Golden Age, February 1, 1922
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’John A Our.
L Box 161
Clarkton Mo 10-21 >22
Feb. 1, 1922, Vol. Ill, No, 62
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Volvmb 8 WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 1, 3 022 Nwmbkb 03 CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE
LABOR AND
Clergy and Capital and
' Labor
Chun'hea Keep Labor
, Quiet
Afraid to “Queer” Themselves .
Hillis Will Put Ps Right 2«‘S
Growth of Radicalism
ECONOMICS
Radical Clergymen ......._...2T1
Churches in Dilemma
The Tyrannical Rfshopa .. 272
Ruined by Steel Trust
Reverends Aid Oppression 273
Flaying a Double Game 273
Tnoqual’ties in Wages .
Conditions in Bridgeport 280
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
An Education in One Article............ ,„,..279
Changes in School Attendance ._________._____________
Literature and Progress ............. ,
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Tools of Big Business........265 “Kill Him for Me” ____„..,„270
CiPrict«" StUCl< 2r>7 T1,<1 , l!'llinn*
Their Master—Mammca _.2GS Gohl and Silver —..—..—..J1T4
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
The Clergy in Pelitii’fl
Methodist Political Am
bitions ..
banc-tided Breakfasts
Small Will Get You
De We Want The Da.r>
Age«i Repeated?
Kaiser a Protestant Clergyman .............-
A Christian ( !) Nation ....262
Peace! Peace! ..
Wanted the League ..
The Vatican Wanted the
League ___________________
The ('icrgymen and Dis-
KiTnaiHcnt
Lining up the Clergy
Would Sliooi All Germans 2<»9
Single Tax Obstacles
Clergy Advise Shooting
Lawson’s Bi-nutiriil Vision 281
Japan Must Withdraw
from Siberia
SCIENCE AND INVENTION A Lead Pipe Cinch ____________________________________________~.__27l)
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
An Apeod.-ttlon Destined to
Failure ............................284
The Hotting of the Picture 284 l-'rapbecy and Fulfilljiient 285 Pk-tiu'e 1 : The Child of
1 iir? Prophet _____
Picture 2 : The Overflowing Riveg .--......—
Picture 3: The Two Asro-ruilians ..........................
Studies in the “Harp of God”
Siring II. Justice Mani fewted .......... ...287
Oaiuipeteut God (poem) 287
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t, UTf.
tfte Golden Age
Volurpe III
Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, February ], 1922
Number 62
“Go to Church, Thou Fool”—In Four Parts (Part in)
The Clergy in Politics
TT IS no new thing for the clergy to be in “ politics. For hundreds of years during the dark ages politics was their only business, and it is the ambition of myriads of them to get .back to the flesh-pots as quickly as any route can take them there.
At a Methodist Ministers’ Meeting in Los Angeles, October 19, 1921, the clergy present formally adopted a resolution to enter politics. There was no , reason for their making any such formal statement of their purposes. They have been in politics, and in successful politics, for a long time. Lord
EDITORIAL NOTE
THE Banner-Herald, of Athens, Georgia, in its issue of September 21, 1921, contains a half-page advertisement bearing the above caption, indorsed by the announcements of the ten principal churches of the city, all denominations.
Beaverbrook, a British politician, writing in the London Sunday Express, after giving the Methodist Church credit for having brought about prohibition of the liquor traffic in the United States, made the statement that the Methodist Church is the most powerful political body that the new world has ever seen.
At the Los Angeles meeting, Dr. Healy, dean .of the McClay School of Theology of the University of Southern California, voiced the general sentiment of those present when in speak-zing on behalf of the resolution he said:
t “Let the church of God take a firm stand; let us ’ ministers go into our pulpits and urge our people to go .to the polls and vote at the general election”.
• We wonder if any of our readers can point out to us where Jesus or any of the apostles offered v*ny advice to such effect to any of the early Church, counseling them to mix up in the poli-||eal activities of the Roman Empire in every possible way. If the early church had received $uch advice, and had acted on it, there would have been no Christians fed to the lions to make a Roman holiday. The thing that the Roman Empire had against the early Christians was that they looked for the promised kingdom of Messiah and would neither hold office nor bear arms for any earthly government.
Methodist Political Ambitions
HE ambitions and activities of the Methodist Church
along political lines shine out in the efforts of members of the Methodist ministry. Thus, Reverend Stuart Bprton Edmondson. pastor of the Lake Forest AI ethodi st Church of Chicago, in explaining why he gave up a more remunerative job as a lifeinsurance agent to take the comparatively unprofitable job of AI ethodist minister, declared that he proposed to put his business ideas into the ministry, and, that he looked forward to creating a model church, one which would be a community centre, a centre for local athletics, a centre for social functions and a centre for local politics.
For refusing to allow their place of worship to be used as a. market-place for the sale of bonds a body of Christian worshipers was mobbed at 17 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, in 1918.
Tn the neighborhood of T^e Golden Age office the local Board of Registry meets in the
First Alethodist Episcopal Church, Clark aijd Henry Streets, Brooklyn, for the transactions of its business. The transfer of many polling places to the churches was accomplished in a very natural way through the efforts of the women of New York state who wish to have a more desirable place to cast their vote than the
barber shop, laundry, or tailor shop. They succeeded in having the laws of New York state amended so that church parlors could be used as polling places without forfeiture of exemption from taxation.
We are not prepared to teach that when the apostle said, “Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you,” he definitely meant politics. But it would not be an unfair application; for those who have had most experience in politics are usually frank in saying that it is hard for a clean man to keep clean if he enters the political arena. It seems not to have occurred to those interested in bringing the political fights into the churches that they were thereby defiling the church. Indeed, some ministers seem to think that everything is so sweet and clean and pure nowadays that it is quite impossible for it to be defiled at all.
Sanctified Breakfasts
fPlIUS, the Reverend J. P. Westman, Nelson,
British Columbia, preaching June 26, 1921, on the theme, “Finding God in Canada,” made the statement that God is in everything, and in all the relations of life, and that the time would undoubtedly come when such an ordinary thing as eating one’s breakfast would be a sacrament.
