for the Filipino churches and schools as justifications for their requests: John J. Burke to Dennis Dougherty, October 29, 1925, Item 80.288, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC; P. Aarts to Dennis Dougherty, January 7, 1927, item 80.02, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC; Bernardo Batoon to Dennis Dougherty, August 20, 1934, Item 80.822, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 80. Dennis Dougherty to James J. Walsh, April 1, 1924, item 80.8400, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 81. Charles Beurms to Dennis Dougherty, April 14, 1928, item 80.1005, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC.

NOTES TO PA GES 137– 142

181

82. Charles Beurms to Dennis Dougherty, November 20, 1928, item 80.1006, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 83. “Grieving” to Dennis Dougherty, March 19, 1934, Item 80.3983, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 84. Francis, The Anti-­Catholic Motive, 2, 13–16, 21, 23, 24, 44–45. 85. “As to Politics,” Catholic Journal, March 30, 1928, 4. 86. Philip Richard McDevitt, “Impor­tant Events in 1928 Affecting Catholics,” n.d. [1928], box 7, folder 34, Philip Richard McDevitt Papers 7/34, UNDA. 87. “Impor­tant,” Catholic Journal, October 26, 1928, 4. 88. W. J. M. to the Editor of Amer­i­ca, “Communications,” Amer­i­ca, n.d., 243, box 10, folder 26, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 89. H. A. J. to Wilfrid Parsons, January 26, 1929, box 2, folder 9, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 90. Wm. McGuckin to Wilfrid Parsons, December 1929, box 3, folder 4, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 91. Mrs. Charles Ellis to Edmond J. Fitzmaurice, n.d., item 80.5380, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 92. George J. Caruana to Dennis Dougherty, March 19, 1924, item 80.2934, Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty Papers, 1918–1951, CHRC. 93. M. J. Buck to Herbert Hoover, November 13, 1928, box 76, folder 21, Herbert Hoover Campaign and Transition Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. 94. Leonard Feeney, The Brown Derby (New York: Amer­ic­ a Press, 1928), 1, box 55, folder 10, Herbert Hoover Campaign and Transition Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. 95. Feeney, The Brown Derby, 2 [emphases in original]. 96. Feeney, The Brown Derby, 5. Rochester’s Catholic Journal criticized Willebrandt for “issu[ing] the call to Methodism to put Mr. Hoover in the White House” and pointed out, prob­ably correctly, that “if it w ­ ere a Catholic making the same plea to Catholic priests—­holy horrors.” See “Too Bad, She’s Peeved,” Catholic Journal, November 2, 1928, 4. 97. Feeney, The Brown Derby, 2–3 [emphasis in original]. 98. “An Occasional Reader” to Wilfrid Parsons, December 1928, box 10, folder 26, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 99. William E. Kerrish to the Editor of Amer­i­ca, “Communications,” Amer­i­ca, n.d., 243, box 10, folder 26, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 100. Anonymous to Wilfrid Parsons, January  12, 1929, box 10, folder 26, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. 101. The Editor, “Passing Remarks,” Pittsburgh Catholic, November 7, 1929, 3. 102. P. H. [Patrick Henry] Callahan, “Politics and Prejudices: The 1928 Campaign,” Forthnightly Review, January 15, 1929, box 4, folder 1, Patrick Henry Callahan Papers,

18 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 143– 147

ACUA; P. H. [Patrick Henry] Callahan, “Catholics and Prohibitionists’ Intolerance,” n.d. [postmarked September 17, 1928], box 4, folder 1 Callahan Papers, ACUA; P. H. Callahan, “Religious Prejudice in the Recent Election,” Current History, December 1928, box 4, folder 1, Callahan Papers, ACUA. On Callahan, see William E. Ellis, “Patrick Henry Callahan: A Maverick Catholic and the Prohibition Issue,” Register of the Ken­ tucky Historical Society 92, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 175–199. 103. On increasing Catholic influence and mainstream inclusion in this period, see Halsey, The Survival of American Innocence; Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, ­Father Coughlin, and the G ­ reat Depression (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), esp. 82–142; Gleason, Contending with Modernity, 146–166; Smith, The Look of Catholics; Kevin Schultz, Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca; Appleby and Cummings, eds., Catholics in the American ­Century; Seitz, “The Mass-­Clock and the Spy”; Ronit Y. Stahl, Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy ­Shaped Religion and State in Modern Amer­i­ca (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). 104. Peter Foote to Wilfrid Parsons, July 13, 1932, box 1, folder 17, Amer­i­ca Magazine Archives, Georgetown University Library Booth ­Family Center for Special Collections. Conclusion

Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination (New York: Stone and Kimball, 1896), 477, 478, 479, 484. 1. On the novel’s historical and religious context, see Donna M. Campbell, “Relative Truths: The Damnation of Theron Ware, ­Father Forbes, and the ‘Church of Amer­ i­ca,’  ” American Literary Realism 44, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 95–112. 2. Smith, National Identity, 9, 10. 3. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “On the Margins: The State of American Catholic History,” American Quarterly 45, no. 1 (March 1993): 104–127. On the pro­cess whereby power and silences build cumulatively over time from sources to archives to the construction of narrative scholarship, see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271–313; Michel-­Rolph Trouillot, Si­ lencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). 4. Schultz, Tri-­Faith Amer­i­ca, 7. 5. Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, September 12, 1960, https://­www​.­jf klibrary​.­org​/­learn​/­about​-­jf k​/­historic​-­speeches​ /­address​-­to​-­the​-­greater​-­houston​-­ministerial​-­association. 6. On the relationship between aggiornamento and ressourcement, or a return to the sources, during the debates of the Second Vatican Council, see John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), 36–43. 7. Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, 484.

