THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING
 
 DEMOCRACY 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 FORD HALL AND THE 
 OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE W. COLEMAN 
 
 inon-referTI 
 
 ^WVAD • Q3S 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1915
 
 Copyright, 1915, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, October, 1915 
 
 PtttttVl'H 
 
 S. J. Pakkeill a Co., Boston, U.S.A.
 
 Hrtes 
 
 F7C6 
 
 
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 CO 
 
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 Li 
 
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 t 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 WITHOUT WHOM ALL THIS 
 
 WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 4S1718
 
 THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION 
 
 THERE have been countless columns of 
 description and interpretation of the 
 Ford Hall Meetings in many news- 
 papers and magazines. Several leaflets have also 
 been published, giving bird's-eye views of this 
 work. But there has never been undertaken 
 before a thoroughly comprehensive treatment of 
 the subject as seen from all its various angles. 
 This book is not a compilation of those splendid 
 studies of Ford Hall which have appeared from 
 time to time under various names and in many 
 journals. Such a collection would make extremely 
 interesting reading, for it would set forth a pro- 
 gressive unfoldment of the enterprise as it ap- 
 peared to different minds in varying stages of its 
 development. 
 
 This book represents an entirely fresh study of 
 the Ford Hall Meetings and all that they imply. 
 The point of view is that of those who are most 
 familiar with the work. And these chapters have 
 all been written at the same period, each writer 
 viewing the situation in the light of seven years 
 of uninterruptedly successful development. 
 
 The purpose of this volume is to give the facts 
 about Ford Hall, to set forth its spirit, and make
 
 viii THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION 
 
 plain its mission, in the hope that others will 
 undertake the establishment of similar meetings 
 elsewhere. Nothing has been omitted, in so far 
 as I could foresee, that would be essential in help- 
 ing any one to set up a similar enterprise in any 
 part of the world. There is a wide field for the 
 application of the Ford Hall principles and meth- 
 ods wherever there are populations made up of 
 mixed races, classes, and creeds. There is quite 
 as much need for such a work in Bombay as in 
 Boston, in Shanghai as in Chicago, in every capi- 
 tal of Europe and in every center in the United 
 States; in the smaller places as well as in the 
 great cities. 
 
 It would be difficult to find a word that would 
 exactly express my relation to this book. Per- 
 haps the title of editor is as near as we can get 
 to it. My function in connection therewith bears 
 a very close analogy to my service as director and 
 chairman of the Ford Hall Meetings. Although 
 I laid out the contents of the book in all its detail, 
 named the chapters and designated the authors, 
 and selected the addresses and biographies, each 
 writer has been a law unto himself, as is each 
 speaker on the Ford Hall platform. Notwith- 
 standing I have edited all the manuscripts and 
 read the proofs, I have not taken any liberties 
 with the thought of the different writers. Under 
 these circumstances the harmony that prevails 
 all through the book is the more remarkable. 
 This inviolate freedom of each contributor also
 
 THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION ix 
 
 accounts for the fact that the Editor has not 
 ehminated the references to himself wherever 
 they occur. The fact that he is necessarily a 
 conspicuous part of the work that is being set 
 forth puts him in an unusual position as the 
 Editor of this volume, but in the light of our 
 Ford Hall method each one must be left free to 
 say what he pleases. 
 
 The four sections of the book tell in turn how 
 the work is done, what is thought of it, who are 
 in the audience, and what is the character of the 
 addresses delivered there. By this method one 
 can size up the whole enterprise, determine its 
 worth, catch its inspiration, and duplicate its 
 machinery anywhere. Only an attendance on the 
 meetings themselves could add anything to the 
 impression that is conveyed in these various 
 chapters. 
 
 It may be interesting and pertinent to note in 
 passing that the Open Forum idea as developed 
 at Ford Hall has come out of the heart of the 
 church. Although Ford Hall's appeal is most 
 largely to those who are indifferent or antago- 
 nistic to conventional religion, and notwithstand- 
 ing it has no propaganda and does not proselytize, 
 it was conceived and is supported and directed 
 by men of the church. Too much praise cannot 
 be given to the broad-minded, big-hearted men 
 of the Boston Baptist Social Union who have 
 made this possible. And let me say as the chief 
 actor in the enterprise that I received the kind-
 
 X THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION 
 
 liest sympathy and friendliest cooperation from 
 Doctor Francis E. Clark and my associates at the 
 Christian Endeavor Headquarters in Boston, all 
 through those difficult and trying first years of 
 the work. Thus, again, it was the men of the 
 church who supplied the sympathetic environ- 
 ment that made it possible for me to make the 
 venture. 
 
 Although the enterprise has now received the 
 formal sanction and approval of the Baptist Social 
 Union, through its regularly constituted commit- 
 tees, for eight successive seasons, let it not be 
 supposed that our pathway has been lined with 
 roses. During the first four years it was always 
 a grave question whether we would survive another 
 season. There was opposition of all kinds from 
 within and without, based upon religious, indus- 
 trial, economic, and personal equations. It always 
 seemed as though nothing short of an over-ruling 
 Providence could bring us through all our diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 It would have been easy enough at any time 
 to have cut loose from our religious base and to 
 have established ourselves in some theater. Pri- 
 vate contributions would undoubtedly have been 
 sufficient to maintain the work. But it was my 
 idea that the chief significance and value of the 
 Ford Hall Meetings were found in the fact that 
 they were being conducted by the church. And 
 it is my conviction now that whatever service we 
 have rendered to the people who have gathered
 
 THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION xl 
 
 there Sunday nights for eight seasons, our chief 
 contribution has come from the reaction of our 
 work on the hfe of the churches. 
 
 And it must be readily surmised that there was 
 a struggle going on in my own soul all the while 
 this battle for the life of the meetings was being 
 so strenuously waged on the outside. What should 
 I do if the church renounced the whole business 
 and that clientele of several thousand people were 
 set adrift once more.'' Should I stay with the 
 church folks, or go with the unshepherded crowd .'^ 
 I am thankful that I was never obliged to put 
 the answer to that question into action. 
 
 To my mind, the crying need in this country 
 is to get folks together. There can be no hope 
 of a real democracy among people who do not 
 know each other. The real solutions to the grave 
 problems that threaten our industrial, political, 
 social and economic life will be found only in an 
 environment of mutual understanding and good 
 will between the races, classes, and creeds that 
 make up our common life. It has been demon- 
 strated at Ford Hall beyond peradventure that 
 the most violently opposed elements can win each 
 other's respect and good will, and thus come to a 
 better understanding of each other's purpose. If 
 there could be a dozen Ford Halls in Greater 
 Boston, — and there are already several, — we 
 could in a few years generate a new civic spirit 
 that would make possil^le many undertakings for 
 the general welfare that are now regarded as
 
 xii THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION 
 
 beyond the border line of the practical. And 
 with such meeting-places for all the people in 
 every city and town throughout the country, 
 many of the forebodings that are as a nightmare 
 to a lover of his country would disappear like 
 mist before the sun. 
 
 All this work in connection with the Ford Hall 
 Meetings and in extending the Open Forum idea 
 throughout the country has been done on a ridic- 
 ulously small financial expenditure. The first 
 season we spent only five hundred dollars, and 
 last year for the first time we spent as much as 
 thirty-five hundred dollars. This includes every- 
 thing from speakers' expenses down to printing 
 and postage. Of course we have had no end of 
 volunteer service. For eight years I have given 
 my own services and paid all my own expenses. 
 We have never employed even the full time of our 
 Executive Secretary, whose stipend is exceedingly 
 modest. We have been thus cramped because the 
 income from the money left by Daniel Sharp Ford 
 to the Boston Baptist Social Union is needed in 
 other work which had been long established before 
 our meetings were ever thought of. We are hope- 
 ful, however, of larger appropriations as the work 
 continues to grow. 
 
 The Ford Hall Foundation has been organized 
 and incorporated for the express purpose of pro- 
 moting the Open Forum idea throughout the 
 length and breadth of the country. In the very 
 nature of the case, none of Mr. Ford's money can
 
 THE EDITORS EXPLANATION xiii 
 
 be used in this direction, he having limited our 
 field of action to Boston in so far as his money is 
 concerned. We are asking for voluntary contri- 
 butions to sustain this wider phase of the work. 
 The Foundation does not undertake to support 
 Open Forums in any locality, but it does attempt 
 to assist in organizing them and in setting them 
 on their feet. We could most effectively spend 
 ten thousand dollars a year in this work. How 
 easy it would be to get such a sum were our 
 country endangered by a foreign foe! How hard 
 it is to get it for the welfare of the country when 
 the troubles have not yet come to a head! The 
 need is just as great in the one case as in the 
 other. 
 
 Imagine, for example, what a couple of thou- 
 sand dollars would do in the hands of the Ford 
 Hall Foundation in putting a copy of this book 
 into the hands of just the right person in two 
 thousand different communities, scattered all over 
 the country. The Open Forum idea is spreading 
 fast, anyway, but we cannot afford to lose a day's 
 time if the destructive forces of modern civiliza- 
 tion are not to overwhelm the constructive agencies. 
 That is my greatest fear as I contemplate our 
 times, that we shall not be quick enough with our 
 new spirit and better ways. Revolution may blot 
 out evolution. 
 
 Through our instrumentality an Open Forum 
 was established in a down-town Presbyterian 
 Church in Buffalo, New York; Rev. John W.
 
 xlv THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION 
 
 Ross, pastor. Ask any wide-awake citizen there 
 what it has acconipHshed in the two short seasons 
 of its existence. Why not plant a hundred more 
 this coming year, and again the year after.'* That 
 is the kind of work to which the ten thousand 
 dolhirs would be put. 
 
 To those who have the patience to study a list 
 of topics and speakers and the insight to read 
 between the lines, the most informing pages of 
 this book will be found in the Appendix. You 
 can read there in briefest compass all that this 
 book contains and much more besides. It is an 
 immensely significant record of facts. It is only 
 exceeded in value by the official scrap-books of 
 the Ford Hall Meetings, which contain every bit 
 of printed matter that has appeared in connection 
 with the meetings from the very beginning and 
 which of course can only be seen by the few who 
 have the disposition and the time to come to 
 Boston to examine them. _ 
 
 My most gracious acknowledgments are due 
 to all those who have so kindly and generously 
 helped in the preparation of this volume. Every 
 contributor has brought forth his or her chapter 
 out of love for the cause and without money and 
 without price. The royalties from the book will 
 go to the Ford Hall Foundation and be used in 
 promoting its work. 
 
 As this book goes forth on its errand of blessing 
 to hundreds of communities, scattered far and 
 wide, it will have behind it the hopes and prayers
 
 THE EDITOR'S EXPLANATION xv 
 
 of a great congregation of people, the like of which 
 perhaps has never before been brought together. 
 Men and women of many diverse classes, creeds, 
 and races fervently unite in wishing for every 
 community something of the light, leading, and 
 love that have come into their own lives through 
 their association with the Ford Hall Sunday- 
 evening Meetings. 
 
