After education the Church has considered its most important work the organization of charity. The oldest hospital founded by pri vate beneficence still in existence in what is now the United States is the Charity (Sisters) Hos pital at New Orleans dating from 1720. In 1829 four Sisters of Charity went to Saint Louis from Emmittsburg to open the Mullanphy Hospital, which had been endowed by Mr. John Mullanphy. In 1832 when an outbreak of cholera in Blockley Hospital, Philadelphia, utterly disorganized that hospital, six sisters, by request of Bishop Kenrick, started from Emmittsburg within two hours after the sum mons and took charge, restoring order there and giving the institution its one short inter regnum of peace in the distressing reign of violence, neglect and cruelty.° (Nutting and (History of In 1847 Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, was founded, to be fol lowed by a chain of hospitals under the care of the Sisters of Mercy throughout the country. In 1849 Saint Vincent's Hospital, New York, was established by the Sisters of Charity, and since then the same sisters have opened 11 other hospitals in the greater city. Carney Hospital, Boston, was founded in 1868, and since then Sisters' hospitals have come to occupy a prominent place in American life, there being now some 530 Catholic hospitals in the country, caring for 1,000,000 patients a year. Besides they have charge of the orphans, of the found lings and of a number of institutions for the old as well as for the insane and the tuberculous. Mother Cabrini founded a series of hospitals, beginning with Columbus New York, 1892, orphan asylums and schools in this coun try for the Italians, which have helped very much in solving the social problems connected with this large group of new citizens.
Very early in our history missionaries among the Indians continued some of the good work that had been done in Colonial days in chris tianizing and civilizing the Indians. The °black robe° of the Jesuits became a power among them. Father Peter de Smet, S.I., the °Apostle of the Rocky Mountains,° served the Indians of the Middle West for fully 50 years (1821-71) and was often called upon to use his influence with hostile tribes. Of the 300,000 Indians in the United States 60,000 arc Catholics, ministered to by 160 priests. There are about 100 Catholic schools for Indian children containing some 5,000 pupils. Missionary effort among the negroes has been even more active. More than 100,000 of our colored population are Catholics, served by 170 priests. Nine religious communi ties of men and 23 of women are represented in the negro work. Mother Drexel's founda tions for the Indians and negroes have accom plished magnificent results. There are now 150 Catholic schools for negroes with an attendance of about 15,000 children.
Toward the end of the 19th and the be ginning of the 20th century the Church in the United States received large additions to its number through the immigrants from the Slav countries. At the present time the Slav Cath
olics are calculated to number nearly 5,000,000 in the United States. Three millions of these are Poles, 1,000,000 are Bohemians and Slo yaks, 250,000 Croatians, 125,000 Slovenians and 500,000 Ruthenians. Practically all the Poles in the United States are Catholics and very faith ful to their religion. They have 750 priests, more than 500 churches and 20 Catholic news papers in their own language. The Bohemians have 250 priests and 100 churches. The Ruthen ians, the term being applied to those who come from Austria, have become important in our population in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Ohio. They are practically all Uniats, that is, in union with Rome but not using the Latin rite. They have some hand some churches and 150 priests, some 64 being married. It has been decreed that there should be no addition to the married clergy in this country either by immigration or ordination. The Greek Catholic Union among the Ruthen ians is a powerful organization with a member ship of nearly 50,000. There is an order of Ruthenian Sisters, of the Order of Saint Basil who take charge of parochial schools. The Church demonstrates the validity of her name of Catholic by gathering into the fold here all the foreign nationalities — Rumanians, Alban ians, Syrians and Armenians. All of these have priests of their own and follow their own rites, to which they were accustomed at home. New York as the port of entry for immigration caught numbers of all these peoples so that mass is now said in New York in seven dif ferent languages, according to a series of rites. All these peoples, except the Ruthenian Greeks, who are organized in one diocese, under a Ruthenian prelate, are under the jurisdiction of the ordinary ecclesiastical authorities in this country and of course of the Pope.
This large foreign immigration to America has introduced a series of new problems and ele ments into our political life. They are not very different from those which occurred as a conse quence of German and Irish immigration at the middle of the 19th century. The Church was an important factor in the transformation of these European stocks into American citizens of ster ling patriotism. Her ministrations under the di rection of a hierarchy that has shown itself thor oughly American and free from any political bias that might hamper our free development, is accomplishing a similar transformation for the Slays and the Italians. President McKinley declared the influence of the Catholic Church in this matter as extremely precious for the future welfare of the country. The decided stand taken by the Church against all the forces of anarchy has meant much for preserving the balance of conservatism among these newly arrived peoples, so liable in the first flush of their enjoyment of liberty to go too far in what they expect of it.