Roman Senator

Through the Protestant South last week, in a private car such as would have befitted a prince of state or finance, moved a prince of the Roman Catholic Church--Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes, 63, archbishop of New York.

Escorted by an appropriate retinue-- which included, of course, his close friend George MacDonald, papal marquis and prime lay promoter of affairs Roman Catholic in the U. S.--His happy Eminence had passed three weeks on the Gulf Coast to recuperate from influenza. Passing out of Baptist Mississippi into Roman Catholic Louisiana, he had made a bit of news at New Orleans by commenting on the Business Depression as follows: "The American People are experiencing a return to religion following a period of carelessness and cynicism marked by the prosperity of the land. . . . Now they are returning when they find they are in need of something greater than the material in facing adversity and stress."

The main purpose of the cardinal's journey was accomplished at San Antonio: his presiding at the bicentenary celebration of the founding of the city's civil government by some Canary Islanders in 1731. He conducted a pontifical high mass on the Military Plaza behind San Fernando Cathedral. Down amongst the 15,000 worshippers crashed a heavy palm frond but, perhaps miraculously, only six people were slightly injured. Hundreds of the faithful came to kiss the cardinal's ring, receive his blessing.

It was after leaving San Antonio that the unforeseen, the history-making climax of the cardinal's tour took place. From the Texas legislature had come a unanimous invitation to address the Texas Senate! True, in Texas as in Louisiana, Roman Catholics form the largest single denomination.* Memories of the early Mission Fathers underlie the Baptist and Methodist culture. But Texas voted against Alfred Emanuel Smith in 1928. And never before in history has a Prince of Rome been asked to address a State legislative body in the South. The affecting nature of these facts was clearly reflected upon Cardinal Hayes's face when Lieut.-Governor Edward Witt (a Baptist) conducted the State's guest to the chair of the President of the Senate. The cardinal's mental and emotional condition was further revealed and transmitted to his audience when he began a speech which at times, swelling with contagious exaltation, brimmed over. Ordinarily a clear, cool, contained speechmaker, Cardinal Hayes said:

". . . I am overcome, I am overwhelmed. In fact, I am embarrassed with appreciation to realize that I am here on the unanimous invitation of this noble Senate. When I received the resolution and read it I could hardly believe my own eyes! Could hardly be convinced that it could be true! . . .

"It seems so much to me because it means much to our beloved country, to have the Senate of Texas ask me, a Catholic Bishop, the highest, less one, position in the Church, to come here and address you! It is pregnant with benediction, with inspiration, to this entire country! . . .

"I am glad to hear that I have been asked to come here not only as a citizen but also as a churchman for the work that I have done for the Church here in America.

"You know, also, I am a senator, I am a member of an old, ancient senate, a senate that has been at work for a thousand years, a senate that has driven, that has prayed, that has worked and used its influence toward the civilization of the Christian world.

"And I am so proud that I sit in the senate of the church as a cardinal, a senate of 70 members from all parts of the world, and when I sit there as a cardinal, under my cardinal's robe is a heart that pulsates with the highest sentiments of gratitude to the almighty God that I am at the same time an American citizen!

"When I look around me and see the distinguished representatives of various countries throughout the world, all senators like myself, my pride rises the greater, my heart throbs the faster, when I think that God, in His providence, designed to have me born under the Stars and Stripes.

"And so I am quite conscious of this great dignity, of this great honor you do me. I know the background of a senate chamber. I know that the members of this body realize what it is to be a senator, when you go back and understand and recall what a senate was in ancient Rome. . . . When the barbarians entered Rome and saw the senate in session they thought first of all that they were simply nothing alive, but statues in marble, so dignified were they.

"Even as the senate of ancient Rome, so those of other senates were elected by the people and by them authorized to legislate for the welfare of mankind, and that is what you do when you legislate for your own people. So therefore I may say sincerely that I am very glad to be here. . . .

"I was born very humble and, I may say, of poor people. I have never forgotten it and I shall never forget it, and when I realized that I was in a position where I might serve the poor, the suffering, those in need, that I might make them conscious of our common Father, even now I feel that there was an obligation to do so. There is a great consolation and a great reward, Mr. Senator, that you have referred to my work for the poor.

"These blue bonnets blooming around Austin, these beautiful decorations in honor of me, when I look upon them I feel from what I have experienced from the people of Texas that you have your own valuation of this state flower in the legislative halls of Texas.

"This work of legislation might be likened to a flower, not only those flowers that grow here under your Texas sun, but you might have a flower which is the purest, the most beautiful of all flowers, the flower of charity, the flower which indicates we love our fellowman.

". . . I am not here altogether because of this great State's Senate preparing a resolution asking me to come here, much as I enjoy to be here; not because of the urging of the archbishop of San Antonio, or even of the distinguished bishops there and other places. It was because of the womanhood of Texas!

"The invitation which I received from the women of San Antonio was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. When I saw the Lone Star of Texas on it, when I opened it up and saw it portraying the glory of this state and the city of San Antonio, when I saw the seal and the picture of the Alamo, how could I refuse!

"And that document had the added dignity to it of bearing the signature of the governor of the state of Texas, the seal of Texas, also the seal of the Senate. I could not resist it!"

* In the Federal religious census for 1926, Texas had: 555,899 Roman Catholics; 465,274 Southern Baptists; 380,453 Southern Methodists.

In Louisiana: 587,946 Roman Catholics; 132,743 Negro Baptists; 117,220 Southern Baptists.

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