Death Takes Mrs. I. D. Jones, Widow of Cincinnati Doctor

28 March 1945

A Living Hope

30 March 1929 | Cincinnati Enquirer

A Living Hope by Dr. Jesse Halsey, Minister of the Seventh Presbyterian Church

God and Father—Our Lord Jesus Christ—A Living Hope—The Resurrection—An

Inheritance Incorruptible—I. Peter 1:3-4

Easter comes with its message of Hope and Courage; like all deep things it begins in mystery. We don’t pretend to understand all that happened on the first Easter Day nineteen centuries ago, but we believe that the Lord Jesus showed Himself alive to his friends, and that in their new-found faith they went out to transform the world. Faith in God leads one to expect the great and mysterious. We live in no simple world; mystery—the mystery of life and death—surrounds us. We reach out beyond the things we see.

I believe first of all because I want to believe. One, at times, may argue the question of immortality and consider the case unproven, but let some one of his own flesh and blood pass within the veil and reason surrenders the place to love, so that many a hard man has set his face toward God in hope of one day seeing a little head on which the sun is ever shining. Napoleon said that the heart was a place in the body where two large veins met, and that a statesman needed to have his heart in his head. The same ideal possesses the formal philosopher. It is only when one says with Tennyson, “I have felt,” that he will experience the strong urge of the unseen world. “I can’t and I won’t disbelieve.”

This does not mean that our hopes are unreasoned and are but a fond imagination. There are good and sufficient reasons for believing, but first comes the attitude of mind and heart that is positive, constructive, and desirous.

We are citizens of two worlds. One is material and tangible, like water; the other is spiritual, unseen, intangible, like air. But the latter is no less real than the former. Our bodies are of the earth earthy, but we are spirit, living in a transitory earthly tenement. Some day we will slip off this “body of humiliation,” but the eternal spirit will take its way to God, who is the Author of life and our Eternal Home.

It is not selfishness that makes us want to live on, but a stern conviction that the best that the universe knows is that spiritual reality, which we vaguely call personality. The faith and hope and love that we have experienced in life—our friendships, all convince us of the value of persons. If anything in the universe has permanence, it ought to be these supreme values. Such values we enthrone at the heart of things in God.

And in Jesus Christ we have seen all lovely qualities incarnate. His life—so beautiful, so strong—we call divine. Is it reasonable to think that reality like this goes out in death? Can a few nails and a Roman spear end such a life? If death could destroy Jesus Christ I find my essential faith destroyed—faith in the reality of all human values; faith in God; faith in reason; faith in an ordered universe. Then the materialist is right—biochemistry explains everything in the realm of human life and faith and love and hope mean nothing!

So while we keep the feast of the Savior’s Immortality we pause in grateful remembrance of all the pure and beautiful souls who have walked with us in strength and gentleness and love. We are strengthened in the assurance that what was bound up with our life and made a dear part of our being cannot be lost; that they and we are safe in the hands of God our Father, who brought Jesus Christ through the experience of death into a new life which those who follow Him may share. God is the God of this and every world, visible and invisible. Character like Christ’s resides in Him, and He is pledged by the very nature of His being to honor the supreme qualities for which the whole creation labors.

Rev. Jesse Halsey Resigns; To Teach At Chicago School; Cincinnati Pastor 28 Years

12 May 1941

"If aught I have said be true, bind it unto your hearts. Listen to the voice of the past, know the needs of today, and have a vision of the future."