If the Reverend Westman believes that eating one’s breakfast is a sacrament, and he wishes to know just what a sacrament looks like, he should not limit himself to a place whore it is eaten at 10: 30 in the morning, in the calm and quiet atmosphere of a clergyman’s home, but should visit a cheap boarding-house at 6: 30 A. M. when fifty or a hundred men are trying to eat as much as possible in the shortest space of time. At some of these boarding-houses the first man at the table gets all the meat. At others it is not uncommon for a man who finds his meat tougher than he thinks it should be, to throw the meat back on the platter for some luckless late arrival, while he tackles a new piece, all of which is sacramental, according to Reverend Westman.
If the clergy were all agreed as to their political faiths there would be a rosier prospect for their entry into politics; but what will happen when they disagree? Reverend W. F. Sheldon, in August, 1920, writing to the New York Times respecting the 1920 Fall elections said: “For those whose wisdom is not warped or dull the issue is pitilessly clear. It is Cox and civilization or Harding and hell.” This is not very ' complimentary to Mr. Harding, and it is especially uncomplimentary to our Vice-President# and it is most so to hell. Men have been sent to ' Atlanta for less than that, Mr. Sheldon.
Small Will Get You
UST what may happen at any time to those who run counter to the wishes of religious politicians may be gathered from remarks of Reverend Sam W. Small at a convention of the National Reform Association, in Boston. This Association is trying to get the name of God into the Constitution, and Reverend Sam waxed elo- . quent respecting dangers that threaten because of those who do not share his belief that all will t be as it should be in this country and with the United States Government as soon as this can -be done. Reverend Small discoursed as follows: k
“The department of justice in Washington has classified and named more than 1,200 of these persons. If the tirades of these agitators are not stopped, the volcanic rage of the multitudes who are being daily mis- v educated by their preachings will burst forth and destroy our country. When a nation denies its God it is ./ destroyed, and not even all its armies and navies with the new and terrible forces placed at their command in recent years can stop it. The only remedy, and it is a -sure one, is to make it a Christian nation. Embody the principles of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on -the Mount, and the Golden Rule in the government of any nation so threatened; and it will be saved.”
It will be observed that the Reverend Small v does not believe in the freedom of speech which the United States Constitution guarantees, and which so many misguided Reverends in our day are trying to destroy.
Politicians are quick to link up, and to make ; use of clerical advances into politics. When the Reverend Manning of Oil City, Pennsylvania, preached a sermon attacking the highway system of Western Pennsylvania, the representa- -fives of the state highway department called on ■= the Reverend immediately to ascertain his wishes. When Missouri had her centennial celebration of statehood in October last, plans were formed for the clergy of all the churches to ' unite in preaching centennial sermons. Who t ever heard of the Lord or the apostles preach- ' ing a “centennial” sermon? .
With a keen discrimination of just where and J how deals are fixed up to keep the unholy alii- > ance—preachers, politicians and profiteers—in ■4=8 power and to so administer things that the burden of taxation falls heaviest on those least able to bear it, while the civic improvements are principally in the neighborhoods of the well-to-do, Reverend Allen A. Stockdale, pastor of First Congregational Church of Toledo,address-ing the Kiwanis club of that city, chose for his topic, “Government by Luncheon Clubs,"' setting forth the practical suggestion that “it is much better to discuss city government when eating than at any other time”.
Do We Want Dark
Ages Repeated?
IS THE human family desirous of another experience such as it had in the dark ages? The clergy in politics means just that. In Italy they have a better understanding of what this stands for than have the people of the United States. After fifty years of inactivity a Catholic party reappeared in Italy, i and straightway the
: Government in power
k placarded the walls of the city with posters, one of them which read: “Voting for the - Catholics means a clerical dictatorship and the bringing us back to
; the time of Giordano Bruno the philosopher, who was burned at the stake by religious in. tolerance”.
> There is the same spirit of intolerance among ' some Protestants that there was and is among some Catholics. Frank P. Bennett, speaking at - a meeting of the Clarendon Street Baptist < Church, Boston, urged the passage of a law for a compulsory church attendance. Wouldn't that f be a fine prospect for those who believe in the principle of human liberty?
In a sermon during the World War the Reverend Dan F. Bradley, of Cleveland, said:
“Today we recognize no distinction between politics and religion. The war is the acme of politics. It is making people think of the questions raised by the war and compelling them to know that religion must enter politics or the world will become the monstrous thing that the kaiser desires. Men of the kaiser’s class have kept Christianity and politics apart, but we know the spirit of religion should be enthroned in the very heart of political life.”
Kaiser a Protestant
Clergyman
HE kaiser was the head of the Lutheran church in Germany, one of its regularly ordained ministers. He was also the head of the political life of Germany; and if the Reverend Bradley will tell us whether he recognizes the Lutheran church as a Christian church we can then tell what he meant by the kaiser keeping Christianity and politics apart.
Not all ministers are agreed that it is time for the church to enter politics. Answering his own question, “What did Jesus teach?” Reverend Doyle, of Taber-n a c 1 e Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Mo., said, in part:
“If we view the Lord Jesus as a politician, only then we behold a failure. For Jesus voted for no governor, ran for no office, organized no political party, advocated no legislation, and proposed no tax. He lived when orphans roamed the streets, when lunatics went abroad and slept in the tombs of Gadara, when the blind begged by the roadside, when lepers were cast out to die beyond human hands, forbidden to enter a human habitation. Yet we get from Jesus no word about orphan homes, institutions for the blind, asylums for the insane, pesthouses or hospitals. ... If one church organization as such goes into politics, advocates legislation, and pleads
before legislators, then the gate is opened and discriminatory legislation is only an incentive for all ecclesiastical bodies to enter with pleas. What a medley would our legislative halls be if all religions came thither to advocate their remedies and to promote their tenets! There would be the Protestant church asking for the prohibition of whiskey, and the, Jewish church asking for the prohibition of hog meat. There would be the Catholics asking for a law to close the meat markets on Fridays, the Seventh Day Adventists asking that they
A Christian (?) Nation
WE COALMEND this statement of Reverend
Fiske to the attention of the United States Supreme Court, which we understand has recently decided officially that the United States is a Christian nation. In a land where the majority rules, and where the majority are pagans, it seems a little difficult to see just where the right outers to call this a Christian nation.
be closed on Saturdays, and the Presbyterians that they be closed on Sundays.”
Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, author of “In His Steps”, in his first editorial as editor of The Christian Herald said:
“As a matter of historical fact,ecclesiasticism has invariably kept the world in an atmosphere of ignorance and superstition. Many people today think that all that is needed to make a safe civilization is the making and enforcing of law. Legislatures and congresses are constantly passing new laws. At the tame time laws and treaties are being constantly broken and trampled on by those who are lawless at heart.”
Bishop Charles E. Fiske, of the Episcopal diocese of Central New York, addressing the Syracuse Ministers’
— AbiO XHG Arc ’Society Will MEET HERE FRIDAY EVENING at EIGHT O’CLOCK.
THIS MORNING WETHR.EN, I SHALL DEVOTE THE TIME. TO AN ANALYSIS OF TWO IMPORTANT ISSUES OP THE APPROACHING
PRESIDE.NTIAU ELECTION. THE
just a half= a second, paitson, and I'll Be OUT OF HEREl T GO To CHURCH for (Relief from the Cares of this CRAZY WORLD, ANO IF I CAN’T FINO Relief here I’ll carry on till I DO FIND A PREACHER THAT KNOVUS H|S business 9.1
Association, made it clear that he is one of those who think that the church’s commission is not to direct the affairs of the world at this time, and in the church’s present condition. He said:
“For heaven’s sake don’t let us get into the cigarette and tobacco reform and preach an entirely negative Christian itv. Nobody would think of calling Syracuse Christian. Our experience in the war when we dealt with a cross-section of society in the training camps and found fifty or sixty or seventy percent of the soldiers .•K-tuallv pagan determines this. The state is pagan.”
//(
Repmduced by permission
In a speech delivered at Dallas, Texas, March 11, 1920, Senator Joseph W. Bailey, of Texas, replying to a charge that he was against the churches denied the accusation and gave pointed ex-pression to some wholesome truths in the following language :
“The real fact is that I am the church’s best friend, because I am trying to save it from these preaching politicians. The church cannot be a political and a religious body at the same time. It may be partly religious and partly political; but it cannot be wholly religious and partly political, because no thing can be the whole of itself plus a part of itself; and we know full well that just as a church becomes political it ceases to be religious to the precise extent that it becomes political. You
take one of these preaching politicians; if you will not do what he tells you to do he will make you, by joining church and state.”
Another statesman in New York state, Representative Ifackenburg, in order to show the folly of trying to legislate piety into people, proposed to define and limit the law which con- .-tains provisions against racing animals and" ■ ? racing machines on Sunday. He therefore introduced a bill in the Assembly making it illegal
in the State of New York on Sunday to here' after race aardvarks, aard wolves, agoutis, and so on down the alphabet through orangoutangs, ouakeris and pandas to sewing machines, steam rollers, typesetting machines, and washing machines. Following the roar of laughter which his bill created, Mr. Hackenburg insisted that the legislature should be consistent, saying:
“If you stop motion pictures on Sunday, you condemn to idleness a lot of people whose only free day is Sunday. And idleness breeds mischief and crime. What will young people do Sunday if they can’t go to the pictures, or if the dance-halls, decently supervised by the police, are closed? They will resort to dives, io secret meeting-places, to underground dance-halls that hide from supervision. This sort of law will force them to be bad. And nobody really wants to be bad.”
V
I-
»*»■
Peace! Peace!
' THE clergy are for peace; but it would seem as if the peace many of them desire is rather the peace that the world giveth, and that they have not noted the import of the Master’s word. “My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you”. Philip Gibbs, who went through the whole of the World War as a news. paper correspondent, said that long after the soldiers whose hands were red with human blood would have gladly ended the World War, and on better terms than it was ended:
“Men high in church who spoke from many pulpits . in many nations, under the Cross of Christ, still stoked . up the fires of hate and urged the armies to go on fight.. ing ‘in the cause of justice’, ‘for the defense of the
fatherland,’ ‘for Christian righteousness,’ to the bitter end”.
We do not know where Mr. Gibbs obtained the data for his statement; but we do know that on October 14,1918, the pastors of Detroit wired ' President Wilson warning against a premature , peace, and we also know that Bishop Rhine: lander, of the Protestant Episcopal Church,
Voiced the same sentiment in the following ini' famous and blasphemous language:
£■’ “There would be deadly danger in premature peace. L. If we believe that the War is the greatest work for ; righteousness which God has ever given our nation, then it is the greatest Christian opportunity which Christ r has ever set before us.”
Wanted the League of Nations
THE “opportunity” to which, the Bishop referred was the opportunity to get into politics in a big way which the clergy hoped would come to them, soon or late, in connection with the peace program. Hear the blasphemous words of the Federal Council of Churches, issued January, 1919:
“The time has come to organize the world for truth, right, justice, and humanity. To this end as Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a league is not merely a peace expedient, it is rather the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth. The League of Nations is rooted in the gospel. Like the gospel, its objective is ‘peace on earth, good will toward men’. Like the gospel, its appeal is universal. The heroic dead will have died in vain unless out of victory shall come ‘a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness’. (2 Peter 3:13) The church can give a spirit of good-will without which no League of Nations can endure.”
Within two months from that time President Wilson was back from Paris with his first draft of the League of Nations.
While the League of Nations treaty was up before the senate for discussion a memorial was presented to that body signed by 13,583 clergymen scattered among the different denominations as follows:
Methodist ..............
.....3808
Lutheran ..................
............. G44
Presbyterian ______
.....2-10!)
Episcopal ..............
____________ 516
Baptist .....................
„_1784
Roman Catholic
_____314
Congregational ________
.....1399
Universalists_______
__138
Christian......................