 GEORGE W. COLEMAN 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts, 
 August 2, 1915.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Editor's Explanation vii 
 
 PART I. A RECORD OF FACTS 
 
 Introduction to Part 1 3 
 
 I. How Ford Hall Came to be Built. Bij J. L. Harbour. . 9 
 
 II. The Story of the Ford Hall Sunday-Evening Meet- 
 
 ings. By George B. Gallup 17 
 
 III. The Controlling Purpose and Spirit. By Thomas 
 
 Dreier 26 
 
 IV. The Range op Speakers and Topics. By James P. 
 
 Roberts 35 
 
 V. The Method of Conducting the Meetings. By 
 
 Miriam Allen dcFord 43 
 
 VI. The Town Meeting and Other Ford Hall Activities. 
 
 By William Eorton Foster 50 
 
 VII. The Open Forum Movement. By Harold Marshall 66 
 
 VIII. One OF Boston's Institutions. By A. J. Phil-pott 74 
 
 IX. An Actual Melting Pot. By Rolfe Cobleigh 79 
 
 X. Dramatic Incidents. By Mary Caroline Crawford 84 
 
 XI. The Struggle for Devotional Expression. By George 
 
 TV. Coleman 95 
 
 PART II. A REGISTER OF JUDGMENTS 
 
 Introduction to Part II 107 
 
 I. By a Man of the Church. Walter Rauschenbuseh 112 
 
 II. By a Catholic Priest. John A. Ryan 118 
 
 III. By A Rabbi. Stephen S. Wise 124 
 
 IV. By a Popular Lecturer. Charles Zueblin 129 
 
 V. By a Social Mystic. Stanton Coit 134 
 
 VI. By a Cosmopolitan. Edward A. Steiner 138 
 
 VII. By a College President. William H. P. Faunce 141
 
 xvlli CONTENTS 
 
 PART III. A ROLL OF PERSONALITIES 
 
 SIXTEEN TYPICAL FORD HALL FOLKS 
 
 By Mary Caroline Crawford 
 
 Introduction to Part III 149 
 
 I. An Involuntary Philanthropist. — MRS. eva Hoffman. . . . 153 
 
 II. A Man who Writes Letters. — Alfred willlams 157 
 
 III. A Virile Young Jew. — samuel sackmary 161 
 
 IV. A Fine Irish Couple. — mr. and mrs. john j. sullivan . . . 164 
 V. A Journalist in the Germ. — philip everett sage 167 
 
 VI. A Typical Mother. — mrs. l. e. blanchard 170 
 
 VII. A Red-Hot Socialist. — martin Jordan 173 
 
 VIII. A Man who Found Himself. — clarence w. marple 175 
 
 IX. A Warm-Hearted Unbeliever. — michael rush 179 
 
 X. A Lover of Flowers and Children. — mrs. nellie mclean 
 
 atwood 182 
 
 XI. A Street Preacher. — d. w. carty 185 
 
 XII. A Thinker who Walks in Darkness. — Joseph cosgrove . . 189 
 
 XIII. A Ford Hall Product. — freda rogolsky 192 
 
 XIV. A Distinguished Colored Lawyer. — butler r. wilson . . . 195 
 XV. A Youth who Began as a Newsboy. — jacob London 199 
 
 XVI. An Idealistic Business Man. — george b. gallup 204 
 
 PART IV. A REVIEW OF ADDRESSES 
 
 six typical ford hall talks 
 
 Introduction to Part IV 209 
 
 I. The Religion of the Crowd. An Address Delivered at 
 the Ford Hall Meeting, April 11, 1909, by George W. 
 Coleman, of Boston, Massachusetts 214 
 
 II. The Menace of Socialism. An Address Delivered at 
 the Ford Hall Meetmg, February 5, 1911, by 
 Reverend Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., President of 
 Boston College 235 
 
 III. The Modern Drama as a Socla.l Force. An Address 
 Delivered at the Ford Hall Meeting, December 7, 
 1913, by Norman Hapgood, of New York 248
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 rV. God and Democracy. An Address Delivered at the Ford 
 Hall Meeting, December 29, 1913, by Professor Charles 
 Prospero Fagnani, D.D., of Union Theological Semi- 
 nary, New York 259 
 
 V. The Search After God. An Address Delivered at the 
 Ford Hall Meeting, January 3, 1915, by Reverend 
 George A. Gordon, D.D., of Boston, Massachusetts . . 273 
 
 VI. From Absolute Monarchy to Pure Democracy in 
 Industry. An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, January 17, 1915, by Reverend John Haynes 
 Hohnes, of New York 290 
 
 Appendix ^*1 
 
 Index ^^^
 
 PART I 
 A RECORD OF FACTS
 
 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PART I 
 
 THE authors of the following chapters are 
 all eye-witnesses to the facts they record. 
 Each one of them has been very close to 
 the Ford Hall enterprise, several of them almost 
 from the beginning. Taken all together, this 
 portrayal of facts gives a fairly complete history 
 of the undertaking during its first seven years: it 
 describes the mechanism by which results are 
 obtained, and discloses the modus operandi through- 
 out. One chapter tells how the success of the meet- 
 ings in Ford Hall has stimulated the desire to go 
 and do likewise in other cities and towns near and 
 far. Seven of the chapters take up specific details, 
 while four treat of the work more in the large. 
 
 The story of Mr. Ford's life and bequests is 
 written by one who was closely associated with 
 him for years as an editor on The Youth's Com- 
 panion. Mr. Harbour is also a member of the 
 committee of the Boston Baptist Social Union that 
 has the work in charge and has been a frequent 
 attendant at the meetings for years. Few could 
 speak more authoritatively than he of Mr. Ford's 
 spirit and purpose.
 
 4 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Perhaps more than any other man, not excepting 
 myself, Mr. George B. Gallup, from the very 
 beginning, grasped the significance of what we were 
 trying to do and prophesied its certain success 
 and far-reaching influence. He was of the greatest 
 comfort to me all through the period of initiation 
 and the struggle to survive, never failing to hold 
 up my hands in generous and enthusiastic support 
 against all criticism. No one could better tell our 
 story than he. 
 
 It is not so easy to put down in black and white 
 the spirit and purpose of any institution. With us 
 it is the more difficult because such simple things 
 have led to such large results. The secret of it 
 all is the more elusive, the harder you seek to find 
 it. Unless you see it almost by intuition, you are 
 more than likely to miss it altogether. Mr. Thomas 
 Dreier, who has been very close to me at Ford Hall 
 and who edits our weekly magazine. Ford Hall 
 Folks, has a rare gift for getting at the spiritual 
 heart of a thing and a ready facility in telling others 
 what he sees. 
 
 As a young attorney and member of the official 
 committee, Mr. James P. Roberts has fought and 
 helped to win a number of Ford Hall's battles. 
 His analysis of our speakers and subjects for eight 
 successive seasons is particularly illuminating. As 
 head usher for several seasons, he has been in the 
 closest contact with the meetings. 
 
 Mrs. Miriam deFord Collier has the gift of 
 making an interesting story out of the most un-
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 promising literary material, as is well illustrated in 
 her account of how the meetings are conducted. 
 She was official stenographer of the Sunday evening 
 meetings and Clerk of the Town Meeting during 
 the all too few seasons that she was with us. She 
 never could find language strong enough to express 
 her devotion to Ford Hall. 
 
 As fast as new workers are needed for Ford 
 Hall's expanding activities, they seem to drop down 
 from the clouds as though they were made to order 
 to fit the emergency. Mr. William Horton Foster 
 came upon the scene at the close of our 1912-1913 
 season, just in time to take the leadership of our 
 newly developed Town Meeting, which he has 
 served as Moderator through two seasons. Both 
 he and Mrs, Foster have been immensely helpful 
 in other of our activities as well. As a lawyer, 
 trained writer, and social worker, Mr. Foster has 
 been well equipped for the varied work he has done 
 on our behalf. 
 
 Nothing outside of the Ford Hall Meetings them- 
 selves has encouraged us more in feeling that we 
 were on the right track than the remarkable success 
 achieved by Reverend Harold Marshall with the 
 Melrose Community Forum in a near-by suburb 
 of Boston. That our principles and methods could 
 inspire and guide such an accomplishment as this 
 gave us courage to believe that there was power and 
 adaptability enough in the Ford Hall ideas to 
 make a wide transplanting of them possible. No 
 one has worked more devotedly to that end, or is
 
 6 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 better entitled to tell of the results already accom- 
 plished, than Mr. Marshall. 
 
 The one force that saved our enterprise from an 
 early death was publicity. Not only did it save 
 it from languishing from inattention, but it also 
 protected it from those who would have destroyed 
 it because they could not understand. The power 
 of public opinion generated by fair and generous 
 press reports saved the day at more than one criti- 
 cal juncture. Here, again, a kind Providence sent 
 along just the right man at the right time, Mr. A. J. 
 Philpott, of the Boston Globe. His insight, his 
 sympathy, his faith, led him straight to the core 
 of this new kind of meeting, and his ability and 
 reputation made it easy for others to follow where 
 he led. His chapter is a vital contribution in help- 
 ing others who venture on a similar work to find 
 their way. 
 
 And the religious press were not one whit behind 
 the secular press in giving fair chronicles of our 
 doings. Next to The Watchman (now The Watch- 
 man-Examiner), a Baptist weekly, The Congre- 
 gationalist has been our sturdiest defender and 
 friend. In more recent years, Mr. Rolfe Cobleigh 
 has represented that journal in its relation to Ford 
 Hall, and he has never lost an opportunity to help 
 us to be understood among church people. 
 
 Miss Mary C. Crawford, who writes the stirring 
 chapter of "Dramatic Incidents", has been the 
 Executive Secretary of the Ford Hall Meetings 
 ever since the beginning of the second season. Her
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 labors have often been prodigious and always 
 exceedingly efiFective. For six seasons she was the 
 only salaried worker, and it was only a portion 
 of her time that we could afford to employ. She 
 brought to the work a college training, special 
 instruction in social questions, unusual gifts as an 
 author, thorough knowledge of the ways of the 
 press, experience in trade unions, and a fine Chris- 
 tian character that took into consideration the 
 struggling masses of the people. A very consid- 
 erable share of our success is due to her untiring 
 energy, marked ability, and supreme devotion. 
 
 The chapter telling of "The Struggle for Devo- 
 tional Expression" deals with a vital factor in our 
 work. It is an element in the story that might 
 easily escape analysis or fail of receiving its due 
 weight. Twice the life of the meetings hinged upon 
 this matter, — once because I refused to introduce 
 the customary church devotions, and once because 
 I insisted on introducing some form of devotional 
 expression in spite of the doubts and anxieties of 
 my friends in the audience. 
 
 These eleven chapters give a sufficiently detailed 
 
 account of the open forum idea, as practiced at 
 
 Ford Hall, to enable any one in any part of the 
 
 world to initiate a similar work without any further 
 
 assistance. The remaining portions of the book 
 
 simply throw added light on what is contained in 
 
 this first part. 
 
 G. w. c.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOW FORD HALL CAME TO BE BUILT 
 
 By J. L. Harbour 
 
 BORN in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 
 year 1822, Daniel Sharp Ford was well 
 born in that his parents were possessed of 
 all the strong traits of Christian character that 
 later developed in their son. His father, Thomas 
 Ford, was a native of Coventry, England. He 
 came to Cambridge in the year 1800, where he at 
 once became an influence for good by reason of his 
 unusual gifts as a public speaker and his interest 
 in the poor and unfortunate. He died when his 
 son Daniel was but six months old, leaving his 
 widow with six children and very limited means. 
 Mrs. Ford declined all offers of assistance that 
 involved the separation of her children, and thus it 
 was that Mr. Ford, the multi-millionaire, knew in 
 his own early life experience how sharp the battle 
 with poverty may be. It was this knowledge that 
 made him so sympathetic with the poor and the 
 needy in the days of his large wealth. To serve 
 his day and generation well and to create lasting 
 influences for good were the dominant desires in 
 his life. No man cared less for social pleasures and 
 position, for worldly honor and glory. No trait 
 in his character was more marked than his extreme
 
 10 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 modesty, his positive aversion to publicity. So far 
 as was possible, his gifts to charity and to all good 
 causes were given in secret. He was known per- 
 sonally to few men, and it is doubtful if any phi- 
 lanthropist giving away the large sums Mr. Ford 
 gave so rarely saw his name in print. Interviewers 
 were never able to see him, and he put the ban on 
 all mention of his name in print. On the rare 
 occasions when he sat for his photograph, he pur- 
 chased the negatives that no picture of himself 
 should appear in any paper or magazine. His 
 business was established and carried forward on 
 Christian principles. The several hundred em- 
 ployees of his paper, the Youth's Companion, found 
 in him a most generous and considerate employer, 
 who took a personal interest in all who worked for 
 him. When sickness or sorrow or misfortune over- 
 took them, Mr. Ford was the first to lend a helping 
 hand. While he was proud of the high literary 
 excellence of his paper, he wanted it to be above 
 all else a distinct moral and spiritual force. He 
 sought through the medium of the Youth's Com- 
 panion and his church, to which he gave hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars, to create influences for 
 good that would never die. He had unbounded 
 and unwavering faith in the principles of Jesus 
 and sought to direct his life by those principles. 
 
