on May 6, 1896. In response to the growing influence of the anti-Catholic American Protective Association in Los Angeles, he organized a branch of the Catholic Truth Society in 1896. When it came to more secular issues, Montgomery believed, "If ever the respective rights and duties of labor and capital are to be even properly defined, it must be upon the principles which religion lays down." In 1899, he was invited to attend a public address by the socialist political leader Eugene V. Debs. During the address, Debs pointed to an American flag over his head and said, "These very stars and stripes, our emblem of liberty, are manufactured in a sweatshop"; when it was Montgomery's turn to speak, the bishop declared, "If that flag was made in a sweatshop, it floats over the freest country on the face of the earth." San Francisco On September 17, 1902, Montgomery was appointed coadjutor archbishop of San Francisco, with the right of succession to his former superior Archbishop Riordan, as well as titular archbishop of Axum. At the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Riordan was away on travel and it was Montgomery who led the Archdiocese's immediate response to the disaster and helped extinguish a fire at St. Mary's Cathedral. A few days later, he wrote to his successor in Los Angeles, Thomas James Conaty, to say "I do not know how I have lived through [it]" and to praise the “good humor, the common interest, and forgetfulness of self that are everywhere." Despite a history of poor health, Montgomery died unexpectedly from complications with appendicitis and diabetes on January 10, 1907. He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California. References 1847 births 1907 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles 19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco 1906 San Francisco earthquake survivors People from Anderson County, Kentucky Catholics from California Catholics from Kentucky