_..11G3
Unitarian .........
............ 125
Miscellaneous ..........
..._1162
Jewish ........................
............. 121
The memorial read as follows:
“Wo, the undersigned clergymen, urge the Senate of the United States to ratify the Paris peace treaty embodying the League of Nations covenant at the earliest possible date, without amendment or such reservations as would require resubmission of the treaty to the peace conference and Germany”.
Vatican Wanted the League
AFTER strenuous efforts the clerical endorsers of the League were increased by 1,726 more names, among them the late Cardinal Gibbons’. The Reverend Gibbons’ position in the matter was the same as that of the Vatican, which was expressed in the following terms:
“Things being thus restored, the order required by justice and charity reestablished and the nations reconciled, it is much to be desired, venerable brethren, that all states putting aside mutual suspicions, should unite in one league, or rather in a family of the peoples, calculated both to maintain their own independence and safeguard the order of human society.”
When the Vatican made these cheerful remarks about order being restored and people being reconciled to each other and their mutual suspicions being set aside, they neglected to explain why the Roman Catholic priests in Poland caused five hundred of their Ukrainian brethren of the Greek Catholic priesthood to be cast into prison. To be sure, it was an excellent opportunity to get rid of them, but it w’as a poor way to “set “mutual suspicions” at rest. But the Vatican was doubtless counting upon propaganda to allay whatever “mutual suspicions” might be pointed in their direction; and propaganda is the great thing nowadays; it can do almost anything desired, and no one knows it better than the “Man of the Tiber” who has been a past master in its use for sixteen centuries.
In the fall of 1919 three hundred clergymen of the Rock River, Illinois, Methodist Conference sent a resolution to Senator Sherman of that state urging the ratification of the peace treaty and the league covenant, and the senator wrote back to them that if they knew no more about the plan of salvation than they did about the League of Nations he was of the opinion that their congregations needed new spiritual guidance.
The clergy for some time have been playing possum with the League of Nations, but hanging on to it tenaciously. As late as the summer of 1920, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America sent forty clergymen to visit nineteen countries abroad with the object in view of furthering the prospects and power of the League of Nations.
The Clergymen and Disarmament
THE new fashion in the United States is that the people, in the effort to escape from their oppressors, elect presidents because of something that the candidate is supposed to stand for; and then when the president gets into office the first thing he does is to set about doing the exact opposite of that for which he was elected and which was known to be the people’s ardent wish.
President Wilson was elected on the slogan, “Ue kept us out of the war,” while seven weeks before the election there was maintained a secret committee in Wall Street, engaged in drafting the laws preparatory for the war into which he expected to force the country. Presi-
Bbookltk, & X*
dent Harding was elected because he would keep ’ us out of the league; so he calls the league a Disarmament Conference; and everything pro- ' ceeds as before. It took a little time and a little propaganda to shift the scene of the conference from Paris to Washington, but the principals < are the same and so are the principles. All hands have learned something since the “villainies of Versailles” were perpetrated; but they have not learned much, or they would not have been at it so soon again.
The first outward American move toward the new League of Nations—addressed 10 the Reverends to give it a holy send-off—was by General Tasker H. Bliss of the War Department. President Harding was hardly more than warm in the presidential chair before General Bliss wrote a letter to the Church Peace Union (a combination of the clergy of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, the National Catholic Welfare Council, the Central ■ Conference of American Rabbis and the United Synagogue of America) in which he said:
“If the clergymen of the. United States want to secure a limitation of armaments they can do it now without any further waste of time. If, on an agreed-upon date,, they simultaneously preach one sermon on this subject in every church of every creed throughout the United States, and conclude their services by having their congregations adopt a resolution addressed to their particular congressmen, urging upon them the necessity of having a business conference of five nations upon’ this subject, the thing will be done. If the churches cannot agree upon that it will not be done until the good God' puts into them the proper spirit of their religions. The responsibility is entirely upon the professing Christians-of the United States. If another war like the last one should come they will be responsible for every drop of blood that will be shed and for every dollar wastefully expended.”
The key to the above statement lies in the-force which attaches to the expression, “The thing will be done”. How did General Bliss of- * the War Department know that the State Department and the other departments of the government would concur in the plan for which ; he was spokesman? And how did he know the : churches would have the power to force the Government's hand? The answer is so obvious that a child may see through it. It was all a. ’• scheme on the part of the administration—with Britain in the background, operating through.^ 5 her secret service propaganda office maintained J at 44 Whitehall Street, New York city, for mak- ,J|
ing the clergy the goat of the new League. The administration can now claim truthfully that it was pressed into the League, and so it was; for • the program went through without a hitch. One can hardly suppress a yawn as he notes how faithfully the puppets danced as the various strings were pulled.
Lining up the Clergy
ON OR about May 25, 1921, less than three months after President Harding was seated because he kept us out of the League, Reverend William P. Merrill, President of the Church Peace Union, began beating the tomtoms to muster the hosts of sanctified superstition to do their appointed stunts. At that time he sent out a request to 120,000 clergymen, asking each of them to preach a sermon on the duty of reducing armament, because ninety-three percent of all the federal income goes for wars past, present, or dreaded, and because it was obvious that “ a man who should spend ninety-three percent of his income for insurance would rightly he judged incompetent to manage his property”.
In these days when addressing machines are a part of every office equipment it does not take long to run off 120,000 addresses, so the labor and expense of sending out this notice was very small. Acting as the spokesman for the various associations of Reverends back of him Reverend Merrill named June 5, 1921, as the day for the special sermon on the subject.
The program secretly inaugurated by the British-American Government called for three things: the reading of the call to the congregation, the inviting of the congregation to send a strongly worded resolution to their congressman, and the authorization to the Church Peace Union to sign a petition to tine President and Congress urging them to take the “initiative” in calling a conference of the nations to consider the question.
