Hassett v. Carroll

• Decision Date: 19 December 1911
• Citation: 85 Conn. 23,81 A. 1013
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HASSETT v. CARROLL.

81 A. 1013

85 Conn. 23

HASSETT v. CARROLL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 19, 1911

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Marcus H. Holcomb Judge.

Slander and libel by William Hassett against John H. Carroll. Judgment for plaintiff for $4,000, and defendant appeals. Reversed conditionally.

The plaintiff, a resident of Wallingford, in this state, is a member of the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church of that place, has for many years been a member of the Central school district committee of Wallingford, and been engaged in the retail coal business in that town. The defendant is a Roman Catholic priest, and is the pastor of said church.

On Sunday the 12th of September, 1908, at each of three masses held on that day, one of which was attended by The plaintiff's children and another by The plaintiff and his wife, the defendant read from the pulpit to the congregation certain writings previously prepared by him concerning The plaintiff, which are set forth in the complaint, and of which the following are parts:

" I have a very disagreeable duty to perform this morning, my dear people, about the school. Fearing I might detain you too long, I have put my thoughts in writing, and I want you to pay particular attention to them.

" To-day, my dear people, I wish to call your serious and thoughtful attention to the studied indignity put upon your children, the lambs of my flock, and a Catholic teacher a native-born Catholic teacher, by an Irish born and bred school committeeman, who on account of his scandalous actions against the conceded authority of your lawfully appointed pastor I would not dare call Catholic.

" This public servant insists, whether it pleases you or not, in placing your children in an ill-smelling, filthy, and unsanitary building. A self-respecting American pig would commit suicide rather than spend an hour in that malodorous pigsty.

" You elected this man, no doubt, and in spite of your pastor, to be your servant, to hire your daughters for school teachers when they were properly educated for that purpose and to do it not as though it were doing you a favor or putting you under any sort of obligation to him, but as matter of justice and honesty in performance of his sacred duty that you have elected him to execute. But if we are to judge from his actions of many years duration, he is firmly convinced that he is your master, and the power you put in his hands he can use to humble you to your very knees, even scorn and refuse to grant what belongs to you by right.

" Any opposition which is noticed on your part he regards as impertinence and insubordination, not thinking in his pride of power that you who made him can speedily unmake him.

" For this sleek article knows well that he can wheedle his dupes with his soft talk which will enable him to put on again the cloak of power of his assumed right of authority.

" He uses every man and every woman, the schools, the teachers, and even the pastor himself if he could, to further his coal business. God help the man, woman or child, pastor or people that try to thwart him in this respect! Would he be allowed to if that microbe infested shack where he insists on putting your children were not heated with his coal!

" Would he dare for one moment treat our respected and respectable Protestant friends in like manner?

" His tender solicitude about allowing the little ones to cross the track is deeply touching. It enables him to quote his reverend pastor's remark on last Sunday in support of his wisdom and humanity in sending Catholic children to these pest holes, and making a Catholic school teacher leave her room in the Colony school, that he could replace her with a Protestant teacher. Again I ask, would our Protestant neighbors ever allow such a thing?

" The dangers of the railroad crossing may with some little care be avoided, but who can avoid the bad ventilation, the malarial atmosphere and filthy surroundings of that germ-breeding schoolroom?

" It seems this man's policy is that any old thing is good enough for his Irish constituents. Now for the facts in proof of this assertion. Has he ever allowed a Catholic Irishman to be associated with him on that school board, in that very lucrative office, especially for a man in the coal business? When, years ago, the pastor suggested that such a thing could be very easily done, he replied ‘ We have all we want now and we can afford to be generous.’ Whom he meant there cannot be a shadow of doubt. ***

" This self-constituted champion of our rights and privileges represents nothing but his own interests. And it was simply to propitiate our fellow Protestant citizens by making them think that he controlled you and me, and anything to keep him feeding at the public crib he subsists upon, like a pack of blound hounds till they let up and cry for mercy.

