But what of Spanish generosity at home, when the missionaries were toiling for souls in the New World? Many a pious Spaniard in Spain and in Mexico subscribed immense sums for the missions of California, both for the Jesuit and the Franciscan missions. Thus we find the pious Marquis de Villa Puente subscribing $200,000 for "missions, vessels and other necessities of California." The Duchess of Gandía subscribed $60,000 for the same purpose in 1767 and many others followed the same example until the "Pius Fund of the Missions of California" amounted to over two million dollars. At the time of the Secularization of the Missions, the Mexican Government confiscated a large remaining portion of this "Pious Fund." In 1853 the Spanish Archbishop Alemany, then Bishop of Monterey and successor of Bishop Diego from whom the "Pious Fund" had been taken, started a litigation which was continued in turn by his worthy successor Archbishop Patrick Riordan of the archdiocese of San Francisco, with the good result that Mexico was made to pay the sum of $43,050 in Mexican currency annually as the interest at six per cent on the sum of $1,460,682 of the "Pious Fund" which the national treasury of Mexico had appropriated on the promise of Mexico to act as trustee of the fund and pay an interest of six per cent which it had failed to pay since its appropriation at the time of the Mexican regime in California. Moreover, Mexico had agreed to pay this interest to the object intended by the donors of the fund, namely, "to the church, for the conversion of the natives of California, for the establishment, maintenance and extension of the Catholic Church, her faith and worship, in said country of Upper and Lower California." The litigation was won through the intervention of the United States Government which Archbishop Riordan invoked through his counsel, and decided by arbitrators under the Hague Convention in 1899. The first payment was made on February 2, 1903.
Perhaps it is not amiss to quote here a small portion of the speech delivered in Washington, D. C. by Hon. Joseph Scott of Los Angeles on the occasion of a banquet following the unveiling ceremonies of the memorial erected in honor of Christopher Columbus by Act of Congress. Among the speakers present at the banquet were Ex-President William Taft (then president), Cardinal Gibbons, Speaker Champ Clark, Ex-speaker Joseph Cannon, Congressman Underwood, Judge Victor Dowling of the Supreme Court of New York and many other notable men of the nation.
"It affords me unbounded pleasure to have an opportunity to deliver an expression, feeble though it be, of the sentiments of the Knights of Columbus of the great West, and particularly of California, regarding the significance of this great day. Mr. John Barrett of the Pan-American Union has already given you food for sober thought in the parallel he has drawn of the marvelous activity and resourcefulness of the Latin-American republics. Possibly I may be permitted at this time to inject a suggestion that, despite the remarks of the previous speaker about Boston as the modern Athens and the seat of universal learning, "Modern Athens" has nothing in common with the memories aroused by contemplation of the events which we celebrate today. It may be well to tell our friends from New England that before the so-called Anglo-Saxon had set foot as a colonist upon the American soil, the followers of Columbus had penetrated into the heart of Kansas and gone down as far as Buenos Ayres. I want to lay stress upon the fact that we have not noted too emphatically today that it was the great Spanish race, with its strong and sterling faith, which accomplished this wonderful mission of civilization. Too long have we endured the stress of so-called history written by Prescott and others, some of whom ought to have been put in the Ananias club before they were born. For nearly three centuries the Spanish race, with its indomitable faith, pursued almost alone its mission of civilization and evangelization of the aborigines of America. Before the Pilgrim Fathers had landed on Plymouth Rock, the Catholic Spaniard had acquired a knowledge of the Indian language sufficient to enable him to translate the Bible into the Aztec Indian language, so that the new Indian neophyte could read the story of "God's greatest Book" in his mother tongue."
The Courage of Catholic Spain
I wish to advise those of you who speak now of a burden of four days and nights in luxurious Pullman cars to step out on the soil of California as though you had performed a deed of heroism, that a Spanish soldier, Cabeza de Vaca, with the courage of primitive Christianity, walked from Florida to the Gulf of California, though it took him seven years to accomplish his task; and the wonderfully brave Friar Marcos de Niza pioneered his way on foot thirteen hundred miles into the heart of Arizona through deserts and hordes of Apaches, in his efforts to plant the cross of civilization among the children of the new world. Nay, the Grand Canyon of Arizona, now one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, was seen by a young Spanish lieutenant and his twenty soldiers three hundred years before the Anglo-Saxon took a glimpse at its wonderful and awe-inspiring beauty. These and other similar facts are attested by the report of the Bureau of Ethnology of Washington, as well as by many other reliable authorities, including that singularly gifted and scholarly student of Spanish history and folk lore, Charles F. Lummis of Los Angeles, himself a Puritan on both sides of his house for several generations back. It was the fortitude of this Spanish race, coupled by its strong devotion to the faith which you and I profess, which enabled them to solve the Indian problem as it has never been attempted since. While under our present system of the government of this United States, the Indian has been an outcast and a derelict to be robbed and cheated by his white brother, yet on the other hand the Spanish missionary brought into the life of the simple native of the new world the wholesome light of Christianity, which made him recognize in the Red Man the same soul which was made in the image and likeness of the common Creator of us all. In that spirit of brotherhood and charity he obtained the confidence and good will of the Indians, almost without exception, throughout the length and breadth of the countries that he explored. And while his path was beset with dangers from the grim forces of nature, and occasionally the crown of martyrdom was given to him by an unthinking hand of those he was coming to evangelize, yet he faltered not in his footsteps.