17 June 1929 | Cincinnati Enquirer

"Character Is Formed In School of Hard Knocks," Rev. Jesse Halsey Says

17 June 1929 | Cincinnati Enquirer

To Show Traffic Accidents

5 November 1928 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Former Paris Pastor Called To Replace Rev. J. D. Halsey

13 November 1941 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnatians Visit Miami | 28 September 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

1925 Cincinnati City Council Race

25 September 1925 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Protests Against Poland's treatment of her Jews Adopted

28 June 2012 | The American Israelite

New Citizens' Day | 1941

11 June 1941 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Final arrangements for the tenth annual celebration of New Citizen’s Day at 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon at the Zoo will be discussed at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Citizenship Council at 4 o’clock tomorrow . . Dr. Jesse M. Halsey, who has been a member of the board for 20 years, will be principal speaker Sunday. Dr. David Philipson, Chairman, will preside tomorrow, welcoming those who have received naturalization papers in the last year. Siegfried Gelsmar is Chairman of the event. An election will be held tomorrow for a new Vice Chairman to succeed Dr. Earle E. Eubank, who resigned. Dr. Eubank remains a member of the board. . .

Had the United States joined the League of Nations, such injustices as the Polish case would not exist.”

1 July 1937 | American Israelite

Public Opinion Is Called Sole Hope In Polish Horrors | President of Federation of Churches, City Official, and Rabbi Are Heard

Protests against Poland’s treatment of her Jews were adopted by resolutions Tuesday evening, June 29^th, at the Cincinnati Jewish Center. Speakers included the Rev. Dr. Jesse M. Halsey, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Churches; John D. Ellis, city solicitor and acting city manager; and Rabbi Samuel Wohl of Wise Temple, chairman of the Emergency Committee for Jews in Poland.

The meeting was called by Oscar Berman for the American Jewish Congress and Rabbi Wohl for his Emergency Committee . . . Dr. Haley expressed hope that “the shining sword of truth” might be the weapon of victory against oppression in the Polish as in other modern crisis.

“Had the United States joined the League of Nations, such injustices as the Polish case would not exist,” he said. Dr. Halsey was sent by the U. S. State Department to Poland in 1917.

“It is our belief,” said Rabbi Wohl, “that the time has come when American Jews must express their complete solidarity with their stricken brethren in Poland and formulate a program to safeguard their lives and protect their status as human beings and as citizens.”

“It is important that we should indicate to the Polish government that the Jewish community of America is united in horror at what is taking place in Poland and that we are determined to protect our fellow Jews.

“The recent pogroms are the most sweeping that this generation has known and the result of the poisonous propaganda tolerated by the government. For three years, the Polish government did nothing to stop the cold blooded pogroms that destroyed the economic position of the Jew, pauperized him. It appears now that the Polish government is also tolerating blood pogroms.”

He asked the meeting to send a delegation from Cincinnati to join similar delegations from other cities in the country to go to Washington and confer with the President and the Secretary of State and be called for action which will make clear to the Polish government that the Jews of America will not sit by idly and watch their fellow Jews in Poland murdered in cold blood.

He urged that action be taken to indicate to the Polish government that the horror of the Jewish community of America, as indeed of the entire Jewish world, is shared by all right thinking citizens.

“The Jewish people have helped in the reconstitution of Poland and have been its most loyal citizens and sacrificed themselves on the battle-field, and we Jews of America, together with the non-Jews, have sacrificed life and blood that Poland may be free,” he said. “Treatment of the Jews by Poland violates the peace treaties, violates the consideration which guarantees civil rights to all its citizens. This treaty of Poland was also made with America and we must insist that no nation especially a nation that owes so much to the United States, shall flout and destroy its treaties and its constitution.

“The time has come that all honest Christians shall cry out in one voice that all outrages against the Jews must stop. We of Cincinnati are particularly happy to have the friendship and understanding of all enlightened citizens.”

“we are grateful to the president of the Federation of Churches, Dr. Jesse Halsey, and to the acting city manager, John Ellis, for their expressions of sympathy and cooperation.” . . .

