September 1933 | Cincinnati Enquire

"Better Babies, Better Mothers, Better City!"

New York Tribune | 20 June 1914

"Practical Christianity is being preached, taught, and lived."

1915

The church gives its own movie shows, censored by the mothers of the church. 

Dances are held in the church gymnasium. Mothers and fathers attempt old-fashioned quadrilles and polkas while the youngsters dance the hesitation.

There is a billiard table in the boys' clubroom. The boys also play basketball and center ball. 

Mothers sew at the church and have noonday luncheon together. The older wives help and counsel younger wives.

The men meet in the evenings and discuss everything under the sun.


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

InterChurch Industrial Relations Department Conference | October 1919

"The Interchurch World Movement and the Great Steel Strike of 1919-1920," Eldon G. Ernst , Church History, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), pp. 212-22; Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History ; Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3163388.

The

conference,

presided

over

by

Methodist

Bishop

Francis

J.

McConnell,

long-time

social

gospel

leader,17

did

not

intend

to

make

judgmental

statements

about

specific

industrial

conflicts.

It

rather

sought

"to

point

out

the

moral

principles

involved

in

all

industrial

rela-

tions

and

to

suggest

some

methods

applicable

to

the

present

situa-

tion

.

.

.

.

to

indicate

the

Christian

bases

upon

which

these

problems

can

be

solved."'8

The

conference

issued

just

such

a

statement.l9

It

was

similar

to

the

Federal

Council

of

Churches

document

"The

Church

and

Social

Reconstruction"

formulated

five

months

earlier,20

and

the

(American

Catholic)

"Bishops

Program

of

Social

Reconstruction"

adopted

in

1919,21

calling

for

the

application

of

Christian

love

to

in-

dustrial

relations,

supporting

the

right

of

collective

bargaining,

and

advocating

equal

opportunity

for

women,

Negroes,

and

foreign-born

in

industry. 

 

 

Students Of Sabbath Schools Should Be Taught Philanthropy

ENQUIRER, CINCINNATI
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY1, 1911

"[Philanthropy] should become a part of the Sunday schools. It would be well to [hire] a director of social activity whose [thinking] should be to relate the Sunday school to social help for others," declared Rev. Samuel Tyler, rector of the Church of the Advent, at yesterday's supper of workers in the Baptist Institute at the Ninth Street Church. Mr. Tyler Is President of the Social Workers' Club of this city.

"The relation of the Sunday school and social service has been barely touched upon," said Mr. Tyler. "Religon is essentially social. The aim of present-day Christianity is to make the world a better place to live in. We must teach the child in the Sunday school the social character of Christianity. The principle of service is vital. We must try to make the children see their responsibility for the welfare of others.

"Especially can we follow this out in the public health and preventable disease. Every year over half a million deaths occur which could be spared. If Christ was the Great Physician his followers ought to be interested in the sorrow and waste of disease that need not be. "Our Sunday-school teachers must try to relate their teachings to life. The children, individually or in classes, should help poor families, visit philanthropic institutions or keep in touch with the movement for the social betterment. The public school children often clean the streets. There is no reason why Sunday-school children should not do so also. The better way to carry this out I would suggest the appointment in each school of a director of social activity to outline the ways of service . . ."

from Grenfell, As Theologian--and More

By Jesse Halsey

He came in, leaving his snow shoes by the door, sat down by our smoking peat fire, slipped off a sealskin boot and began to manipulate its stiffness over a can that stood in the corner just the way the natives do all down the Shore; then blurted out, “Parson, is there any such entity as the Grace of God?”

This was my first contact with Grenfell, as Theologian. I had seen the surgeon operating in his new hospital; had “poured the ether” for him and once held a leg five minutes after he had amputated it, and at length heard him say:  “You can lay it down now, I’m through with it.” I’d seen him, week on end, fill the largest building on the college campus, where ordinarily “daily prayers” were sparsely attended; listened to his tales of travel with his dogs on the ice and with his hospital steamer through the ice; seen him painlessly extract money in large sums from a Boston audience, but here was a new Grenfell—the Theologian.

“Is there any such ‘entity’ as the Grace of God?” What did he mean exactly? I tried to say that grace was a quality in God, an attribute of his character; that he was gracious and merciful in his very nature and being. No, he thought “grace” must be more than just a quality, it must be an “entity.” Definition of entity? He didn’t exactly know, but a “glorious something”—and there we left it.