" I have it on the best authority that he is and has been making deals with them, thus humbugging our people. You are all aware of another deal where he used all sorts of duplicity and trickery to oust a poor Catholic girl from the Colony street school under the pretense of incompetency.

" Again it became my duty to defend this member of my flock from this injustice, and, thanks to my policy of never letting my bone go with any man, I succeeded in keeping her from being dismissed.

" Again with vindictiveness, he refused, as though he had a right to refuse, to hire another girl, a native of this town and an orphan, simply because her brother was my friend. This is the teacher he now puts in the pesthouse.

" On account of this I deemed it my duty to resent this high-handed conduct by giving to other parties the church coal which he had furnished for many long years. Immediately he stops his munificent sum of two dollars to the monthly collection. The church that paid him thousand of dollars for his coal was now to lose that princely contribution.

" Now the war is on with the priest and war to the knife. The pastor must be down and ruined by any means fair or foul, and especially foul-no stone left unturned to hurt him with his own Catholic people. Even the vestry of the church must suffer his vengeance. He makes, even forces, the Catholic people to make his private quarrels their own. ***

" A short time before this he solemnly states in the pastor's library that no power on earth will induce him to accept the office of school committeeman if the board of education, of which I was then an honored member, would insist on engaging a superintendent. I very foolishly believed him and set about to get a good man in his place.

" You all know what happened that never to be forgotten night when the Catholic henchmen of this lying trickster forgot their manhood and religion and insulted their pastor who was solely and disinterestedly looking out for their interest and good.

" There was this fraud running for office with all his public dupes and followers making the night hideous with their yelling and cursing. In honor of this glorious victory the saloons kept open house that night by order of the victor. ***

" Now let's see. A fellow member with me on the school board was suspected by the boss of being friendly with the pastor. During his absence in New York City, this powerful individual, by a trick that would bring the blush of shame to the cheek of a heathen Chinese, tried to remove him from that board. Did he do it? Not so you could notice it. ***

" Then his anger against the pastor was now at white heat. He began now his lowest and craftiest sorts of tricks to down the priest. He forces the so-called Catholic doctor to sell his birthright of manhood and honesty for less than the scriptural mess of pottage, to run against the priest on the board of education. What did he promise him for this shameless perfidy? The position of health officer. Did he get it? Not yet, nor never while I can oppose him. What did the lawyer get? Nothing that you can see. What did the representative get? A large wind pudding with lemon sauce. What did the sleek article himself get? A salutary and well-grounded fear that kept him from running for the water commissioner.

" Let us all fervently pray this wholesome fear may prevent him from running next June for school committeeman.

" Were my people to put this fellow in that office again, an A. P. A. or a North of Ireland Orangeman would deem him too treacherous and unclean to spit upon.

" In his written complaint against me to the bishop, he tells what he did years ago to prevent the Protestants from devouring us, body and soul. How two reverend curates were sent on the highways and by-ways to compel them to come to meeting. Why? To save themselves? Not at all, but, as the bishop remarked, ‘ to save him from losing his coal.’

" Why should he break the law of the state and shut out the other poor coal dealers, who have nothing else but their coal to depend upon, from honest competition? As long as you allow this in this borough you partake of his crime. ***

" The proof of this-I want to tell you how many long years this man has been breaking the law. Here is the law. I am not talking through my hat, but I have facts that cannot be refuted. Now you know, my dear people, what will be the result of this.

" When I went up to protest the other night at the school committee, there I saw my friend's henchmen. I wouldn't speak to him any more than I would speak to the wolf. ***

" Your children are as dear to me as the apple of my eye, and any one who maltreats or hurts these children hurts me personally. I don't care what their nationality is, that never enters my mind. They are my children because they are God's. I am the pastor and the pastor supposes that he has sheep and lambs. And these are my lambs. And any man who will put insult on

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