Flower Strewing for Heroes of Social Construction

28 May 1925 | The American Israelite

Flower Strewing for Heroes of Social Construction

On May 30^th at 8:00 A.M., the third annual “Flower Strewing For Heroes of Social Construction” will be held near the North Gate of Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati. With due solemnities, flowers will be placed upon the graves of a factory worker, a railroader, a policeman, and a fireman who died in the performance of their duties, and of a woman who died in childbirth; the thought being that, on the day when the heroes of the battlefield are remembered, honors should also be accorded those heroes who died not in the act of taking life but in the act of giving and preserving life. Wide publicity for the event is being sought in the hopes that the ceremony may become initiated by other groups in other localities. The inter-racial, inter-denominational committee in charge consists of Rev. Geo. A. Thayer, Rev. E.H.Oxley, Rev. Mark Cain S.J., Miss Jennie D. Porter, Miss Dorothy Hart, Dr. F. K. Farr, Prof. Ernest Talbert, Dr. George A. Hedger, Prof. Henry Englander, Dr. Jacob Kaplan, Rabbi James G. Heller, and Abraham Cronbach. The program among whose participants will be a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a woman, and a colored person, will be as follows:

Hymn, “Say Not They Die,” Choir, directed by Prof. A. Z. Idlesohn, (Hebrew Union College Faculty)

Prayer, Rabbi Walter G. Peiser

Reading from Horace Traubel, Prof. Wm. J. Decatur

Address, Rev. Jesse Halsey,

Words Spoken at Each Grave, Miss Eleanor Mulvihill

Benediction, Rev. Gilbert P. Symnons

A Boy Scout Troop led by Mr. Sidney Unger will also participate.

31 May 1925 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Heroes of Peace Honored | Special Service Conducted at Spring Grove Cemetery

A factory worker, a railroader, a policeman, and a mother who died in childbirth—representatives of that great multitude of every day, but unsung, heroes—were honored at special memorial services conducting at Spring Grove Cemetery yesterday as a part of the annual Memorial Day program . . . In the group that took part in the services were representatives of all creeds, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish men and women, white and negro. It was a nonsectarian, nonracial memorial service, intended to honor all in behalf of all.

Rev. Jesse Halsey, pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, was the memorial speaker. He sounded the sentiment of the service in his memorial address. He said: “We commemorate the heroes of peace. Simply and nobly they lived. Unsung, unheralded, they marched to their heroic mausoleum. The companions of the Great Creator, the constructionists, the men and women of the unnumbered multitudes who, in humble ways and dangerous place, served their generation and fell asleep—for these we pause to breathe a prayer of gratitude and here in God’s acres, in the morning watch, we chant our requiem of peace.

“We condemn in ourselves and in others the sins of oppression and greed. We cry out with the righteous anger of the valiant hearted against the hatred of competition, the waste and desolation of war, and he needless sacrifice of life on the altar of Mammon. We dedicate ourselves in the spirit of the true hearted, whose memory we this day recall, to the constructive purposes of the cooperative commonwealth of God; seeking to hand down our common heritage, made fairer by our use, to those who come after us; and to this end we pledge our time and thought and strength to speed the coming day of beauty and righteousness . . .”

Cincinnati Peace League Formed

1 January 1925 | The American Israelite

A recently formed organization is the Cincinnati Peace League, whose purpose it is to study the causes of war and to foster in the community the desire and will for peace. The officers of the organization are Rev. Jesse Halsey, President; Rabbi James G. Heller, Vice President; Miss Ethel Ideson, Recording Secretary; Mrs. A. L. Stix, Corresponding Secretary; Mr. Phil E. Ziegler, Treasurer. The desire for peace is so nearly universal that it seems hardly necessary to form an organization to foster it.

Peace League Features Jane Addams

12 October 1930 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Peace League Has 1,000 Members Secretary Reports in Announcing Winter Plans—Season To Open with Luncheon Saturday

Membership of the Cincinnati Peace League has grown to nearly 1,000, Mrs. A. L. Stix, Corresponding Secretary, reported yesterday in supplementing an announcement by the Program Committee, of which Miss Ruth Jones is Chairman, of plans of the league for the coming season.

