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 

"And I believe in Ramparts."

I am not definite in my mind as to precisely where the heavenly ramparts are located, or of what gorgeous and wonderful materials they are constructed; but they are somewhere very high above us, in an inconceivably beautiful and peaceful place. They are for the convenience of those loving spirits, whose interest it is to lean upon them, to look down in compassion and anxiety on the world which they have left. Now, it seems to me that these same released spirits are not going to have a truly joyful time on these same ramparts, or anywhere else on the broad plains of heaven, if the people they have left behind them, the people they have loved and in whom they have believed and trusted, are going to fail them in carrying to successful completion the work they were forced to leave unfinished.

The thoughts of all these spirits, as they watch us from on high should be an inspiration to us to treat their works, their ideas, and their ambitions with a vast respect. We can do no nobler work than to carry on reverently, sincerely, and faithfully.

--Gene Stratton-Porter

Likely published in McCall's, Vol, 53, Aug. 1926, as “Gene Stratton-Porter’s Page: Ramparts.” Clipping from the collection of Rev Jesse Halsey.

"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.]

Magistrate Michael A. Ford

Time Magazine
HEROES: Citizen Turns
Monday, Jan. 22, 1940

 

Famed capacity of French boxcars in World War I was 40 men and eight horses. Capacity of New York City subway cars averages 61 (sitting) plus 91 (standing), equals 152, plus as many more human herrings as subway guards can slam inside as the doors slide shut.

 

Famed also is the capacity of New Yorkers to endure the twice-daily pants-and-collar bum's rush from the guards—so much so that most of last week's New York City subway news roused no more impassioned attention than an advertising car card.

1) Seven people were injured when an I. R. T.* local hit an open switch, plowed into an idle train on a Bronx siding. 2) E. J. Rigney, onetime Independent employe, went on trial, charged with scooping and pocketing from turnstile boxes 500,000 nickels ($25,000) in four years. Mr. Rigney was one of 36 subway employes accused of niching 30,000,000 nickels ($1,500,000). 3) City budgetmen tried to find out why the Transportation Board had awarded an $888,000 signal-system contract to the higher of two bidders.

Fourth item was somewhat less usual. Magistrate Michael A. Ford took up the case of a trio of respectable citizens accused of biting & scratching each other in a subway fight, ruled: biting & scratching is legal in subways, does not constitute disorderly conduct, because "herding of people like cattle" is enough to make anyone mad.

Fifth item made real news. Mr. Brooks, 38, a banker, ordinarily as meek as a citizen, had been commuting from Greens Farms, Conn, for four years. Twice a day he had been shoved around in Grand Central Station, trampled like a grape in a vintage year; then, as he neared the train, given the old heave-o into the car by bawling subway guards. One muggy morning last week, Subway Guard Matthew Walsh spied Commuter Brooks on the crowd fringe, got behind him, shoved him mightily between the closing doors of a subway car. It was all suddenly too much for Commuter Brooks. Wheeling, he smacked Guard Walsh a lusty bust smack on the nose. Arrested, given a suspended sentence, he said: ". . . I'd do it again. . . . But even so small a crime . . . does not pay," hurried off to catch a downtown subway train.

^{*New York City has three subway systems: I. R. T. (Interborough Rapid Transit), B. M. T. (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit) and Independent (city-owned).}

Scallop Pond (Near Southampton, Long Island)

Unidentified Newspaper Clipping

  He goes again in Summer heat,
  To birthplace, old home, home of his Fathers for three hundred years;
  He resumes old habits, and drives to the ancient Pond for clams.
  As he had gone with his father, and that father with his father, and that one with his own, back and back through the generations;
  There on the shore of the Pond, at low tide, he digs in the mud for the clams, in the way the native Shinnecock Indians had taught his ancestors;
  And while he tolls and fills his sack, lo, yonder away on the flats are three Shinnecocks at the same labor--
  Indians in straight descent from those who showed the trick of such captures to his forefathers,
  Their own forerunners, undisturbed by white newcomers, having been there before Columbus found the New World, and for untold ages before him; 
  The bivalves themselves are still more primeval, having their lineage of the same genus, in the same waters, before Man appeared upon our planet.
  These Shinnecocks, having made their catch, shoulder their bags and lope off in their tireless way to their shacks or to the near-by markets in the town;
  While the white man throws his sack into his car and speeds to his back lawn, where he follows teh method of roasting the clams that the Shinnecocks had taught his ancestors;
  He sets up a circle of small stone on the grass, places the bivalves on the edge in the circle, that their juices may not be lost, takes old shingles from his wood-shed, shingles from a mill that after more than two centuries' use had been torn down, splits the shingles into pieces, lays them on top the clams, applies a match to paper, as Indians had struck sparks from flint to fall on dry, dead leaves;
  On platters, his boys carry the roasted clams to the house, and a feast is on.

