"Remember. If we get separated in the water we'll all meet at the Roosevelt Hotel."

Grace Morgan Holden

VICTIM OF THE S.S. MORRO CASTLE FIRE

Daughter of John Davis and Ellen Hoyt Morgan. Wife of Reuben A. Holden, Jr. Grace died from accidental drowning in the burning of the S.S. Moro Castle in the Atlantic Ocean, off of Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

 

For the Reuben Holden family, the situation aboard the Morro Castle must have been particularly appalling. They were not supposed to be aboard the ship.

The Holdens were originally booked aboard the older, considerably less deluxe Ward Liner Orizaba's August 29th sailing and, by the morning of September 8th, they should have been at their Michigan Avenue home in Cincinnati. The change of plans was so sudden that their names remained on the Orizaba's voyage manifest, with a notation "Failed to board" appended.

Mr. and Mrs. Holden traveled in the Morro Castle's best cabin, C-238 while their sons John Morgan, 12, and Reuben Andrus, 16, shared C-245.

The Holdens were awakened by the reflection of fire outside of their porthole. Mr. Holden roused his sons, and the family went aft together. Grace Holden remained calm, and when the smoke drove the family overboard she took the time to kiss each of her boys and tell them "Remember. If we get separated in the water we'll all meet at the Roosevelt Hotel."

The family was separated, and Mrs. Holden 

William E. Hutton

Third from left, William E. Hutton.

10 September 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

30 December 1918. Jesse Halsey Diary: After a night a Caroutacheno we were up at daylight, which isn’t early here, and clad in Mrs. Hutton’s [wife of W.E. Hutton] sweater, scarf, and mitts, I left with Bondarinko by sleigh, and in two hours we were back at Bloc Post waiting for a train to Minsk. Here we got in a car filled with delicately perfumed Orientals, Mongols from the borders of China who had come out for the winter to work for the Zemsky. We made our trip back to Molodetchino, a wait of two hours, then a box car ride in the dark to Minsk, arriving at nine P. M. 

May 1930, Jesse Halsey to Abigail Fithian Halsey

Dear Ab—

The “debate” went well. Only it was a debate but a forum. I’ll send a paper. The music hall was packed—biggest crowd I ever saw there. M. Darrow is a loveable old man—when alone and a sharp cynic in public speech and made all laugh but was so extreme that he helped not his cause. I was first—we drew for places at the last minute by lot. I drew last and got first place to speak---so laid the groundwork and rubbed in a little Dutch and Scotch and English Protestantism. Much interest in the thing.

Did the Commonwealth and Southern come to you direct? I have asked Hutton. Here is the radio. Have you everything you have paid for? Check up.

I am busy—successful week up state raising money. To Alpine Tenn for Monday then Sideney O the next week. My house goes slowly. Garden froze up last three nights.

Love,

Jesse 

25 December 1932 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Yuletide Spirit Exemplified By Church Group

Seventh Presbyterian Church Congregation Gives Christmas Party For 200 Of The Less Fortunate Children, Wholesome Cooperation Expands Original Plan, Various Groups and Individuals Respond Generously To Plea For needy

The example of Christmas cooperation done in the very spirit of this greatest of Christian feast days by the Rev. Jesse Halsey and his congregation at the Seventh Presbyterian Church has been a success so thrilling and so warranted to set a new example, as well as to imitate the admonition laid down to His follower by Christ himself, as to have brought new cheer into more than 200 of Cincinnati’s poorest families and to have given to these unselfish, untiring influences the gratifying consciousness of good deeds well done.

Generosity Augments Program

Mrs. W. O. Pauli, Miss Eleanor McClure and Miss Letty Kincaid were the Co-Chairman of the Candy Committee, which aided Santa Claus in distributing the individual packets of sweets to supplement the presents of toys and similar favors to each child as well as Mr. W. E. Hutton’s generous gift of oranges and apples.

9 September 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

William E. Hutton | In the death of William E. Hutton, Cincinnati, has lost one of the splendid personalities whose labors built up the community in which we live. The life on the is distinguished dean of Cincinnati brokers, from his birth in 1846 through his service in the Civil War, through his service in the Civil War, through the daring business enterprises of the early manhood, through the founding and phenomenal growth of his brokerage business, into the complex era of postwar finance, is a saga of American business. To unusual business acumen was added in Mr. Hutton a vigorous personality and an alert interest in the life around him, an interest that never failed him to his death.

Mr. Hutton combined the daring and originality of the businessman who takes great speculative risks and the solid conservatism that is essential to the builder of an enduring commercial enterprise. In consequence, the investment brokerage house he founded and guided for many years has become a great enterprise with a leading role in the economic life of the Ohio Valley and ramifications far beyond that region.

Both the business success and the civic prominence of Mr. Hutton were due largely to his capacity for warm friendships. From his associates and employees, he won the utmost loyalty because of his rare gift for making friends. And the friends he made he never lost. Their number was great and the quality of their friendship superb. His death leaves a trail of sorrow.

10 September 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

William E. Hutton | Aged Financier To Be Buried In Spring Grove Today

Services for William E. Hutton, dean of Cincinnati financiers, who died Saturday, will be conducted at the Seventh Presbyterian Church at 2:30 o’clock this afternoon. Mr. Hutton was 89 years old. Rev. Jesse Halsey will officiate, assisted by Everett Moore Baker, Providence, R.I., a grandson of Hutton. Burial will be in Spring Grove.

