American League for Peace and Democracy

By Default

Jesse Halsey / Radio Address c1935

The World Court protocols have again failed to pass our Senate. If the prestige of a President, who can get a blank check for four billion, could not bring the Senators into line, what can? Apparently, a “barrage of telegrams” is more effective than the influence of the Chief Executive.

Anyone who listened to Father Couglin or Senator Reynolds or Huey Long, when they were on the air, realized, as never before, the awful power of the radio in the hands of propagandists, not to say demagogues.

(I realize it is very easy to call the other fellow bad names.) If we are to change the picture, we must, in the future, not take anything for granted; but begin to organize our forces and be prepared to make vocal, in Washington, such public opinion as we can create and direct. This presupposes a consistent policy of education in the cities and at the crossroads, to proclaim the ideals of brotherhood and the international implications of the Gospel, to make “Americanism” something more than a narrow nationalism, to take the best idealistic traditions of our history and to exalt them.

Whoever is responsible for the policies of mission study deserves credit for placing the emphasis on Japan for this year. With current increase in armaments and our naval gestures in the Pacific, it is of great value for the churches to be studying and trying to understand Japan. Certainly, it is but a drop in the bucket, but, as a wise woman said, “The place for the drop is in the bucket.”

The Senators from Ohio voted on opposite sides on the World Court. The day following the vote, from Washington comes a dispatch to our morning paper, intimating that the anti-Senator has been deluged with telegrams of congratulations whereas the pro-court Senator had received no congratulatory messages. However large the “barrage” of anti telegrams may have been, eight names are mentioned in our paper. None of them happens to be known to me (and I have lived in our town for over twenty years). However, an array of fifty or sixty names of our “leading citizens” appear on the letterhead of our World Court Organization. None of us apparently have wired and, likely, few have written, either congratulating our pro-Court Senator or criticizing our anti. I imagine that is symptomatic the country over.

It is our business to sow the seed and plant the leaven, but on occasion it seems necessary that we count our sheaves or bake our loaves of bread. In other words, put pressure where it will make votes in Washington, or, quite frankly, engage in straight-forward, above-board “lobbying.” For our encouragement in this dark time when we desperately need it, let me rehearse in brief a bit of history that ought to give us hope and teach us some lessons.

President Nicholas Murray Butler [of Columbia University], after spending some time with Premier Briand, came home and, in a Sunday evening address to less than four hundred citizens at an eastern summer resort, outlined in substance what we now know as the “Pact of Paris.” A small committee of citizens selected that night went to Washington. President Coolidge and Secretary Kellogg thought the plan impossible and “unconstitutional.” Senator Borah said that he “would not oppose it”; and there it seemed to stall.

A Roman Catholic member of this citizen’s committee said to the others that the only method of approach was through the Federal Council. They saw Dr. Cadman and started the Council’s machinery and as it became evident that individuals and groups the country over were interested, the plan began to take form. Its unilateral feature became multilateral, and other minor changes were introduced, but under the pressure of public interest in high places, it became possible and constitutional and, curiously enough, in most quarters it now bears the name of the “Kellogg Pact.”

Apparently, we do have the machinery to make vocal our idealism. None of us say that the League of Nations is a synonym for the Kingdom of God nor that the World Court will bring universal peace, but we do feel ashamed and humiliated that our great country, whose statesmen designed and set up the machinery of peace, seems afraid to use it herself. The world must judge that we have things or fear things in the future, that we are afraid to adjudicate of public opinion. Nationalism is in the ascendant; preparedness races are eminent. America, at least officially, begins to line up with the unidealistic and anti-Christian forces. The next decade will be a “testing time”—a period of judgment. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We need to teach and live, but it is perfectly legitimate and entirely necessary that we make vocal in places where it will count our determined opposition to increased armaments, to isolationist policies—to Chauvinism in all its forms.

"highest quality of brotherly behavior that eschews hatreds and prejudices"

August 20, 1939

To turn from history to the contemporary present; these very days there has been and is being organized a weel articulated movement of sinister mean and considerable proportion and with a disarming name—the so-called “Christian” Front, with its subsidiary the “Christian Mobilizers.” All the improved techniques of the Nazi group are employed in this propaganda. They boldly speak of “the poppycock of Democracy” and advocate a “corporate state.” In action they are rabidly anti-Semitic, and stabbings have taken place on the streets of New York. Hoodlum tactics, disregard of the rights of others, violent utterance, an incitement to riot—such things do not fit the American scene and must not become part of the American life.