 It would be impossible for any one to give any- 
 thing like a detailed account of the charities and 
 benevolences of Mr. Ford, for they were known 
 only to himself. From the time that he first began 
 as a poor boy to earn money up to the day of his
 
 HOW FORD HALL WAS BUILT 11 
 
 death, he regarded it as a duty and privilege to 
 give a part of his income to others. His personal 
 expenditure was infinitely smaller than that of 
 most men of large wealth. Luxurious life made no 
 appeal to him, and he deplored the foolish extrava- 
 gance of the wealthy. He practiced many small 
 economies that he might have more to give to 
 others. His will affords documentary proof of his 
 generosity. No other will like it was ever probated 
 in Boston. Of an estate amounting to more than 
 three million three hundred thousand dollars all was 
 given to religious and charitable organizations, with 
 the exception of one hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
 lars, given outright to his daughter, Mrs. William N. 
 Hartshorn, of whom it should be said that she was 
 in perfect harmony with her father in all of his 
 thought and work and was entirely satisfied with 
 the provision he had made for her. The greater 
 part of her own income after the death of her father 
 was devoted to charitable and religious work, and 
 a large part of her estate was willed to educational 
 institutions putting marked emphasis on the devel- 
 opment of Christian character. 
 
 Nothing having to do with the welfare of the 
 Nation gave Mr. Ford more anxiety than the unrest 
 among the working classes and the possibility of 
 industrial warfare. How much this was on his 
 mind and heart may be known from the following 
 extract from his will: 
 
 "The need that Christian business men should 
 come into closer personal relations with the work- 
 ingman at this time seems to be imperative,
 
 n DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 because of his religious indifference, his feverish 
 unrest, and his behef that business men and capital 
 are his enemies. The attitude of his mind, and his 
 tendencies forebode serious perils, and Christianity is 
 the only influence that can change or modify them." 
 In many ways Mr. Ford gave proof of the fact 
 that he was a man of unusual breadth for his time. 
 He had great acuteness of perception and saw 
 things in the light of a man deeply interested in 
 the common good of humanity. His sympathy 
 with the workingman, with that large class called 
 the common people, was great, and one cannot 
 read his will without discovering how near to his 
 heart this part of the people was. When he left 
 three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the 
 Boston Baptist Social Union, it was with the hope 
 that the building to be erected as a home for the 
 Union would be a center from which there would 
 go forth influences for the betterment of mankind 
 in general. Mr. Ford was too broad and generous 
 a man to care to limit his helpfulness by any denom- 
 inational lines, and it is certain that he did not 
 want the Baptist Social Union to be hampered by 
 such lines in the increased opportunities for service 
 his large bequest gave. The Boston Baptist Social 
 Union is composed of three hundred and twenty- 
 five Baptist laymen, only laymen being eligible to 
 membership. Mr. Ford was a constituent member 
 of this Union more than half a century ago, and it 
 claimed much of his thought and interest. It was 
 always his feeling that it should be a great com- 
 munity force. Organized primarily for social pur-
 
 HOW FORD HALL WAS BUILT 13 
 
 poses, Mr. Ford felt as it grew in membership that 
 it should be more than a mere social organization. 
 It is certain that he had this thought in mind when 
 he left the Union more than a third of a million of 
 dollars for a building. It is equally certain that 
 he had the working people of the city in mind when 
 he made this bequest. This was one reason why 
 the location of the building became a matter of 
 such serious concern to the Union. Many sites 
 were suggested before one could be chosen that met 
 with the approval of the Union. Mr. Ford had 
 stated in his will that the building should be "as 
 near as practicable to the center of business, or 
 what is inferred may be in the immediate future 
 the center of business in the city of Boston." He 
 had said further in his will : 
 
 "It is my hope that in this trust there will be 
 found an open field for the fullest exhibition of its 
 principles by the active, successful business men of 
 the Social Union. This may be done by its com- 
 mittees; by the personal interest of its members in 
 the workingmen, and in sympathetic intercourse, 
 in friendly association, and in helpful acts, and 
 through all and above all, in seeking to bring them 
 to accept Christ and Christ's teachings as the guide 
 of their life." 
 
 One cannot read the will of Mr. Ford without 
 being impressed by the fact that it was his intention 
 that all classes and conditions of men without 
 regard to race, color, or creed should in some way 
 profit by his benefactions. To do the greatest good 
 to the greatest number was always his desire, and
 
 14 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 it could not have been other than a great gratifi- 
 cation to him that the Ruggles Street Baptist 
 Church in which he spent the most active years of 
 his Hfe and to which he gave such large sums, was 
 a center from which there went forth an influence 
 for good that was felt throughout all Boston. More 
 than this, hundreds of persons engaged in all forms 
 of Christian work visited this church and went 
 away to introduce some of its methods into other 
 fields in all parts of the country. To this distinc- 
 tively Christian religious work, Mr. Ford added the 
 building that now bears his name in Ashburton 
 Place, and it is certain that it was his hope that 
 there should go forth from this building a still 
 more far-reaching work that should not be strictly 
 denominational . 
 
 Not only in his will but in many letters written 
 to those nearest to him in his work did Mr. Ford 
 set forth his wishes in regard to the general good 
 that might result from his benefactions. Many of 
 these letters are in existence, and they set forth in 
 the most convincing way Mr. Ford's general plan 
 and purpose for the continuance of his work after 
 his death. One has only to read some of these 
 letters to know that his sympathies knew no denom- 
 inational bounds, and that he had great respect for 
 the sincere convictions of others. Many of those 
 who knew him best, including some of those who 
 have been members of his own household, feel sure 
 that he would have been in full sympathy with the 
 whole plan and purpose of the Ford Hall Meetings.
 
 HOW FORD HALL WAS BUILT 15 
 
 In the vestibule of the Ford Building are two 
 tablets well worthy the consideration of those who 
 might care to make a study of the life and character 
 of this remarkable man. These tablets are on 
 either side of the main entrance doors of Ford Hall. 
 On one we read the following inscription: 
 
 THIS TABLET 
 
 IS PLACED HERE 
 
 IN GRATEFUL MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 DANIEL SHARP FORD 
 
 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON 
 
 APRIL 5, 1822 
 
 DECEMBER 24, 1899 
 
 UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF HIS WILL 
 
 THIS BUILDING IS ERECTED 
 
 "FOR THE USE OF 
 
 THE BOSTON BAPTIST SOCIAL UNION 
 
 AND FOR SUCH SOCIAL OR 
 
 BUSINESS PURPOSES AND 
 
 FOR SUCH RELIGIOUS 
 
 CHARITABLE OR BENEVOLENT WORK 
 
 AS THE UNION MAY DESIRE TO 
 
 SERVE PROMOTE OR 
 
 CARRY ON." 
 
 THE CORNER STONE WAS LAID 
 
 APRIL 19, 1905 
 
 THE BUILDING WAS COMPLETED 
 
 DECEMBER, 1905.
 
 16 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 And on the other this: 
 
 THE WILL 
 OF 
 
 DANIEL SHARP FORD 
 
 MAKES THE FOLLOWING PROVISION: 
 
 "IN THE HOPE THAT THIS 
 
 NEEDED WORK 
 
 FOR THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 AND TEMPORAL BENEFIT OF 
 
 WORKINGMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES 
 
 MAY BE PROSPERED BY GOD'S BLESSING 
 
 I LEAVE TO SAID 
 
 BOSTON BAPTIST SOCIAL UNION 
 
 ITS FULL CONTROL 
 IT BEING MY DESIRE AND HOPE 
 
 THAT THESE GIFTS AND 
 
 THE GREAT AND FAR-REACHING 
 
 RESPONSIBILITIES THEY INVOLVE 
 
 MAY STIMULATE THE RELIGIOUS 
 
 INTEREST OF ITS MEMBERS 
 
 IN THE WELFARE OF THOSE 
 
 WHO ARE DEPENDENT 
 
 ON THE RETURNS 
 
 FROM THEIR DAILY TOIL 
 
 FOR THEIR LIVELIHOOD 
 
 AND IN PROMOTING 
 
 SUCH WELFARE THROUGH 
 
 DISTINCTLY CHRISTIAN AGENCIES."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE STORY OF THE FORD HALL SUNDAY- 
 EVENING MEETINGS 
 
 By George B. Gallup 
 
 IT is not difficult to describe Ford Hall. Many 
 have written about it. Newspaper and maga- 
 zine writers of ability and prominence have 
 pictured in brilliant phrases the picturesque and 
 striking features of this wonderful undertaking. 
 It has engaged the attention of famous speakers, 
 and has been praised by many religious leaders and 
 damned by a few. 
 
 Nevertheless it still remains a difficult if not an 
 impossible task to tell the true story of Ford Hall, 
 not merely as it really seems to most observant 
 eye witnesses, but as it exists potentially. It is 
 a phenomenal social creation which deceives even 
 penetrating and experienced critics, because of its 
 apparent simplicitj^ and seeming likeness to many 
 familiar types of public meetings. 
 
 The cataloguing of the events, chronologically, 
 in the development of the story is necessary to a 
 proper comprehension of the series of open forum 
 meetings, known widely by the familiar title of 
 Ford Hall, and this has been done in many chapters
 
 18 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 in great detail with a variety of comment and 
 illuminating side lights. 
 
 But the real story of Ford Hall must be dis- 
 covered in the unfolding of a great social ideal in 
 the mind of one man, George W. Coleman. This 
 ideal had its inception far back of the time which 
 marks with a white stone in the history of Boston 
 the actual beginning of the meetings. 
 
 This ideal was the result of personal experiences, 
 most of them very natural and human, such as 
 come to a multitude of men, but a few of them 
 extraordinary — such as only seem to attend the 
 careers of persons born to a striking destiny. 
 
 George W. Coleman in early manhood deter- 
 mined upon a newspaper adventure in South 
 America. The sailing vessel cargoed with lumber 
 which bore him south on the Atlantic was wrecked 
 in a terrific gale and he barely escaped death. 
 
 Unwilling to bargain even mentally for his life, 
 he nevertheless, being saved, vowed to dedicate 
 himself to humanity. 
 
 Coming thus inevitably out of a period of almost 
 complete agnosticism he set himself to discover the 
 ways of supreme social usefulness. He grew grad- 
 ually into great prominence in church work and in 
 the society of Christian Endeavor, learning the 
 detail of organization in conventions and denomi- 
 national meetings of the Baptist Church with 
 which he affiliated. 
 
 Spending several summer vacation periods work- 
 ing as an apprentice in his father's bookbinding
 
 THE SUNDAY-EVENING MEETINGS 19 
 
 shop, he saw labor in its mechanical rigidity of 
 barren repetition — movements without soul in 
 ceaseless duplication, producing the commonplace 
 cheaply, without joy or enduring merit for the 
 worker. 
 
 Gradually there dawned in this man's con- 
 sciousness a perception of a larger unity of purpose 
 and usefulness in the world of men, women and 
 children about him. 
 
 His vantage in life increased and he knit him- 
 self into the structure of organized religious acti- 
 vities in many directions becoming at length 
 fortuitously the Chairman of the Christian Work 
 Committee of the Boston Baptist Social Union. 
 
 Daniel Sharp Ford had prevision in his will 
 leaving that great endowment to the Baptist Social 
 Union. He felt that the social crisis was ahead 
 and planned for a reconciliation between labor and 
 capital. 
 
 This in its deepest significance and largest inter- 
 pretation escaping all but Coleman, gave him a 
 clue to his opportunity. 
 
 The years 1907-1908, panic years, full of unim- 
 aginable distress to workers, with money losses 
 widespread even among the middle classes and the 
 hitherto wealthy, followed close after the completion 
 of the Ford Building. At the time of the dedica- 
 tion of the beautiful hall, in that quarter of the city 
 on Beacon Hill, it seemed likely that it would be 
 unoccupied a greater part of the time. 
 