Mr. Hutton, the founder of the New York and Cincinnati stock brokerage firm of W. E. Hutton & Co., became ill more than two weeks ago when attending the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. Pneumonia developed, proving fatal.

20 December 1937

Mary Hutton Baker [Mrs. George Baker] to Jesse Halsey

 

My dear Mr. Halsey:

I know that you, too, miss badly my dear father at this time of year. Will you use the enclosed check for some one or more of the many you tenderly care for. Father’s spirit throughout the year was the Christmas spirit as we want it.

You meant so much to Father, his love for you was deep.

Mr. Baker and I send our good wishes to you and Mrs. Halsey.

Cordially,

Mary Hutton Baker [daughter of William E. Hutton]

Mass Meeting to Key Up Campaign | Two Christian Clergymen to Share in Program on Eve of Start of Jewish Welfare Fund Drive

The Cincinnati Enquirer · 15 Nov 1934

ALL SOULS Acts 27:37

This is much that I love in this 1934 sermon written by my great-grandfather, Reverend Jesse Halsey, and much which still seems so relevant 82 years later. But these lines in particular strike me as  important: "Serious thought has been forced upon us and as we revamp our plans for the future, in the Spirit of Christ, regardless of what our traditional religious prejudices have indicated, we ought to go forward with our main reliance on the Ethical Gospel of our Lord. There is salvation in no other Name; and that, in the barest terms, He said, was to love God with heart, soul, and mind--and one's neighbor as one’s self."

Jesse Halsey, Sir Grenfell, Charles Halsey, c. 1930 | Peconic Bay

ALL SOULS Acts 27:37

“And we were in all in the ship two hundred, threescore and sixteen souls."

The ship in which Paul sailed toward Rome can be taken as a cross-section of society—then or now. The capitalistic owner and galley slaves. Sailors and land lubbers. Prisoners and police. Soldiers and civilians. A minister of the gospel, a writer, a physician—all sorts and conditions of men.

The Morro Castle disaster apparently is not the first time when sailors showed the “white feather.” Under pretext of putting out an anchor, the sailors on the SS “Castor and Pollux” sought to escape in the one remaining lifeboat. Paul’s word to the Centurion, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved,” is a good word for each individual and group in our divided society, today. Each needs the other. It is impossible for the nation to come to its best or to go forward in any marked way, without the contribution that each group can make. There must be some common denominator.

This is equally true for all groups. The Catholic has something to add to our national life. We deeply sympathize with his insistence that religion enter into the education of children and if, by constitutional means, he can secure public funds, as good citizens and believers in democracy, I suppose, we will submit. On the other hand, we will make a vigorous fight to prevent this very thing, believing that our best contribution will be in support of a non-sectarian school system. The trouble with this situation is that most Protestants are anti-Catholic rather than pro-Protestant. For traditional and real causes they will fight Catholics, but when it comes to a positive support of their own churches, they are sadly lacking. Witness the attendance at worship in this church this morning, or in any other Protestant church in the city, unless it happens to be some anniversary or special occasion. A Protestantism that represents only animus toward other groups is entirely beside the point and unworthy.

I am ashamed to make any reference to my next point. It seems so obvious that denominational bounds within Protestantism are outgrown and “out-moded,” and yet we are farther away from any kind of coherent church unity than we were when I began my ministry, twenty-five years ago. The “world” outside, that incidentally contains many discerning people of good will, has little sympathy with our “unhealthy divisions.” They are a crying shame to heaven.

The first step toward a larger unity has been made in the Federal Council, which has had widely representative and capable leadership. No man today speaks with more spiritual authority and keen intelligence than Bishop McConnell, who speaks in our city next Sunday night. He has been one of the guiding spirits of the Federal Council.

The report on the steel situation fifteen years ago, violently opposed at the time, is now recognized as a masterly document that solved a problem in the field of labor that the government in Washington had failed to adjust. This report is an ample vindication of the Council and of future efforts in that direction from the same source, provided they be guided by the principle, which I would call Bishop McConnell’s “Principle of Prophesy,” which briefly is this: On the basis of the best information available, unprejudiced and gathered by experts from all sources, let the Church, in the name of justice and good will, indicate to economic and industrial groups the just policy, and you will have a prophetic voice speaking in no uncertain tones along lines that can be profitably followed. Put human interests ahead of property interests, with all the sanity and knowledge available! Apply the basic principles of the Gospel and the Church can still exercise its prophetic function. That endowment of power in other days came upon individuals, and that may happen again. But, more likely, it is destined in the future to speak through the combined intelligence of the Group.

Yes, we need each other. The Pacifist, in this present evil world, still needs the Militarist. Somewhere, between the two extremes, the public course must be charted. There are too many dangers for complete disarmament. On the other hand, all the enthusiasm of the sincere lovers of peace, all the good sense of statesmen, is needed to prevent the recurrence of war. It is an open question whether war ever accomplished any good commensurate with its awful cost. Nine-tenths of all our present day poverty, moral and economic alike, the world around, can be charged up to the Great War. On this I feel strongly and would defend the right of any lover of peace, no matter how extreme, to have his say. But I am enough of a realist to know that in order to make substantial progress, any program, whether it be promoted by churchmen or politicians, must give the assurance of national security to citizens of my country in order to gain their support, tacit or enthusiastic. But more of this next Sunday, which happens to be Armistice Day.

