One would wonder and be perplexed if one would take the trouble to carefully analyze and examine the progress of the world as a whole. One will see that, in spite of science, art, commerce, moral education, and everything necessary to produce good citizenship, civilization is advancing very slowly.

I reiterate that one would be not only perplexed but--if he wanted to unearth the causes that obstruct the progress of civilization--also confronted with facts that would be very discouraging. He would find that the real causes of a retarding civilization are the so-called educated classes or rather semi-educated parasites. This unscrupulous class wants to rule and bleed the people by breeding ignorance and superstition, fostering upon the people 2the necessity of perpetuating the racial mythical traditions, customs, and habits of the so-called past ages, thus keeping up their underground work of frauds and swindles by covering it up with the airs of patriotism, nationalism and religion.

I will bring before you the greatest swindlers, the arch-enemies of civilization, the priests of the Catholic Church, who for centuries have kept the people of Europe in darkness and the prisons well packed with intellectual individualists who had the learning and the courage to defy those rogues.

Today, however, the sun of this swindling class is beginning to set, and the enlightened people of the West, ruled by a progressive class, have thrown off the yoke of exploitation and curtailed the old dynastic influences and their grip upon the people, making them less oppressive.

Must the Greeks criticize this Western enlightenment by saying that these 3people did not maintain the sacred traditions of their progenitors in jerking off the unreligious yoke of the swindlers?

Must we criticize them as we did a Chicago doctor recently, who said that the Greeks must remain faithfully devoted to our traditions? Must we criticize them for keeping up such traditions as that of carrying the sepulcher of the Savior around the streets of the city in the early hours of the morning, chanting prayers and hymns born of hypocrisy, disturbing the peace and quietness of people who are sleeping; that of parading around the streets of Chicago in Foustanela (Kilts), dancing the Chiamico; that of blindly submitting to the corrupt rule of our idiotic archons, under the influence of fear and superstition which stifle the freedom of noble ideas? Are these holy traditions to be maintained, Dr. Kalliontzis? According to our learned doctor, people ought to remain in the darkness, so that he and his kind, concealed under the cloak of patriotism and religion, can fatten themselves upon their ignorance and weaknesses.

Of course nobody ever expected the Chicago doctor to possess political and social knowledge, but we did expect him to have better breeding; to be more careful and not to abuse the hospitality and generosity of our adopted country.

In his article published in the Greek Star, he advised the non-Masons to cease to deal and associate with Masons, and if possible to avoid them as if they were black sheep.

I am not a Mason, but historical facts tell us that the present world owes very much to free Masonry. America was liberated from the British yoke; France was liberated from monarchs and emperors; Portugal, from an infamous monarch, and we the Greeks were liberated from the Turkish yoke, because the first and foremost workers of the above revolutions for liberty were Masons.

Masons, according to our doctor, are not patriots, or rather he maintains that by becoming Masons, they lose their patriotism. How do you account, doctor, for the patriotism of Voltaire, Mirabeau, Rousseau, Xanthos, Skoufas, and many other Masons?

Were it not that our Greek community in Chicago is affected by your article, doctor, we would refrain from calling your attention to it, as it would have been a waste of time, energy and principle to answer such idiotic writings... But, doctor, for your own individual interest, we advise you to deal with things which are within your circle and leave the Greek community and the Free Masons alone.

G. Matalas.