Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/481

Rh AMERICAN 427 AMERICAN course and methods of its early growth, the condi- tions and provocations, if any. which gave it siu-ii a widespread and iiuinerovis following are precisely the xs[wcts which are most hidden, and most dillicult to delerniine. A marked loosening of party ties in 1S!)J, and the hard times and industrial unrest of 1893 undoubtedly assisted the A. I'. A. movement. Its founder, Henry F. Howers, informs the writer that the coming of Monsignor Satolli, i)apal delegate, was the greatest single stimulus the movement re- ceived. Capital was also made out of parochial- school questions, then nmch current in the [)ublic press, the Faribault .system in Minnesota, the Ed- wards law in Illinois, and the Heiuiett law in Wiscon- sin. From Boston a "Committee of One Hundred" flooded the press and the legislatures, from l.SS.s to 1892, with "anti-Komanist" documents. Writing in "The Century .Magazine" for March, 1.S94, the Uev. Washington (iladden tells us that the A. P. A. movement began operations in each locality where it spread by "the furtive distribution of certain documents calculated to engender fear and distrust of the Catholics". t)f these documents there were, he says, two: one purporting to be instructions to Catholics, apparently bearing the signature of eight prelates of the Catholic Church; and the other, the famous "papal bull", or encyclical, calling for the ma.s3acre of the Protestants "on or about the feast of St. Ignatius in the year of our Lord, 1893". The A. P. A. movement began to develop a press early in 1893; and in 1894 seventy A. P. A. weeklies were in existence. Nearly all of these were publications of very limited circulation, few of them printing, ex- cept around election time, more than a thousand copies. They used " plate matter" and kept "stan<l- ing" several columns of reading defamatory of the Catholic Church, such as alleged Jesuit and Cardinal oatlis, "canon law", and a list of luiauthenticated "ipiotations" ascribed to Catholic sources. What Ignatius Donnelly said in the course of his discu.ssion with "Prof." Sims aptly applied to this matter: "I want to say, my friends, that I do not believe in some of the authorities ipioted by the professor [Sims]; I doubt their authenticity. When he comes up here and admits that the A. P. .. organization sent out an encyclical of the Pope that was bogus and published documents which were forgeries, he casts doubt on every tlocument he may produce. False in one thing, fal.se in all". Very naturally, Catholic citizens vigorously opposed the A. P. A., and everj'where had the l)cst of the battle in the open forum. Their press was unremitting in its as- sault upon the new movement. Public meetings and anti-.. P. . lectures and pamphlets were among the means employed. Here and there associatinns were formed for purpo.ses of defence; and in many places the council meetings of the A. P. A. were systematically watched, and lists of the members procured and circulated. I'nder the stress of public discussion the secret movement was at a di.sadvan- tiige, and time and a;^ain A. P. A. leader>4 confessed the desirability of di.scarding their .secret i7iethods and coming out in the open, and also casting aside the intolerant features of their movement. Professor .Johnston, explaining in "The American Encyclopedia of Politics" the failure and sudden col- lapse of the American party after 18.54, says: "The existence of a secret and oath-lx)und party was al- ways an anachronism in an age and a covmtrj' where free jxilitical discussion is assured". This al.so was tnie of the A. P. A. Expressions of disapproval of the Pi.. P. A. were evokea from prominent men in public life, such as dovemor Peck of Wisconsin, (Gov- ernor .Mtgeld of Illinois, Senators Vilas, Hoar, Vest, and Hill, Theodore Roosevelt, and Speaker Hender- son. Democratic conventions, and in some instances Republican conventions, denounced the movement by resolution. The A. P. A. reached its high tide in 1894. President Traynor, in the " North American Keview" (June, 189), says that twenty ineml^ers of the Fifty-fourth Congress (1.89.5-97) were members of the order, and "one hundred were elected by it and went back on it". Traynor also, in this connec- tion refers to the A. P. A. as "so dominant before, and .so insignificant after election". He claimed for it (June, 1.S9U) a memljership of 2,.5(H),0(J0, and threatened that should the old parties refuse to en- dorse its e.s.sential principles, "it is absolutely cer- tain to put up an indcfx^ndent presidential ticket". On the other hand, Profes.sor Walter Sims, at first an A. P. A. lecturer and afterwards the founder of a rival organization, sf)eaking in Minneapolis in 1895, said: "It is a great bugaboo. ., . There is not a membership in the I'nited States of 120,000, but they call it a million". The truth lay somewhere between the calculating boiistfulncss of Traynor and the resentful disparagement of Sims. There is no retison to think that in its palmiest days the A. P. A. could count on its roster of membershi]) over a mil- lion voters. Numerically, it never equalled the old American party of 18.54-.57, which once had five I'nited States senators and twenty-three congress- men wearing its livery. Unlike the Know-N'othing movement, the .. P. A. did not form a distinct [larty. Its |)olitical activity consisted in capturing Republican primaries and con- ventions, and promoting local candidacies. Also unlike the Know-Nothing party, it invite<l and ad- mitted to memlx!rsliip thousands of foreign-born persons. In southeastern Michigan the strongest element in the A. P. A. were Anglo-Canadians; in Milwaukee, the (lennans |)redomiiiated; and in Min- neapolis, Scandinavians. Few men of any promi- nence in public life wi-re members of the A. P. A., although it undoubtedly initiated a number of mayors and sheriffs throughout the West; with the exception of Governor William . Bra resentative-in-Congre.ss Linton to secure a re-election. The Bryan wave cleared Omaha and the Nebraska field of A. P. A-ism, and in Toledo "(loldcn Rule" Jones deprived it of its last local citadel, in 1S97. The A. P. A, national organization made a spasmodic effort to prevent the nomination of William McKin- ley in 189li, and when the futility of this elTort was apparent the plan was to secure recognition in the Republican national platform for one or more of the principles of the order, preferably for that opposing appropriations to sectarian institutions. This also failed. President-elect McKinley's appointment (March, 1897) of a Catholic (Judge McKenna, of California) in his first cabinet probably Ix'st illus- trates the subsequent estimate that the Republican leaders had of the importance of the A. P. A., or of the necessity of being regardful of its resentments; and although this act of the new administration, as well as the appointment of Bellamy Storer to an important diplomatic mission, and of Terence V. Powderly as Commissioner of Immigration, wsp;q>er organs of the party. It may have been that many Repub- lican leaders rather enjoyed the discomfiture of the A. P. A., in ^new of the swaggering tone its followers had iussumed in its more prosix>rous days. For not a few prominent Republicans, like .Senators Hoar and Hawley, Thomas B. Reed, Levi P. Morton, and John Sherman, hud been made the targets of its bitter at-