 Returning from a southern trip, just after he had
 
 20 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 been elected President of the Baptist Social Union, 
 Mr. Coleman stopped off in New York one Sunday 
 evening and attended a meeting at Cooper Union. 
 
 Charles Spragiie Smith was then making an ever 
 widening reputation for these meetings, which were 
 of a new type in America. 
 
 At this meeting, Mr. Coleman heard Professor 
 Charles Fagnani, of Union Theological Seminary, 
 speak to a great audience of people of many va- 
 rieties, in a manner that affected him deeply. The 
 questions that followed from members of the audi- 
 ence and were answered by the speaker showed 
 the hunger of the masses for truth. 
 
 Mr. Coleman returned to Boston, and began to 
 labor with his Committee to permit the holding of 
 meetings on a similar plan in the new Ford Hall. 
 He had a difficult task in winning his associates to 
 his view-point. Succeeding at length in securing 
 an appropriation of a few hundred dollars for the 
 purpose, he carried out a very thorough advertising 
 campaign to reach the people he wished to attract. 
 
 Handbills in several languages, display adver- 
 tisements in the dramatic columns of the Boston 
 daily newspapers, posters, every device known to 
 an experienced advertising man was adopted in 
 order if possible to fill the hall on that memorable 
 opening night, Feb. 23, 1908 — two years after 
 Mr. Coleman's visit to the Cooper Union meetings 
 in New York. 
 
 The story has been told so often that it does not 
 need repetition in detail. Of how but one hun-
 
 THE SUNDAY-EVENING MEETINGS 21 
 
 dred and fifty came; how for the six meetings of 
 that first season's series the average attendance 
 was only three hundred and fifty and only on one 
 night reached five hundred. 
 
 Begun under the auspices of the Baptist denomi- 
 nation, the working people and especially those of 
 foreign birth were very sceptical, believing appar- 
 ently some subtle device was planned for proselyt- 
 ing the unwary. 
 
 It was only with the fourth meeting of the second 
 year's series, that suspicion was fully disarmed. 
 Four clergymen of four different denominations, all 
 but one frankly socialistic, were advertised to speak 
 on socialism, and not only was the hall packed, but 
 fifteen hundred people were turned away. 
 
 It was a much longer and more diflScult task 
 convincing the church people, and the members of 
 the Baptist Social Union, very many of them busi- 
 ness men of large affairs, that these meetings served 
 a useful purpose. But this part of the story also 
 has been told. 
 
 The winning of the audience as well as the con- 
 verting of his associates to the validity of the 
 experiment is all a part of the irresistible idea 
 gradually unfolding in the mind of the founder of 
 the meetings. 
 
 Essentially the plan of the meetings was different 
 from other meetings, even those at Cooper Union, 
 though externally they must seem to many as quite 
 like meetings held from time immemorial at which 
 a speaker proclaims his theory, and there is inci-
 
 22 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 dental music with some opportunity for questioning 
 on the part of the audience. 
 
 But in reahty, there was a deep difference which 
 consisted in the quaHty of the purpose in the mind 
 of the presiding officer. This purpose was to 
 provide for absolute freedom of presentation of 
 the most important subjects represented in every 
 school of thought by the ablest men and women to 
 be secured in this or other countries. No discrim- 
 ination was to be permitted on account of popular 
 prejudice. 
 
 The jury system in a new application to com- 
 munity life was to be tried out in an hour of 
 questioning the speaker by members of the audience. 
 This also was conducted in a manner of strict 
 impartiality by beginning with one section of the 
 audience and giving every person, as section by 
 section was called, opportunity to put at least one 
 question, which was repeated by the Chairman for 
 the purpose of phrasing it clearly and accurately 
 to the complete understanding of all the people. 
 The speaker thus interrogated and cross-examined 
 was put upon his mettle to make clear every point 
 advanced that might be open to criticism. 
 
 Other meetings have been common enough where 
 persons in the audience are permitted to debate the 
 subject discussed by the appointed speaker, who 
 is given finally opportunity to reply and defend 
 his presentation against all comers. But the Ford 
 Hall method, though similar in general conduct to 
 the Cooper Union meetings, yet differed in the
 
 THE SUNDAY-EVENING MEETINGS 23 
 
 spirit of the Chairman. He had the utmost con- 
 sideration for every person in the audience who 
 desired to have further Hght, no matter how imper- 
 fect and broken the question presented might ap- 
 pear to an impatient or intolerant presiding officer. 
 
 Again it is very difficult to show how the spirit 
 of these meetings depends so largely upon the idea 
 of the Chairman and his conception of the purpose 
 he aims to accomplish, where the mechanism is so 
 similar to other open forum meetings. 
 
 But the difference is important, and the tech- 
 nique, as established by George W. Coleman prac- 
 tically unchanged and not materially modified since 
 the beginning, marks these Ford Hall meetings as 
 of a subtle quality. They are unprecedented in the 
 history of progress toward the ideal of personal 
 freedom facilitated by a perfected method of free 
 speech. 
 
 Like all great inventions, this one is characterized 
 by its absolute simplicity. In the language of the 
 Patent Office, which defines all alleged new ideas 
 filed for protection as "improvements" so the Ford 
 Hall idea must be described as an improvement 
 over other open forum meetings, even if it is not 
 strictly speaking a new invention in the plane of 
 democratic communal expression, and differs ap- 
 parently only in slight detail from other meetings 
 of a somewhat similar character. 
 
 That there is a new, unique and [immensely 
 important quality of difference is shown by the 
 extraordinary spread of the Ford Hall idea through-
 
 24 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 out the country, and the attention it has attracted 
 from critics, and the rehgious and secular press. 
 
 A year ago the story of Ford Hall might have 
 been written in exactly the same terms as to-day, 
 but the implications growing out of the spread of 
 the idea are widely different in the middle of 1915. 
 Europe, at war, is likely to be reborn in Peace. 
 Bathed in blood, having received a baptism of fire, 
 each of the nations will come forth with a new 
 spiritual solidarity unprecedented. 
 
 But this coherence will be the child of strife and 
 force. America, lacking this sacrificial cleansing, 
 still bearing the curse of Babel, and weakened by 
 corroding class hatreds, must win her way to 
 spiritual unity through an unfettering of thought 
 and speech brought about by the pressure of love 
 and not hate. 
 
 George W. Coleman may be the man of destiny 
 who shall multiply Ford Hall Forums by the 
 thousand, preserving the simple and rational mech- 
 anism which has served to guarantee that perfect 
 freedom of speech which has perplexed and aston- 
 ished Boston, Boston, apparently incapable of sup- 
 posing there was any experiment in this direction 
 untried in her laboratories. 
 
 Democracy, to be achieved in the melting pot 
 of the New World, must have vortices of expression 
 directed, guided and inspired by a statesmanlike 
 principle, by a judicially-minded, far-visioned leader, 
 and be essentially untrammeled by ignorance or 
 despotic, bigoted control.
 
 THE SUNDAY-EVENING MEETINGS 25 
 
 If at this period in social evolution the world gets 
 through the work of one man a simple instrument 
 of articulation that guarantees uninterrupted prog- 
 ress toward enlightenment, culture and knowledge 
 of the universe, that man would seem to be in 
 some sense a man of Destiny, no matter how 
 simple his method or how indistinguishable to the 
 mind of the average individual the quality of his 
 technique is from that which has preceded him in 
 the history of leaders and teachers. 
 
 This is an age of extreme delicacy in the mech- 
 anization of progress. Freedom in speech un- 
 dreamed of in the Folkmoot or the Witenagemat, 
 the Roman forum or the New England town meet- 
 ing, has been gained at Ford Hall by the high 
 specialization of the art of conducting a popular 
 forum, and the evolution of an idea and an ideal 
 with almost unimaginable precision by George W. 
 Coleman. 
 
 The true story of Ford Hall cannot yet be told. 
 It can only be hinted at, since the future will 
 determine if its plan can be worked out over and 
 over again under Mr. Coleman's direction in every 
 community in the land.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE CONTROLLING PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 
 
 By Thomas Dreier 
 
 THE only people who are not welcomed 
 here," said the Chairman of the Ford 
 Hall Meetings, in one of his prelimi- 
 nary talks at the opening of the first meeting which 
 the writer attended, "are the church people." 
 
 That sentence, spoken in a quiet, matter-of-fact 
 tone, seemed to snap in spite of its quietness. 
 "Why," he asked himself, "should church people 
 be excluded.'^" 
 
 And the Chairman, knowing that others were 
 asking the same question, especially those who 
 were present for the first time, went on to explain. 
 
 "We would welcome everybody," he said, "if we 
 had room for them. But this meeting is for those 
 who have no church home, who have no place to 
 go for mental sustenance and moral inspiration. 
 We want men and women who belong to churches 
 to attend their services, to share in their work. 
 We give special welcome here to the folks outside 
 the churches." 
 
 At other times, in personal conversation, he ex- 
 pressed to me his belief in the practical value of
 
 CONTROLLING PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 27 
 
 the creative idea contained in that ancient com- 
 mand, "Feed My Lambs; Feed My Sheep." 
 
 "I believe that people should go to church be- 
 cause they will find there the food they need for 
 the growth of spiritual life. They come to Ford 
 Hall for the same reason. We feed them. We 
 want them to grow, to develop, to become better 
 and big'ger citizens. For that reason we preach, if 
 that is the right word to use, a gospel of neigh- 
 borliness." 
 
 It may be said, then, that the controlling spirit 
 and purpose of the work is neighborliness. No 
 offence to race, class, or creed is tolerated. 
 
 "I hate that man," some great writer is reported 
 to have said to another, pointing to a third man 
 seated at a table in a public restaurant. 
 
 "But you don't know him," objected his com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Of course I don't know him. If I knew him, 
 I would probably love him." 
 
 And W. E. B. DuBois saw what the leaders of 
 Ford Hall see when he wrote: 
 
 "Herein lies the tragedy of the age: 
 
 Not that men are poor; 
 
 All men know something of poverty. 
 
 Not that men are wicked; 
 
 Who is good.'^ 
 
 Not that men are ignorant; 
 
 What is truth.? 
 
 Nay, but that men should know so little of each 
 other."
 
 28 DEISIOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 In the old story of tlie building of the Tower of 
 Babel, the workers were compelled to scatter to the 
 ends of the earth because they could not under- 
 stand one another's language. In Ford Hall indi- 
 viduals are brought closer together because they 
 learn, much to their surprise oftentimes, that they 
 speak a common tongue and have a common 
 purpose. 
 
 The message of Ford Hall is the kind of message 
 that the man on the street likes because it con- 
 cerns itself largely with the here and now. It is 
 inspirational in its effect because it sends the indi- 
 vidual into the world looking for the best in people 
 and things "Let there be light," is the command 
 they hear thundering into their ears, and "Love 
 one another" is the message that finds its way 
 into their hearts. Individuals working together for 
 the betterment of all men and women sometimes 
 awaken with surprise to the fact that they, who at 
 first seemed to have nothing in common, are really 
 interested in the same things. Although they may 
 never express it in words, their greetings seem to 
 say "I love you because you love the things I 
 love." 
 
 There isn't any mushy sentimentality in all this. 
 What feeling there is, is real. As a matter of fact, 
 the emotional part is a by-product. The people 
 realize the seriousness of the problems that must 
 be solved, and they instinctively turn with warmth 
 in their hearts to others who are giving their time 
 and their energy to the cause which to them means
 
 CONTROLLING PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 29 
 
 so much. "We are fighting the same fight," they 
 say in their hearts, "so let us be friends." 
 
 It naturally follows that when individuals repre- 
 senting divergent views are brought together in 
 brotherliness, classes made up of such individuals 
 are also brought together. No class can hate an- 
 other that it fully understands. It is true that 
 Capital is sometimes hit hard by speakers at Ford 
 Hall and also by those who ask questions, but it is 
 also true that the shortcomings and inefficiencies of 
 labor are not glossed over. The fact that the 
 spirit of fair play prevails is the important thing. 
 The Chairman, whose personality, however much 
 he himself may deny it, is the greatest single success 
 factor in the meetings, is essentially a just judge. 
 "Let us," he says, "seek the truth. Look at every 
 side of this question. Condemn no man on the 
 evidence of another. Give him a chance to tell 
 L's own story. Truth, you will find, exists on both 
 sides of a controversy. Let us take the best from 
 both and out of it construct what we want." 
 