The use of the most sacred noun and adjective of our vocabulary to characterize this sort of procedure is sheer impudence and profanation. No catalog of high-sounding principles can redeem hate-inciting vociferations and active persecution of a minority. “Christian” certainly ought to take its quality from the Christ. He it was who said “By their fruits ye shall know them.” There is no substitute for action; words speak loudly but actions louder.” What you are and do speak so loud I can’t hear what you say.” And our Lord, Himself, gave the final test of allegiance to himself in these words—“Why call me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say.”

Let the so-called “Christian” Front get a name that fits its character; no brand of Christianity of which I have any knowledge would care to have “Front” behavior called “Christian.”

In 1855, Thomas F Marshall speaking to a Kentucky audience (largely in sympathy with the intolerant doctrines of the Know Nothings, clearly and bravely stated the situation—

“If the persecuting temper of the 16^th century is to be renewed here, if American Protestantism so far forgets its mission as to aid in rekindling the religious wars . . . religion will suffer most. True Christianity will veil her face. Men will be divided between a sullen and sordid fanaticism on the one side and a scoffing infidelity on the other. Our national characteristics will be lost. American civilization will have changed its character, our Federal union will have sacrificed its distinctive traits and we shall have exhibited a failure in the principles with which our government commenced its career, at which Hell itself might exult in triumph.”

Those same words are cogent today. The performance of the so-called Christian Front makes one ashamed—and makes one afraid. Except as one is led to believe in the common sense appraisal heretofore made by the American public of similar un-American, anti-social movements.

The most heartening thing that has come to my attention lately is this incident, illustrative of the very best American tradition. It transpired a few days ago in the Tombs Police court in NY City. Nothing more typical of the best American spirit and our high tradition of fair play can or needs to be quoted.

Magistrate Michael A. Ford was sentencing Miss Florence Nash, a 42-year-old saleswoman of [Coughlin’s] Social Justice. She had made her denunciation, which has been characteristic of Coughlinites, as she held out a copy of the paper. Judge Ford, having sentenced her to thirty days in the workhouse, and having suspended execution of the sentence, contingent on future good behavior, declared:

“I think you are one of the most contemptible individuals ever brought into my court. There is no place in this free country for any person who entertains the narrow, bigoted, intolerant ideas you have in your head. You remind me of a witch burner. You belong to the Middle Ages. You don’t belong to this modern, civilized day of ours. I’m ashamed of you. I take it you belong to the Roman Catholic Church. I’m a Roman Catholic myself, I’m ashamed of you because of the idea you have expressed.”

The magistrate then asked Miss Nash: “Where did your parents come from?”

“From Ireland,” she replied, and added with sobs, “both are dead.”

“They undoubtedly came to this country, as my parents did, to escape the persecution of the English Government,” said the magistrate. “The persecution you have perpetrated could be perpetrated also against your own race. He who instills such ideas in your head, be he a priest or anyone else, does not belong in this country.”

Magistrate Ford’s scathing lecture to this peddler of ill-will, incorporating his respects to Father Coughlin, who inspires the peddling, must have been as refreshing to decent Roman Catholic citizens of New York as it has been to citizens of other churches and none. It offered a striking contrast to the action of many other magistrates who have been handling cases of arrests brought about in the past few months as a result of the tactics of Coughlin’s “storm troopers.” Furthermore, his words constitute an excellent lesson in democratic conduct. It should be studied by those citizens, including churchmen, who have so far forgotten the primary obligations imposed by the democratic idea as to indulge in anti-Semitism.

This is the reaction of every true American.

Eternal vigilance is the price of our liberty. I believe if we tell the facts fearlessly the American public will respond in the spirit of the Constitution and of the Bill of Rights. I also believe with all my heart that “Christian” can mean and does mean the highest quality of brotherly behavior that eschews hatreds and prejudices of all sort. I sing the Te Deum and exalt the Christ* “Thou art the King of Glory O Christ” but with the Te Deum I go on to add “we believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.” No one can honor Christ who hates his brother nor claim the name of Christian who foments confusion strife and every work.

4 pages from an untitled sermon by Rev. Jesse Halsey typed on the back of the Seventh Presbyterian Church stationery.

[Ed note from Dictionary.com: weel [wiːl] — adv , — adj , — interj , — sentence connector a Scot word for well.]