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258 The Notre Dame Alumnus June, 1937 CAMPUS NOTES NINETY-THREE Cliaracterized by that smoothness which marks all Notre Dame formal fimctions, the ninety - third Commencement exercises provided a fitting climax for 469 seniors. The record return of Notre Dame's alumni helped hearten these Seniors as no Commencement address could ever hope to do, with all deference to the address of the Commencement speaker, Mr. Dennis F. Kelly of Chicago. With 1937 ended the last of Notre Dame's "depression classes," classes so-called since they entered the University in those particularly discouraging years when sending a son to college mean the entailment of more than usual sacrifices for many parents. So — congratulations to the class of 1937 and, more especially, congratulations to those mothers and fathers whose unselfishness and courage were repaid by their feelings of pride and happiness upon hearing their sons pronounced graduates of Notre Dame. THREE WISE BOYS It was Senior Week—the week pre- \'ious to Commencement in which Seniors, released after the rigors of examinations, are privileged to disport themselves with undergraduate lack of dignity which would be considered unseemly after tha reception of their degrees. Exhilirated by. these considerations three Seniors, late one evening in Senior Week, decided that a graceful way in which to symbolize their feeling of good will towards the world would be to purchase gifts for "special" young ladies at St. Mary's. So, in a downtown drugstore, the Seniors each bought a life size replica of that popular screen star, Michael (Mickey) Mouse. iVnd in a nearby Western Union office they arranged for delivery of their parcels. Since it was then 11:30 p.m., the Seniors thought it superfluous to stipulate that delivery should not be made imtil the morrow. Unfortunately for their plans, the young messenger lad had just finished reading Hubbard's A Message to Garcia. Consequently, he mounted his sprocketed steed and pedaled to St. Mary's where he aroused all but the soundest sleepers among the students in his delivery duty. The next morning the bewildered donees unwrapped their- "gifts" in the presence of an investigating committee of Sisters. Mickey Mouse's infectious grin saved the day and all was well. Moral: Never give a messenger boy a Mickey Mouse doll to deliver. THE MONTH IN BRIEF Editor Tom Eadigan presented the smoothest Dome that we've seen in our five years at Notre Dame. . . . While general editorial make-up and context follovved the Domes of other years, Radigan's handling of the snapshot section was a splendid job of editing. . . . An innovation was an accurate index, making it unnecessary to thumb through the entire book to find the various features. . . Our story concerning Herb Jones last month was correct except that the incident occurred three years instead of two months ago as we reported. . . For timely news read your daily newspaper—for history read Campus Notes. ... DILLON DOMINATES Dillon hall won the annual interhall radio amateur contest. . . The quality of the programs was so much higher this year that campus opinion agreed that any of the three finalists would have won last year's contest with ease. . . James J. Braddock, world's hea%"yiveight boxing champion (knock on wood), visited the campus as the guest of the Rev. Wendell P. Corcoran, C.S.C. . . Jim was taken through the dining halls while the students were eating and later posed for pictures in the garb of a Notre Dame waiter. . . Brother -4ngelus, C.S.C, guestmaster in the Main building for the past three years, celebi-ated his 55th anniversary as a member of the Holy Cross order. . . Eichard Keid, Georgia editor and recipient of the Laetare medal in 1936 delivered several lectures to the entire student body in Washington hall. CLASSES ELECT Complete results of class elections follow; Seniors—John C. O'Connor, Indianapolis, Ind., president; George Fitzpatrick, North Bellingham, Massachusetts, vice president; Harold A. Williams, Jr., Baltimore, Maryland, secretary; and John Deane, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, treasurer;. . .Juniors —Paul McArdle, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, president; Eugene White, Peoria, Illinois, vice president; Martin McGinnis, Memphis, Tennessee, secretary; and Joseph Nigro, Kansas City, Missouri, treasurer;. . . . Sophomores—James H. Mulqueen, Council Bluffs, Iowa, president; Charles Kel BY JOHN J. LECHNER. '37 ly, Richmond, Virginia, vice president; Gerald Flynn, Rochester, New York, secretary; and John De Moss, Chicago, Illinois, treasurer. . . • PHILOSOPHERS DISPUTE The department of philosophy, un-. der the direction of the Rev. Thomas Brennan, C.S.C, and the Rev. Arthur J. Hope, C.S.C, sponsored