"they upheld liberty for the gospel's sake"

Liberal Presbyterianism at once answered in the protest of many commissioners to the General Assembly of 1893 against the suspension of Dr. Briggs, which rejected the Assembly's assertion that "the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Scripture" was "the faith of the Church," and "the imposing of this new interpretation of our Standards upon the Church, to bind men's consciences by enforced subscription to its terms." The liberals were further aroused by the exercises of ecclesiastical authority in 1894 and 1899 against Dr. Henry Preserved Smith of Lane Seminary and Dr. Arthur C. McGiffert of Union Seminary, on the same general ground as the action against Dr. Briggs. In these years many Presbyterian ministers and laymen determined that in the Church there must be freedom of study and thought and speech, so that it could preach the gospel with power in a time of changed conceptions of the Bible and of new light upon it and upon Christian truth from science and history. Evangelicals, they upheld liberty for the gospel's sake.

These same years were the time of the rise of the social gospel. Not all, but many Presbyterian liberals came under its inspiration and gave its message, as it was understood in those early days. They were profoundly persuaded that the gospel commanded a more righteous industrial and economic order and that such an order must needs be to give the gospel free course. These same years saw also the coming with power of the impulse for Christian unity. Many Presbyterians caught the vision that was rising before the Christian world, caring supremely for the one gospel, above denominational particularities.

Thus about 1900 a body of liberals had formed in the Presbyterian Church. Many were younger men, but by no means all. Some of the most convinced and courageous were older. For this body held the old liberal evangelical position, in new conditions. Among the younger men was Henry Sloane Coffin. --Robert Hastings Nichols from "Leader of Liberal Presbyterianism" an essay in "This Ministry: The Contribution of Henry Sloane Coffin," ed. Niebuhr, 1945

Charles Wishart and William Jennings Bryan

The Philadelphia Overture addressing Fosdick came to the 1923 General Assembly meeting in Indianapolis. The two leading contenders for the office of moderator at this Assembly were Charles Wishart, president of the College of Wooster in Ohio, and William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential contender, Presbyterian elder, and crusader against the theory of biological evolution. Bryan was convinced that the theory of biological evolution not only undercut biblical authority and Christian doctrine, but also cut the nerve of moral reform and destroyed the foundation of Christian civilization. His entry into the moderatorial race brought the issue of biological evolution front and center on the Presbyterian agenda. Moreover, inasmuch as the College of Wooster taught biological evolution in its curriculum, the issue provided a clear choice for the Assembly.³³ In the words of one reporter for the New York Times, the Presbyterian Church was "being divided into evolutionists and anti-evolutionists."³⁴

Though Bryan was considered the clear frontrunner early on, he lost the election by a narrow margin, signaling the church's unease with Bryan's strident opposition to evolutionary thought. Indeed, the Assembly later defeated a hotly contested motion to oppose the teaching of biological evolution in Presbyterian schools and adopted a much milder resolution that instructed church judicatories to "withhold their official approval from such academies, colleges, and training schools where any teaching or instruction is given which seeks to establish a materialistic evolutionary philosophy of life or which disregards or attempts to discredit the Christian faith."³⁵ Most Presbyterians, even many theologically conservative Presbyterians like Machen, were willing to accept biological evolution to some degree.


The Committee on Bills and Overtures, which handled the Fosdick controversy, recommended no action pending the results of the investigation of the New York Presbytery. But militant conservatives were in no mood to leave Fosdick's fate in the hands of the liberal New York Presbytery. After long and acrimonious debate, the Assembly reaffirmed the five fundamentals of the faith first declared in 1910 and instructed the Presbytery of New York to bring the preaching of First Presbyterian Church, New York, into conformity with the Westminster Confession.³⁶

Hard upon this decision, however, liberals mobilized a public counteroffensive to this conservative victory. Henry Sloane Coffin, for example, a prominent liberal and pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, issued a statement claiming that he agreed completely with Fosdick and if Fosdick were disciplined he should be also.³⁷ Liberals like Coffin were convinced that if Christianity was going to appeal to thinking men and women and transform the world into God's Kingdom then it had to present a united front based on doctrinal liberty. As proponents of the Social Gospel, liberals believed that true evangelism had to bring all of life -- industry, education, and government -- under the gospel in order to "make the world the kingdom of God."³⁸ The liberal battle against fundamentalism was, therefore, not simply a fight for the tolerance of liberal theology but also a crusade to advance the Kingdom of God on earth.³⁹

--"For Church and Country: The Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict in the Presbyterian Church" by Bradley J. Longfield

"Valuable as is legal aid for the poor, the prevention, so far as possible of the necessity for it, is of even greater worth."

