put upon our national statute books the infamous law providing five
years imprisonment and five thousand dollars fine for the sending
through the mail of information about the prevention of conception. It
is their influence which keeps upon the statute-books of New York
state the infamous law which permits divorce only for infidelity, and
makes it "collusion" if both parties desire the divorce. It is these
societies which, in every city and town in America, are pushing and
plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so that the public may
not have a chance to read scientific books; to get Catholics into the
public schools and on school-boards, so that children may not hear
about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to have Catholics in control of
police and on magistrates benches, so that priests who are caught in
brothels may not be exposed or punished.

You are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but
during a period of "vice raids" in New York I was told by a captain of
police, himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing for them to get
priests in their net. "Of course," the official added, good-naturedly,
"we let them slip out." I understood that he had to do that; for the
Pope, in his "Motu Proprio" decree, has forbidden Catholics to bring a
priest into court for any civil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden
Catholic policemen to arrest, Catholic judges to try, and Catholic
law-makers to make laws affecting any priest of the Church of Rome.
And of course we know, upon the authority of a cardinal, that the Pope
is "the sole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong." He has
held that position for a thousand years and more; and wherever you
consult the police records throughout the thousand years, you find the
same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn to Riley's
"Illustrations of London Life from Original Documents," and I find in
the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose name is considerately