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The Father
Mathew Man
No. 4
August 1923
Publisher: Miss Alida H. O'Connor, Room 640—136 W. Lake Street, Chicago, Ill.
We Are Dry As Dust
Monthly, 25 cts. per year. Club of 7 subscriptions, $1.00. Special rates on application.
Entered as post office at Chicago, Ill., under the act of March 3, 1879.
WHERE WE STAND
The Father Mathew Man stands for purity in politics, whether politics be city or country, state or nation. It will not tolerate — for it is intolerant — any Catholic as a candidate for any position, Mayor, Governor or President, unless that Catholic candidate be 100 per cent dry.
The Father Mathew Man is not a temperance paper. The United States is not a temperance country. Our Constitution is not a temperance Constitution. The Father Mathew Man is a prohibition paper — dry as dust. The desert of Sahara is not dry enough if there are any wet Americans in the desert. Better a dry Sahara than a wet United States.
Better a thousand times that Americans should stand up straight and sober in the desert, like the saintly monks of drunk, like some American politicians.
The Father Mathew Man is helping to make public opinion, and to make good American Catholics better Americans and better Catholics. We stand for law and order in Church and State. We expect no mercy and give none. In military training men are ordered to hold the head up, the chest out, and the stomach in. The Father Mathew Man objects to the brain, or standing in the way of the public good or the Constitution.
We prefer a sober Italian or German or Irish Catholic in our beloved country to a drunken American. My country right or wrong, is not sound; but my country right and law-abiding; a people loyal and united.
The Father Mathew Man heartily congratulates the President of the United States for taking the total abstinence pledge, as an example to his people. It was a proud day for him and for us. We have had Presidents, no doubt, who got drunk; but we were never proud of their drunkenness.
Moreover, the Father Mathew Man will vote for the candidate who does not drink light wine or beer, rather than for the man who does. Nothing but drink, Governor, can make you or your people drunk; why not do away with drink as well as with drinking places. "Lead us not into temptation."
The Pope of Rome and the President of the United States are on our mailing list. We reach the best American homes and the worst. We strive to make poor homes rich, bad homes good, and good homes better.
FROM FRANCE
The prejudice rooted in the centuries that wine is not wine unless fermented, is receiving serious jolts in France. Dr. Legrain arranged a grape and apple growers' congress at which the total abstaining Dr. Roux, discoverer of the Pasteur Institute, and others, explained how Pasteur has demonstrated that fermentation is a process of destruction and decay, and that the nourishing substances destroyed by fermentation, ought to be saved up in the shape of juices and jellies, and marketed in northern prohibition countries. Abbé Pasdeloup, editor of La Croix d'Or, was an active member of the congress.
PROHIBITION AND PATRIOTISM
Father Payne, pastor of St. Mary's Church, Auburn, N. Y., and one of the best priests in the diocese of Rochester, says:
"People have been accustomed to think that prohibition was something quasi-religious, and that it is only fostered by fanatics. Whatever it has been in the past it is now a question of pure patriotism. It is stirring up all our loyal citizens without regard to creed, color or condition. The liquor business is just a colossal economic waste. We safe not only going to make the world to make it safe for decency."