America for Americans! | Page 8

can have no
temporal popes here. [Applause and laughter.] So we say to our
countrymen that come from dear old Ireland, the best country in the
world to emigrate from, [laughter], to the Italian, to the Spaniard, to the
German, you may belong to the church of the spiritual pontiff but you
must renounce all allegiance to temporal pontiffs. I hold that under our
laws of naturalization, that it is the duty of every cardinal, every
archbishop, every bishop, and every priest, every monk, Franciscan or
Jesuit, to solemnly renounce before God and the holy angels, all
political allegiance to the Pope as a temporal prince, who to-day is
seeking to re-establish diplomatic relations with England and other
European nations in recognition of his temporal sovereignty.

And he is a true American citizen, whether foreign-born or native-born,
who maintains, as an American institution, the Holy Sabbath-day. He
can call it Sunday, after the old pagan god, but he must rest on the
seventh day, rest from toil, rest in the interest of the dignity of labor,
rest as discount upon capital, rest for intelligence, rest for compensation,
rest for domestic happiness, rest for pious culture. The seventh day of
every week should be consecrated to cessation from labor and devoted
to physical and mental repose. It should not be a day of recreation to be
spent in riotous living and in brawls, but a day peaceful, in harmony
with the institutions of religion and the dominant sentiment of the
country. Our fathers consecrated the Sabbath, and had you the patience
to hear and I, the time to read from Franklin, from Jefferson, from
Washington, touching the Sabbath, in recognition of it as indispensable
to the welfare of our body politic, you would be confirmed in this great
truth. The danger to-day is that we are becoming un-American in
cutting loose from the Sabbath-day as a day of rest and of worship. I
cannot invoke the civil law to do more than to say that it shall be a day
of rest. I cannot invoke the civil law to say that that man shall worship
here or worship there, or worship at all, but I can invoke the civil law to
say that it shall be a non-secular day; not a day for the transaction of
business, but a day on which the laboring man shall walk out under
God's free skies and say: This is my day, the day of a freeman.
[Applause.] The tendency is to transplant a European Sabbath here; the
German with his lager, and the Frenchman with his wine, and the
Irishman with his shillalah. [Laughter.] No, no, gentlemen, stay on the
other side of the great deep. We don't want these things or this day on
this side of the broad Atlantic.
There is another attribute that belongs to the true American citizen--the
recognition of Christianity as the religion of our country. Webster, our
greatest expounder of constitutional law, did not hesitate to declare that
Christianity--not Methodist Christianity, not Roman Catholic
Christianity, not Presbyterian Christianity--but Christianity as taught by
the four Evangelists, is the recognized religion of this land. Recognized
how far? So far that its ethics shall be embodied in our constitutional
and statutory law; so far that its teachings of the brotherhood of
mankind shall be accepted; so far that its lessons of fraternity, equality,

justice; and mercy shall be incorporated in the law of society. Those
beautiful moralities that fell from the lips of the divine Son of God
have been incorporated in the laws of the land, and that with few
exceptions. Our chaplains for the army and navy and for Congress are
in recognition of this. On that sacred book the oath of Presidential
responsibility is taken. And this Thanksgiving Day, appointed by the
President, is a monument of proof. These point to Christianity as the
dominant religion of the land, not to the exclusion of the Jew, not to the
exclusion of the Greek, not to the exclusion of the Mohammedan, not
to the exclusion of the Brahmin, but permeating society with its
principles.
Then, citizens, the danger which comes from this foreign population is
to be met in this way, first, to hold that this country is for Americans
who are clothed with these seven attributes.
I do not exaggerate the danger when I remind you that there are great
movements among the peoples of the earth, as never before. Remember
that the population of Europe has increased twenty-seven millions from
1870 to 1880, and at this rate of increase Europe can send to us two
millions of immigrants a year for the next hundred years. Our
foreign-born population is said to be seven millions, and their children
of the first generation would make fifteen millions. In 1882
immigration reached