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Index

Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations. African Americans, 33, 37, 59–60. See also racial issues aggiornamento, 147, 182n6 Agnozzi, J. B., 30 Ambrose, B ­ rother, 118 Amer­i­ca (Catholic magazine), 125, 139, 142 American Catholic Congress (1889), 50–53, 115 American Federation of Catholic Socie­ties, 114 American government. See US government, Catholic relations with American Historical Association, 41 American history and nation, Catholic claims on role in, 2–5, 19–20, 145–47; American Catholic Congress and, 50–52; anti-­Catholicism, as response to, 116, 123, 125–26, 139, 142–43; Brownson’s split with Catholic World over, 72–73; Columbian Catholic Congress and, 5, 49–50, 53, 61–62, 145, 165n26; Hecker on, 69–72; immigration debates and, 93–97, 99, 106–7, 112; Philippines, colonization of, 63–64, 92; in textbooks, 168n87; western missions, 41–45 American Indians. See western missions; specific communities Americanism and Americanist heresy, 7–8, 56, 64–65, 97, 116, 127 American Protective Association (APA), 36, 84, 125, 128, 142 Andreis, Joseph L., 107–8, 174n63 Anglican Church. See Episcopalians and Episcopalianism Anglo-­Saxonism. See racial issues anti-­Catholicism, 15, 113–43, 146; American history and nation, Catholic claims on role in, 116, 123, 125–26, 139, 142–43; anti-­Protestantism as response to, 8, 23,

115–17, 131, 137–40; APA (American Protective Association), 36, 84, 125, 128, 142; bans on anti-­Catholic newspapers, attempts at, 121–22; education and, 115, 117–20, 122–28; immigration and, 68–69, 83–84, 105; intellectual revival in Catholic theology and, 116–17; Jesuits, Protestant distrust of, 38, 158n81; of Ku Klux Klan, 15, 113, 115, 124, 129, 132–33, 136, 140–43, 146; papal sovereignty and Catholic loyalties, beliefs about, 7, 94, 105, 121–22, 131–32, 141; parochial schooling, attempts to gain public funding for, 67, 67–68; Philippines, colonization of, 84–92, 129, 136–37; Progressive-­Era revival of, 6, 15, 115, 129, 142; sexualized rhe­toric of, 9, 104, 129–30; Al Smith, presidential candidacy of, 7, 10, 15, 113–16, 130–43; successes of American Catholics fueling, 114–15, 124–25; US government, fears of Catholic efforts to control, 55, 62; western missions, administration of, 16–17, 20–28, 30–32, 34, 35, 45–46; World’s Columbian Exposition/Columbia Catholic Congress and, 55, 62 anti-­Protestantism: anti-­Catholicism, as Catholic strategy against, 8, 23, 115–17, 131, 137–40; assassination of Garfield and, 1–2; Civil War, Protestantism viewed as root cause of, 149n11; Congress for Colored Catholics and, 59–60; Philippines, colonization of, 48, 73–74, 84–92; “private judgment,” condemnation of, 4; western missions, Catholics on, 20, 23, 36–37, 41–43; ­women, Hecker on Protestant treatment of, 71 Anti-­Saloon League, 140 Apache, 20 Appleby, R. Scott, 97 199

20 0 I n d e x

army chaplaincies, 4, 19, 73, 87, 118 Arthur, Chester A., 1 Atkinson, Fred W., 81 Atlantic Monthly, 116, 131 Avoca Colony, Minnesota, 103 Awful Disclosures of the H ­ otel Dieu Nunnery (Monk, 1836), 9, 129 Azarias, ­Brother, 100 Baptists, 32, 55, 90, 102, 129, 154n8 Bayley, James Roo­se­velt, 23, 28–29, 33, 45 Benedictines, 39, 43, 44, 45, 47, 83–84 Berg, Carol, 26 Beurms, Charles, 137 Black Americans. See African Americans Blackfeet, 21, 24 Blaine, James G., 51 Bonaparte, Charles J., 114, 115 Bonney, Charles Carroll, 54 Boston College, 119 Boston Investigator, 98 Boston Pi­lot, 14, 83, 152n35 Boston Sacred Heart Review, 85, 91–92 Brandon, Mark E., 37–38 Briggs, Edmund, 75, 76 Brook Farm community, 64 Brouillet, Jean Baptiste Abraham, 21 Brownson, Orestes, 12, 64, 72–73, 89 Bruce, James P., 65 Brunot, Felix R., 28 Buck, M. J., 140 Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM), 11, 17, 21, 23, 28–29, 33–34, 36–38, 41, 48, 85 Burke, John J., 124 Byrne, Edwin V., 90 Callaghan, Michael, 101 Callahan, Patrick Henry, 142 Campbellites, 90, 102 Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania, 84 Carroll, Charles, 95 Carroll, James B., 119–20 Carroll, John, 8–9, 95–96 Caruana, George, 139–40 Catholic Colonization Bureau, 103 Catholic Indian Mission Fund, 33 Catholic Indian Missionary Association, 33 Catholic Journal (Rochester), 55, 138, 181n96 Catholic Truth Society (CTS), 50, 53, 61, 85–86, 127–28 Catholic University of Amer­i­ca, 50, 54, 124, 127, 130