In the present county elections the ugly form of Nazism rears its head. We owe a great debt to our Jewish citizens. In this city they are among our most intelligent and generous philanthropists. This has been true for nearly a century. In the religious field, they have been given a surprising number of outstanding leaders in our city. Culturally and economically they have been a great asset. In the last decade they have proved stalwart supporters, and furnished striking leadership for, the desperate political situation of this municipality. But, I predict that the election next Tuesday will temporarily eliminate some of our most useful public servants simply because they are Jews, for an over-seas hatred, due to historical and racial reasons, finds a strong reflection in “Zinzinnati.” “My beloved brethren, these things ought not so to be” . . . . “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.”

Now I ask you, as I ask myself, what are the forces that cohere? What are the things that bind us together? This multitude of all sorts, who travel in the same ship of state. [With us, as of old, there are prisoners, and the problems of the under-world and the gangsters are forced home upon us every day. What have we to offset this and the hundred other ills that afflict us?

This was a food ship, in which St. Paul traveled, carrying to Rome the wheat for the daily dole. Our relief situation is nothing new. Make it acute enough however, and you have the seeds of revolution sprouting fast.]

I should say that very likely in American life the thing that most nearly binds us together into anything like a common unity is the Public School, which is worthy of our support in the present or any other tax levy; not for the mere learning of the Three R’s, but enough money available for adequate equipment and a well-paid teaching staff that has had access to all the educational and cultural advantages of our time, that they may pass these on, consciously and unconsciously, to our children. Not a stereotyped, inflexible system that teaches by rote the ‘Law of the Twelve Tables’ or an interpretation of the Constitution sanctioned by the Sons of the Revolution—or the Daughters, but an intelligent, constructive educational policy that teaches the value of all that is good in the past and yet recognizes the inevitability of change. Over every public school might be written into the motto: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

Organizations like the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the present non-sectarian policies of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A; these, and any other groups for young people or adults, that give them a cross-section of the community, that force people of all sorts and conditions to mix and to mingle—as they must have done on the little ship that sailed to Rome, these “two hundred, three score and sixteen souls,” learning to dislike each other and, in emergencies, to admire each other and depend upon each other for mutual help and support; all the things in our common life that acquaint us with each other, our strong cohesive forces.

And, the religion of Christ, by all means, ought to be one of these unifying factors. If Protestantism has been divisive, let us change its character. Paul said that Christ came to break down “a middle wall of partition” and that without this the Cross of Christ would become of no effect. Whatever the first century Christians may have done in this regard (there are the marks and wounds of strife in the Book of Acts), whatever they may have done or failed to do, our present interpretation of Christianity in Protestant circles is far from “breaking down” any walls. We have as many prejudices as have our Catholic neighbors, only theirs take a different form. Their united front and policy, of opposition to all who do not agree with them in theory, of course, is the very antithesis of the Gospel. Let it be a lesson to us.

Like these ancient mariners, we have thrown overboard much of the tackling of the ship. There is not much water between our keel and the rocks. Shipwreck may be ahead. If all abide in the ship, if there is a unified purpose of good will, all will come safe to land, though it may be on broken pieces of the ship.

No one is wise enough to predict the future. There are certain great and abiding principles that ought, however, to direct our life, individual and social. These have been defied; that is our trouble today. Old-fashioned honesty, a simple faith in action; these have been largely lacking in the setup of the last twenty years. We have become too sophisticated. There are many new helps to navigation, thanks to Lord Kelvin and a hundred others, but none of them can afford to neglect the stars. Like these ancient sailors, “we have cast our anchors out of the stern and long for the day.” Serious thought has been forced upon us and as we revamp our plans for the future, in the Spirit of Christ, regardless of what our traditional religious prejudices have indicated, we ought to go forward with our main reliance on the Ethical Gospel of our Lord. There is salvation in no other Name; and that, in the barest terms, He said, was to love God with heart, soul, and mind--and one's neighbor as one’s self.

We need a new infusion of the fear of the Lord, reverence for the Highest and Best, a new appreciation of good will and brotherhood, a baptism of the spirit of love that suffers long and is kind, that never fails and cannot fail.

In a neighboring factory, one day last week, an emery wheel “let go,” as they say, and flying off into space, worked havoc. Something in the conglomerate composition of the carborundum was not able to stand the stress, and break-up resulted. This is a picture, to many contemporary minds, of our civilization. It is flying to pieces. On the other hand, there are many whose picture is much more moderate. Forces of disintegration are undoubtedly at work, they say, and for better or for worse, changes have come and are coming; but the essential fabric is sound. The emery wheel still revolves and has cutting quality, though its spindle may be slightly eccentric.

No one but the extreme Tory believes that the machinery of our social and political life is in anything like perfect alignment. To begin with, there are no end of personal and party differences. The President last week very pointedly told the bankers that their group did not agree among themselves. There is certainly a divided counsel in the administration itself. No one can predict whether it will swing right or left. Take any church group, and it is hard to find a dozen people who absolutely agree about any one thing.