Miss Jane Addams, Chicago, world famous for the part she has played in the development of modern social service work; Dr. Bruno Roselli, noted political economist, and Senor Salvator De Madariaga, director of Spanish studies at Oxford University, England, will be among the Peace League’s “headliners” during the next few months . . .

Men and Matters

30 December 1930 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Election of officers of the Cincinnati Peace League will be held Saturday and announcement of the results made at the luncheon which the league will hold at noon in the Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Ernest L. Talbert, President of the League, will make the announcement.

Dr. Oscar Jaszi, Hungarian writer, editor, and former member of the Karolyi Cabinet, will be the principal speakers . . . Present officers of the league include Dr. Talbert, President; Rabbi James G. Heller, First Vice President; Fred K. Hoehler, Second Vice President; Miss M. Edith Campbell, Third Vice President; Miss Ethel Ideson, Recording Secretary; Mrs. A. L. Stix, Corresponding Secretary; Mrs. L. S. Roth, Treasurer. Members at large include Rev. Jesse Halsey, Dr. Frederick C. Hicks, Judge Thomas H. Darby, Mrs. Simon Kuhn, and Phil E. Ziegler. Committee Chairman are Miss Ruth Jones, Program; Dr. Talbert, Bulletin; Miss Mary P. Corre, Membership; Mrs. Ben Loewenstein, Constitution and By-Laws, Mrs. Henry W. Bettman, Arrangements; Mrs. Guy A Tawney, Speakers’ Bureau; Dr. Hicks, Geneva Scholarship.

"our socially minded men"

15 March 1931 | Cincinnati Enquirer

A Visitor From Antioch

 . . Dr. William M. Leiserson, is to speak in this city on Saturday, March 21, at the annual meeting of the Consumers’ League of Cincinnati. Dr. Leiserson’s talk on “Management’s Responsibility for Unemployment” will be given following a luncheon . . .

This annual meeting marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Consumers’ League in Cincinnati as a branch of the national organization. Though the movement originated among women of the city, it has made a distinct appeal to our socially minded men, and 10 of the 18 directors of the league at the present time are men. Mr. Edwin G. Becker is the present President of the organization, and its Vice Presidents are Miss Anna L. Peterson and Mr. Alvin J. Lehman. Other members of the Board of Directors are Mr. Richard S. Austin, Miss Mary P. Corre, Mrs. Dorothy K. Minster, Dr. Jesse Halsey, Mrs. Jacob Bloch, Mr. Fred K. Hoehler*, Dr. William E. Chancellor, Dr. I. M. Rubinow, Dr. George A. Hedger, Mr. Edwin L. Hitchens, Mr. Jack Kroll, Mr. Phil E. Ziegler, Miss Rosalie Phillips, Miss Miriam Walker, and Miss Vera Woods.

________
*from: Social Welfare History Project. (2011). Fred K. Hoehler (1893-1969) — Executive director of the American Public Welfare Association, international social work. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved [date accessed] from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/organizations/apwa/hoehler-fred-k/

Fred K. Hoehler (1893-1969) —  Executive Director of the American Public Welfare Association, International Social Work

Introduction: Fred Kenneth Hoehler was a public welfare and social service administrator. He was director of public welfare in Cincinnati, OH, he became head of the American Public Welfare Association during changes following passage of the Social Security Act in 1935; his leadership enhanced the understanding between public welfare workers and social workers in private agencies. World War II led him to administrative positions with U.S. and United Nations programs for international relief and rehabilitation which initiated a life long involvement with social work internationally. In a variety of administrative positions he worked for nearly twenty years in Chicago city government with Mayor Daley and with Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.

