American Protective Association
The organization was the largest anti-Catholic movement in the United States during the later part of the 19th century, showing particular regional strength in the Midwest.
"[4] During the APA's first two years the organization was small and regionally compact, with local councils limited to the Midwestern states of Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska.
[5] No internal documents indicating the membership size of the early secret society exist, the organization's records having been destroyed in a fire.
[7] The years 1892 and 1893 initiated a period of dramatic growth in the size of the APA, and the secret society began capturing headlines in newspapers around the country.
"[8] Other cities in which the APA grew to exert powerful political influence during the middle years of the 1890s included Omaha, Rockford, Toledo, Duluth, and Louisville, with a slightly lesser impact in Rochester, St. Louis and Denver.
[9] Growth of the APA during the early 1890s was spurred by the circulation of forged documents, including in particular a set of purported “instructions to Catholics” advising the faithful against "keeping faith with heretics," and another alleged Papal encyclical over the signature of Pope Leo XIII calling for Catholics to "exterminate all heretics" on or about St. Ignatius Day [September 5], 1893.
[13] During the middle 1890s, the APA expanded from its Midwestern nexus to become a fully national organization, with Supreme President Traynor traveling extensively to help with establishment of new local councils.
Thus it took credit with the election of John W. Griggs to the governorship of New Jersey, by bringing up his opponent's, Alexander T. McGill support of a Catholic protection bill in 1875.
[17] The convention adopted a platform calling for restricted immigration, a halt to public money spent for ostensibly sectarian purposes, limitation of the vote to citizens alone, and equal taxation of all except public property, and formed committees to attend the national conventions of the various political parties in an effort to gain commitments for these principles into national party platforms.
[18] The issue of Free silver and monetary policy proved to be all dominant in the 1896 campaign, however, and the agenda of the APA and its friends sank without a trace.
[20] While the Association said it did not have any conflict with Catholicism or the Irish per se, they believed that the Roman Catholic Church was making inroads into the government of the United States with the goal of controlling it.
They said that Catholics had congregated in areas of large cities, preventing the election of non-Catholics in those areas, that 60% to 90% of government employees were Catholic, often illiterate and current and hired on the basis of patronage, attacks on the public school system, the "remarkable" increase in untaxed church property and the "fact" that the army, navy "were almost entirely Romanized", "frequent desecration" of the American flag by priests and the federal government was controlled by the Jesuits.
They said that Roman Catholics were under the complete political control of the Pope and were to required to obey its laws when they were in conflict with those of the state, citing the Papal encyclical issued by Leo XIII on January 10, 1890, Sapientiae Christianae.
[23] Although a veil of secrecy cloaked early doctrinal documents, which later said to have only "feebly indicated" the APA's organizational aims,[24] the 1894 national convention approved a 13-point statement of principles which was made public and published.
[25] This platform stated that "loyalty to true Americanism, which knows neither birthplace, race, creed, or party" was the "first requisite for membership" in the APA, and that the organization did not control the political affiliations of its members.
[26] The group's fundamental opposition to Catholicism was spelled out in the third plank of the 1894 statement of principles, which declared that while the APA was "tolerant of all creeds," it nevertheless
[33] A Junior American Protective Association for boys and girls aged 14–21 was established at a meeting of the Supreme Council in Milwaukee on 12 May 1895.
The Association often used spurious canon laws, Jesuit and cardinal oaths and unauthenticated quotes from the Catholic press in their propaganda.