Catholic ­Women’s National League (CWNL), 58 Catholic World: American history and nation, on Catholic role in, 72–73; Brownson’s split with, 72–73; Columbian Catholic Congress and, 55–56, 59; founding of, 64; on immigration, 98–99, 104, 105, 106, 109–10; modernism and, 97–98; Philippines, on colonization of, 64, 73–77, 78–82, 81, 84–85, 88, 91; western missions and, 23, 25, 30, 34, 46, 85 Catholic Young Men’s National Union, 34–35 Catholicism and American Freedom (McGreevy), 10 Catholics and Catholicism in Amer­i­ca, 1–15; American history and nation, Catholic claims on role in, 2–5, 19–20, 145–47 (See also American history and nation, Catholic claims on role in); Americanism and Americanist heresy, 7–8, 56, 64–65, 97, 116; anti-­Protestantism of, 1–2 (see also anti-­Protestantism); conversion efforts of, 3, 54, 64, 105; freedom, Catholic view of, 10, 121; imperialism/colonialism and, 5–6, 8, 13–14, 41, 46–48, 73–77 (see also Philippines, colonization of; western missions); largest denomination in Amer­i­ca by 1890, 2, 66, 94, 139, 170–71n4; laypeople, contributions of, 7–8, 12 (see also specific laypeople); liberal and conservative Catholics, 6–7, 152n35; outsider narrative of, 2, 3–4, 7, 9, 146; previous scholarship on, 8–10; race and whiteness, engagement with, 6, 9, 13–14, 63, 99 (see also racial issues); relations between Catholics and Protestants, 9, 145–47; religious toleration and, 8–9; time period covered by, 10–11; tri-­faith public sphere, forging of, 15, 133, 146–47. See also anti-­Catholicism; Columbian Catholic Congress; immigration; World’s Columbian Exposition Central-­Verein of North Amer­i­ca, 100 chaplaincies in US army, 4, 19, 73, 87, 118 Chase, Samuel, 95 Chicago World’s Fair (1893). See Columbian Catholic Congress; World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago Chinese immigrants, 98, 99, 110, 111 Chippewas, 28 Christ. See Jesus Christ Christie, Alexander, 127 The Church and the Age (Hecker, 1888), 69, 70–71, 72

I n d e x Civil War: chaplains in, 4; demonstrations of Catholic loyalty during, 17, 61; Protestantism viewed as root cause of, 149n11 La Civiltà Cattolica, 136 Clarke, Richard H., 52 Cleary, James F., 12 Cleveland, Grover, 46 Collins, W. Russell, 121–22 colonialism/imperialism, American Catholic approach to, 5–6, 8, 13–14, 41, 46–48, 73–77. See also Philippines, colonization of; western missions Colored Catholic Congresses, 59–60 Columbian Catholic Congress (1893), 11–12, 40–62; American history and nation, Catholic role in, 5, 49–50, 53, 61–62, 145, 165n26; Columbus’s memory, appropriateness of Catholic cele­bration of, 55–57; concurrent Catholic meetings, 162–63n62; Congress of Catholic ­Women and, 58–59; Congress of Colored Catholics and, 59–60; on education, 57, 60, 61, 118, 176n21; on immigration, 57, 100, 107–8, 109, 110; Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum, 57, 60; location of, 58; modernism and, 96–97; non-­Catholic world, relations with, 55, 57–58, 60, 61; opening day, 60–61; planning and goals, 50–53; post-­congress breakout sessions, 58; representatives, timing, pre­sen­ta­tions, and subject ­matter, 57, 58; resolutions promulgated at, 61–62, 172n27; Vatican and, 53, 61–62; western missions discussed at, 31, 41, 57; World’s Parliament of Religions and, 12, 49, 53–55 Columbus, Christopher, 11, 43–44, 49, 53, 55–57, 107–8 Congregationalists and Congregationalism, 19, 154n8 Congress of Catholic ­Women (1893), 58–59 conservative Catholicism, 6–7, 56, 88, 116, 145 conversions to Catholicism, 3, 54, 64, 105 Conway, Katherine E., 7, 59 Coo­lidge, Calvin, 127 Cooney, Peter, 4–5 Cooper, John M., 130 Corrigan, Michael, 6, 56, 116 Cowley, H. T., 25 Crane, Winthrop Murray, 120, 121 Cronin, Patrick, 5 Crosby, J. J., 129 Cuba, 36, 48, 83, 87 Cummings, Kathleen Sprows, 59 Curley, Michael J., 37, 126–27 Curtis, Finbarr, 87

