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Lawrence W. Kennedy, “Pulpits and Politics: Anti-Catholicism in Boston in the 1880’s and 1890’s” Historical Journal of Massachusetts Volume 28, No. 1 (Winter 2000). Published by: Institute for Massachusetts Studies and Westfield State University You may use content in this archive for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the Historical Journal of Massachusetts regarding any further use of this work: [email protected] Funding for digitization of issues was provided through a generous grant from MassHumanities. Some digitized versions of the articles have been reformatted from their original, published appearance. When citing, please give the original print source (volume/ number/ date) but add "retrieved from HJM's online archive at http://www.westfield.ma.edu/mhj. Editor, Historical Journal of Massachusetts c/o Westfield State University 577 Western Ave. Westfield MA 01086 Pulpits and Politics: Anti-Catholicism in Boston in the 1880’s and 1890’s By Lawrence W. Kennedy Much attention is given to the anti-Catholicism of the Know- Nothing era of the 1850’s but little is paid to the equally virulent anti- Catholicism of the 1880’s and 1890’s when the fear of Catholics and the hostility displayed toward them was much greater than is generally believed. The relationship between Yankees and Irish in Boston in the last couple of decades of the nineteenth-century was marked by religious conflict, which explains much about both the defensive nature of Catholicism in Boston and the offensive nature of Irish-American politics in subsequent years. Boston Irish Catholic politicians of the early twentieth century easily become caricatures, unless we understand the roots of their hostility towards the Yankee Protestants who had long dominated the “Athens of America.” Many are familiar with the aggressive nature, demagoguery and chicanery of James Michael Curley, Boston’s infamous and charming rogue mayor, but too much is made of the persona of Curley and not enough is made of the politics that poisoned his formative years in the late nineteenth century. The period of the 1880’s and 1890’s was a time of renewed nativism in both Boston and the nation. Vast demographic changes during these years challenged traditional notions of community in Boston and elsewhere. The negative reaction of many Bostonians to the overwhelming population increase and political rise of people of Irish birth and descent provides insights into American anxieties at the end of the nineteenth century. The fears of Boston’s “native” population, Pulpits and Politics 57 threatened by dizzying changes in the city’s physical and demographic makeup over the nineteenth century, were manifested in battles over control of the public schools, the extent and wisdom of women’s suffrage, the effort to establish prohibition, and in the 1890’s, by the appearance of the American Protective Association (A.P.A.). Religious and cultural conflict; reinforced by economic competition among members of the working classes, provided fuel for political fires. Nativists in late nineteenth-century Boston organized effective opposition to the city’s immigrant Catholic population by forming a coalition of evangelical Protestants, women’s rights supporters, and respected local politicians. This work focuses on how the first of these groups, evangelical Protestant clergy, strengthened the most notorious nativist movement of the era, the American Protective Association. The A.P.A., generally considered a Midwestern phenomenon, served as a forceful expression of anxiety and fears over the immigrant population’s effect on the society, culture, and politics of this Eastern city. The rise of the local branch of the American Protective Association was reflected in Boston politics where Irish Catholic politicians were subjected to unceasing and well-organized attacks by numerous and highly articulate opponents. Social and political conflict ultimately led to bloodshed on the streets during the Fourth of July parade in 1895. The Irish had been only marginally involved in local politics until after the Civil War, but from 1865 to the mid 1880’s, the immigrant Irish began to organize and exert some influence in city politics. The Irish attempted to cooperate with the Yankee leadership of the Democratic Party during these decades by providing votes in return for a certain amount of patronage and the nomination of several “respectable” Irishmen for political office. The Irish saw some of their own elected to municipal office, culminating in the election of the Irish-born and Roman Catholic, Hugh O’Brien, as mayor in 1884. O’Brien, who served four terms, worked to secure conservative and economical government in the city. At first he was successful but ethnic and religious cultural conflict drove him from office in the election of 1888. It was clear that the anti-Catholic forces were predominant and it was not until Patrick Collins was elected in 1901 that another representative of what was by now the