Twenty thousand of the one hundred and twenty thousand clergymen addressed authorized the signing of their names to the petition. President Harding thus succeeded in getting for his league all the fifteen thousand that petitioned Mr. Wilson for his league, and five thousand to boot. All this would be considered good business by those ''■’■o understand business, and it is not unlikely that Roger Babson or some other business engineer was well paid for devising and handling the “pulling off” of this little piece of propaganda. It was all very cleverly done. These facts prove a frame-up perpetrated by big business, big politicians, and big profiteers to inveigle America into the League whether or not.
Did you ever hear a frog croak? If not, listen to the croakings of Bishop Shayler of the Episcopal Church. It is an episcopal letter addressed to all the churches of his diocese respecting their activities for June 5th. Without a doubt Bishop Shayler was one of the most enthusiastic of war-boosters during the World War. But hear him now, now that his masters the politicians and the masters still higher up, big business, have decided that for the present they must call a halt:
“The church of Christ is called into action. In spite of the waste and woe of war, the unspeakable horrors incident thereto and the burdens of taxation upon our people, the Congress of the United States is engaged in a program of building both army and navy into enormous machines of men, guns and ships, to say nothing of increased economic burdens, which the people ought not to carry. This threatening warlike development is likely to incite other nations to the same action.”
Tools of Big Business
IT IS passing strange, as the New York World remarks, that none of these clergymen should have thought of this thing until it was proposed to them by General Bliss. The World says, very truthfully:
“Bv all the logic of religious teaching, they should have initiated the movement they are now asked to join. Thev should have led the way.”
Occasionally there is a body of men wise enough to see the inconsistency of rushing wildly for war in 1918 and rushing in the other direction less than three years afterward. A certain body of Christians in Michigan voted against the resolution urging an international conference to discuss the disarmament question, and their position seemed quite consistent to a gentleman of the same state, Mr. M. W. James, who said in a letter to the Detroit News:
“If war is right, then why disarm? And if it is not right, then whv do the ministers boost it at any time? There’s something radically wrong with our plan of running the churches, when we cannot stand committed to one idea—firm and unchangeable as the foundation! of the world.”
There is no doubt that the big-church leaders know what they want and that they are determined to get it. Thus it does not seem to us a mere coincidence that the British Archbishop of Canterbury should issue an appeal to all Episcopal churches to set apart Sunday, November 6, as a day of prayer for the divine blessing on the Armament Conference, and that the American Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America should set apart the very same day for the very same purpose. And we wonder if this order came to America through its British propaganda clearing-house at 44 Whitehall Street.
For some reason or other the Roman Catholic Church was five days off schedule, but perhaps there was a reason for this. It would not look just right to have all the churches periodically selecting the same day for similar work. Accordingly Cardinal O’Connell, of Boston, fixed upon Armistice Day, November 11, as the time when the priests of his archdiocese would o ffer their prayers and assist at mass to finish up the job that the Protestants left unfinished.
Shortly before his death Premier Hara of Japan expressed the conviction that President Harding in calling the Armament Conference was the instrument of God, but as Japan confessedly believes in some eight million deities we are left somewhat in the dark as to which God he meant. Possibly he meant “the god of this world”, but not having a clear view of the subject did not express himself with the greatest accuracy.—2 Corinthians 4:4.
Clergy and Capital and Labor
Abraham Lincoln once said: ‘Tabor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the highest consideration.”
The truth of this statement is so evident to any honest mind that it is inconceivable how any other conclusion could be reached; but the clergy of today while actually backing capital are attempting the impossible by seeming to be trying to back labor.
The normal position of the clergy toward labor was illustrated in Pittsburgh and Buffalo in the fall of 1919, when labor made its bootless effort to gain the eight-hour day and other
Brooklyn, N. I.
decent concessions from the billionaire steel trust. At that time the newspapers of these two steel manufacturing centers contained fullpage advertisements given over to advice of clergymen, Roman Catholic and Protestant, urging the workers to forget their grievances and return to work. In one of these announcements, a Roman Catholic dignitary declared that if any Catholics failed to heed-his warning, “I should regard them as apostates from the Catholic faith, traitors to their country and enemies to authority”. Nothing was said about who paid for the ads.
Churches Keep Labor Quiet
TD REE building sites for churches and par-sonages, and many other favors, have been profitable investments for many of America’s great corporations. At the town of Steelton, i Pennsylvania, the site of the great Pennsylvania Steel Company’s plant, it was a standing j joke for many years among the officials that a -strike was an impossibility, because the moment ' d one was brewing, or in fact the moment at- d
tempts were made to form a labor union, the local Roman Catholic priest would call all his congregation together and threaten to send ' i them all to hell unless they abandoned the attempt. It can he readily understood how such assistance would be appreciated by the steel company. The workers are not always equally grateful nowadays; and when Father Dernben- .3 ski, Roman Catholic priest at Johnstown, Pa., ~ in December, 1919, urged the members of his church to return to work during the steel strike, someone equally misguided in the other direc-tion wrecked his study with a dynamite bomb. -'j
Within the Episcopal Church there is a Church League for Social and Industrial De- Ji mocracy. It is of very recent origin, with seven bishops and about a hundred clergy, earnestly Jf trying to break away from the slavery to Mam- -mon which has been the heritage of the “clergy” for sixteen hundred years. In their magazine, J| entitled “The Social Preparation”, occurs the following passage, which shows how men even - 3 in the clerical business, who are honest, see what use has been made of their confreres in the past:
“It is incontestable that the ruling classes have always ' •"'2 looked to the Church to bolster up the existing regime, however infamous and oppressive. Gibbons affirms that' to a statesman all religions are equally, useful. It would certainly look so when in the late war our pastors were "^3 asked to sell bonds, and specially prepared sermons were sent out by the government for use in the churches of the land. The rulers of this world know full well that religion is the prime motive in men’s Jives; and so when they wish to further certain measures, they go to the rulers of the Church and say: ‘Now we want the people to do thus and thus, and we are sure we can count on your influence’. So now frankly and grossly, now subtly, the Church is enlisted to fight the battles of the State. Balak wants Balaam to curse his enemies; and what is of pathetic moment, Balaam generally does the job. The clergy of Philadelphia were asked to partici. pate in a Liberty Loan parade, and the Church paper stated that the request came with somewhat the weight of a military command.”