201

Daily, Thomas J., 100 Dallas, A. L., 20 The Damnation of Theron Ware (Frederic, 1896), 144–45, 147 De Kalb, Johann, 3 De La Salle Institute, Chicago, 118 Declaration of In­de­pen­dence, 99, 132 Delano, Columbus, 28 Demo­cratic Party, 65, 103, 113, 114, 115, 120, 130, 133, 142, 143. See also Smith, Al Dillingham Commission, 15 Donlon, ­Father, 120 Donnelly, Charles F., 103, 173n43 Donnelly, Eleanor C., 59 Dougherty, Daniel, 52 Dougherty, Dennis, Cardinal: Americanism of, 8; Philippines, colonization of, 89–90, 129, 180n79; Al Smith’s presidential candidacy and, 134–37, 139–40; on western missions, 37 Doyle, Alexander, 74, 76, 91 Doyle, David Noel, 152n35 Drexel, Katharine, 45 Earle, E. Lyell, 109–10 Edmond, C. R., 83 education: anti-­Catholicism and, 115, 117–20, 122–28; Catholic history of, 127; at Columbian Catholic Congress, 57, 60, 61, 118, 176n21; of immigrants, 83–84; immigration and, 83–84, 100; Michigan school bills (1920, 1924), 177n35; Native American schools (see western missions); Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922, 15, 115, 117, 122–28, 130; Philippines, colonization of, 75, 81, 83, 85–87, 89–91; public schools, Bible use and prayer in, 123; in Puerto Rican public schools, 139–40; quality of Catholic education, concerns about, 119–20, 176n21; ranking of Catholic colleges by US commissioner of education, 119–20; textbooks, 168n87; World’s Columbian Exposition, Catholic Education exhibit at, 60, 114. See also parochial schools; specific Catholic colleges Eigh­teenth Amendment, 15, 138 Elder, Mary Theresa, 7, 101–2 Elder, William Henry, 101 elections and voting, 15, 36, 51, 62, 83, 103. See also Demo­cratic Party; Republican Party; Smith, Al Elliott, Walter, 41 Ellis, John Tracy, 87 ­England, John, 96

20 2 I n d e x

Ensign, William F., 21 Episcopalians and Episcopalianism, 4, 8, 19, 22, 32, 64, 90, 101, 121, 131, 137, 154n8 Erni, Helene M., 74 Eufaula, Catholic/Methodist cele­brations in, 42 Ewing, Charles B., 8, 22–33, 40, 41, 45 extraterritorial expansion. See Philippines, colonization of Faribault, Minnesota, Catholics in, 101 Faust, A. J., 59 federal government. See US government, Catholic relations with Feehan, Patrick, 50, 54, 57, 60 Feeney, Leonard, 140–41 Fenton, Elizabeth, 69 Fenwick, Benedict Joseph, 8–9 First Vatican Council, 64 Fitzgerald, John J., 122 Fitzmaurice, Edmond J., 139 Flatheads, 27 Flower, Ros­well P., 56 Foote, Peter, 143 Foster, John W., 53 ­Fourteenth Amendment, 122 Francis, Dominic, 137–38 Franklin, Benjamin, 95 Franklin, Laurence, 109 Frederic, Harold, The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896), 144–45, 147 freedom, Catholic view of, 10, 121 freedom of religion. See religious liberty Freemasonry, 89–90, 124–26 Frey, Joseph, 100 Friends. See Quakers and Quakerism Fuerstenberg, M. M., 43–44 Fulton, Justin D., 55 Gallagher, James, 121 Gallivan, James, 121–22 Gans, E. H., 61 Garfield, James A., assassination of, 1 Gasson, ­Father, 120 gender issues, 71–72, 115, 164n5. See also ­women German Americans: ­later waves of immigration and, 95, 98, 100; whiteness acquired by, 64–66 Gibbons, James, Cardinal: advancement of Catholicity attributed to, 3, 8; Americanism of, 6, 8, 116, 126; at Columbian Catholic Congress, 53–55, 173n36; on immigration, 95–96, 97, 106, 110; on