Four ministers sat at lunch last Friday. After rather vigorously criticizing the President, one of them pointed out that if they four were committed with the destiny and policy of their own denomination, they could not agree among themselves, not only in details of administration, but on some points of, what their fathers would have considered, basic theology.

Everywhere you find it:

Catholic versus Protestant

Jew versus Gentile

Democrat versus Republican

Charter versus Organization

Blacks versus Whites

Capital versus Labor

The haves versus the have-nots

Conservative versus Radical

Pacifist versus Militarists

The list could easily be doubled. It looks like a football schedule, only in this game there is generally less sportsmanship than is manifest on the intercollegiate gridiron. What is it, then, that holds our conglomerate society together? With all the causes of faction and division, what is it that makes the whole cohere? There must be something in the life of our body politics, for in spite of all the disruptive forces, in peace and in war, the nation, for over one hundred and fifty years, has held together.

It is encouraging to note, in the first place, that these divisions are nothing new. The present agitation in political circles, induced by Catholic interest in public school money, is a mere echo of the thunders of the “Know-Nothing” agitations of sixty years ago. We will always have some “Klansmen” with us. Likely, all that we can ask is that they go unmasked.

The newer and more accurate historians of our Revolutionary War indicate very clearly that sentiment in the colonies was anything but unified. John Adams says that in Massachusetts, likely the most patriotic colony, nearly forty-five percent of the people were opposed to the Revolution. (Curiously enough, the loyal people in those days were those that supported the king. In this case, as often, the revolutionist of one period becomes the patriot of another.)

"Vacation in the East"

1 August 1934 | Cincinnati Enquirer

Pastor Visits Cripples' School

26 May 1934 | Cincinnati Star

The Jesse Halsey Manuscript Collection. Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

The Spirit Can Be Propogated

1934

Post-Assembly Conference

The Kane Republican | May 1934

Jesse Halsey | 1934

The tumult and the shouting dies, the Bishops and Elders depart and we are left in our solitude to take up our parish duties. What is the aftermath of the assembly for our churches and for us? Twenty odd of our ministers were gathered for breakfast and talked it over

To a couple of the older men it was a reminder of old times, for once upon a time not far remote this Presbytery was given to controversies, as it is now given to hospitality. The fire-works of the Assembly reminded us of the heresy and other trials here endured (and in a measure enjoyed, by the fathers, I verily believe). No doubt there were those in this Assembly who felt that the main business of the Church is the discussion of doctrinal issues—but such are in a minority. It is becoming evident that the Church is setting herself foreword to the Lord’s business and, that within a wide latitude, Christian men of good-will in Presbyterian circles must subordinate their jealous dogmatisms to their Lord and His work. Within tow decades this Presbytery has moved in that direction very vigorously and thoroughly—may it be a prophesy for the whole church.

Most of us feel that “social action,” though it looks good in print and will have a fair share in the minutes was not very near the heart of the Assembly. With the Naval maneuvers in full swing there is at least one commissioner who regrets that he spoke no word in protest, (and this commissioner has no over weaning confidence in resolutions). “The centre of interest in our denomination is “institutional rather than passional”—one man put it thus.”

Everyone spoke of the Moderator. How he towered above the situation; fair and firm; dignified and forceful; adequate always. (I should use quotation marks, for these were actual comments.) No piousity but real spiritual quality in all he siaid and did. He deserved the office and now, more than ever, he deserves the thanks fof his church.

Dr. Covert’s sermon was highly appreciated—“would that the Assembly had lived up to its spirit.” Dr. Speer’s ovation drew hearty approval. The curious attack on him (of all people); the wholesome reaction throughout the Church toward The Cause and its Senior Secretary; we talked about these things.

“A blood letting process, but necessary,” “two Assemblies have known just what they wanted to do,” “it had to be done.” Only one out of twenty felt that another year of “grace and conference” should have been allowed the “Machenites,” and this one was our arch-liberal who wants all shades of opinion and conviction sheltered within the fold. Most of us within the year have been converted to the necessity of the constitutional process, taking its course.

Our churches have profited by the Popular meetings, they have suffered by the newspaper publicity. Every missionary and secretarial address of presentation was an asset, some of the debates a liability. Old time politicians who looked in, have (half a dozen of them) said to the writer, in one form or another, “You could show us things”; “the church has nothing on us”; “your Moderator ought to be Speaker of the House.”

“We are glad they came”; “we are glad they are going out of Ohio next year”—our feelings are mixed, as must be those of every sincere Christian and Churchman—the distortion, the lack of perspective—these things trouble us all, but beneath and beyond the flotsam and jetsam is the steady tide and its set is forward.

The scars and awful wreck of war are with us and will be inherited by our grandchildren . . .

In our own time common honesty, sex balance, respect for life, regard for truth, and a dozen other human values have been universally lowered by and for war purposes.

I am not a pacifist, for I still believe that under certain conditions force must be used to resist the aggressions of evil. But I am opposed to the war system. This day, that commemorates ten million slain from every nation under heaven, ought to make us pause and ask ourselves serious, “Is there no other way?”

