The American Catholic takes his theology from Rome; he takes his politics from the ecumenical council of his party--from the national convention of that partisan organization to which he may chance to belong. That there can be no "Catholic conspiracy" against the free institutions of this country must be evident to every man of common sense from the simple fact that Catholics are divided among all the political parties-- are continually voting against each other. Now I appeal to your judgment--lay aside your religious prejudices for the moment and look at the matter from a non-partisan, non-sectarian standpoint: If our Catholic fellow-citizens be under the thumb of the Pope politically, as the apostate now evangelizing for the A.P.A. would have us believe; and if the Pope desires to make himself temporal ruler of this land, or in any manner direct its affairs, would they not be found voting as a unit--a mighty political machine --instead of being as badly divided on secular questions as the Baptists themselves? San Antonio is a Catholic stronghold, yet a prominent Roman Catholic was overwhelmingly defeated in the last mayoralty election. And I could cite you hundreds of instances where Catholics have voted against men of their own religious faith and elected Protestants or infidels. Again: If the Pope is plotting against America; and if all manner of crime be considered a virtue when committed by Catholics in furtherance of his ends, as Slattery would have you believe, then it were well to keep a sharp eye on apostate priests. How are we to know that they are not emissaries of the Vatican, commissioned to stir the Protestants up to persecute their brethren in Christ and thereby solidify the Catholic vote? No one, not even Slattery, has accused the Pope of being a fool; and certain it is that the A.P.A. movement, if persisted in, will have the effect of driving the Catholics of this country to political unity in self-defense. Persecution, political ostracism for religious opinion's sake, will infallibly bring about those very conditions which Slattery, Hicks, et al. declare that the Pope desires. The communicants of the Church of Rome will no longer vote as Democrats or Republicans, but as Catholics --and then? With unlimited wealth, and such a political machine at the command of a man so ambitious and unscrupulous as we are asked to believe the Pope to be, the capture of the federal government and the political domination of this country were as easy as lying! The Protestants, divided into a hundred warring factions, many of them farther apart theologically than Episcopalianism and Catholicism, could offer no resistance to such a political machine, and they would receive but cold comfort from the liberal element, which has suffered so long from their petty persecutions.