parochial schools, 117–18; Philippines, on colonization of, 87, 88; Al Smith compared, 116; on western missions, 36, 37 Gilded Age, American Catholics in. See Catholics and Catholicism in Amer­ic­ a Ginzberg, Lori D., 105 Giorda, Joseph, 27–28 Gjerde, Jon, 69, 98, 102 Gleason, Philip, 8, 116, 117 Gonzaga College, 120 Good Shepherd, Sisterhood of the, 129–30 government. See US government, Catholic relations with Grace, Thomas L., 22, 101 Grant, Ulysses S., 10, 17–20, 25, 26, 30, 46 Greenberg, Amy S., 163n2 Griffin, Martin I. J., 119 Guardians of Liberty, 125, 142 Guiteau, Charles J., 1 Guttermans, J. P., 89 Halsey, William, 116 Harding, Warren G., 127 Harper’s Weekly, 65–68, 67, 68, 72, 90, 92 Harrison, Benjamin, 34, 36, 53 Harvard University, 119 Hawaii, Japa­nese population of, 75 Hay, John, 87 Hayes, Patrick J.., 37 Hecker, Isaac: Americanism of, 6, 8, 12, 69–72, 75, 92, 116, 127, 134, 141; Aspirations of Nature (1857), 70; biography and ­career, 63–66; The Church and the Age (1888), 69, 70–71, 72; on Garfield assassination, 1–2; modernist Catholics influenced by, 97; on public schools, 89; Questions of the Soul (1855), 69–70; western missions and, 41, 46. See also Catholic World Hewitt, Abraham F., 72 Holy Cross College, 119 Hoover, Herbert, 130–31, 135–36, 140–41, 181n96 Horstmann, Ignatius, 6 Hutchins (Indian agent), 27 Hutchison, William R., 97 immigration, 6, 14–15, 93–112; American Catholic Congress (1889) and, 50–51; American history and nation, Catholic role in, 93–97, 99, 106–7, 112; anti-­ Catholicism and, 68–69, 83–84, 105; assimilationist approach to, 99–101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 112; Catholicism as largest

I n d e x denomination in Amer­i­ca by 1890 and, 94, 170–71n4; colonies for immigrants, 101–3, 114; at Columbian Catholic Congress, 57, 100, 107–8, 109, 110; education and, 83–84, 100; Hecker’s immigrant story, 63–66; missions and aid socie­ties, 100, 103–5; Philippines, colonization of, 13, 63, 83–84; Protestant-­ Catholic power contest and, 94, 98–102, 105; racial/ethnic issues, 13–14, 63, 98–101, 105, 107–9, 110, 111; regulation of, 105–6, 110–12; statistics, 1850–1890, 98; urban life, fears about dangers of, 93, 101–2, 103–4, 108 Immigration Act of 1924, 15, 112 Imoda, J. C., 21 imperialism/colonialism, American Catholic approach to, 5–6, 8, 13–14, 41, 46–48, 73–77. See also Philippines, colonization of; western missions Indian Advocate, 44 Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, 24 Indian Sentinel, 37 Indians. See western missions; specific communities intellectual revival in Catholic theology, 116–17 Ionvenceau, Antoine, 20 Ireland, John: advancement of Catholicity attributed to, 3, 8; Americanism of, 6, 8, 116; Columbian Catholic Congress and, 51–52, 53, 56, 110, 163n71; on immigration, 96, 101, 102, 106, 110, 114; Philippines, colonization of, 83, 87, 88; Al Smith compared, 116; on western missions, 34 Irish Americans: Anglo-­Americanism resisted by, 71, 94; Italian immigrants, Irish-­Americanization of, 107–9; ­later waves of immigration and, 95, 98, 100, 110–11; whiteness acquired by, 65, 66, 110 Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, 14, 66, 110–11 Italian immigrants and Italian Americans, 68, 98, 100, 107–9, 110, 111, 135 Jacobson, Matthew Frye, 13–14 Japa­nese population of Hawaii, 75 Jefferson, Thomas, 132 Jenkins, Philip, 38 Jesuits: Catholic colleges, US ranking of, 120; Oregon school law controversy and, 125; in Philippines, 74, 92; Protestant distrust of, 38, 158n81; Al Smith presidential run

203

and, 136, 140, 143; western missions and, 21, 22, 27, 35, 38–39 Jesus Christ: Al Smith portrayed as Christ figure, 132, 140; as white/first colonizer, 76 Jews and Judaism: immigrants, Jewish, 98, 105, 109, 110, 111; tri-­faith public sphere, forging of, 15, 133, 146 Kaiser, Augustus, 109 Kazin, Michael, 125 Keane, John J., 3, 6, 54, 116, 173n43 Kennedy, John F., 142, 146 Kenny, Michael, 125–26 Kerrish, William E., 141 Ketcham, William H., 36, 42, 48 Kipling, Rudyard, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899), 167n62 Knauf, C. J., 53 Knights of Luther, 125 Know-­Nothing movement, 128, 142 Kramer, Paul A., 151–52n33, 159n106 Krebsbach, Suzanne, 59 Ku Klux Klan, 15, 113, 115, 124, 129, 132–33, 136, 140–43, 146 Lamy, Jean-­Baptiste, 23–24, 26 Lateran Pacts (1929), 141 Lathrop, George Parsons, 165n26 Lears, Jackson, 72 Leo XIII (pope), 8, 57, 60, 65, 97, 116 liberal Catholicism, 6–7, 50, 56, 72, 87–88, 96–97, 114, 116, 145, 152n35 Lichtman, Allan J., 130 Lindesmith, Eli Washington John, 19 Liptak, Dolores Ann, 153n36 Lischka, Charles N., 126 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis (1904), 83 Luther, Martin, 1–2 Lutherans and Lutheranism, 19, 64, 124, 177n35 Lynch, Bernard, 107, 108, 109 Maas, A. J., 120 MacGinley, John, 89 Maes, Camillus Paul, 106–7 Maher, James P., 121 Manifest Destiny, 5–6, 41, 75 Manley, D., 34, 35, 39, 46 Marshall, Charles C., 131, 140 Martínez, Anne M., 44, 135 Marty, Martin, 39–40, 47 Mary­land Catholics, 8, 52

