“The Great Romish Conspiracy”

THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION.
It is not to be wondered at that the ceaseless efforts and steady progress of the great Romish conspiracy to take gradual and ultimate possession of this Republic, and to place it in the unenviable position of a principality of the Pope of Rome, should call into existence, sooner or later, a counter movement to defeat the scheme and stem the alarming progress of this tide of Papal aggression. Inside the last fifteen years this movement began, at first only manifesting itself in the desultory and unconcerted protests of a few patriotic individuals who were stirred to the depth of their souls by the arrogant indifference of Popery in out public and private affairs.

Men of all creeds and nationalities soon began to take the platform against Popery as a political conspiracy, and away in the far West began to appear the grand practical result of it all, in the origin and phenomenal growth of an organization commonly known as the A.P.A. which in a few years from its birth was known to be gaining at the rate of over ten thousand members weekly, and at the present writing has embraced within its membership something over two millions of its male citizenship.

The causes which called the A.P.A. into existence are too fresh in the memory of Americans. These causes have been properly summarized in this form:

• The Roman Catholic attack on our public school system.
• The foreignizing, by force, of whole communities, in language and religion, by Romish priests.
• The complete control of our great cities by Romanists.
• The fact that our army and navy are almost wholly Romanized.
• The remarkable increase of untaxed church property.
• The frequent desecration of the American flag by priests.
• The Jesuit control of the heads of government at Washington.
• The well-known public declaration of the Pope that the United States is his one bright hope for the future.
• The universal brag and bluster of Romish orators and newspapers, that Americans are cowards, and that all the good which has ever come to this nation has come from Romanists.
Every male citizen of eighteen years of age and upwards, of good moral character, is eleigible for membership, and if he takes the advice of the writer he will lose no time in uniting himself with this glorious movement for the dethronement of Popery and the perpetuation of American freedom and purity.

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THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION EXPLAINED. ITS PRINCIPLES, METHODS AND OBJECTS. FOR THE INSTRUCTIONS OF MEMBERS AND THOSE WHO WISH TO BECOME SUCH. (Published at the office of THE PRIMITIVE CATHOLIC, 4 Johnson St., Brooklyn, N.Y.)

NOTE
The American Protective Association was an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant organization founded in Iowa in 1887. During the Civil War and for some twenty years thereafter, anti-Catholicism largely subsided, but it picked up as immigration to America increased. After 1880, a large influx of Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe arrived in the United States yearly, stoking the fires of anti-Catholicism. A Catholic school-building spree, begun after the American Bishops recommended that Catholic parents send their children to Catholic schools, aroused Protestant fears over the status of public schools.

A.P.A. members promised to support only Protestants for public office and not to support any Catholic causes. It called for immigration restiction, a longer waiting period for naturalization, and opposition to Catholics in public office. Members created a bogus papal “Instruction to Catholics,” which allegedly called for Catholics to rise up and kill all Protestants on the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, July 31, 1893. During the depression of the 1890’s, A.P.A. members gained control of municipal governments in Detroit, Milwaukee and Kansas City. Its influence waned by the time of the 1896 presidential election, and by 1911 it ceased to exist altogether.

(The E.H. Walsh who authored this pamphlet is listed as a Trappist monk from Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky, but nothing else is know of him.)