Two Americans

Sic transit gloria mundi. But there remains about the office of Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church something compelling, romantic, holy.

The cardinal purple has been worn by many of the noblest men who ever lived and by some of the greatest rascals. Richelieu was the Cardinal-Duke, as was Cesare Borgia; de Rohan was the Cardinal-politician ;Reginald Pole, the Cardinal -man -without -a-country; Wolsey and Mazarin, the Cardinal-statesmen ; Newman, the Cardinal-poet ; and "in the person of James Gibbons the full flower of spiritual princeliness came to its blossom in the U. S."*

Presently, two Americans, American-born, will become Cardinals. A few years ago they were playing in the streets of Manhattan's East Side. "Lower East Side kids" they were. One was Pat Hayes, the other George Mundelein.

George was the son of a German and an Irish woman. A young prodigy, he was graduated from Manhattan College with all the honors obtainable. He was sent to Rome to learn more. There his scholarship and mental grace endeared him to Vatican officials, and when the aging Bishop of Brooklyn secured him as Secretary he congratulated himself on having one of the most brilliant priests ever originated west of the River Shannon. The Bishop aged. Young Father Mundelein assumed increasing responsibility and received, about every twelve months, a raise in rank, until finally the Pope made him Titular Bishop of an obscure church at Rome.

In 1915 Chicago's Archbishop died. Delegations of Poles posted hot-haste to Rome to urge one of their good race for the office. Delegations of Germans likewise. Said the Irish: "Give us no foreigners, but an Irishman!" The Pope chose Mundelein. To Chicago he went His position was "difficult." At a welcoming banquet 150 prominent citizens were poisoned by the soup. At the next banquet, the new Archbishop drank the soup first. And ever since he has grown, quietly, in the respect of a strident community. No archdiocese is more efficiently run. Its head has never committed a public blunder. The youngest to graduate, the youngest to become Bishop, one of the youngest to become Archbishop, George Mundelein will be the youngest Cardinal in the sacred College. And Chicago is the first see west of the Alleghanies to have a Prince of the Church.

Patrick Hayes is more popularly known in New York than his old friend Mundelein is known in Chicago. There has been nothing phenomenal about his career--it has been the steady rise of a powerful leader of men. His Grace of New York might have had the red hat sooner--except for the incident of the Union Club./-

Hitherto there have been only five Cardinals in the American hierarchy. Two were of New York, McCloskey and Farley. One was in Baltimore, Gibbons.

The other two are living--O'Connell of Boston and Daugherty of Philadelphia.

For the first time the U. S. will have four representatives simultaneously in the College of Cardinals, which, including them, will number 63. Thus the U. S. is surpassed by Spain (seven) and France (six), and, of course, Italy (29).

The perpetual preponderance of Italian Cardinals is due: 1) to the necessity of having Cardinals in Rome to attend to ecclesiastical business; 2) to keep international politics out of the election of a Pope, as when Bismarck tried his lobby tactics.

Besides the four Americans, the following Cardinals are English speaking: Logue, old man of Ireland; Bourne, statesman of Westminster, England; Gasquet, Benedictine scholar of England; Begin of Canada. Other well-known Cardinals are Mercier of Belgium, Faulhaber and Schulte of Germany, Rafael Merry del Val of Spain, Vanutelli and Gasparri of Italy.

*Editorial in The New York World. /-The Union Club displayed a British flag on Thanksgiving Day, 1920, and was stoned by an angry mob from St. Patrick's Cathedral. "Where is the Union Club?" "Only a stone's throw from St. Patrick's."