its second annual philosophical disputation. . . Distinguished guests included Dr. Mortimer J. Adler and Dr. Scott Buchanan of the University of Chicago . . . Professor Henry C. Staunton, of the English department, was elected vice president of the Indiana College English Association. . . . Gerald G. Hogan, Brooklyn, New York, a freshman, won the Breen medal. . . . O INDIANA BELL INSTALLS The University has installed a new telephone exchange. It is the latest word in automatic features and technical advances. All the Scholastic columnists enjoyed a good cry in the last issue. . . . There haven't been so many tears shed on the campus since "Sonny Boy" was shown in AVashington hall. . . Paul Barker, Rochester, New York, James A. Waldron, Trenton, New Jersey, Eichard H. Meier, Paulkton, South Dakota, and Paul E. Foley, Grosse Pointe, Mich., were awarded scroll awards by the Dome as the four seniors outstanding in extra curricular activities. . . Publications editors for next year will be Eugene Vaslett, Brooklyn, New York, Scholastic; Charles Nelson, Decatur, Illinois, Scrip; and Frank Reppenhagen, Buffalo, New York, Dome. • KNIGHTS ELECT The local Knights of Columbus council inducted 73 new members. . . James L. Quinn, Elizabeth, New Jersey, succeeds F. Joseph DroUa, New Orleans, Louisiana, as Grand Knight . . . Peter Nemeth, Jr., South Bend, Indiana, won a 5500 bank night. . . Pete also will be married in June. . . Not cause and effect in this instance as the marriage was planned before the winning of the $500. . . Father Michael Quinlan, C.S.C, defeated the Rev. George L. Holderith, C.S.C, for the faculty golf championship. . . . The new residence hall now being erected will bear the name of one of Notre Dame's earlier priest-scientists, the Rev. John Zahm, C.S.C,... Memorial day was celebrated on the campus with appropriate ceremonies. See you all next year.
June, 1937 The Notre Dame Alumnus 259 BACCALAUREATE SERMON (Continued from Page 242) merely private opinion as a rule of faith. Whilst finance-capitalism sins by excess in emphasizing the rights of individual property, Communism goes to the opposite extreme and repudiates the divine commandment "Thou shalt not steal." It has ruthlessly confiscated both productive and use property. It denies that the individual has any right in property antecedent to or superior to that of the State of the Community. In robbing men of property, it robs them of true liberty and subjects the citizens or the individual to the Community, making him a slave of the State just as certainly as any slave was ever bound to an individual master. We warn you, therefore, against the easy assumption that theories do not count or that principles and attitudes respecting property have no bearing upon practical life. Labor Disputes and Strikes Most of our social unrest at the present time in this country concerns itself with labor disputes and strikes. Now what light do Christian principles throw upon this dispute? At the outset we mast remember three things: first, the dignity of man as a child of God. Second, the right of private property as the sole guarantee of man's ultimate liberty or freedom. Third, the correlative nature of rights and duties. We cannot have one without the other. The Church, revealing to us the mind of Christ, teaches us that labor is honorable; it is divinely ordered; it is worthy of its hire. Most certainly it is not a commodity to be purchased in the open market. God has decreed that all men must work: "thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow." The Son of God coming into the world chose to be known as the son of Joseph the Carpenter. He took the status of a workingman in order to teach us an abiding lesson viz. that the work of the laboring man is worthy of reverence and respect. What are the consequences that flow from an understanding of these truths? If we look to ancient times, we find everywhere that the hard and disagreeable work of the world was done by means of the institution of slavery. Manual labor was treated with contempt in all the ancient civilizations. Wars were waged for the direct purpose of solving labor problems by means of captured slaves. With the advent of Christ's teaching slavery slowly disappeared from the face of Christian Europe. There was no forceful prohibition at first by law. The thing was simply incompatible with the acknowledged dignity of man. You could not treat a creature of God, redeemed by the precious blood, a member of the mystical body of Christ, a brother in grace—^yott could not treat him as a slave. In our modem social organization under the influence of competitive individualism a new doctrine took the place of Christianity. Men were no longer regarded as brothers in Christ but merely as so many hands. Labor was a commodity