Further corroboration of Roger Babson’s statement that big business owns the churches.
Afraid to “Queer” Themselves
FJVIR services which the clergy have rendered to the ruling classes of the past are much the same as are rendered to the ruling classes of today, except that the ruling classes of today, the real rulers, are the moneyed classes. Reverend Robert Whitaker, of Los Gatos, California, is reported by the Boston Globe as saying of the Protestant denominations:
“As crises grow tense their ministers grow nervous about ‘queering’ themselves with the controlling powers of our American industries. Their business is to say nothing and to say it pleasantly. I say with the greatest kindliness that the largest part of preaching the gospel is none other than a conscious evasion, through platitudes and generalities, of questions that vitally interest - and concern the working people—there is a sort of holy soothing-syrup offered to keep the people quiet, and the preacher who tries to wake the people up to the side of righteousness and justice for the commonplace man is in danger of losing his support. The public never bothers itself about the wrongs of the working man till he steps on its corns, and the church is the same. The history of the steel troubles is the blackest chapter in the history of any civilized country ; yet the church said nothing until it was forced to speak, and then it said mighty little.”
Churches Keep Stock Prices Up
Roger W. Babson, statistician and general adviser for big business, has a keen appreciation of the service which has hitherto been rendered by the clergy and makes it plain that the clergy have been underpaid. If you want to get good service out of a man you must pay him well. Notice how bluntly he puts the clergy- forward as the supporters of the iniquities upon which the exaltation of corrupt big business and the oppression of the common people rest:
“The value of our investments depends not on tha strength of our banks, but rather upon the strength of our churches. The underpaid preachers of the nation are the men upon whom we are really depending rather than the well-paid lawyers, bankers, and brokers. The religion of the community is really the bulwark of our investments. Ami when we consider that only fifteen percent of the people hold securities of any kind, and that less than three percent hold enough to pay an income tax. the importance of the churches becomes even more evident. For our own sakes, for our children’s sakes, for the nation’s sake, let us business men get behind the churches and their preachers! Never mind if they are not perfect, never mind if their th-'ology ia out of date. The safety of all we have is due to tha churches, even in their present inefficient and inactive state. By all that we hold dear, let us from this very day give more time, money and thought to the churches of our city, for upon these the value of all we own ultimately depends.”
The same gentleman on another occasion unburdened himself as follows:
“Take the Labor situation. I beg the pardon of clients for talking so much about Labor conditions. I would not do so except that I am convinced it will be the Labor situation which will ultimately bring to an end our present period of prosperity, and throw the nation ultimately into chaos. The solving of the Labor Lituation is wholly a question of religion. The wage worker will never be satisfied with higher wages and shorter hours, any more than you and I are satisfied with more profits and a bigger house.”
Reverend J. M. Rowland, writing in seriocomic vein of the present system which makes of each clergyman “a talking machine grinding out records that come by mail”, and makes of them collectively “packhorses of every propaganda of the earth”, tells just what big business wants of the clergy7:
“Parson, parson, have you any wool? is the cry of propagandists to the preachers; and they want us to answer without hesitation, mental reservation, or a secret evasion of mind: ‘Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full -- one for the campaign, two for the drive; keep on shearing while the sheep are alive’.”
We have before indicated how the Disarmament Conference in Washington came into being; how the clergy were made sponsors for it. It is needless to say that big business acknowledges a vital interest in it. At its October, 1921, meeting, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions attributing the decline of foreign trade arid the reduced domestic consumption of manufactures and luxuries tQ ex-
cessive taxation and to the exhaustion of capital and credit. It did not say anything of the fact that big business deliberately throttled industry in 1921 to kill the labor unions. The manager of the Chamber made the statement:
“American business men have the largest possible stake in the Conference for the Limitation of Arms. Its success is essential to the revival of prosperity, while its failure would be the greatest conceivable calamity in world affairs.”
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce sent out communications to other chambers of commerce throughout the country, and received responses echoing its own sentiments from chambers of commerce in ninety-eight cities in all parts of the country.
Their Master—Mammon.
WE HAVE seen nothing more indicative of a desire on the part of some clergy to recognize Mammon as their master than. the i oilowing memorandum sent by the clergy of Durand, Michigan, to the Chamber of Commerce of that city:
“Could it be arranged with the general sentiment behind the movement to have one night known and recognized as Church Night, when for that one night at Irad the Church might have the right of way and all govern themselves accordingly? We do hereby ask the Chamber of Commerce to approve and record this request.”
This prayer of the clergy of Durand, with its request that it be registered by the Chamber of Commerce recording angel is in marked contrast with the following prayer of the apostles, recorded in Acts 4: 24-29:
“Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ ... for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word.”
The critical reader will observe that this petition was not addressed to the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.
Durand is not a large city, and its business men could hardly be said to be representatives of big business. New York is the home of the financial giants of the world. Even Wall Street has its “Bishop” who fends forth from the Trinity Church at noon and at the corner of
Broadway and Wall Street reads the Apostles’ Creed, which the apostles never saw or heard of, to try to create the impression that the . Lord is back of the thievery carried on in that vicinity. <
There are other representatives of Mammon at the head of uptown churches, however, that are ji t as ready to do their master’s bidding J at an instant’s notice. There is Reverend Doctor Charles A. Eaton, pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, New York. While • the war was on lie made the statement, “I think ~ the most honorable place in this country is Wall ? Street". This is the same Doctor Eaton who, addressing the Laundry Owners’ National Association, informed them that when his laundry yi woman had quit because sho caught cold riding home in an open automobile in winter after working all day in a hot laundry, he had told her to go to hell. along with the rest of the extremist.
Hillis Will Pat Us Right
TYoctoi’, Eatox, however, stalking-horse for big
is not the prime business in New
and that the poorly edu-
much more as po
York. That post of honor is reserved for a near neighbor of The Goij'ex Age, Reverend Doctor Newell Dwight Hillis. pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. Doctor Hillis is an able man: and ho uses his undoubted great abili’y in encouraging men of great wealth to believe that they are entitled to all they have gained; and that they are equally justified in getting as cated hard-working day laborer gets all he is worth.