Causes of Legal Aid Need Should Be Attacked* by Murray Seasongood

With all the changes that have come about since my apprenticeship in legal aid in 1902, one wonders why the Cincinnati Legal Aid Society should still be running through the mill, each year, its six thousand or more civil cases and the several hundred criminal cases of its voluntary defender. Since the turn of the century we have acquired social security laws, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, the NLRB and, to do away with the horrors of the "fellow servant rule" and "assumption of risk" workmen's compensation laws. We have acquired also through WPA and PWA relief even to the extent of providing clothing; transportation in some cities (New York e.g.) at far less than cost; blue sky laws to prevent investment in unsound securities; declaratory judgments and arbitration and small claims courts; and teachers' and employees' credit companies. And yet the grind of cases seems to continue unabated and, indeed, to increase.

Must not, then, the legal aid enthusiast look to the causes of the cases coming in and seek to remedy those causes, rather than only to apply the palliative of help for the clients? The ideal legal aid society, or to be specific, the National Association of Legal Aid organizations, should, in my opinion, seek to diminish the causes of controversies in which legal aid organizations are asked to act. I present some subjects which are worthy of study and possibly, action:

First: Sickness insurance and insurance for hospital care. The question of socialized or cooperative medicine is too large a subject for discussion here. But, I became convinced, while one of the trustees of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, of the value of properly managed insurance for sickness and hospital care; especially after visiting the Negro hospital in New Orleans, entirely staffed by Negroes. That system is followed there with the greatest of success and childbirth is handled under the best and most sanitary methods, with instruction to the mother which benefits her and her child throughout life.

Second: The same for dental treatment and general adoption of rulings and legislation intended to curb the injury and awful expense incident to the activities of disreputable practitioners. . . .

Third: Constant and more searching investigation of all kinds of insurance than is afforded by state authorities, is necessary. . . .

Fourth: Loan companies, pawn brokers and professional bondsmen are common causes of financial distress.  . . .

Fifth: What shall be said of installment buying? It stimulates demand by making possible the purchase of numerous articles that would be impossible to acquire otherwise; but it is a frequent cause of distress. . . But not only are the  older kinds of purchases, such as furniture, houses and jewelry, still bought by the installment method, but there are radios, automobiles, watches and clocks, dress suits, dresses, cloaks and furs, and even razors so purchasable. . . .

Sixth: Automobile insurance should everywhere be compulsory, and not to have driving tests and licensing of drivers is really outrageous. How many times has it happened that a wage earner, through no fault of his own, is deprived of his means of livelihood temporarily or permanently, by a wholly irresponsible moron using an automobile. . . .

Seventh: The whole system of treatment of crime is hopelessly archaic. There is very little sensible attempt to rehabilitate the criminal and to allow him to re-adjust himself as a wage earner and supporter of a family.

Eighth: What shall we say of gambling, now largely utilized for "religious" and kindred purposes. Whether, and to what extent, this natural proclivity should be allowed is a subject for more consideration than it is receiving. But, certainly, if it is allowed, it should be under government supervision as is the case of European countries. Anything is better than non-enforcement and the collusion between criminals and low political gangs.

Ninth: More education and much more adult education is needed. Prevalence of existing crime has often been found due to malefactors having no skills for legitimate employment. Prostitution is an example. With better education, too, there would be better government and there is no doubt that the defective local government that pervades most of the United States results in non-use of public resources for the benefit of the localities and of those in them most in need.

Tenth: Finally, there should be a steady effort to reduce the cost of funerals and burials. Cities may conduct cemeteries  (e.g. Ohio General Code Sec. 4154--et sq.). I remember one of my first cases was for the widow of an engineer who was killed by the escape of ammonia fumes. She had an infant child and he left her $500.00, $495.00 of which was used for his funeral. Burial insurance, carried by many, is unduly expensive and results in extravagance in death out of all relation to the customary expenditures during life. Many cemetery associations also degenerate into rackets.

You may feel all this is a very ambitious program that, as some one said of Edward Everett Hale, "His specialty is the universe." My much esteemed friend, Reginald H. Smith of Boston (almost the embodiment of legal aid) said at the 1916 meeting of the Legal Aid Societies in Cincinnati, "The legal aid society cannot undertake to reform the world." While I differ with him on legal aid or any other matter with trepidation, still I make bold to ask, "Why not?" or at least why should not legal aid societies do something of the kind, instead of merely attending to the cases that come before them. Valuable as is legal aid for the poor, the prevention, so far as possible of the necessity for it, is of even greater worth.