 The Ford Hall Meetings have proved conclu- 
 sively that facts, simply because they are facts, 
 have moral power. "Let us give the people the 
 whole truth, as the most enlightened leaders see it, 
 and then give them an opportunity to express what 
 seems true to them. Differences will soon dis- 
 appear," says a man who has watched the work 
 for years. 
 
 One of the curious effects of the meetings is the 
 creation of better church people. More than one
 
 30 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Jew, who had drifted from the faith of his fathers 
 and had found no substitute that would hold him 
 true to the highest ideals of manhood, was sent 
 back into the synagogue, carrying with him the 
 social message he had received in Ford Hall. 
 
 At one of the annual banquets a brilliant young 
 Jew, speaking to the toast "The Silent Gavel", in 
 trying to explain why no gavel had been needed 
 by the Chairman during seven years, said some- 
 thing like this, "Some give the credit to the Chair- 
 man, some to the speakers, some give this reason 
 and others that; but I think it is due to the spirit 
 that is engendered by the meetings. It is a spirit 
 of fair play, of open-mindedness, of kindly con- 
 sideration, of respectful toleration, of mutual 
 friendliness — in a word it is — well, for the lack 
 of a better word, call it Christianity." Such was 
 the tribute given by a Jew to Christianity. He 
 had discovered for himself that the word meant 
 something good. 
 
 A husband and wife who were members of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, as a result of their at- 
 tendance at Ford Hall Meetings, found themselves 
 becoming better Catholics. The church meant 
 more to them. It is interesting to know that 
 increasing their loyalty to their church did not 
 lessen their loyalty to Ford Hall. 
 
 If they had gone back to their church and had 
 never again appeared at Ford Hall, Ford Hall 
 would have been content. To Ford Hall belong 
 those only who do not belong elsewhere and who
 
 CONTROLLING PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 31 
 
 find in Ford Hall what uplifts them, what makes 
 them better men and women and therefore better 
 citizens. 
 
 A young woman who had stood in the cold for 
 over an hour so that she might be at the head of 
 the line of people waiting for the doors to open at 
 seven o'clock and thus get a good seat, when asked 
 why she made such a sacrifice of personal comfort 
 for the sake of a lecture, replied, "It isn't any 
 sacrifice. I would stand for an hour every Sunday 
 night if I had to." 
 
 "But why would you.''" persisted the questioner. 
 
 She seemed at a loss for words. Finally she 
 blurted out, "Because the meetings make me feel 
 good." 
 
 And what else, after all is said, is there to any 
 church. To make the people feel good — is there 
 anything better .'' This young girl went back into 
 the world (a hard world, too, as we who knew her 
 story realized) with laughter on her lips and joy 
 in her heart. "There are two ways by which we 
 can make the work easier," said one speaker. "We 
 can actually lighten the burden or we can increase 
 the strength of the burden bearer." 
 
 The Ford Hall spirit lightens the burden carried 
 by many a heart. It makes the work of the pres- 
 ent easier because it gives to the people a vision 
 of a finer and better and richer to-morrow. It 
 gives them something more to live for — and, as 
 some of them say, something more to die for. As 
 the dyer's hand is tinted by the colors he works in,
 
 S2 DEINIOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 so are the minds of men colored by the ideas they 
 entertain. 
 
 The speakers who come with their messages year 
 after year are constructives. They preach no gos- 
 pel of disaster. They bring with them new visions 
 — of the world as it will be when all men desire a 
 better world. They picture the ideal and inspire 
 their hearers to work until that ideal has been 
 made real. "Because they have no vision the 
 people perish" can never be said of the folks at 
 Ford Hall. If they perish at all, it will be while 
 fighting to make some vision take physical form in 
 this everyday world of ours. 
 
 "I left the church years ago," said one young 
 man, "and I swore by all the gods that I would 
 never go back. Well, — " he smiled a bit, — "I'm 
 going back." 
 
 "Why.?" asked a friend. 
 
 "For self protection," he answered. "If I don't 
 go back, I'll ruin myself. Automobile drivers are 
 warned not to let their engines run while the car 
 is standing, because a free-running engine wears 
 out faster than an engine driving a car. Outside 
 the church I am like an engine running at maximum 
 speed while the car is standing at the curb." 
 
 His friend was plainly puzzled. "Just what does 
 that mean?" 
 
 "It means this," was the answer: "I see that 
 there is so much work to be done for men and 
 women that cannot possibly be done by me as an 
 individual. Those Ford Hall speakers have told
 
 CONTROLLING PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 38 
 
 me what the church, if it had men of vision, could 
 do for humanity. I beheve it is time for men like 
 me to get back into the church and make use of 
 the machinery that is now being misused, used in- 
 efficiently, or not used at all. The people have the 
 power to make the church the social instrument 
 that it should be." 
 
 Curious, isn't it? Here is a free platform upon 
 which speakers representing nearly every "ism" 
 stand and give talks that for frankness and fearless- 
 ness cannot be surpassed. Yet the effect is the 
 creation of a spirit of appreciation of all the great 
 instruments created by society for the use of 
 humanity. Never was church money used for out- 
 side-the-church purposes with such profit to the 
 church and the highest ideals of the church. 
 
 Spiritually Ford Hall is a pioneer. It is essen- 
 tially the kind of a temple described by Manson in 
 The Servant in the House, when he tells the Bishop 
 of Stocks and Bonds about the church of the Bishop 
 of India: 
 
 "The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks 
 of heroes; the sweet human flesh of men and 
 women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, im- 
 pregnable; the faces of little children laugh out 
 from every cornerstone; the terrible spans and 
 arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and 
 up in the heights and spaces there are inscribed 
 the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the 
 world. It is yet building, — building and built 
 upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in deep
 
 S4 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 darkness; sometimes in blinding light, now be- 
 neath the burden of unutterable anguish; now to 
 the tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings 
 like the cry of thunder. Sometimes in the silence 
 of the nighttime one may hear. the tiny hammer- 
 ings of the comrades at work up in the dome — 
 the comrades that have climbed ahead." ^ 
 
 And so, in a spiritual sense, the speakers at 
 Ford Hall are comrades that have climbed ahead 
 and are helping their fellows to reach the heights. 
 
 * From "The Servant in the House." Copyright, 1908, by Charles 
 Rann Kennedy.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE RANGE OF SPEAKERS AND TOPICS 
 
 By James P. Roberts 
 
 GRANT the possession of a real message, 
 an earnest purpose, and a sincere mind, 
 and any speaker is welcome at Ford 
 Hall who can "deliver the goods." It is one thing 
 to be stocked with truths; quite another to be a 
 good salesman. Nobody asks, nobody cares what 
 the speaker's formal creed may be, nor to what 
 sovereign he owes allegiance. Doctor Yamei Kin, 
 Chinese; Professor Joshi, Hindu; Doctor van 
 Eeden, Dutch; Baroness von Suttner, German; 
 Frau Schwimmer, Hungarian; Doctor DuBois, of 
 African descent, as well as President Faunce, sure 
 Yankee, each receives the same considerate atten- 
 tion, and his or her message is accepted as a true 
 expression of one individual's thought for the com- 
 mon good. It is marvelous, too, where the audi- 
 ence is so frankly skeptical, how friendly it is; and 
 how it learns to love many of the ministers who 
 come in a like spirit. 
 
 Studying the list^ of one hundred and eighty 
 evenings, we easily recognize one-half of the speak- 
 
 ^ For list of speakers and their topics see Appendix.
 
 36 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ers as prominent religious leaders, — most of them 
 clergymen, priests, and rabbis. A casual count 
 revealed the following: 
 
 21 Baptists 7 Presbyterians 
 
 17 Jews 5 Roman Catholics 
 
 12 Congregationalists 4 Methodists 
 
 11 Unitarians 3 New Thought 
 
 10 Episcopalians 2 Universalists 
 
 and no doubt the other half are equally men of 
 faith, though more inclined perhaps to unconven- 
 tional ways of expressing it. 
 
 Another method by which we may classify our 
 speakers is by occupations, though many a man 
 or woman is so versatile as to make a single niche 
 appear too limiting. But by vocations they appear 
 somewhat as follows: 
 
 Preachers, 
 
 68 
 
 College professors. 
 
 27 (including 4 Presidents) 
 
 Business men. 
 
 20 
 
 Social workers, 
 
 18 
 
 Publicists, 
 
 18 
 
 Journalists, 
 
 16 
 
 Lecturers, 
 
 15 
 
 Teachers, 
 
 8 
 
 Workingmen, 
 
 5 
 
 Physicians, 
 
 5 
 
 Lawyers, 
 
 3 
 
 Why the dearth of lawyers.'' As a profession are 
 they content in maintaining the present social
 
 RANGE OF SPEAKERS AND TOPICS 37 
 
 order, too willing to accept retainers from the con- 
 servatives; so bound to precedent they seldom 
 appear as leaders in radical or progressive move- 
 ments? We can readily understand the average 
 busy physician being loath to take time, or feeling 
 he has not the ability to lead in great discussions, 
 but must the lawyer be paid if he is to be heard? 
 No; this cannot be the correct answer. What is? 
 Some twelve times, averaging more than once a 
 year, we have had two or more speakers the same 
 evening, — five evenings with two, three evenings 
 with three, three evenings with four, and one 
 evening with five speakers. Never has there been 
 a "political night", although one evening was de- 
 voted to the schools on the eve of an election. Of 
 men prominent in political life there has been a 
 complete absence. This has been by design on 
 the part of the management. It is interesting, too, 
 to see where our nearly two hundred speakers are 
 domiciled : 
 
 Greater Boston, 56 New England, 19 
 
 New York City, 53 Central States, 18 
 
 Western States, 26 Southern States, 4 
 
 Abroad, 20 
 
 Of another class there has been a dearth of 
 speakers, — the employers. Not in words, but by 
 their works mostly do we know them. Some 
 claim the Committee must organize a man-hunt 
 before a real "Captain of Industry" can be ex- 
 hibited here. Yet of whole-souled, big-minded em- 
 
 431718
 
 38 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ployers we have had at least three, — the lamented 
 Joseph Fels (whose vocation was soap and whose 
 avocation the single-tax), Jonathan Thayer Lincoln, 
 the Fall River manufacturer, and Edward A. Filene, 
 the Boston merchant. One other of our speakers 
 well deserves special mention, — Louis D. Brandeis, — 
 for many a Captain of Industry has surrendered to 
 his ideas in this age of the common people. 
 
 So loyal and self-sacrificing have been some of 
 our friends that we find them speaking to us year 
 after year. Out of the one hundred and eighty 
 evenings, ninety have been taken by men or 
 women who have appeared more than once; and 
 this roll of friends contains no less than thirty 
 persons. Professor Charles Zueblin leads with 
 eight evenings to his credit; Professor Rauschen- 
 busch follows, with a credit of six; and next come 
 Rabbi Wise and Rabbi Schulman, each of whom 
 has been with us on five occasions. Among the 
 list are found great churchmen, able editors, strong 
 teachers, and prominent publicists. 
 
 An analysis covering seven years brings out more 
 strongly the likeness between the programs of the 
 "Meetings" and, say, the curriculum of a socio- 
 logical course. But the latter, notwithstanding, 
 probably never offered ten lectures dealing with 
 the "Soul"; nor has it laid out an 18-hole course 
 in the field of " Citizenship." Such a curriculum 
 might devote twenty hours to the Principles of 
 Pedagogy; but Ford Hall has. 
 
 Because Man is "incurably religious", we find
 
 RANGE OF SPEAKERS AND TOPICS 39 
 
 the subjects of Religion and the Church taking the 
 lead in serving as the motif for the greatest number 
 of meetings. Even the auditors seem more alert, 
 if not more numerous, when Shailer Mathews, Mary 
 Antin, or George A. Gordon discusses man's rela- 
 tion to God. Yet Ford Hall isn't even a church 
 for the unorthodox, from the standpoint of Mr. 
 Hard Shell Baptist, while some of its themes do 
 not appear old enough to be respectable in the 
 eyes of many individually good men. However, 
 styles are changing. 
 