20 4 I n d e x

masculinity and gender issues, 71–72, 115, 164n5 Masons and Masonry, 89–90, 124–26 Maurelian, ­Brother, 60 McArny, W. F., 26 McAvoy, Thomas T., 6–8, 72, 95, 151n32 McCaffrey, John, 8 McClay, Wilfred M., 171n5 McCullough, Matthew, 17 McDermot, George, 76 McDevitt, Philip Richard, 130, 138 McDonnell, E. De L., 120 McGolrick, James, 31 McGreevy, John T., 10 McGuckin, William, 139 McKenna, Rebecca Tinio, 80 McKinley, William, 73, 83, 84 McQuaid, John Bernard, 6, 116 McReynolds, James, 122, 123, 126 Meagher, James L., 3 Meerschaert, Theophile, 42, 43 Menace (newspaper), 121, 122, 125 Mennonites, 19, 101 Methodists and Methodism: Civil War chaplains, 4; in Frederic’s Damnation of Theron Ware, 144, 145; immigration and, 102; Philippines, colonization of, 66, 83, 85, 90; Al Smith presidential campaign and, 137, 138, 181n96; western missions and, 21, 23–24, 42, 45, 154n8 Mexican-­American War, 163n2 Mexico, 43, 135 Michigan school bills (1920, 1924), 177n35 Miles, Nelson A., 19 Minahan, Thomas B., 114 Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary, ­Castle Garden, 103–4 modernism and modernist heresy, 64–65, 96–97, 109–10, 116, 145 Moloney, Deirdre M., 12, 174n63 Monk, Maria, Awful Disclosures of the H ­ otel Dieu Nunnery (1836), 9, 129 Monteith, John B., 25 Mormons and Mormonism, 4, 101, 102 Morrissey, Andrew, 81–83 Morton, Levi P., 56 Mrak, Ignatius, 23 Muldoon, P. J., 60 Mullaney, John F., 100 Murphy, John, 36 Nast, Thomas: “No Church Need Apply,” 67, 68; “The American River Gan­ges,” 67

National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC), 122–26, 128, 129, 177n31 nationalism: Catholic participation in, 6, 7, 10, 11, 65; Christian nationalism, concept of, 17; defined, 149–50n13; Protestant-­ Catholic power contest and forging of, 94 Native Americans. See western missions; specific communities nativism, 4, 9, 19, 21, 84, 89, 105, 106, 110, 112, 146, 164n5 N.C.W.C. Bulletin, 126 “new ­woman” movement, 59 New York Herald, 65, 66 New York Times, 74 newspapers, anti-­Catholic, attempts at banning, 121–22 Nez Perce, 25 Nilan, John J., 130 “No Popery”/“Know Popery,” 57–58 Nordstrom, Justin, 104, 105 Notre Dame, University of, 81–83 Nylander, Philip K., 75, 90 O’Connell, Maurice D., 87 O’Connell, William, Cardinal, 131 O’Farrell, John, 24–25 Office of Indian Affairs/Indian Office, 18–19, 25, 29–30, 33–35, 37, 38, 46, 154n8 O’Gorman, Thomas, 91 O’Keeffe, Henry E., 75–76 Onahan, William James, 7, 50, 52, 55, 57, 58 Orangemen lodges, 124 Oregon: Catholic Truth Society in, 127–28; Compulsory Education Act of 1922, 15, 115, 117, 122–28, 130 Orsi, Robert A, 94, 108 Osages, 25–26, 45–46 O’Shea, John J., 55–56 Palladino, Lawrence Benedict, 35, 37–40 papal infallibility, doctrine of, 7, 64, 67, 68 parochial schools: episcopal promotion of, 117–19; growth of, by 1920, 124; Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922 and, 15, 115, 117, 122–28, 130; public funding for, ­battles over, 46, 66–67, 67, 68, 89; quality of education at, concerns about, 119 Parsons, Wilfrid, 143 Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), 97 Paulists, 41, 46, 64, 66, 73–76 Peace Policy of Ulysses S. Grant, 10, 17–20, 30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 46, 85 Philippine-­American War, 13, 48