Murray Seasongood (Oct. 27, 1878 - Feb. 21, 1983) served as the Mayor of Cincinnati from 1926-1930.

*From an address delivered at a meeting (July 25, 1938) of the Legal Aid Section of the American Bar Association. "The author's first experience with legal aid, in New York, in 1902, made him enthusiastic for this work. From 1930 to 1938 he was President of the Cincinnati Legal Aid Society; he was chairman for some time of the committee on Legal Aid of the Cincinnati Bar Association, during which period the Association made two contributions of $500 each. In 1932 a resolution offered by Mr. Seasongood concerning legal aid study was adopted by the International Congress of Comparative Law, meeting at The Hague, and another concerning the matter of the public defender at the Congress of 1937."

Reprinted from the Journal of the American Judicature Society. c. 1939

A Missionary View of the World

The following recently appeared in the Missionary Review of the World:

Total national income . . . $40,000,000,000
For all church work                 793,000,000
For roads and improving     1,432,000,000
For education                       2,174,650,000
For corn, wheat, cotton
    oats, etc.                           2,460,000,000
For automobiles                   2,769,000,000
For tobacco                          3,500,000,000
For alcoholic drinks             4,000,000,000

When the liquor traffic gets one-tenth of the income of the nation and the churches less than two percent, we see the lines of the forces engaged. There can be no solution until the power of greedy liquor forces has been taken away and they are put out of that destructive business.

The Missionary Review of the World, Vol. 61, Missionary Review Publishing Co., Inc., 1938. 

[Ed note: This is a typed carbon copy on Jesse Halsey's personal 7th Presbyterian Church stationery. The Missionary Review of the World was: "A monthly periodical that documented the great missionary outreach of the late 1800s and early 1900s," and contained "numerous articles and news items of inspirational and historical value."]

'prisoners of hope"

"We Believe" by Francis B. Sayre

In this faithless and materialistic age, those who believe in Christ's way of life must rekindle and strengthen their faith. We live in an age beset with discouragement and despair. The Christian cannot despair. We Christians are prisoners of hope.

We believe that the last word lies with God.

We believe, as Christ believed, that God is the supreme goodness. And we also dare to believe with Christ that God is supreme power. Therefore, we dare to believe in the ultimate and inevitable triumph of goodness.

Those who respond to God's advance by obedience and trust form the society of His children. To that society its members owe an allegiance above every other allegiance. By it all other loyalties are conditioned. Membership in the church of Christ demands specific action in life here and now.

For Christianity is not a dream. It is God's revelation of the only way of life that is finally practical, the only way that can satisfy the insistent needs of human nature. Above all else Christ was a realist. His way actually works. It solves and it heals. Such is the testimony of millions who have tried it. The world cannot function effectively until we learn to put Christ at the center of our lives.

[Ed note: Circa 1938. These paragraphs exist as a carbon copy typed on Jesse Halsey's personal 7th Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati stationery.  Generationally, it would seem the author is this Francis B. Sayre, although from an occupational standpoint the writing seems more aptly attributed to his son, the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr. Authorship unresolved.]

The Social Gospel

The Social Gospel was not intended only for America and Europe. It is applicable wherever there are men and women. The work of the missionary is an illustration of its message as truly as are improved tenements and municipal reform in our great cities.

But we cannot limit our thought of missions to Christian work in foreign lands, important and extraordinary as that now appears in the light of great transformation through which Asia is passing. There are missionaries on the American continent who are equally heroic exponents of the gospel.

There is the work among the Eskimos and the Indians; the ministration of Doctor Grenfell to the fishermen on the coast of Labrador, which extends across the entire range of social activities, business, home life, disease, mechanics, religion.

Vastly wider in influence is the work of Christian missionaries on the frontier of America and Canada. In point of self-sacrifice and willingness to endure privation for the sake of others, the lives of such missionaries are in no wise second to those of the missionary in foreign lands. Any person who has visited our great Northwest, and has seen how the Sunday-school worker and the missionary pastor have built up their churches and carried over the spirit of the gospel into every form of life, will realize how much our country owes to their efforts. Our missionary work among the foreign-speaking populations in America has been of importance not only religiously, but politically. No better training in the American spirit could be given the newly arrived immigrant than that given by Protestant churches. In a new world facing a new life under new conditions, the new settler, whether he be of American or foreign descent, needs the message of the gospel to enable him to withstand the temptations which spring up all too quickly.

from The Social Gospel by Shailer Mathews, Dean of the Divinity School, University of Chicago, 1910