 The writer's classification of the dominating 
 themes of the one hundred and eighty programs 
 is as follows: 
 
 Religion and the Church, 22 
 Race Problems, 19 
 
 Citizenship, 18 
 
 Democracy, 17 
 
 Ethics, 17 
 
 Socialism, 'pro and con, 11 
 Social Institutions, 11 
 
 Education, 10 
 
 The Individual Soul, 10 
 
 Labor Problems, 9 
 
 Feminism, 8 
 
 Single Tax, 7 
 
 Brotherhood, 5 
 
 Orientalism, 4 
 
 The Jew, 4 
 
 Business, 4 
 
 War, 4
 
 40 DEMOCRACY IN THE :MAKING 
 
 With the increasing interest and waxing power of 
 the feminist movement, we note its share in the 
 meetings, both as to women who speak and as to 
 topics where some phase of the "eternal feminine" 
 holds sway. While but eight evenings have been 
 devoted to this theme, we have listened to twenty- 
 three women, — leaders of their sex, and recognized 
 as such not only in the United States but, some of 
 them, also in Europe and the East. For instance, 
 Baroness von Suttner, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Maud 
 Ballington Booth, Frau Schwimmer, and Mary 
 Antin enjoy international reputations. 
 
 Speaking of the ladies and of the ages of our 
 speakers, one must beware; the vivacity of the 
 women who have appeared on our platform would 
 convince us that all were in their teens. But of 
 the men the writer's impression is that in age they 
 average well above that of their audience. Certain 
 it is that we have had no young and irresponsible 
 agitators. 
 
 We find but thirteen addresses out of the one hun- 
 dred and eighty that seem to center about the indi- 
 vidual, — his soul, life here and hereafter, and the 
 unit point of view. Even less has the family and 
 the home been made the basic element in the dis- 
 cussions. Of biographical evenings we have had 
 six, but these were justified by the pertinency of 
 the lives considered. But no address because it was 
 merely entertaining, historical, or cultural has ever 
 been allowed. The aim has been to find the moral 
 or spiritual side of the topics considered. Socialism
 
 RANGE OF SPEAKERS AND TOPICS 41 
 
 has been talked about from varying points of 
 view, yet we have never considered it under the 
 spell of an active propagandist; and we have had 
 no debates, though different aspects of the same 
 question have sometimes been handled the same 
 night. The stereopticon has been used but once, — 
 when Frederic C. Howe spoke on the beautifying 
 of our cities. Many questions, — such as Woman's 
 Suffrage, Temperance, Sex, — have been presented 
 once or twice only. We have never indulged from 
 the platform in things merely denunciatory or de- 
 structive, and have had little that was anti- this 
 or that. Concrete actualities as against abstract 
 principles bear the relation of one to six, although 
 we have been concerned almost exclusively with 
 the life of man here and now. 
 
 For a Bostonian who hears his Symphony Or- 
 chestra but once a year to attempt to analyze the 
 music at Ford Hall, — to venture anything by way 
 of criticism, — would be foolhardy. Its audience 
 delights in a "musical setting." Radical though 
 he be in his social program, the average man is a 
 Standpatter in music. Perhaps we at Ford Hall love 
 to sing, and can't! A schoolboy chorus certainly 
 would put us to shame in volume of song. But un- 
 stinted is the applause for the master at the violin, 
 the singer, and instrumentalist, as each gives of his 
 best, in the half-hour concert that precedes the 
 address. Miss Crawford will doubtless have the 
 material in hand for a volume of "Songs of Social 
 Salvation" long before standing armies are abol-
 
 42 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ished. A number of hymns have been written 
 by the Folks themselves, some are garnered from 
 the four winds of heaven, and all are being 
 cherished and preserved against that day when we 
 may want to print them as we have the Chairman's 
 "Prayers."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE METHOD OF CONDUCTING THE MEETINGS 
 
 By Miriam Allen deFord 
 
 THE Ford Hall Sunday-evening Meeting 
 begins around the corner an hour before 
 the doors open. The line which stretches 
 in two directions from the doors on Ashburton 
 Place, and which sometimes extends for over a 
 block either way, has never yet found an adequate 
 godparent. "The Bread of Life Line," it has been 
 called; "the Hope Line," "the Sharp Line" (for 
 Daniel Sharp Ford), and many other things; but 
 so far no title has ever justly characterized that 
 long double row of expectant men and women, 
 sometimes cold, often wet, always tired, but per- 
 meated through and through with eagerness, live 
 interest, and the spirit of brotherhood. Up and 
 down this line the sales manager of Ford Hall Folks 
 plies his trade, and Chairman Coleman converses 
 with individuals here and there. Shortly before 
 seven the outside ushers see that each person is 
 supplied with a door check, so that no late comer 
 can break into the head of the line and gain an 
 unfair advantage. And at seven a thrill runs 
 through the crowd, the doors are thrown open, and 
 Ford Hall receives its children.
 
 44 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 There is no spectacle in all Boston to match 
 that surging in of the outside line. Ten minutes 
 after the doors are open, the hall is filled, floor and 
 balcony, the legal allowance of persons standing in 
 the back have been admitted, and the doors are 
 closed again, with a "Standing Room Only," or 
 more usually, a "Hall Full" sign on them, and 
 perhaps with disappointed men and women still 
 waiting outside in the hope that a few will leave 
 early whose places they may take. Sometimes 
 this quota waits until nine o'clock, simply for the 
 chance of getting in for the question period. Other 
 organizations judge the success of their ventures by 
 the number they take in; Ford Hall expects always 
 to be crowded, and judges of success by the num- 
 ber turned away. That number has at times 
 reached two thousand five hundred, besides the 
 twelve hundred in the hall. 
 
 For half an hour the audience waits in perfect 
 patience and good temper. There is something of 
 the atmosphere of the reunion of a social club, or 
 of a big family come home for Christmas. Friends 
 greet friends. Town Meeting and Ford Hall Folks 
 topics and problems are discussed, there is much 
 conversation and laughter to and fro. One learns 
 to look for certain familiar faces in the same spot, 
 unofficially consecrated to them, — two of our 
 blind listeners in the first row, our colored friend 
 in the right-hand gallery, the policeman's wife in 
 the left-hand. And the Ford Hall Folks sales man- 
 ager and his busy assistants call the current issue
 
 CONDUCTING THE MEETINGS 45 
 
 of the magazine up and down the aisles, while the 
 stajff of volunteer ushers sees that an occasional 
 vacant place is filled, that the seats reserved for 
 the outside ushers are kept for them, and that 
 everybody has a program. 
 
 At 7.30 the meeting is formally opened by half 
 an hour of music. In the early days this music 
 was paid for; now it is as freely offered as the 
 lectures, and of as high quality. It is infinite in 
 its variety: — instrumental, vocal, or both; some- 
 times an orchestra or a chorus; once a phonograph 
 recital; occasionally a reading or recitation in addi- 
 tion. Half way through the musical program the 
 first hymn is sung by the audience, with Mr. 
 Foster leading as precentor and Mr. Lipkin at the 
 piano. The words of the hymns are printed on 
 the four-page program; the tunes are mostly 
 familiar ones that everybody knows. 
 
 Eight o'clock sees the end of the music period, 
 which is followed by Mr. Coleman's prayer. The 
 prayer is not invariable; out of courtesy, it is 
 never offered when the speaker is a clergyman of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, and is omitted at 
 will in any case, so that no one can possibly accuse 
 it of smacking of ritualism. It is perhaps the only 
 prayer in the world that is greeted with applause. 
 During two meetings of the Ford Hall folks on 
 Sunday afternoons there was an effort made to 
 find a better form of recognition and approval of 
 the prayer. As it is, our old English friend greets 
 it always with a fervent "Hear! Hear!" and
 
 46 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 doubtless there are pious souls in the audience who 
 give voice to an "Amen"; but the final decision 
 was to leave things as they are, and so the audi- 
 ence in general still applauds. 
 
 After necessary notices have been given, the 
 speaker is introduced (half the time at least he is 
 an old friend who needs no formal introduction, 
 but is acclaimed with enthusiastic applause the 
 minute he arrives), and from eight to nine he holds 
 the floor, while with perfect freedom and spon- 
 taneity he expounds his views to one of the most 
 responsive audiences in America. Another hymn 
 follows his speech, sung this time with the audi- 
 ence standing, and then comes an intermission of 
 three or four minutes, to allow time for those to 
 leave who must, and for those who cannot stay 
 till ten o'clock to retire to the rear of the hall, 
 where they can get out easily without disturbing 
 others. 
 
 And then comes the question period ! — entirely 
 worthy of an exclamation point, for it is the focus 
 around which every bit of Ford Hall activity and 
 spirit really groups itself. The question period, 
 when the listeners "get back" at the speaker, is 
 the soul of Ford Hall, as it must be of any live, 
 open forum. The audience is taken by groups, 
 sometimes starting with the floor, sometimes with 
 the gallery, sometimes with the right-hand side and 
 sometimes with the left-hand, but the entire hall 
 being called upon in order, and no further ques- 
 tions being allowed from a section that has been
 
 CONDUCTING THE MEETINGS 47 
 
 passed. Everybody who wishes is allowed one 
 question; very rarely the same person is allowed 
 two. Before the speaker answers, each question is 
 repeated by Mr. Coleman from the platform, so 
 that it can be distinctly heard all over the hall, — 
 and also so that the speaker can have a second in 
 which to formulate his reply. The questions are 
 frequently pregnant, sometimes pithy, though often 
 they require condensation. They bring out some- 
 times the cream of the lecture, by glancing on a 
 vital point that the regular speech has not included. 
 Certain types of questions may always be expected; 
 an evening without Socialist, woman suffrage, and 
 theological queries, is almost unknown: certain per- 
 sons will always ask questions, and when one comes 
 to know them, one knows also the sort of question 
 they will ask; but just as surely new questioners 
 arise, and entirely new and striking questions be 
 asked. The questions are surprisingly relevant; 
 the proportion of entirely irrelevant queries is ex- 
 tremely small. One of the most interesting phases 
 of this last hour is the questions asked by for- 
 eigners in a largely foreign audience. These 
 earnest men and women may be struggling almost 
 unintelligibly with the English language; the form 
 of their question may bring forth a gale of laughter; 
 but they know what they want to ask, and there 
 is always a real, answerable inquiry at the bottom 
 of it. 
 
 At ten o'clock^Mr. Coleman calls "Good Night", 
 to the audience, and the audience answers "Good
 
 48 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Night", and prepares to leave; but it is only the 
 formal meeting that is over. There is a rush for 
 the platform, to shake the lecturer's hand, to say 
 that one liked or (sometimes) did not like him, to 
 ask that burning question that occurred to the 
 mind after one's section had been passed. Groups 
 linger outside, too, in the lobby and on the pave- 
 ment, discussing eagerly the topic of the evening 
 and the many subjects radiating from it. The 
 lights have to be turned out, and the doors locked, 
 before the Ford Hall audience is really ready to 
 go home, and then it would rather not! 
 
 That is a Ford Hall Meeting, the freest thing in 
 Boston, in every sense of the word. An appropria- 
 tion from the Daniel Sharp Ford fund through 
 the Boston Baptist Social Union entirely supports 
 these meetings, and the audience contributes 
 nothing but the biggest things of all, — interest 
 and co-operation and good will. The little maga- 
 zine does not come from the fund; it just clears 
 expenses by the return from sales and advertising. 
 Once a year, before Christmas, there is a collec- 
 tion for the janitor and the paid attendants 
 around the hall; but regular collections are en- 
 tirely unknown. Frequently newcomers to the 
 audience have in the past asked if it would not be 
 possible to contribute more concretely to the meet- 
 ings and their allied work. Finally, in response to 
 such requests, the Ford Hall Folks decided to have 
 contribution boxes put up in the hall, in which 
 might be placed either money or suggestions for
 
 CONDUCTING THE MEETINGS 49 
 
 the improvement of the meetings. Bu.t when it 
 came to a question of the disposal of the money 
 so gained, there was unanimous objection to using 
 it for any needy individual person or persons in 
 the Ford Hall assembly. Many of those who 
 made this decision were themselves without work 
 in a hard winter; but unanimously again they 
 voted that the money from the contribution boxes 
 should go for "foreign missionary work," — to 
 spread the gospel of Ford Hall and the open forum 
 throughout New England and the country at large. 
 Ford Hall had meant enough to them and had 
 taught them enough altruism, to make every indi- 
 vidual of them anxious to spread its inspiring 
 message where it had not been heard. 
 