  Now Shinnecocks and white man and clams have met again, on the shores of the same Pond, under the same Sun, at the same low tide, as three centuries ago. 
  Time, swift-racer, who plunges us all onward, ever onward, at speed, now and then checks his rapid feet and is still, and Past and Present for a while are one.

--Calvin Dill Wilson 


The column's author, Calvin Dill Wilson, also wrote, among other books for young readers, a The Child's Don Quixote: Being the Adventures of Don Quixote Retold for Young People, T.Y. Crowell, New York, c1901, which was dedicated to his eight-year-old boy, Maurice Webster Wilson, who was born in 1892.

Camp: A Three Bedroom Unheated Home

Upon returning from Labrador, Jesse built a camp at North Sea, which the family no longer used by the time Abbie was born in 1922.

Just before or just after the hurricane of 1938, Bill Bishop and Jesse began the camp at Shinnecock. Prior to that, picnics had been at the Herrick's camp at Whalebone. Bill Bishop built the Tower at Shinnecock with multiple levels so he could see the sea morning, noon, and night.

Jesse built the camp at Shinnecock in the summer of 1946 using huge doors and windows from the renovated church in Cincinnati that had been stored in the barn behind 49 N Main. The windows originally had been in the Sunday school rooms, looking down upon the basketball courts in the gym. Seventh Presbyterian Church was a real community center, housing Boy Scouts, with women sewing clothes for the poor, as well as sports and games for youth. Jesse bought the pieces, had them shipped to Southampton, and used them to build the camp. Charles Sr. and Jr. both helped in erecting the camp.

[Ed note: From an interview conducted with AFHVA, December 2005, Iowa City, IA.]

Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian

Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian, 1914-2003

On November 16, 2003, Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian, resident of Milbridge, Maine, and former resident of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Iowa City, died peacefully at the age of 89. Helen was born to Jesse Halsey and Helen Isham Halsey (Quass) in Cincinnati in February 1914.

In 1942, she married Joseph Haroutunian, a well-known theologian who taught at McCormick Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago. Joining the McCormick faculty in 1940, Dr. Hartoutunian taught Systematic Theology and for the next 20 years was among North America’s leading theologians. He died almost 35 years to the day before Helen on November 15, 1968.

Helen Haroutunian was an artist, writer, and teacher who enjoyed the benefits of a fine education. She was a 1932 graduate of Miss Doherty’s School in Cincinnati.

The third child and first daughter of Jesse and Helen Halsey, she was named for her mother and for the Great Aunt who raised her father. Helen earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from Western College for Women (Miami University), Oxford, Ohio, in 1936, where she performed in The Peabody Players' “Gammer Gurton's Needle,” January 27, 28, among other productions. [Program Letter to Miss Helen Halsey from Rosamond Gilder, March 15, 1939 & April 11, 1939. The New York Times noted that Rosamond Gilder, as founder and former president of the International Theater Institute, a worldwide organization with 65 national centers, was an influential theater figure in New York and overseas.]

In 1940, she received a master’s of arts degree in general studies from the Yale Drama School, and in 1980, a second master’s degree in art history from the University of Iowa.

She was an early scholar of Joseph Cornell’s work, writing her masters thesis on Cornell's Medici Slot-Machine at the University of Iowa in 1978.

Helen lived in Chicago from 1940 until 1970, where she studied at the Art Institute with George Breur.

Helen Halsey Haroutunian
Chicago Lake Front, 1955

Her works of art in oil, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, and collage covered subject matter from urban scenes to rural landscapes. She showed her work at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milbridge Historical Society. In 1998, Helen and her son, artist Joseph Haroutunian, had a joint retrospective show at the University of Maine-Machias that revealed influences of mother upon son and vice versa. Her published works include, “Incident on the Bark Columbia: Being Letters Received and Sent by Captain McCorkle and the Crew of his Whaler, 1860-1862” (Cummington, MA), 1941, a true story conveyed through letters, which she compiled and edited, and “Joseph Cornell in ‘View,’”Arts Magazine, 1983.

Teaching was another life-long interest. Helen taught both visual and language arts in middle and high schools, at the Cummington School, Cummington, MA, and at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago.

While at Cummington, Helen dated the poet Sameul French Morse. Although she'd broken up with Morse, having found him and his friends "too snobby and only interested in their own opinions," Morse attended the funeral of her older brother Frederick in 1940.

Above all, Helen was a loving and devoted wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-aunt, and friend. Her paintings, writings, and teaching, indeed all her endeavors, were characterized by remarkable care and attention to detail. She was an exemplary cook and gardener, and a committed member of her church. Her sweetness, style, intelligence and command of the English language inspired all who knew her.

Helen Halsey Haroutunian
Still Life, 1960

[Ed note: HAHH's obituary from which much of this text is drawn appeared in the Bangor Daily News on November 22, 2003; http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/84582.html. Additional information comes from sources noted above and in conversations between the author and HAHH between 1996-2003. Images of paintings come from the artist's gallery at http://www.yessy.com/helenharoutunian/index.html?s=keagwae245hvyo45yn4v5pfh]