Tn the Summer of 1920 Doctor Hillis obtained a vacation of two months from his strenuous clerical duties while he lectured throughout the country on these themes. The lectures, of which there are ten, have boon widely advertised and sold for use everywhere. They are illustrated by colored slides.
The Socialist New York Call, guying the Doctor about his one-sided view of things, presents
the following humorous review of his philoso-phy:
“Hillis is going to Americanize us, and one thing -'Jg necessary is to put us all right on economics. There ata some bad fellows who say that the fishpole made by 8
boy belongs to the boy, so Doc uses this to give us a lesson on economics. Read:
‘“That boy and that boy alone made the pole and the whistle, but this steel worker was only one of seven in a series who made the steel rail. First was the explorer, who found the iron ore in Michigan; second, the manufacturer who bored the ore and developed the mine; third, the man who risked his savings and built a little railway to carry the ore to Duluth; fourth, the group of men who built the barge to carry the ore to Buffalo; fifth, the men who built the furnace to produce the pig iron; sixth, the man who risked a fortune on a steel furnace; and seventh, this foreign workman, I. W. W., who rolled the hot steel into a rail for the road.’
“Thus you see how railroads are built, mines explored and ore raised to the surface, the ore transported on ■ ^barges and cars to Duluth and Buffalo, furnaces built to smelt it into pig-iron and steel ingots, without a workingman appearing in this series of transactions until the hot steel is rolled into a rail. A ‘manufacturer bored the ore’, a capitalist ‘built a little railway’, a few capitalists ‘built the barge’, and one ‘built the furnace’. Why couldn’t the capitalist have ‘built’ that steel rail as well, considering all the other marvelous feats attributed to him? To bring this workman into a picture when a whole series of transactions show that he has been absolutely unnecessary is to snitch on those capitalists whose occult powers to summon railways, ore, barges and furnaces show that they have God-endowed powers. Fire him, gentlemen, fire him ! This is wretched service to purchase from a ‘reverend’. Really, the profession has sunk to a low level when this sort of Stuff finds a ready market.” •
The Call also goes on to point out that Reverend Hillis laid great store upon the fabulous additions made to the nation’s wealth created by the world’s great inventions, but that Doctor Hillis had failed to mention the equally suggestive fact that practically all of the inventors themselves had died in poverty while the “captains of industry” had pocketed the wealth.
Would Shoot All Germans
Doctor Hillis is the Reverend who distinguished himself for the following Christ-like sentiments of forgiveness of one's eneui.es, in an address during the war, before the Bronx Union Y. M. C. A.
“I am willing to forgive Germans for their atrocities just as soon as they are all shot. If you would give me happiness, just give me the sight of the kaiser, Von Tirpitz and Von Hindenburg hanging by a rope. If we forgive Germany after this war, I think the universe will have gone wrong.”
Only a few months before that speech Doctor Hillis had gotten in trouble for championing Germany’s cause, but switched when America i ■ ■ abandoned its neutrality. He also had had to ask the forgiveness of his congregation for being mixed up in a questionable stock transaction which cost several of his parishioners thousands of dollars of hard-earned or ill-gotten money. His parishioners are mostly wealthy Wall Street men. We do not know how they got their money. We think it was not by rolling “hot steel into a rail”. It was much more profitable, hence, of course, much more important and valuable work (f)
Doctor Hillis is no fool. He is a rich man’s preacher, but he is not consistent. He knows that America is headed toward the scrap heap because she is money-mad. We select a few remarks from one of his sermons, preached in Plymouth Church April 11, 1920:
“Today it looks as if this republic has lost its soul. One is terrified at the thought of the twenty thousand men who will be murdered this year in this land. The people of the United States have sown selfishness, avarice, pleasure, and lawlessness. They have despised their schoolhouses, scoffed at their churches, enthroned men that had gold, feasted and banqueted them; they have voted ignorant and lawless men to rule over them; we have feted harlots, flattered the rich thieves, honored men that rode in golden chariots, despised the scholar, the artist, the poet, and the prophets, with the inevitable result. Now confront trampled cornfields, bloody streets and revolution, spreading its black fever-smitten, death-laden winds, foul with pestilence, all over tha land. Today we have many mayors and governors and men in high places in Washington who are as impotent in this hour of crisis to safeguard the lives and tha property of the people as so many rabbits.”
Doctor Hillis was a little ahead of time in his prophecy, but according to the Bible not much. One of the things that is helping to bring what he looks for is such devilishness and bestiality on the part of the civil powers as was manifested in the Rhode Island State Prison during the year 1918-19 when a prisoner by the name of William F. Herman w’as strung up by the wrists for periods of two, four, five and six days, hanging from 7 a. m. to 7 p. m., and on days when moving pictures were shown in the prison, until 11 p. m. During those hours he was not given toilet privileges and was not permitted to wash himself at any time for twenty-one days. This punishment was for talking while he was at work in the shop. Yet the Su- ' preme Court of the United States has officially
pronounced this a Christian nation. It must be so. It must be so. It’s so, if it isn’t so!
Bishop Joseph F. Berry, D. D., LL. D., speaking at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, made the statement that the church is the best financial investment an individual, community or nation can make. Then he made the grandiloquent statement that “this is the best hour of the best day of the best week of the best century this old world has ever seen and tomorrow will be even better’’. The Bishop ought to know; that is his line of talk; that is what he is paid to preach.
“Kill Him For Me!”
ishop James Atkins of the Methodist Episcopal Church South is a good second to
Bishop Berry. At a conference of his church held at Memphis in February, 1921, lie said: “If you find a pessimist anywhere outside this hall kill him for me. A pessimist is worse than a Hun.” Bishop Atkins, haven’t you heard that the war is over?
Bishop William A. Quayle of the Methodist Episcopal Church, thinks he has located all the trouble. Speaking at Baltimore in June, 1920, he said: “The very existence of our republican form of government in this country is seriously threatened because of the attempt of organized labor to dominate the halls of Congress”.