 That is Ford Hall spirit: it is a far finer and 
 higher thing than any formal meeting ever con- 
 ducted in any hall for any purpose; and it is the 
 thing that makes the Ford Hall Sunday-evening 
 Meetings worth conducting.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TOWN MEETING AND OTHER FORD HALL 
 ACTIVITIES 
 
 By William Horton Foster 
 
 FORD HALL has its inner circle. But this 
 group has developed spontaneously like 
 the institution itself, for Ford Hall is not 
 a meeting, or a meeting place; it is an Institution. 
 No one seems able to point to the first time when 
 the Ford Hall Folks came into existence; people 
 interested in the meetings found themselves coming 
 together to talk things over. They wanted to see 
 what they could do to help. The group grew 
 larger and larger. At first it was informal in its 
 meetings, but organization was soon needed, and 
 before any one really knew it, the Ford Hall Folks 
 was a fact. 
 
 But this group is not created by any specific 
 appointment. General invitations are given, asking 
 any one interested to meet every third Sunday 
 afternoon in Kingsley Hall, the smaller hall in the 
 Ford Building. Here the conduct of the Sunday- 
 night Meetings is discussed, questions of policy 
 thought out, and suggestions for improvement 
 brought forward. During the years Ford Hall
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 51 
 
 Folks has become more articulate, more organic; 
 yet its elements have remained, as at first, 
 absolutely independent and atomic. 
 
 To the spiritual biologist, the development of 
 this organization is most interesting. These human 
 atoms blend into an organism, impelled only from 
 within and acknowledging no compulsion from 
 without. A common purpose moves them, no outer 
 force drives them. They believe in the Ford Hall 
 Sunday-evening Meetings, and in the democracy 
 of the meetings. Their chief concern is to conserve 
 that democracy and to make it more eflBcient. 
 
 The attendance at the Ford Hall Folks Meetings 
 varies, though usually about a hundred in number, 
 often changed in personnel but the same group in 
 its composite character. There are some veterans 
 who have been attendants since the meetings 
 began. A veritable Old Guard they are, and upon 
 slight occasion they will recall the early struggles 
 and the early triumphs. The passion for democ- 
 racy which pervades the Sunday-night audiences 
 is in this group carried to the nth degree. To this 
 test are all their theories subjected: is the thing 
 democratic, and, because Ford Hall and Democracy 
 are synonymous, is it consistent with the Ford Hall 
 Idea? 
 
 To this meeting the Director discloses his plans. 
 They are discussed. He asks for suggestions from 
 the Folks. The suggestions come, sometimes as 
 thick as leaves in autumn. Out of it all, come 
 the plans which have made the conduct of the
 
 52 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 meetings such a smooth-running thing. The wait- 
 ing line of people outside the hall, — how shall it 
 be asked to govern itself? How shall that line, 
 patiently waiting its chance at the open door, be 
 protected from the outer crowd who are not fair- 
 minded? Shall we sing hymns or not; shall we 
 have a choir? How shall we express our approval 
 of the prayer, — by amen! or applause? Shall 
 the Folks have seats reserved in the hall up-stairs; 
 
 — these and countless other matters are thrashed 
 out in the Sunday-afternoon Meetings of the Ford 
 Hall Folks. 
 
 Occasionally, of an afternoon, some one talks 
 to the Folks on some intimate topic of more direct 
 personal concern. And always the afternoon ends 
 with a modest lunch together. Remember that 
 the Ford Hall Folks are made up of all races, all 
 nations, all creeds, and all faiths. Does not the 
 significance of this eating together appeal to you? 
 
 In addition to the getting together socially on 
 these Sunday afternoons, the Ford Hall Folks 
 close the season with a banquet and have occasional 
 summer outings together. And that banquet! All 
 the pent-up enthusiasm of our Ford Hall-ites for 
 the meetings and the Idea finds free expression. 
 They sing the praises of their beloved Alma Mater, 
 
 — for that is what Ford Hall is to them, — and 
 voice their regret at the close of the meetings for 
 the summer. As one speaker said at the last 
 banquet, "The Sun has been taken out of Sunday" 
 for them.
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 53 
 
 Twice during tlie summer season at least the 
 Ford Hall Folks and their friends gather on the 
 seashore or at some country park for an old- 
 fashioned picnic. It is old-fashioned in the sense 
 that they sit around on the sand or the grass and 
 eat their basket lunch. It is as different, however, 
 in its make-up as Ford Hall itself is different. 
 Jew and Gentile, agnostic and believer, mingle 
 in the Sunday-night Meetings; they mingle as 
 freely on the picnic ground. Roumanians and 
 Greeks, Montenegrins and Italians, Russians and 
 Germans, all nations as well as all creeds play 
 together as freely as they discuss great civic 
 questions together in the winter. Playing together 
 is a great dynamic, and the play of the picnics and 
 of the annual banquet supplies a vital element to 
 the Ford Hall Idea. 
 
 Two notable enterprises stand out among the 
 achievements of the Ford Hall Folks. Like the 
 other expressions of the Ford Hall Idea, these two 
 grew naturally from the parent stock. The first 
 is the paper, the organ of the Ford Hall Idea, — 
 Ford Hall Folks. 
 
 In spite of possible confusion in the names of 
 the two institutions. Ford Hall Folks, the group, 
 and Ford Hall Folks, the paper, the paper could 
 really have no other name. That is the distinctive 
 idea through it all, — just Folks who believe in Ford 
 Hall. How could the paper which is but the 
 visible typed expression of that composite group's 
 character call itself by any other name? It has had
 
 54 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 a career varied in only one way, and that is in 
 the extent of its growth and development, never 
 in the fact of such an evolution. 
 
 The paper was discussed and discussed. At 
 length it was started, at first in size little larger 
 than a bulletin, but differing slightly in form from 
 the programs of the evening meeting. The second 
 year, however, it took a more pretentious size, 
 an adult, man-sized page, if you please, following 
 the example of many of the leading national 
 magazines. The second year saw four pages, but 
 this year, the third of its history, the paper boasts 
 of eight pages, — and all filled with good, worth- 
 while stuff. 
 
 The staff has followed the lines of ordinary 
 journals. It has its Editor-in-chief, Managing 
 Editor, and Reporter; it has its Business, its 
 Advertising, and its Sales Managers. The emolu- 
 ments of these positions have of course been in 
 the glory of the service rendered, for here again, 
 as in all the other functions of Ford Hall, the 
 cooperation of all for the common end has been 
 both the test of the service and its reward. 
 
 The content of the paper has of course centered 
 around the Sunday-night Meetings themselves. 
 At first the paper contained but a report of the 
 evening's address. Then followed the questions 
 and answers which accompanied the lecture. Then 
 comments by the Director on the Ford Hall Idea 
 in action; then some brilliant genre artistry in bits 
 of biography of some of the Folks themselves.
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 55 
 
 Then, as the Idea spread beyond the walls of 
 Ford Hall, came other matters of general interest 
 and concern to believers not only in Ford Hall 
 but in the Open Forum idea generally. Before 
 it was realized, Ford Hall Folks and the Ford Hall 
 Idea had a dignified, able organ in Ford Hall Folks, 
 a journal competent to set forth its principles and 
 practice in the forum of thought. 
 
 Its finances have been kept close to the line. 
 It has cleared its expenses each year and preserved 
 a dignity of dress befitting its high office. It 
 could not thus have paid its way, let it be frankly 
 admitted, if the work done upon the paper had 
 been paid for in the ordinary way. Here again 
 the Ford Hall spirit operated. From the Director 
 clear through to the occasional purchaser, the 
 service rendered has been because of Ford Hall. 
 That tells the story. 
 
 The other prominent achievement of Ford Hall 
 Folks was the launching of the Ford Hall Town 
 Meeting. Unquestionably this enterprise ranks 
 second only to the Sunday-night Meetings them- 
 selves. It supplements those activities in a field all 
 its own. It is as intensely democratic as is the 
 Sunday-night Meeting, but it gets down to more 
 practical details. Up-stairs the question must be 
 discussed in the large. Men and women find them- 
 selves lifted to the skies on a wave of exaltation 
 produced by the message of some of our prophets 
 of to-day. Night after night in the great hall the 
 people — the Folks who love Ford Hall — look into
 
 56 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 the calm face of Daniel Sharp Ford gazing at 
 them from a noble canvas. They look again into 
 the kindly eyes of the chairman, the spiritual heir 
 of Daniel Sharp Ford, and see there the interpreta- 
 tion of Ford's dream. They listen to the words of 
 the prophet speaker, — and the hope of a better day 
 lying in Daniel Sharp Ford's eyes, the power and 
 comradeship of George W. Coleman's presence, and 
 the message of the speaker all fuse into a splendid 
 enthusiasm to bring this kingdom of God to earth, 
 here and now. Where is the outlet for this en- 
 thusiasm? In the Town Meeting. 
 
 Several of the Folks had from time to time 
 suggested that a series of classes for strictly cultural 
 work should be organized under the auspices of 
 Ford Hall. The Folks had within their own num- 
 ber competent teachers who would undertake such 
 work, it was suggested. On the other hand, others 
 desired to organize investigations and surveys by 
 the Folks themselves into civic conditions which 
 bore with a specially galling yoke upon the people 
 who were the majority of the Ford Hall audience. 
 Such work, it was felt, would have a value far 
 above that of the ordinary "sociological study." 
 
 The matter was discussed. On the od i hand, it 
 was urged, ample facilities were already provided 
 in Boston for cultural work of all grades. On 
 the other hand, it was urged with equal force, 
 sociological surveys of the nature suggested, how- 
 ever sympathetic they might be, would not have 
 the supervision of experts in such work and would
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 57 
 
 hence possibly be biased and unfair. The Town 
 Meeting plan was the suggested compromise. 
 
 It was not at first called a Town Meeting. The 
 plan agreed upon was that of a deliberative body 
 organized to study intensively the practical aspects 
 of the larger questions presented in Ford Hall Sun- 
 day nights. But Ford Hall was intensely demo- 
 cratic, not simply professionally so. Its legislative 
 body must be called by the most democratic name 
 known. Of course in New England therefore it 
 could only be called a town meeting. The Ford 
 Hall Town Meeting was born and named. 
 
 But while it is democratic and intensely so, it is 
 a town meeting only in its name and in the names 
 of its ofEcials. It is organized like a legislature 
 with committees appropriate to the subjects likely 
 to come before the body. It further assumes to 
 itself the legislative powers of any deliberative 
 body within Massachusetts, whether state, city or 
 town. So the measures brought before it are 
 entitled an act, an ordinance, or a resolution; not 
 indifferently, but as the citizen who introduces 
 the measure feels his suggested remedy for civic 
 ills lies within the domain of state, municipal, or 
 town activity. Itself an educative process, don't 
 you see? 
 
 The officers of the Town Meeting are a Moder- 
 ator, a Clerk, and a Sergeant-at-arms. They are 
 elected by preferential ballot at the beginning of 
 each season. The committees are selected by a 
 nominating committee chosen from the Town
 
 58 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Meeting, but the chairman of each committee is 
 appointed by the Moderator from such committees 
 so selected. 
 