Early Years: Fred K.  Hoehler was born at Shenadoah, Pennsylvania on June 6, 1893.  He received his prep-school education in Philadelphia and entered the Pennsylvania State College as a candidate for Bachelor of Science in Forestry.  He graduated as a Forester and Logging Engineer in 1915.  During his school career he participated in athletics, particularly in football, wrestling, and Lacrosse.  As a forester, he served with the U.  S.  Forestrey Service in Superior National Forest, with the Commer Diggins Co., Cadillac, Michigan, and the Mobray-Robinson Co., Quicksand, Kentucky.
In 1915 he came to the University of Cincinnati for graduate work and to organize the University Y.M.C.A.  While there, he assisted in coaching football, was boxing and wrestling coach, and was Secretary of the Alumni Assoc. From 1917 to 1919 he was First Lieutenant for Field Artillery, U.S.A. One and one-half years later he returned to the University of Cincinnati and continued his work there.

Career in Public Welfare: In 1928 he was called by Col.  C.O.  Sherrill, City Manager of Cincinnati, to serve as Director of Public Welfare for the City and by the County Commissioners for Hamilton Country.  He served in this capacity until November, 1933.  In the spring of 1933 he organized the County Department of Public Welfare which has carried all unemployment relief cases in Hamilton County since then, according to the regulations of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.  He served as Hamilton County Civil Works Administrator until January 1, 1934.
In November, 1933 he was appointed Director of Safety for the City of Cincinnati by Mr.  C.  A.  Dykstra, City Manager, also retaining his connection with the City Welfare Division as Acting Commissioner.  He served in this capacity until November 30, 1935, at which time he accepted the position of Director of the American Public Welfare Association with headquarters in Chicago.  Hoehler later served as President of the American Public Welfare Association for three years.
On November 18, 1917, he married Dorothy Stevens, daughter of C.  A.  Stevens, Cincinnati.  They had two children – Fred, Jr.  and Caroline Ann.

Hoehler was a member of the Cincinnati Association, University Club, “C” Club, Masons, Congregational Church, American Association of Social Workers, Oola Khan Grotto, Cincinnati Gyro Club, Cincinnati Peace League, Foreign Policy Association.  He also served as President of the Local Chapter of the American Association of Social Workers. Hoehler served on the Advisory Committee for Mr.  Harry Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator; on the Economic Security Committee; and the National Youth Administration Board for Ohio.

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“In the name of humanity”Jews and Non-Jews Meet to Consider Hitler Situation Abroad

20 April 1933 | American Israelite

Campaign of Education is Planned for Cincinnati

A committee of 9 to keep Cincinnati informed on the German situation will be chosen this week. This is in accordance with action taken Thursday evening, April 13^th, at the Cincinnati Club, when 46 Jews and non-Jews met on call “in the name of humanity” by Rev. Frank H. Nelson, Rev. Jesse Halsey, Dr. David Philipson, and Rabbi James G. Heller.

In his introductory remarks, Dr. Philipson, chairman, said: “Oh, my dear American brothers and sisters of whatever faith or creed you may be, put yourself in the place of these men and women, many of them as high-minded and as high-spirited as any sitting in this room. My appeal to you is not as a Jew or as a rabbi, but as an American who like you has imbibed the spirit of Washington and Jefferson, of Franklin and Lincoln as expressed in our Declaration of Independence, in the articles of the Constitution of the United States and I our entire American tradition of equality, political and religious. In our rights as citizens we know no racial distinctions.

This Nazi Doctrine

What strange language is this Nazi doctrine of Aryanism and Semitism, of Nordic superiority and Jewish inferiority! Upon this flimsy artificial basis the entire new political hegemony over there is being built up. Herr Hitler and his minions Goering, Goebbels and their fellows are declassing 600,000 men and women who have been among the most faithful and loyal citizens of their fatherland. Herr Hitler, a German citizen of one year’s standing, is degrading into a no-citizenship class descendants of ancestors who have been living on German soil for over 1000 years.

“Who deserves better of the fatherland—this distiller of hatred and inhumanity who is shaming the German name or the descendants of those toilers in days of peace and soldiers in years of war who brought honor to the country of their birth, their love, and their loyalty?”