to be purchased. Wages were not determined by the value of the product but by the old slave principle of minimum subsistance for the worker. The principal that regulated relations between employers and employees for all too long a time was "Might makes right"; "Fortune smiles upon the strong"; What was the result? Long hours for labor. Hard work. Minimum wages. No wonder Leo XIII as early as 1891 was forced to Avrite his encyclical deploring the condition of the working classes. He called the attention of the Christian world to fundamental principles of Christ's Gospel. The rights of labor were once more vindicated; namely the right to a decent wage; the right to humane working conditions in keeping with the dignity of man; the right of collective bargaining; the right of w^orkingmen's associations and the right of freely choosing their own representatives. Marriage and the Family Let us turn now to the question of Marriage and the Faintly. From the time that Christianity first made itself felt in the ancient world, the sanctity of the family has been safeguarded by a definite code of domestic ethics. When Christ began His family life. He worked His first miracle at the marriage feast of Cana as if to show His deep concern with the family as the f-ondamental social unit. He reminded His disciples that marriage is one and indisoUuble. He raised this most solemn contract amongst men to the dignity of a Sacrament. Now what happens when this teaching is disregarded? When marriage is completely secularized and amounts to nothing more than a civil contract or a companionate of temporary duration or convenience, then we deny the very essence of the Christian concept of the family. To break its unity, therefore, with wanton divorce is to let loose a host of evils upon the world. To frustrate its purpose by the suicidal practice of birth control is to deny its purpose and foster death, not life. The family is the social unit. Change it in essence or destroy its character, and civilization such as we have known it for more than a thousand years will be inevitably changed or destroyed. In analyzing the origin of oar social principles and onr social attitudes let us turn our attention finally to GOVEHNMENT itself. Today all thoughtful students of public affairs are watching %vith keen anxiety the steady drift towards state dictatorship. We have dictatorship of the right and of the left There is the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia and there is the dictatorship of Nazi Germany. There are a halfdozen other dictatorships scattered throughout Europe. In these dictatorships we have a new concept of government. The citizen no longer has any inherent rights as a man, antecedent and prior to all government. Instead he is made the creature of the state. In America we still point proudly to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution in which is set forth the doctrine that there are certain inalienable rights given to man by the Creator, namely, the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Since the emergence of the totalitarian state these rights no longer are recognized in a large part of Europe. The state encompasses %vithin itself now the whole of man; it tells him not merely what he can do in public but tells him what he must think in private. In consequence there is no freedom of conscience; no freedom of worship; no freedom of assembly, nor freedom of the press. If you seek the explanation of this new phenomenon you wU find it in the progressive departure from Christian truth which has been taking place in the intellectual life of the world for the past several centuries. It is only now reaching its climax and final fruition. Christianity teaches that the citizen precedes the state. It teaches that man has a value and a dignity all his own; that he has rights that are inseparable from his existence as a man; rights given to him by His Creator which no state can steal away. The Church does not impose any particular form of government upon her members. They may choose a republic or a kingdom, a democracy or an empire, but the Church does teach that whatever be the form of government it is limited in its powers. Its authority is from God, but the rulers who exercise this authority are not divinely appointed. They are designated by the citizens themselves and restrained by his ordinances. The state, therefore, must subordinate its plan of human welfare to the prior rights of the plan that God Himself made. The state in other words must carry out its work within the moral order that God Himself established. If you accept these principles no matter what you call your government it never becomes an absolute dictatorship or a comprehensive totalitarian state.
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