St Columbkille High School - Columb Yearbook (Brighton, MA)

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Skilled Speakers The Girls, Debating Team of St. Columbkilleis High School spent many a diligent hour in preparation for the opening of the debating season for 1944-1945. The Catholic League program provided for eight interseholastie debates on the popular subject: Resolved: That the United States should cooperate in establishing and maintaining an international Police Force upon the defeat of the Axis. After many verbal battles on the issue, St. Columbkilleis girls became the victors in their division of the League. After successfully surviving the semi- final contests, they participated in the Eleventh Annual Girls, Diocesan Prize Debate against Mission High School of Roxbury, held at Mount St. Joseph Academy, Brigh- ton, on January 14, 1945, under the patronage of His Excellency, Most Reverend Richard J. Cushing, D.D. In this final debate St. Columbkilleis upheld the negative side with Barbara Shea, Juliet OiLeary and Mary Littlefield as speakers: and Mary Driscoll as alter- nate. They emerged triumphant over Mission before a capacity audienee WhOSC emotions and feelings were as intense as thOSe before a critical battle of a well planned campaign. St. Columbkille debaters are to be congratulated on bringing this added honor to their school, which is due in no small measure to the able direction of Father Frawley, and to their strenuous hours of work. DEBATING TEAM-SeatedeLeft to RighteMury Littlefield, Barbara Shea Standing-Juliet O'Leary, Ann Donovan, Mary Driscoll, Mary Gafrney, Joan Duggan, Alice Ryan

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destiny are guaranteed by our government, while religion motivates the duties of citizens to their civil rulers. Whatever of guidance and authority the country enjoys is only because Ale mighty God has deigned to share His prerogative as the Source of all power with His creatures. A countryls basic claim to the devotion and service of its people rests upon the right to rule which it has in common to a degree with God and parents. Because the power of government is God given, Pope Leo XIII has rightly delined the respect which citizens must have for this authority when he wrote in his en- eyelieal, iiSapientiae Christianae,bettHallowed, therefore, in the minds of Christians is the very idea of public authority in which they recognize some likeness and symbol as it were, of the Divine Majesty. The supernatural love for the Church and the natural love for the fatherland proceed from the same eternal principle, since God is their Author and originating cause? Such being the teaching of the Church it becomes axiomatic that a good Catholic must be a good Citizen for he recognizes in the laws. of his government the voice of his God. Law, order and obedience must circumvent his every action as a Catholic. Love, respect and loyalty must ever guide him on the path of civic duty. As we cannot separate morality from God, neither can we divorce Citizenship from religion. The two are bound together, the one strengthening and supporting the other, for the mystic Chords which bind the human heart to faith and fatherland lie Close together: what strikes on one re- verberates along the other. Without religion Citizenship will lack duty, without citizenship democracy will lack stability. A democracy will remain democratic only as long as its Citizens are willing to promote its welfare by honesty, obedience, and sacriHee. With these convictions deeply imbedded in his heart, the religious Citizen will serve his country in peace or war for conscience sake. He will, if need be, not only relinquish his comforts and conveniences for its defence, but will offer the last full measure of devotion, becoming the willing victim of his own sacrifice. A quarter of a century ago our fathers fought at the Somme, the Argonne, and Chateau Thierry to make the world safe for democracy. These same battlefields, and others too, are known today to our brothers as they play their roles in the second act of Freedonfs drama. God grant that father and son will not have died in vain to save a democracy that well can perish from the apathy of its citizens to God and Country, Privilege and pillage, bribery and ehieanery, bigotry and intolerance, are slowly sowing subtle seeds of decay in the hallowed foundation of our democratic government. Public offices are no longer public trusts; graft and dishonesty are the ruling house of politics; and love of neighbor is submersed in the quieksands of self. Why, we ask, this seepage in the walls? Why may we point this iinger of accusation? WHY? Because the bonds of religion and citizenship have been rent asunder, because religion has been divorced from polities and because the people have tried to lock God in His churches and exclude Him from their political and civic life. If we are to bequeath to posterity the democracy that our- forefathers willed to us, it must be one that will be leavened with a citizenship based on morality, and a morality based on God. Be he Jew, Protestant, or Catholic, be he capitalist or laborer, be he voter 0r legislator, he will serve his country and preserve his govern- ment only if his every vote, duty, and action, be guided by the divine principles of Morality. It is our solemn duty as Catholic citizens, therefore, to be conscious of our duty to America and preserve its freedom by preserving its faith in God. With the same heartls love with which we embrace the Cross, we salute our country,s flag. We love the red that stands for the sacrifice of blood shed for the preservation of our nation. We love the white, signifying the purity of its ideals and the unspottecl rightness of its cause. We love the blue, proclaiming the loyalty of its citizens to authority and the devotion of its government to the common good. And because that Hag has been raised aloft by those who proclaimed that all rights come from God, we are confident that under God it will ever wave over a united nation and a strong people. With a prayerful hope that Godis moral law will be kept entwined with national ideals, we shall march shoulder to shoulder, ever onward and upward in the long procession of life, led by the Cross of Christ, the emblem of our faith7 and the stars and stripes, the banner of our land, until that day of final victory when the blood of Christ will be the salvation of our souls, as the blood of Americans has been the salvation of our land. MARY LITTLEFIELD