The Methodist Church in America is “traveling on high” since it brought about prohibition of the liquor traffic. The money comes rolling in. The First Methodist Episcopal Church of Chicago is building a combination church and office building 21 stories, 260 feet in height, surmounted by a spire 140 feet tall. There will be chimes in the tower loud enough to dominate the roar of the traffic in the street 400 feet below.
The Presbyterian Church is “traveling on high” also. William Jennings Bryan has brought to light the fact that in some of the Presbyterian seminaries the endowment is so great that it is with difficulty that the interest can be used, due to dearth of students for the ministry. This matter is now under investigation by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church,
Billy Sunday is traveling on high, too. We do not know just how he is making it go since he got down to working the one-horse Bush League towns, but we are informed that his haul for a ten weeks stand in Chicago in the. 4
Spring of 1920 was $222,000. This was about $5 a piece for the 48,341 trail hitters corralled during the meetings.
It’s an ungrateful world. Now according to the New York Times'.
‘‘Coming as a result of overwhelming sentiment expressed at conferences, according to the Reverend C, P. Zahniser, Secretary of the Federated Council of Churches of Pittsburgh, a decision not to encourage or to lend financial support to ‘imported’ evangelists has been reached. It is the intention of the council to refuse to share responsibility or expense with campaigns of th$ Billy Sunday or Gypsy Smith type in the future. Ac1 cording to the opinions voiced at these sectional conferences, the evangelistic campaigns of the Sunday and Smith type are too high priced, too much commercialized, obsolete, false in stimulation and ineffective.”
The preachers might have added, Too blasphemous, too vulgar, and too obscene’.
The same Reverends were ready to mob Bible students at the time when the Reverends themselves were sitting on platforms and listening to Billy Sunday vilify them. It was a wise man that remarked, “Every dog has his day!”
The Papal Billions
UT the profits of religion in the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Evangelistic line pale be
fore the results obtained in the Roman Catholic
Church. An intelligent Hebrew, recently critieiz- ' ed by a friend for the untold wealth piled up by the Rothschilds, silenced his critic by asserting ‘ that the money did not belong to Rothschild, but to the Roman Catholic Church. This seems ' reasonable in view of the following item: ’
The New York Times, of November 2, 1920, j gave the details regarding a lawsuit of Arch-—, ; bishop Hayes, before Referee Brennan, wherein , the archbishop was awarded a claim of $369,- y 762 against the estate of the former rector of ..-i the Polish Roman Catholic Church of St. Stan- J islaus, for funds misappropriated. If the Rev- ; erend Strzlecki, against whom the claim was, -x filed, managed to make way with as vast a sum '' as that, from one congregation, before he was J detected, one can faintly imagine the vast sums ; flowing into the coffers of the greatest moneymailing institution on earth, and the oldest. A
In the light of the foregoing information one can appreciate the remark of Reverend H. Pippen, of Rockhaven, Saskatchewan, at the morn-
t-
ing session of the seventh annual convention of Baptist churches in Saskatchewan, when he said: “We are developing a ministry that is highly intellectual, indifferently spiritual and damnably commercial”. Who says there is nothing in a name?
Growth of Radicalism
fT? IE old-timers among the clergy are the same as ever they were; but there are some honest men in the ministry, and they see that the old order has had its day and are scanning the horizon to see what can be done to better ■ things. It is a great compliment to any body of men to receive the reproaches of the Lusk Committee of the New York legislature; and these men have done so. The Committee says of them: “There is an ever-growing tendency toward radicalism in the clergy. Much of this attitude may be explained by the fact that they have been and are grossly underpaid, and for this reason they are unable to see economic problems in their proper proportions.”
ft
Radical Clergymen
"D everend Bouck White has explained to the
New York Sun where the new tendency toward radicalism originated; and it is in the most unlikely place in the world, that hotbed of Higher Criticism, the Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary. Reverend White referred to Moses as a labor leader, commissioned by the Most High to organize the brickmakers of Goshen. He stated that the Book of Exodus is the story of a labor walkout and referred to his instructors as follows:
“The Bible is one long cry for human and popular rights, against the arrogance of the moneyed mighty. Professors Hall and McGiffert, and Gagnani and Adams Brown at Union, yes, and President Brown himself, are deserving of a place alongside Karl Marx; for in their . discoveries as to the real, the social meanings of the Biblical writings, they are planting mines of social dynamite underneath this civilization of massive property rights to blow up the whole apparatus.”
Reverend George S. Lackland, Pastor of Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, Denver, voiced the same thought. When asked, “Where in the world do all the younger preachers get fdl of their radical ideas?” he replied:
“We get our radical ideas—if you want to call them that, we call them Christian ideals—from the course of study in the theological seminaries. We found that either
we would have to be hypocrites when we stood in the pulpits or we would preach the doctrine of common humanity. You will find that in the great financial journals there is a dualism in the editorials. One is,, ‘Deflate labor’; the other is, ‘Increase the salaries of the preachers’. And there is a reason. They say: ‘These preachers have been starved, but if they are fed up and fattened they will forget the troubles of the people with whom they associate’.” .
Churches in a Dilemma
fTV IE clergy and all organizations under or ' J- partially under their control are in a predic
ament. They cannot secure and hold any considerable following of the lowly and oppressed without doing or saying something that will show they have some real interest in them. Doing or saying anything worth while is radical- . ism (going to the roots of things) and when any religious body tries to do that it incurs the hostility or enmity of big business.
The Young Women’s Christian Association of Pittsburgh tried to alleviate conditions of employment in Pittsburgh by teaching some economic truths. Thereupon the Pittsburgh Employers’ Association not only hampered the Y. W. C. A. in its drive for funds, but actually gloated over its success in so doing. The Pittsburgh Ministerial Union notified the Pittsburgh Employers’ Association that it resented this; and Reverend Harry E. Fosdick, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, of New York, speaking on the same subject at the annual dinner of the alumni of Union Theological Seminary said:
…