Frank P. Walah 1991 December 26, 1917. Mr. Roger N. Baldwin, National Civil Liberties Bureau, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dear Mr. Baldwin: This will introduce Mr. J. A. Law and Mr. L. S. Chumley, who are members of the Defense Council of the Industrial Workers of the World. They are endeavoring to make a defense of their associates, as you know, under very difficult circumstances. I have outlined a little rough plan for a conference which might be gotten together, and I showed them your letter to me of December 11th, which gave them an idea of the good work you were trying to do for them. My advice to them was to get in close touch with you and I was sure you could help them. be in New York It now looks as I have been expecting to every few days for the past month. though I will be there between the first and the 8th. I will, of course, call upon you. Sincerely, Frank Halch Its director is Robert W. Bruere; its treasurer, Herbert Crowley, of the "New Republic." Its other members are Ordway Tead, Henry C. Metcalf, P. Sargent Florence, Leonard Outhwaite, Carl G. Karsten, Mary D. Blankenhorn. It also has special lecturers: John A. Fitch and Irwin H. Schell. This organization co-operates with the "New School for Social Research," which has been established by men who belong to the ranks of near-Bolshevik Intelligentsia, some of them being too radical in their views to remain on the faculty of Columbia University. 36 CHAPTER XI Socialism and the Churches All church organizations have entered since the war into a period of tremendous activity, with a view to meeting, from the point of view of Christianity, the difficulties and problems of the present. The churches have realized that a rebirth of religious beliefs and of moral conscience is absolutely necessary among the masses if present civilization is to endure. In large numbers the masses during the present generation have been drifting away from religion. In order to insure that the churches shall take the part that really belongs to them, two currents have been set in motion; one, based upon the historical principles that lie at the foundation of Christianity, and, the other, experimenting with new more or less radical principles as the basis for a renewal of society. While the Committee presents in this chapter a number of data which illustrate dangerous revolutionary tendencies, it wishes emphatically to state that such tendencies are embodied in a comparatively small number of members of the clergy of the different denominations. By far the larger bulk of all religious teachers are working in an old-fashioned crusade against the inroads of materialism and revolutionary thought. The new activity and enthusiasm was embodied, in the Protestant sphere, in the Inter-Church World-Wide Movement, which was started during the latter part of 1919. It aimed not only to raise over $300,000,000 for spreading the right kind of Christianity among the people, but it aimed at increasing church membership and unity of Christian faith and endeavor to an extent hitherto unknown in this generation. It is true that radical elements attained prominence in certain spheres of this work, but it remains to be seen how influential they will be when their real aims are known. Not long ago a pastoral letter was issued by the leaders of the Catholic Church in America, which expresses on behalf of the Catholic Church their attitude and their hopes. This pastoral letter was prepared by a committee belonging to the American Hierarchy, including Cardinals Gibbons and O'Connell and the Rector of the Catholic University at Washington, Thomas J. Shaham, and more than one hundred bishops of the Church. It is issued to the 20,000,000 Catholics in the United States and is the first pastoral letter issued by the general organization of the Catholic Church since one sent out thirty-five years ago in 1884, to the then 7,000,000 Catholics of the United States. As the Catholic Bulletin of Cleveland expresses it: Materialism and its formidable sons, anarchy, Bolshevism and unrest, have thrown down the gauge of battle. We must catch it up and wage the good fight for God and for country." The pastoral letter says: "It is an error to assert that the issues involved are purely economic. They are, at bottom, moral and religious. "It is necessary (it states), to insist that the rights of the community shall prevail; that law and order shall be preserved; and that the public shall not be made to suffer while the contention goes on from one state to another." The letter agrees that there are wrongs that must be righted, fundamental wrongs. It says: Rightly or 66 This is not a time for makeshifts. wrongly, the movements which are shaking the foundations of order come out of men's souls. They embody a demand for right. They may be stopped for a time or diverted; but, if, in keeping with American principles, order is to rest on the willingness of the people and their free co-operation, their souls must be right. They must be trained to think rightly and to do as they think. . . . What we have chiefly to fear is educated intelligence devoid of moral principles. . The right of labor to a living wage, with decent maintenance for the present and provision for the future, is generally recognized. The right of capital to a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, is equally plain. To secure the practical recognition and exercise of both rights, good will, no less than adherence to justice is required. Animosity and mistrust should first be cleared away. When this is done, when the parties meet in a friendly rather than militant spirit, it will be possible to effect a reconciliation." A considerable portion of the men who are doing yeoman's service in country-wide speaking and writing against the revolutionary movement, are laymen of the Catholic Church. It is an interesting and significant fact that the work that all Christian. leaders are doing in this campaign is bringing all the branches |