Looking Backward

In New England

There are three kinds of people
in New England:
the foreigners.
the Irish
and the Yankees.
The foreigners of New England
have given up
their own traditions
to keep up
with the Irish.
The Irish of New England
have given up
their own scholarship
to keep up
with the Yankees.
The Yankees of New England
have given up
their New England conscience
to keep up
with the utilitarian, futilitarian
political economists
of the Manchester School
of political economy.
So what can you expect
from New England?

In Louisiana

Waldo Frank says
that America
is a lost continent
and that to rediscover itself
America must go back
to Mediterranean thought.
Mediterranean thought
was brought to Louisiana
by the founders of Louisiana,
but the people of Louisiana
have turned over
the State of Louisiana
to greedy corporations.
The Catholic people
of the State of Louisiana
had to have
a Baptist lawyer
by the name of Huey Long
to save them
from the grip
that greedy corporations
had on the Catholic people
of the State of Louisiana.

In Texas

Spanish Franciscans
went to Texas
when Texas was part
of Old Mexico.
Spanish Franciscans
taught the Indians
to build churches,
to build schools,
to build mission-storehouses.
The ruins of those churches,
the ruins of those schools,
the ruins of those mission-storehouses
can still be seen
in the State of Texas.
But the Catholic people
of Texas
are not interested
in the ideology
of the Spanish Franciscans.
They are interested
in keeping up
with the Yankees.

In California

The Yankees were not able
to make wage-slaves
out of the Indians.
The Yankees used to say:
“A good Indian
is a dead Indian.”
By combining cult,
that is to say liturgy,
with culture,
that is to say literature,
with cultivation,
that is to say agriculture,
the Spanish Franciscans
who went to California
succeeded in making willing workers
out of the Indians.
The Catholics of California
have not found the way
to do for the Catholic unemployed
what the Spanish Franciscans
did for the Indians.
In the meantime
the people of California
are looking for a panacea
at the expense
of the taxpayers.

Going to the Right

Frey of the A. F. of L.
says that the Communist Party
is pushing Roosevelt
to the left.
The A. F. of L.
does not know enough
to push Roosevelt
to the right.
Going to the left
is going towards
the Industrial Socialism
of Stalin.
Going to the right
is going towards
the Rural Communism
of the Franciscan Founders
who founded Rural Communes
in what are now
the State of Texas,
the State of New Mexico,
the State of California.