I n d e x Philippines, colonization of, 5–6, 11, 13–14, 63–92; administration, Catholic involvement in, 80–83, 91; American history and nation, Catholic role in, 63–64, 92; anti-­Catholic bias and maintenance of Catholic hegemony, concerns over, 84–92, 129, 136–37; anti-­Protestantism of Catholics regarding, 48, 73–74, 84–92; assumptions of Filipino Catholic loyalty, 74, 77, 89; education issues, 75, 81, 83, 85–87, 89–91; immigration from Philippines, 13, 63, 83–84; Protestant missions, 36; racial attitudes ­toward native Filipinos, 73–80, 78–80, 83; religious debates in Amer­i­ca, in context of, 63–73; responses of Catholic clerics and intellectuals to, 73–80; Spanish-­American War, 13, 14, 48, 73, 152n35; western missions and, 17, 36, 40, 46–48, 74, 85 Pierce v. Society of ­Sisters (US Supreme Court, 1925), 122–23, 126, 127 Pi­lot (Boston), 14, 83, 152n35 Pittsburgh Catholic, 141 Pius IX (pope), 64, 67, 68 Pius X (pope), 87, 97 Porter, John Biddle, 91 Portier, William L., 69 Pottawatomies, 31–32 Pratt, Richard Henry, 84 Prendergast, Edmond F., 36 Presbyterians and Presbyterianism, 4, 19, 23, 25, 32, 38, 47, 90, 154n8 Preston, Andrew, 152n33 Price, Hiram, 29 Prindiville, Kathryn, 58 Progressive Era, American Catholics in. See Catholics and Catholicism in Amer­i­ca Prohibition, 15, 140, 141, 142 Propaganda Fide, 3, 30, 41 Prucha, Francis Paul, 11, 35–36, 151n28 Pueblos, 23–24, 26 Puerto Rico, 36, 48, 84, 87 Puritans, 8, 52, 66, 99 Quakers and Quakerism (Society of Friends), 18–19, 25, 31, 32, 130, 131, 165n8 Questions of the Soul (Hecker, 1855), 69–70 Quigley, H., 26–27, 28 racial issues: African Americans, 33, 37, 59–60; Anglo-­Americanism resisted by Irish Americans, 71, 94; Catholic engagement with whiteness and race, 6,

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9, 13–14, 63, 99; Filipinos, attitudes t­ oward, 73–80, 78–80, 83; Hecker’s Catholicized theory of American national/racial formation, 71–72; immigration and new ethnic communities, 13–14, 63, 98–101, 105, 107–9, 110, 111; Italian immigrants, racialization of, 107–9, 110, 111; non-­Anglo Eu­ro­pe­ans, racial status of, 65–66, 110; Progressive-­ era racial categorization, 109; white Jesus imagery, 76 racial science/scientific racism, 6, 15 Rampolla del Tindaro, Mariano, Cardinal, 53 Reconstruction, as western phenomenon, 18 Red Scare, 118 Reed, Rebecca, 129 religious liberty: Catholic claims on foundation of, 8–9, 41, 95; malleability of rhe­toric regarding, 87; Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922 and, 124; separation of church and state, 8, 17, 69, 86, 91, 132–34, 165n26; western missions, administration of, 16–17, 28, 29, 31 Republican Party, 113, 130, 133–36, 143 Rerum Novarum (1891), 57 ressourcement, 182n6 Reuter, Frank, 73 Richardson, Heather Cox, 18 Riordan, John, 103–4 Riordan, M. J., 76, 167n60 Ripley, George, 64 Roche, James Jeffrey, 14, 83 Rochester Catholic Journal, 55, 138, 181n96 Roo­se­velt, Franklin, 142 Roo­se­velt, Theodore, 83, 86, 87–88, 91, 114, 115 Root, Elihu, 88, 91 Rudd, Daniel A., 51, 52, 59 Ryan, James H., 126 Ryan, Patrick John, 57–58, 108, 111, 114 Rydell, Robert, 49 Sabbath observance, 99, 172n27 Sacred Heart Mission, Oklahoma Territory, 22, 43–45, 47 Sacred Heart Review (Boston), 85, 91–92 Satolli, Francesco, 61–62 schools and schooling. See education Schultz, Kevin M., 133, 146 Second Vatican Council, 146–47, 182n6 Sedgwick, Ellery, 116 separation of church and state, 8, 17, 69, 86, 91, 132–34, 165n26 separatism, Catholic, 4, 50, 101, 112, 142