War is subversive of man’s highest accomplishment. It wrecks his moral sense. Rheims and Louvain in their desolation are symbols of humanity’s fall. The scars and awful wreck of war are with us and will be inherited by our grandchildren; yet we proceed to get ready for another.

The minimum that lovers of peace have a right to ask and ought to ask are such things as these: (1) munitions manufacture should be in the hands of Government or under government control, with profits eliminated for individuals or corporations; (2) in war all resources and individuals should be drafted and none allowed to fatten at the public expense; (3) disarmament conferences should be manned by statesmen rather than by military officers; (4) substantial sums should be spent by Government for constructive purposes of peace—a tenth of a tithe of what is spent for war preparation might be tried as an experiment in good will.

--Jesse Halsey in The Cincinnati Enquirer, as reprinted in The Messenger, Nov. 17, 1934

"O glowing day of summer gone, so full"

The first day passed

And summer’s time returns to winter

Ere the day that lingers yet so wistfully

Has turned to dark. A stillness broods

In air that’s all alight with sunset’s glow.

The clock strikes six, the crickets chirp the time

That yesterday was seven, and in the west

A small moon hangs scarce brighter than the light

Which fades so slowly that a twittering bird

Has sung his last goodnight ere dark sets in.

O glowing day of summer gone, so full

Of life and light and love and happiness

So radiant in our retrospect,

We hail in sweet remembrance one

Who like this day

Has now turned back upon eternal time,

And in her garden, looking to the west

We raise our eyes above the sunset glow,

And farther, past the bright young moon

To catch a point of light—

The evening star.

by Jesse Halsey 

Radio Audience (biographical play)

by Abigail Fithian Halsey | c1934

 

“Up early this morning, Aunt Marcia,” the young girl spoke.

Aunt Marcia, her shoulder shawl pinned tightly this cold morning turned from the radio. Her face was all alight.

“What is it, Auntie?” said the girl surprised. “You look as tho you’d seen a vision.”

“Seen and heard,” the older woman said, then stopped awhile. “My brother, on the radio, I’ve heard his voice at last.”

“Oh, really, Auntie, when?”

“Just now,” Aunt Marcia paused, the wonder still too great. “He’s out in Colorado, I am here. We’ve never heard him way off here before, never could get him someway, tho I know he speaks. No need to drive the lazy foot this morning, my mind, too, that was wide awake. John set the dial for me when he went to bed, at seven-thirty, I was listening in, and when the time came—why it seemed that I would never get his voice. Jazz there was, and some one singing ould, and then above the rest was ONE-TWO-THREE and ONE-TWO-THREE, that morning exercise, MY BROTHER, his own voice. His well-loved voice, I’d know it ‘cross the sea.”

“How proud his father’d be, his dad who never wanted him to preach, but keep a store or run a farm like all the rest. But no, Dave had ambition—and love, too, love for all.”

“And Mother, then I thought of her—his little mother who had tired too soon and had to leave his childhood to us girls, who didn’t know so well as she the way to care for little boys.”

“But sister Lyd, she was eighteen, she took the baby in her care and brought him up as well as sisters can. If she were here how proud she’d be, how proud she was all through the years when he was growin’ up. And when he preached in the old church first time, his mother couldn’t have been much prouder than dear sister Lyd.”

“And his Aunt Gene, oh dear, how I go on—they’re all gone, all gone, and I alone am left.”

“And then I thought—it came just like a flash—there’s none of them, not one, that NEEDS to hear like this, with mortal ears like me. They always hear, by ways divine, O GOD, the wonder—and the joy.”

“I heard his prayer. I heard him say, ‘Shine on our sorrow, Father, in the light of thy faith, Shine on our broken hopes in the light of thy joy.’ O Brother, Little Brother, we are listening, all, yes, all of us, or here or there—what the matter? Gift divine that man has found, has found at last the way devised by God so long ago.”

“The jazz cut in. I couldn’t hear him now, I thought I’d lost him and I almost snapped the dial off, but no, ‘twas here, the well-loved voice, right in the room, beside me, and I heard, above the jazz, above the strident sounds. Above the interminable ONE-TWO-, ONE-TWO-THREE, I heard his voice, these words, just these, ‘And someway God comes through.’”

The Farther Shore: An Anthology of World Opinion on the Immortality of the Soul

reviewed by Jesse Halsey | c1934

From the Egyptian minstrel of 2160 BC to Sir Oliver Lodge, the editors bring the eternal longing and question. Professor Whitehead’s brief forward speaks of the “simple, concise beauty of the introductions to the various authors supplied by the editors.” They have done well. From the first to the last of these selections we move among friends, with the sympathy of kindred thought and courage. Most of us will need the guiding hand of the editors for the Chinese and Indian and Egyptian sages appear with the classical writers. The Bible is adequately quoted and the Christian tradition well represented—Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Aquinas, Bunyan, Edwards, and others.

Poets and philosophers, the ancients, the medievalists, and the moderns speak with different tongues, but one catches the same accent of longing in most.

One would suppose it were perfectly legitimate to let the heart speak and, indeed, more fair. To add, for example, Tennyson’s last word in “Crossing the Bar,” or Browning’s in “The Epilogue to Asolondo,” some word of Sir William Osler’s after his Revere had gone west to those here printed would more fully represent mature conclusion. Or Emerson’s “Threnody,” or some passage from his diary, after his little boy had died! In their selections the editors let the mind speak and have suppressed the heart’s deeper expression.