Facing Ruin

“These German citizens of the Jewish faith are facing ruin and annihilation. They are powerless. They are being crushed under the iron heel of a despotic dictatorship that is absolutely ruthless in its methods. A policy of fiendish ingenuity and heartless systemic cruelty is being pursued.”

Rabbi Heller said: “Hitlerism is not solely a menace to German Jews, nor even primarily to them, but rather is a challenge to all humanity and a threat to the peace of the world.” He proposed a campaign of education. Rabbi Heller traced the hatred to injustices in the Treaty of Versailles.

Dr. J. Louis Ransohoff urged an anti-German boycott. Speakers included Dr. I. M. Rubinow, Rev. Nelson, Dr. Earle E. Eubank, and Rev. H. S. Bigelow.

Those attending the Cincinnati Club meeting included: Rev. Henry Pearce Atkins, Samuel Ach, William Albers, Dr. Julien Benjamin, Oscar Berman . . Dr. Albert Freiberg . . . Rev. Jesse Halsey . . . Adolph Rosenberg . . . Phil E. Ziegler

Citizen’s Committee of One Hundred on Slum Clearance and Low Rent Housing

25 September 1938 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Bureau Planned By Group To Present Housing Situation To Organizations of City—members Named

A special subcommittee to organize a speaker’s bureau to present Cincinnati’s housing program to local organizations was announced yesterday by August Marx, Chairman of the newly formed Citizen’s Committee of One Hundred on Slum Clearance and Low Rent Housing.

Members of the subcommittee are Rev. John Malick, Chairman; Dr. Earle E. Eubank, Sol Freiberg, Bishop Henry W. Hobson, Phil E. Ziegler, Mrs. Anna Budd Ware, Mrs. Mortimer Matthews, Mrs. Alvin J. Lehman, and Martin Low.

Members of Marx’s committee of 100 are the following:

Dr. and Mrs. Richard S. Austin . . . Rev. Jesse Halsey, Rabbi James G. Heller, Mrs. Smith Hickenlooper . . . Standish Meacham . . . Mrs. Robert A. Taft . . .

Civic Leaders to Voice Indignation At Treatment of Jews in Germany—Protest Meeting Is To Be Held Tuesday Night.

20 November 1938 | Cincinnati Enquirer

A city-wide protest meeting against Germany’s treatment of Jews will be held at 8 o’clock Tuesday evening at Emery Auditorium under auspices of Clergymen, educators, labor leaders, and city officials.

Councilman Russell Wilson will preside. Mayor James G. Stewart will head a list of speakers representing a wide range of community interests. Charles L. S. Easton, headmaster of the University School, will be Chairman.

Sponsors include Dr. Raymond Walters, President of the University of Cincinnati; Rev. Jesse Halsey, President of Cincinnati Council of the Federation of Churches; Jack Hurst, President of Central Labor Council; Jack Kroll, head of Cincinnati Amalgamated Clothing Workers; Phil E. Ziegler, Secretary of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, Judson J. McKim, Executive Secretary of the Y.M.C.A.; Dr. William Keller, and Mrs. Lowell Hobart, Jr.

Easton said last night that the meeting has been arranged “to show Cincinnati Jews just where Gentiles stand” on the Nazi anti-Semitic program.

This protest, he declared, was not merely “an empty token of sympathy,” but a militant stand against what Nazism represents in the world today.

Christians must understand, he asserted, that their own interests were endangered, too, by the wave of intolerance and reversion to force seen now in Germany.

Help Britain and It Won't Happen Here

Cincinnati Enquirer | 24 October 1940

Phil E. Ziegler “pioneer in the organized labor movement”

6 June 1928

 

Dear Dr. Halsey:

I have been out of the city for the better part of month and just heard about your great sorrow. I sympathize with you deeply.

Sincerely,

Phil E. Ziegler

[grand secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks]

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Cincinnati Enquirer | 21 April 1957