20 6 I n d e x

Shahan, Thomas J., 124 Shane, Charleson, 74 Shannon, James P., 102 Sherman, Rachel Ewing, 7, 30, 32 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 1, 28 Sievers, Harry J., 36 Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd, 129–30 Sitting Bull expedition, 19 Smith, Al, presidential candidacy of, 7, 10, 15, 113–16, 130–43 Smith, Anthony D., 146 Smith, Charles M., 128 Smith, James F., 91, 114 Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian ­Children, 37 Society of Friends. See Quakers and Quakerism Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Society of ­Sisters, 122–23, 126, 127 Sons of the American Revolution, 19 Spalding, John Lancaster, 60, 101, 114 Spanish-­American War, 13, 14, 48, 73, 152n35 Spaunhorst, Henry J., 51, 52 Special Sorrows ( Jacobson), 13–14 Spencer, James, 59 spirit[ual]ism, 2, 92 St. Catherine of Genoa, 71 St. Louis World’s Fair (1904), 83 Stephan, J. A., 48 Street, Oliver D., 134–36 ­Sullivan, Henry D., 83 Sunday observance, 99, 172n27 Supreme Court, US, 122–23, 126, 127, 132 Sweeney, Helen, 109 Taft, William Howard, 86–87, 88, 91, 120 Teller, Henry M., 35 Tentler, Leslie Woodcock, 146 Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae (1899), 97, 116 Thomism, resurgence of, 116–17 Timmons, J. A., 119 Toomy, Alice Timmons, 7, 58–59 Transcendentalism, 63, 64 tri-­faith public sphere, forging of, 15, 133, 146–47 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 41–42 Unitarians and Unitarianism, 2, 19, 64, 154n8 US army, chaplaincies in, 4, 19, 73, 87, 118 US government, Catholic relations with: anti-­Catholic fears of Catholic efforts to control government, 55, 62; Philippines, colonization of, 84–92; ranking of Catholic colleges by US commissioner of

education, 119–20; Theodore Roo­se­velt administration, 87–88, 91; Vatican, US relations with, 87–88, 91, 114. See also voting and elections; western missions; specific US presidents US history and nation. See American history and nation, Catholic claims on role in US Supreme Court, 122–23, 126, 127, 132 Vatican: Columbian Catholic Congress and, 53, 61–62; Italian Americans and, 108; Lateran Pacts (1929), 141; Propaganda Fide, 3, 30, 41; US relations with, 87–88, 91, 114 Vatican I, 64 Vatican II, 146–47, 182n6 Vest, George, 38–39, 40 Volstead Act, 15, 138, 141 voting and elections, 15, 36, 51, 62, 83, 103. See also Demo­cratic Party; Republican Party; Smith, Al Walker, Francis Amasa, 25 Washington, George, 127 Watson, Tom, 125, 129–30 western missions, 5–6, 10–11, 16–48, 145; American history and nation, Catholic claims on, 41–45; anti-­Catholic bias attributed to federal officials and Protestant denominations, 16–17, 20–28, 30–32, 34, 35, 45–46; anti-­Protestantism of Catholics on, 20, 23, 36–37, 41–43; assimilation/Americanization of Native Americans as aim of, 17, 37–42, 46–47, 48; BCIM (Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions), 11, 17, 21, 23, 28–29, 33–34, 36–38, 41, 48, 85; Catholic ac­cep­tance of overall federal policy, 19–20, 27–28, 29–30, 46; Catholic donations to, 32–33, 36–37, 45; Catholic Indian Missionary Association, 33; Catholic publicity about, 45–46; at Columbian Catholic Congress, 31, 41, 57; corruption of federal system, Catholic charges of, 31; federal collaboration with Christian denominations, 11, 17–19, 154n8; federal rejection of Catholic claims regarding, 28, 34–35; Grant’s Peace Policy regarding, 10, 17–20, 30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 46, 85; history of Catholic involvement in, 21–22; infantilization of Native Americans and, 18, 26, 39, 40, 47; Native American Catholics and, 20, 23–27, 30–32; Office of Indian Affairs/Indian Office, 18–19, 25, 29–30, 33–35, 37, 38, 46, 154n8; Philip-

I n d e x pines, colonization of, 17, 36, 40, 46–48, 74, 85; religious liberty and administration of, 16–17, 28, 29, 31; removal of Native American c­ hildren from their families, 39–40; secular education, government/ Protestant move t­ owards and Catholic re­sis­tance of, 35–39, 41 Whipple, Henry Benjamin, 22 White, Richard, 18 White City (Chicago World’s Fair, 1893). See Columbian Catholic Congress; World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago “The White Man’s Burden” (Kipling, 1899), 167n62 whiteness and race. See racial issues Wiebe, Robert, 101 Willebrandt, Mabel Walker, 140, 181n96 Wilson, Woodrow, 120, 127 ­women: anti-­Catholic views on threats to virtue of, 9, 104, 129–30; Catholic Indian Missionary Association and, 33; at Columbian Catholic Congress, 58; Congress of Catholic ­Women, 58–59; CWNL (Catholic ­Women’s National League), 58; Filipino ­women, US Catholic

207

views of, 77, 79, 80; Hecker on Protestant treatment of, 71; immigrant ­women, fears about vulnerability of, 93, 103–4; “new ­woman” movement, 59; Philippines, colonization of, 83; as Protestant missionaries, 26–27; Protestant ­women social reformers, activities of, 105; Al Smith presidential campaign and, 135; western missions, education of Native American girls at, 38–39 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago (1893), 11–12, 49; Catholic Education Exhibit at, 60, 114; critics of Catholic participation in, 55; Frederick Jackson Turner’s address to American Historical Association at, 41–42. See also Columbian Catholic Congress; World’s Parliament of Religions World’s Fair, St. Louis (1904), 83 World’s Parliament of Religions, 12, 49, 53–55 Wynne, John, 92, 114 Young Catholic Messenger, 56–57 Zolberg, Aristide, 105