On Hocking

-->

Hocking was here today. He spoke three times. Three times I heard him. And we “rethought missions” with him. Some of us have been thinking and rethinking with him for years. Only a few days ago I found Wieman saying about him, what I have long felt. Wieman has wandered much farther from Hockings’ sturdy theism than have I, but that only makes his saying all the more meaningful. He says this—"I distinguish sharply between the profound insights into the religious way of living, which Hocking reveals, and the system of philosophy in which he clothes them. In the former he is, to my mind, unsurpassed among living men. --Jesse Halsey c1934

On Patriotism

Patriotism need not be construed as being synonymous with racial arrogance or national selfishness. Nationalism can run rampant and defeat its own purpose.

The United States should lead in peace, pressing upon other nations a unilateral pact for non-aggression suggested by President Roosevelt in which each nation should pledge itself not to send military forces across the border on any other nation.

The President should be authorized to place an embargo on credits to nations that send military forces across the boundaries of other nations. This should apply not only to arms and munitions, but all credit.

--Jesse Halsey, c1934

Books of Worth

--> Jesse Halsey

c1934

  

“The Reason for Living” answers many questions that the contemporary mind is asking religious and other values. Its author is Dean Wicks of the Princeton Chapel. He was long time a pastor in a mill town, knows the life practical as well as scholastic, and represents a warm Evangelical faith in the heart of a real man, and in his mind, as it wrestles with doubt and difficulty, for serious students, in college or out.

“You Can Master Life,” by Jas. G. Gilkey, is ‘rational pep medicine to a college athlete. To a parish minister it appeals as common sense applied to everyday life problems with a modicum of religious verbiage, but with sound religious experience, though the expressions are more often Stoic than traditionally Christian.

In this, and in his numerous other books, Dr. Gilkey has been (unconsciously?) writing something that I should ineptly call, “A Psycho-theology of the Modernist Christian Left.” It is a fearless dealing of real problems as they lie in many minds and to the cautious, judicial, and reasoning mind, of which there are many, he speaks acceptably. To those who want another kind of Authority, there will be something lacking.

When you read, “What Men are Asking?” by Dr. Coffin, unless you are an arch-fundamentalist, you find soul satisfying stuff with an Evangelical fervor and flavor that warms your heart. Likely these are the positions of the majority of the Presbyterian Evangelicals (Liberals or Modernists, call them what you will). Dean Wicks’ “The Reason for Living” takes on a little more scholastic vocabulary and loses a little warmth, but has the same general, ‘though individual, approach. James Gilkey swings over to the Left, stoic common sense rather than (traditional) Christian religious expression. And Dr. Fosdick has at time some of all, trying always to put reasonable argument of emotional fervor. He maintains a good balance, but for five years has been (to the help of many) swinging to the Right.

A transcript from experience, we gather, is Dean Wicks’ book. The questions we asked our teachers (and ourselves) and many others added by a generation more inquisitive, and likely wiser than ours. From the first to the last (Why live? to “ . . . can we preserve the freedom of the human spirit?”) there is reason and counsel, affirmation and constructive suggestiveness.

To those of us who in our day and generation learned a catechism and who since have unlearned and relearned or discarded its answers it is interesting to find young people still asking the same basic questions and we rejoice that they have such wise instructors as Dean Wicks proves himself to be in this book. He never answers his question by simply  asking another question, unless that is a leading question that proceeds immediately to constructive affirmation.

Have you enlarged your knowledge of obligations . . . [notes on a sermon]

Rev. Jesse Halsey | c1934

Have you enlarged your knowledge of obligations and increased your capacity to perform them?

Have you developed your intuitions and made more sensitive your emotions?

Have you discovered your mental aptitude?

Have you learned enough about the machinery of society and its history to enable you to apply your gifts effectively?

Have you acquired adequate skill in communication with others?

ALL SOULS; Acts 27:37

Jesse Halsey | 1934 | Part II 

Private collection

  

“And there were in all the ship two hundred, three score and sixteen souls.”

In a neighboring factory, one day last week, an emery wheel “let go,” as they say, and flying off into space, worked havoc. Something in the conglomerate composition of the carborundum was not able to stand the stress, and break-up resulted. This is a picture, to many contemporary minds, of our civilization. It is flying to pieces. On the other hand, there are many whose picture is much more moderate. Forces of disintegration are undoubtedly at work, they say, and for better or for worse, changes have come and are coming; but the essential fabric is sound. The emery wheel still revolves and has cutting quality, though its spindle may be slightly eccentric.

No one but the extreme Tory believes that the machinery of our social and political life is in anything like perfect alignment. To begin with, there are no end of personal and party differences. The President last week very pointedly told the bankers that their group did not agree among themselves. There is certainly a divided counsel in the administration itself. No one can predict whether it will swing right or left. Take any church group, and it is hard to find a dozen people who absolutely agree about any one thing.

Four ministers sat at lunch last Friday. After rather vigorously criticizing the President, one of them pointed out that if they four were committed with the destiny and policy of their own denomination, they could not agree among themselves, not only in details of administration, but on some points of, what their fathers would have considered, basic theology.