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James Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine Third PrizeiWilliam Randolph Heamt National Oratorical Context Faneuil Hall, April 10, 1945 Innate in man is the law of self-preser- vation. Varied though be its form in history, it has ever been the dominant inHuence in the lives of men and of nations. What the club was to primitive man, the tomahawk to the Indian, and the gun to the modern, the walled City, the barricade, the alliance, and the bal- ance of power have been to nations. A countryls first line of defense is not built on armies or navies, nor on forts or arma- ments, but on its sound, humane, and in- telligent foreign policy. It was the wis- dom of Washington, the acumen of Adams, and the judgment of JeHerson in their warning against entangling alliances, which first guided the steps of infant America along the perilous path of international- ism. This prudent policy of his predeces- sors was enacted into doctrine in the presidency of James Monroe, and became an outer defense for the preservation of the Western Hemisphere. While the liHoly Allianceli of Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, was ruling Europe with an iron hand, six Latin- American countries had followed the example of the United States in winning their indepen- dence from their mother country. Spain was urging this alliance to intervene in America for the recovery of her colonies. With France hoping for a grant of Mexico or Cuba, the eye of Russia fastened on California, and Spain still smarting from her tremendous losses, the dangers to our new-found peace were keenly seen by American statesmen. They realized that such neighbors would make necessary a large standing army, a navy, and costly fortifications. Spurred by rivalries and disputes, the red horse of war would be ever Charging through the new World as it had ravaged the Old, leaving in its flaming path, grim death, destruction, and devastation. But 10,ein the midst of this approaching chaos, there arose the man who had been chosen to guide our nationls destiny, President James Monroe. Enunciating the doctrine for which he is famous, he issued a solemn warning that henceforth the American continents were not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers, and that any attempt to extend their system to the Americas would be dangerous to our peace and safety. Proelaimed in 1823, it has ever remained the bulwark of peace for this our Western Hemisphere. It has seen the rise and fall of every deluded world conqueror; it has witnessed the imperial expansion of Britain across the seven seas; it must still be honored when Ger- many and Japan lie on the cold, grey sands of defeat. In the midst of conquerors, it stands uneonquered. Today, the interests of men and of nations are characterized by the one word, ttgloballi While in the midst of global war, economists and statesmen are locked in world conferences. In the blood of the battlefield will be born a world union for peace. America will be proud to do her part in frustrating an unjust and unholy aggression. But in every pact and pledge, the torch of guidance lit by Monroe must ever be kept burning in the darkened halls of diplo- macy. Brilliant has it ever been, dimmed may it never be! Remaining steadfast to its principles, we must never allow any nation, anv world organi- zation, or any international army to interfere in the affairs of the Americas. With an increased affection for our sister-countries who joined us in war, with a realization of our common in- terests and dependence, we must bind ourselves to them in solemn treaty so that under God, true to our time-honored Monroe Doctrine, we may march forward, shoulder to shoulder, to the days of peace and happiness, by keeping the Americas solely for the Americans. VIRGINIA CU SICK 45