city’s largest ethnic bloc became chief executive of the city. While certain evangelical Protestant clergy led the anti-Catholic movement in Boston, it is true that some Protestant leaders reacted to the 58 Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Winter 2000 alien onslaught by seeking to find a new positive role and meaning for their traditional religious work by reaching out to the unchurched and by attempting to transform society. These latter were part of the Social Gospel movement and they traced individual and collective wrongdoing to maladjustments in society, as Arthur Mann’s study of Yankee reformers emphasized.1 While Mann’s analysis correctly showed some Boston ministers leading the Social Gospel movement, others who have received little or no attention expressed the darker side of Boston’s heritage: anti-Catholicism. These other, anti-Catholic clergy found thousands of willing supporters in Boston during these years at the end of the twentieth century. The leadership was varied, as were the followers of this movement. What united the disparate elements was their agreement that the remedy to the social problems they perceived was to reduce or eliminate Irish-Catholic power in local politics. It is true that “not all clergymen shared this pietistic, low-Protestant prejudice against the Irish Catholics,”2 but it became apparent that Boston had more than its share. The most influential member of this group was a Baptist minister and former Know-Nothing, the Rev. Justin Dewey Fulton, who came to Boston after decades of preaching elsewhere. Fulton, who led a renewed crusade against Popery, through weekly meetings and public attacks on Catholics, possessed a talent for providing entertaining programs which attracted thousands. Fulton also established a society known as the “Pauline Propaganda”, to provide backing and finances for his work.3 Fulton’s themes were familiar to anti-Catholic audiences. One persistent theme was a purported papal plot to subvert American democracy and establish Catholic sovereignty. Another favorite theme, the decadence of Catholic clergy, was seen in lurid accounts of immorality resulting from celibacy, the confessional and other Catholic practices. 1Arthur Mann, Yankee Reformers in the Urban Age Social Reform in Boston, 1890-1900 (New York, 1954), pp. 74-100. 2Gerald W. McFarland, Mugwumps, Morals and Politics: 1884-1920 (Amherst, Massachusetts, 1975), p. 28. 3Boston Herald, January 20, 1888. Also see Donald Kinzer, An Episode in Anti- Catholicism: The American Protective Association (Seattle, 1964), p. 22. Pulpits and Politics 59 Fulton’s first theme was expressed in numerous sermons and in his books. One of his books, Washington in the Lap of Rome, was dedicated to “Americans who will aid in throttling Jesuitism,” which he defined as despotism and “the greatest and most enormous of abuses.”4 Fulton claimed no loyal Roman Catholic was qualified to serve as a legislator because “no man who truckles to Romanism is fit to be a representative of a free people.” Another book, Fight with Rome, was also dedicated to the obvious theme of combating papal influence. This volume claimed that Romanism injured citizenship and especially warned of the Roman control over children.”5 Dealing with the other major theme, Fulton’s Why Priests Should Wed, was published in 1888 and given to those who purchased tickets to a pair of lectures given by Fulton at Boston’s Mechanics Hall. Some six to seven thousand people paid a dollar a ticket to attend the series.6 The Rev. Alonzo A. Miner, former president of Tufts College and at this time minister at Boston’s Columbus Avenue Universalist Church, was another representative of anti-Catholic clergy, though the Irish Catholic Boston Pilot suggested that “Dr. Miner is not an unprincipled mountebank like Fulton,” but a member of “the better class of anti- Catholic bigots.”7 In an 1887 address to his fellow clergy, Dr. Miner denounced the Catholic Church for being “as sly as the serpent and a great deal more venomous.”8 He said that there were things going on in Boston that, if known to the public, would horrify it. For instance, he asked, “What is the meaning of cells under our own cathedral here in Boston?” The insinuation was that guns were stored there for an attack on Protestants, a familiar canard of anti-Catholic speakers in the nineteenth century. 4Justin Dewey Fulton, Washington in tbe Lap of Rome (Boston, 1888) p. 12 and pp. 78- 79. 5Justin Dewey Fulton, Fight With Rome (New York, 1977), p. 393 and p. 92. 6Boston Globe, January 23 and 24, 1888. 7Pilot, June 2, 1888. 8Pilot, November 12, 1887. 60 Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Winter 2000 Another familiar point of dispute was education and a leading Boston cleric, the Rev. E.J. Haynes of the Tremont Temple, went directly to the heart of the issue by declaring that, “Rome was out to destroy the public schools.”9 Other ministers supporting the anti-Catholic movement included Rev.

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