Everywhere you find it:

Catholic versus Protestant

Jew versus Gentile

Democrat versus Republican

Charter versus Organization

Blacks versus Whites

Capital versus Labor

The haves versus the have-nots

Conservative versus Radical

Pacifist versus Militarists

The list could easily be doubled. It looks like a football schedule, only in this game there is generally less sportsmanship than is manifest on the intercollegiate gridiron. What is it, then, that holds our conglomerate society together? With all the causes of faction and division, what is it that makes the whole cohere? There must be something in the life of our body politics, for in spite of all the disruptive forces, in peace and in war, the nation, for over one hundred and fifty years, has held together.

It is encouraging to note, in the first place, that these divisions are nothing new. The present agitation in political circles, induced by Catholic interest in public school money, is a mere echo of the thunders of the “Know-Nothing” agitations of sixty years ago. We will always have some “Klansmen” with us. Likely, all that we can ask is, that they go unmasked.

The newer and more accurate historians of our Revolutionary War indicate very clearly that sentiment in the colonies was anything but unified. John Adams says that in Massachusetts, likely the most patriotic colony, nearly forty-five percent of the people were opposed to the Revolution. (Curiously enough, the loyal people in those days were those that supported the king. In this case, as often, the revolutionist of one period becomes the patriot of another.)

Fifteen Years Ago . . . To Day

Jesse Halsey | 1934

2726 Cleinview Av

Cincinnati, O

John Harley is always in church. He is proud of his church, is one of its trustees, and is a loyal and friendly toward his minister. He is a capable lawyer, direct and plain spoken, though not profound.

Last Sunday the minister preached on a curious text, “The Holy Ghost saith, Today!” It hardly made sense in itself. And then the minister was—well, he said something about the New Deal and the President’s latest message. Being a Democrat, Harley agreed, though he wasn’t sure that the minister gave entire approval. That didn’t matter.

Then the minister had something to say about that two-thirds of Protestantism who seldom or never go to church. That was true—and that was fine. Harley is always there.

But then he started on war, the minister did. Its terror and its devastation, its awful waste. Harley knew all about it; he had been over there. And just fifteen years ago to the day, and the hour, Harley had been sailing up the Bay coming home. The band had been playing and there was the Statue of Liberty—the world had been made safe!

The breeze, cool from the night’s thunder shower, blew in through the church window and summoned the minister to an extra five minutes—and Harley to his thoughts.

What was he saying? The danger of the hour is in a nationalistic religion whether you look at Germany or America? There was a reference to the MacIntosh case. Harley is a great admirer of Mr. Justice Hughes. So apparently, in this instance, was the minister.

Then bang—“never again”; “the method is wrong”; “naval preparedness is the worst possible gesture . . .”; “Christ said men were brothers”; “I must act that way even in the face of propaganda . . .”; “I can’t say categorically, in advance, in face of any or all conditions that I won’t fight, but I wish I could.”

That was good but likely camouflaged pacifism—(Harley wears a legion button). Hang it, he came here to worship, to get a start for the week and its problems, to get out of himself and find God, and here the minister was shooting ethics. Well, that was a minister’s privilege, his honest soul replied, and likely his business.

But why today? Fifteen years ago he had come home after eighteen months in the trenches and all he had believed then was held false now. What was the matter? Anyway, there was no use getting mad about it and—well, the minister had been over there, too. His church had sent him and paid his salary to his family; he had served the government without pay.

The sermon went on to a swift conclusion. God is Lord of the Conscious. The state is not supreme . . . God comes first  . . . In a Christian state there is room for the conscientious objector . . . No Christian should ever cross the boundary of another country with any but good intent, in peace or in war—and then there would be no war. No thorough-going pacifism, but enough to irritate the veteran who was sailing up the bay just fifteen years ago to the minute—allowing for daylight saving time; this careful lawyer.

So Harley tackled the minister, expressing not his anger, but his doubts. “Fifteen years ago we (that was generous) went. Now you advocate a philosophy just the opposite.”

“Yes, because the other didn’t work. Only ideals got us in and none of those objectives were accomplished.”

“That was the miserable politicians,” countered Democrat Harley. “But when the duly constituted representative of the people in congress assembled vote for war, every loyal citizen who can bear arms must respond, regardless.”

“Miserable politicians” then perverted the peace, “high minded statesmen” shall mould the future issue?

The minister’s logic, for the moment, was better than the lawyer’s—and they agree to defer further argument until after the Trustees’ meeting on Monday night.

Meanwhile, Harley is puzzled. Nor is the minister entirely sure. It would be so much easier to be a thorough-going Pacifist than a reasonable (and reasoning) Idealist.

Soviet Russia | 1934

Review of “Russia’s Iron Age” by William Henry Chamberlin

Jesse Halsey

Sentiment concerning Russia seems again to be radically changing. With American recognition a more favorable appraisal had come to the American mind; but recent disclosures of the events of the last three years have swung the pendulum back. There is a decidedly unfavorable reaction.

Some of this, at least, is due to Chamberlin. He has spent a dozen years in Russia as representative of the “Christian Science Monitor” and is the author of authoritative books on that country. His “Soviet Russia” is judged by many discerning critics as the best book in English on the Soviets. Certainly, “Russia’s Iron Age” deserves high praise and wide reading.

