"There is a danger and a most serious one in corrupt morals. A people without good morals is incapable of self-government. At the basis of the proper exercise of the suffrage lie unselfishness and the spirit of sacrifice. A corrupt man is selfish ; an appeal to duty finds no response in his conscience ; he is incapable of the high- mindedness and generous acts which are the elements of patriotism ; he is ready to sell the country for pelf or pleasure. Patriotism takes alarm at the spread of intemperance, lasciviousness, dishonesty, perjury; for country’s sake it should arm against those dire evils all the country’s forces, its legislatures, its courts, and, above all else, public opinion. Materialism and the denial of a living, supreme God annihilate conscience, and break down the barriers to sensuality ; they sow broadcast the seeds of moral death : they are fatal to liberty and social order. A people without a belief in God and a future life of the soul will not remain a free people. The age of the democracy must, for its own protection, be an age of religion."
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1894 speech on patriotism to Union veterans of the Civil War,
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Ireland_(bishop)
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John Ireland (bishop)
John Ireland (September 11, 1838 – September 25, 1918) was the third Roman Catholic bishop and first Roman Catholic archbishop of Saint Paul, Minnesota (1888–1918). He became both a religious as well as civic leader in Saint Paul during the turn of the 20th century. Ireland was known for his progressive stance on education, immigration, race, and relations between church and state, as well as his opposition to saloons and political corruption. He promoted the Americanization of Catho
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