Today the memory of Columbus may be coupled with and attributed, on our part, to the splendid heroism and Christian fortitude of the great Spanish race which continued the work of Columbus with all that it entailed for the betterment of humanity."
In compliance with our promise not to forget the friends of the missionaries and of their compatriots, of today, we will first speak of California's wonderful enthusiasm in the celebration of the Bi-centenary of Junipero Serra's birth. Of the privileged thousands who visited Monterey on November 23, 1913 and made a pilgrimage to Serra's tomb at San Carlos Mission, how many will efface that sight from their minds in years to come? But this awe-inspiring sight to which Reverend Raymond Mestres and the Franciscan Fathers of San Francisco, contributed so much, and in which the Third Order of Saint Francis so prominently participated will be yearly renewed. Ecclesiastical and civil authorities, towns and cities, individuals, all had the "right spirit." The accounts of the press were glowing. Mr. Frank Powers of Carmel-by-the-Sea was California's representative at the celebration which Spain did not fail to hold in honor of her illustrious son; and Mr. Powers indeed proved a worthy representative, returning to California with renewed enthusiasm for the saintly Serra, and his lectures have been listened to with keen delight. And can any praise seem superfluous for California's apostles in particular for the saintly Serra? At the civil exercises, held in Monterey on the occasion of the celebration we are speaking of, Senator Reginaldo del Valle, of Los Angeles, Mr. Michael Williams and Mr. Charles Phillips of San Francisco each paid exquisite tributes to our hero whom the opening lines of Mr. Phillips' beautiful ode described as:
"A young boy dreaming by the Spanish main:
Knee-high in waving grain
He halts at eve and dreams,
Where green Majorca fronts the cycling sea,
And far worlds ceaselessly
Beckon with passing sail and swinging tide,
And plunging galleons ride
Home from adventure, or away, away
To silken bright Cathay,
Or where dark India her golden treasure yields;
A young boy dreaming in his father's fields,
Who plucks a lily from the bending wheat
And stands with veiléd gaze and searching eyes
Pale with some great emprise,
Beyond the homing waters of his isle,
Beyond Majorca's skies;—
And dreams and dreams the while!"
"And they who love him wonderingly ask:
"What lad is this of ours
Who dreams away the hours,
And when the windy night-tide running sings,
So strangely seems
Converse to hold with far compelling things?
Or what these spirit-smiling ecstasies,"
They reverent cry,
"That halt him at his task
And hold him trancéd in bright reveries?
Is this our lad, indeed,
Who with such Heaven-given grace—
Ay, with the light of Heaven on his face!—
Makes question of the very world about?"
One of the sweetest features of this day was that hereafter by a decree of Governor Hiram Johnson, who also did not fail to send a representative to Monterey in the person of Judge Griffin, November the twenty-fourth was declared a state holiday. May Serra day long be welcomed by loyal Californians! We cannot close this chapter after speaking of the bright constellation of the past which appeared in California skies so many years ago, and whose traces we so cherish, without saying a few words about that worthiest of worthy movements to restore the dear old missions of El Camino Real according to their traditional lines, here again Reverend Father Mestres of Monterey deserves the greatest credit in this enterprise, and the Knights of Columbus of the California councils have proved themselves great helpers in the plan. King Alfonso, his minister, Señor Juan Riaño, the Marquis de la Vega y Inclan who will be King Alfonso's representative at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, are hearty supporters and sponsors of this movement, and with cooperation from faithful friends and the sanction of the Bishop of the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles, we have no doubt that these glorious landmarks, some of which have alas too long been allowed to go to "wreck and ruin" while others are still more or less neglected, after the cruel years which extinguished their sanctuary lamps, left their altars bare and their belfries silent save for the hooting of the night owls, will ere long be in the proper repair to hand down with pride to posterity; and to further repair these holy temples and place them under their historical and original plans the most fitting priests to whom we could entrust them (at least wherever the necessary satisfactory arrangements are possible) are Spanish priests, compatriots of their founders, this too would serve to continue and strengthen the old friendly relations between Spain and California, and as whatever Spanish priests would take charge of the missions, would be scholarly men speaking both English and Spanish, the English speaking congregations would be well served. About three of the old missions are under Spanish priests now. Let us then not cease our efforts until every mission cross gleams gloriously in the radiance of the California sun, until the devotional chimes of mission bells peal forth again from every silent belfry, until the altar light beams again before each tabernacle enclosing the Eucharistic Presence, until the empty niches contain again the images which decked them as of yore, until each tomb of sainted missionary is restored, until mass is again daily said within these consecrated walls, and finally until San Carlos of Carmelo is again a worthier Carmel, "for the greater honor and glory of God" and the praises of His Virgin Mother once more are sung about this smiling valley where the Christian Indian children gathered the beautiful wild flowers of the blooming meadows to adorn the hallowed shrines, ere chimed the Angelus at evenings mellow glow.