Chamberlin, after this long residence, is now permanently leaving Russia for Japan and, likely, feels that he can speak with frankness and abandon.

He is unsparing in his criticism of the stern and sinister aspects of Stalin’s administration, but gives more than grudging admiration of the material accomplishment of the Soviets. There is a fine appraisal of religion. Communism is “a faith without God” and the Communistic organization has a distinct parallel with religious organizations, including the analogue of a class meeting.

In the last years, the peasantry suffered under this government of terror and three to five million have been ruthlessly starved among the Kulak class in order to force their cooperation in the collective farming. It is a government by terror and propaganda in the hands of a ruthless autocrat.

The author discusses the cultural and home life of the people. He indulges in mild prophecy. He gives two long chapters to the consideration of the religious aspects of the revolution. It is a book marked by balance and just and fearless appraisal of all factors.

“David His Little Lad”

Miss A. F. Halsey

34 Post Crossing

Southampton, N.Y.

May 12, 1934—It is six year today since Billy died. Life in its fullness lived in his seven years. Here is the record of them on the little granite stone—the record the world reads:

Wilmun Haynes Halsey

1921-1928

“The child ministered unto the Lord.”

In one moment of anguish the sorrow of all time had become ours. Yet, today, there is no sorrow in the thought of Billy, only light in the radiance of his life has brought to all who loved him.

******

This evening, I have been reading THE HEART OF EMERSON’S Journals, edited by Bliss Perry. I have been tracing date by date and year by year the reference to his little boy, Waldo, who died at the age of five years in 1842, when Emerson was thirty-eight. We are told that “this was perhaps the sharpest sorrow” of his life. The child was born in October 1836.

Oct. 31—Last night at eleven o’clock my son Waldo was born to me. A lovely child. A lovely wonder to me, and which makes the Universe look friendly to me.

Nov. 5—This day I have been scrambling in the woods and with the help of Peter Howe I have got six hemlock trees to plant in my yard, which may grow whilst my boy is sleeping.

Apr. 8—Ah, my darling boy, so lately received out of Heaven, leave me not now. Please God, this sweet symbol of love and wisdom may be spared to rejoice, teach, and accompany me.

May 7—This day my boy was baptized in the old church by Dr. Ripley. They dressed him in the self same robe in which twenty-seven years before my brother Charles was baptized.

Oct .16—The babe stands alone today for the first time. A lovely afternoon and I went to Walden Water and read Goethe on the bank.

Dec. 8—Waldo walks alone.

1838 April 26—Lidian came into the study this afternoon and found the towerlet Waldo had built half and hour before of two spools, a card, an awl case and a flower box top, each perpendicularly balanced on the other, and could scarce believe her boy had built the pyramid, and then fell into such a fit of affection that she lay down by the structure and kissed it down and declared she could stay no longer with papa but must go off to the nursery to see with eyes the lovely creature; and so departed.

July 9—I like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations, and his utter inability to conceive of why I should not leave my nonsense business and writing to come and tie up his toy horse, as if there was and could be any end to nature beyond his horse.

1840, June 4—Waldo says, “The flowers talk when the wind blows over them.” My little boy grows thin in the hot summer, and runs all to eyes and eye lashes.

1842, Jan. 28---Yesterday night, at fifteen minutes after eight, my little Waldo ended his life.

Jan. 30—The morning of Friday I woke at three o’clock and every cock in the barnyard was shrilling with the most unnecessary noises. The sun went up the morning sky with al his light, but the landscape was dishonored by this loss, for this boy in whose remembrance I have both slept and awaked so often, decorated for me the morning star, the evening cloud . . . A boy of early wisdom, of a grave even majestic deportment, of perfect gentleness.

Every tramper that ever tramped is abroad, but the little feet are still.

He gave up his little innocent breath like a bird.

Sorrow makes us all children again—destroys all difference of intellect. The wisest know nothing.

Mar. 20—I comprehend nothing of the fact (Waldo’s death), but its bitterness. Explanation I have none, consolation none that rises out of the fact itself; only diversion; only oblivion of this, and pursuit of new objects.

Apr. 6—I am defeated all the time; yet to Victory I am born.

June (undated)---Charles King Newcomb took us all captive . . . Let it be to his praise that when I carried his manuscript story to the woods and read it in the arm chair of the upturned root of a pine tree, I felt for the first time since Waldo’s death some efficient faith in the repairs of the Universe, some interdependence of natural relations whilst spiritual affinities are so perfect and compensating.

1844, Jan. 30—I wrote Mr. F that I had no experiences nor progress to reconcile me to the calamity whose anniversary returned for the second time last Saturday. The senses have a right to their method as well as the mind; there should be harmony in facts as well as in truths. Yet these ugly breaks happen there, which the continuity of theory does not contemplate. The amends are of a different kind from the mischief.

****

1864, June (undated)—I too am fighting my campaign. Within, I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth.

****

The evening grows late, the fire on the hearth glows in embers. The desk light falls on Billy’s picture, taken when he was the age of little Waldo. Before I turn it out, I take up Emerson’s COMPENSATION to read again these words, “But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.”