 The expenses of the Town Meeting are met by 
 a voluntary, self-assessed income tax collected at 
 each meeting. It has not needed large funds, and 
 this method has been found ample for all demands. 
 The amounts found in the tax envelopes — one 
 cent, two cents, five cents — themselves often tell 
 their own story. Many times envelopes are re- 
 turned, sealed it is true, but with no enclosure but 
 a brief line, "out of work." The envelopes are not 
 signed, and there is no record kept of individual 
 payments; only the citizen himself knows how 
 much he assessed himself, but it is sure each con- 
 tribution means some deprivation to the giver. 
 
 The name citizen is a meaningful one to 
 our Town Meeting Folks. The Declaration of 
 Citizenship is simple: 
 
 ''I do solemnly declare that I will strive to ad- 
 vance the common good and the Commonwealth 
 of Ford Hall by all means in my power." 
 But it is not taken lightly. The citizens take 
 themselves and the functions of the Town Meeting 
 very seriously. They are in earnest. Every one 
 of them knows, intimately and personally, the 
 sorrows of the submerged. They speak from 
 heart knowledge, not from book knowledge. They 
 are desperately anxious for better life and living. 
 Hardly a one of them who is not from his little 
 giving to those who have less. When they discuss
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 59 
 
 life, they are speaking of those things they know. 
 When, for instance, a bill is introduced providing for 
 better sanitation in tenements, they discuss the 
 question from the standpoint of knowledge. Many 
 of them live in the tenements. They know con- 
 gestion intimately, personally. Wlien immigration 
 is discussed, those who landed but a short time 
 before talk of things they know. Is a literacy 
 test proposed .f^ They think of their brothers and 
 cousins who did not come when they did, but who 
 are coming, please God, when the skies are but 
 a little kinder. 
 
 One evening the bill under discussion was a 
 measure outlining a scheme of unemployment insur- 
 ance. A stranger happened in, one of these smug- 
 faced men who know everything. He had heard 
 of Ford Hall, but this was the first meeting, up- 
 stairs or down, he had attended. The proponent 
 of the bill based his argument in support of 
 his bill upon the extent of unemployment. It 
 happened that he was out of work, — his children 
 were hungry, — he knew what he was talking 
 about. He had hardly sat down when the stranger 
 addressed the meeting. He announced the doctrine 
 so zealously held by many, — any one could get 
 work if he wanted it. He had always had a job. 
 He could always get a job. 
 
 WTien he sat down, the fireworks began. One 
 after another of the citizens told the things he 
 knew. Many of them were out of work, could not 
 get work, were desperate because of their needs.
 
 60 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Unemployment was to them not an academic 
 theory, it was a hideous fact. Mr. Stranger was 
 surprised, to say the least. Whether his theories 
 were revised or not, he got some new points of 
 view. 
 
 The relation of the Town Meeting to the Sunday- 
 night Meetings will be made more obvious by a 
 brief reference to two or three actual parallel 
 happenings in the meetings themselves. 
 
 One Sunday night a Jewish Rabbi, talking on 
 The New Morality, said: "We used to think 
 poverty was always an expression of laziness. Now 
 we know it may be altogether due to unemployment 
 or sickness or social neglect of duty. We are 
 beginning to understand that if we gave more 
 justice, we would not have to practice so much 
 charity." In the question period which followed 
 appeared this: "Can you tell us what to do with 
 the unemployed in New York, and isn't it wrong 
 to send money to Belgium instead of to them.'^" 
 The question was answered in these words: "If 
 I knew what to do, I would do it for the unem- 
 ployed in Boston; unfortunately I do not. It 
 might be possible for the State to create work for 
 them." 
 
 This was the subject in the large at Ford Hall 
 of a Sunday night. The question period indicated 
 the thought of the speaker's hearers concerning 
 that subject. Soon after, a bill was introduced 
 in the Town Meeting providing for a system of 
 unemployment insurance. It was regarded as of
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 61 
 
 such vital importance that it was referred to a 
 special committee. This committee agreed upon 
 the principle but presented two reports, providing 
 for the necessary funds in different ways. Don't 
 you see the connection.^ Up-stairs the general 
 subject was discussed. The speaker was questioned, 
 to be sure, but later in Town Meeting the thought 
 of Ford Hall took the form of a practical bill for 
 carrying into effect the principles urged. It is 
 indeed a school in the Theory and Practice of 
 Democracy. 
 
 Margaret Slattery said one Sunday night: "How 
 I long for a day when the front of the public library 
 will be crowded with small boys waiting for it to 
 open! Did you ever see that? I haven't. But I 
 have seen them so in front of the movies.'* "Com- 
 mercialized pleasure is our sin." A questioner 
 asked her: "Do you think a municipal theater, 
 with educational features, charging the same 
 prices as the ordinary theater, would succeed?" 
 She answered: "I haven't any very great faith 
 in municipal management of things of that sort. 
 What I want to see is a group of people in a 
 neighborhood demand that things shall be straight." 
 The Town Meeting last winter considered, among 
 other bills, one for municipal concerts on Boston 
 Common, one to allow Sunday ball games, if no 
 paid players were used or admission fees charged^ 
 and another providing for an official board of 
 censorship for all shows, motion picture shows 
 included.
 
 62 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Another illustration: Leslie Willis Sprague asked 
 one Sunday night, when he was speaking to the 
 subject "Shall Democracy Endure?": "Shall the 
 doors be closed? Shall we say to the people of 
 Southern and Eastern " Europe, 'You cannot come 
 here any more'? ... I am frank to say that I 
 do not wish the gates ever closed. ..." He 
 went on to discuss the distribution of immigration 
 and at the very next session of the Town Meeting 
 a bill providing for better distribution of immigra- 
 tion was discussed by citizens, among others, born 
 in Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Roumania, France, 
 Germany, and England! So when the literacy test 
 bill was under discussion citizens whose own fathers 
 and mothers, whose own brothers and sisters, 
 possibly, would be affected by such restrictions, 
 agreed from the heart as well as the head. 
 
 One final illustration: Walter Rauschenbusch 
 said: "Democracy is not simply political, but 
 must have an economic basis, and without that the 
 political and social and even religious democracy 
 will gradually become a form without a substance." 
 The question was asked: "Can you cite the ex- 
 ample of a large and successful business that is 
 democratically managed?" He referred the ques- 
 tioner to societies in Europe. The Town Meeting 
 had an interim committee at work all summer plan- 
 ning for a cooperative enterprise for the Ford Hall 
 Folks. 
 
 Nor are the citizens content to let their ac- 
 tivities stop with their meetings in Kingsley Hall.
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 63 
 
 Through committees, they have contributed to 
 actual civic betterment in numerous cases, and they 
 are only just beginning along those lines. 
 
 The meetings are governed by rules adopted by 
 the Town Meeting, and which were legislative rules 
 modified to suit the case. Of course these rules 
 and parliamentary practice generally are followed, 
 but not slavishly or too technically. Wliile the value 
 of parliamentary drill is recognized, yet the sub- 
 stance is regarded as of more value than the form. 
 Getting at the truth is the passion at the Town 
 Meeting, as it is in the Sunday-night Meetings 
 up-stairs. 
 
 Such is the Town Meeting. It is democratic, 
 intense, powerful. Sometimes the oratory is terrify- 
 ing, some of the reasoning is crude. But life itself 
 is full of raw, crude, unpleasant facts. The dis- 
 cussions are elemental, fundamental. So is the life 
 of the citizens of the Town Meeting. 
 
 The essential power of the Town Meeting does 
 not, however, grow out of the peculiar nature of 
 its citizenship. Ford Hall is cosmopolitan, and 
 so is the Town Meeting. The elements of which 
 Ford Hall and the Town Meeting are composed 
 are peculiar, but they are peculiar in themselves, 
 not to themselves. Every community has its 
 strata, its lines of cleavage. They may be different 
 from those found in Ford Hall; but they are there. 
 The task before each community is to bring its 
 component parts into a more perfect blending, — 
 not Ford Hall's blending, but its own. This task
 
 64 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 may be all the more difficult because the differences 
 to be reconciled may be more subtle and obscure. 
 Keener analysis may be necessary, but the essential 
 problem is the same, whatever the community. 
 Get people together, find the common denominator, 
 and the equation is started toward its solution. 
 
 The latest development of the Ford Hall idea is 
 the Foro Italiano. Thirty-seven nationalities are 
 to be found within greater Boston. Seventy 
 thousand Italians live there, of whom forty thou- 
 sand are to be found within the North End. North 
 Square on any Sunday afternoon shows literally 
 thousands of Italians with no place to go. Why 
 should they not come to Ford Hall? 
 
 So the Italian Forum was inaugurated. As on 
 Sunday evening, the hall is packed. Twelve 
 hundred eager men and women, — most of them 
 men, — gather to hear discussed those questions 
 which appeal to them as Italian-Americans. Every- 
 thing is in Italian, except Mr. Coleman's presiding. 
 An associate chairman sits beside him, and he is 
 kept in touch with the salient points in the address 
 and in the questions and answers. 
 
 What are the motives back of the Italian Forum? 
 The same which actuate all the other activities 
 of Ford Hall. To bring men and women together 
 to discuss the questions common to the lives of 
 all, is to bring better understanding and tolerance 
 into those lives, is to help fit them for a better 
 living together. Of course, it will be better when 
 these Italian Ford Hall-ites gather in an English
 
 THE TOWN MEETING 65 
 
 forum and listen to such discussions in English. 
 In the meantime, however, they don't understand 
 English! Shall they be debarred from such dis- 
 cussion until the barriers of a foreign speech are 
 removed? When they have achieved their English, 
 they will also have acquired the Ford Hall Idea. 
 
 The management of the Foro Italiano is in the 
 hands of a representative committee of Italian and 
 American men and women. The Baptist Social 
 Union supplied the necessary funds and gave the 
 use of Ford Hall. 
 
 Experiment.^ Yes, but the first meeting dem- 
 onstrated the soundness of the idea, the essential 
 sanity of the suggestion. The Ford Hall idea is 
 thoroughly implanted in the hearts and minds of 
 Boston's Italian colony.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 
 
 By Harold Marshall 
 
 THE Open Forum Movement is founded 
 upon the discovery that America is not 
 merely a geographic term, but a symbol 
 of the new and wonderful way in which God is 
 coming into life. 
 
 The outstanding fact of the nineteenth century 
 is the rise of democracy, (and in America, as Walter 
 Rauschenbusch says, "Democracy is a holy word,") 
 and an effort to express the holiness of humanity. 
 A forum is democracy talking to itself about its 
 own affairs, and trying to give expression to the 
 religion of the common life in community terms. 
 All thoughtful people are concerned over the 
 present situation. It has become increasingly 
 apparent that not only the sectarian organization 
 of religion, but the sectarian interpretation of 
 religion, is of the past. This is not because the 
 work of the sectarian churches has been ill done, 
 but well done. It was a thousand years' task for 
 the Catholic Church to implant in the breast of 
 Western barbarians the instinct of self -subjection 
 to the spiritual order of life. It has taken sectarian
 
 THE OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 67 
 
 Protestantism four hundred years to win for this 
 acquired spiritual instinct opportunity to function 
 into individual freedom of thought and personal 
 liberty of conscience. The decadence of sectarian- 
 ism is not devolution but evolution. The individu- 
 alistic church is coming to decrepitude through 
 fulfillment, not defeat. It is being outgrown, 
 because man is outgrowing himself. Religion, too, 
 is growing out of words into deeds. The passion 
 for righteousness is supplanting the passions of 
 controversy, and the craving for service has 
 superseded the scheme of salvation. 
 
 "The great revolution that is transforming society 
 under our eyes," says a recent writer, "is the 
 substitution of social salvation for individual 
 salvation. Man is to be saved, not by escaping 
 from the society of his fellows, but he is to be saved 
 in company with his fellows." The problem of 
 social salvation creates the task of community 
 religion, not to be evaded because of its difficulty. 
 A reunion of Church and State would be a mis- 
 fortune, but a permanent separation of religion 
 from life would be a disaster. The community 
 religion of to-morrow is going to lay a new and 
 compelling hold upon life, because it expresses 
 the aspirations of the best life of the age, and the 
 ideals of that spiritual democracy that has out- 
 grown alike the notion of an earth-inheriting class 
 and a heaven-inheriting caste. 
 
 The Open Forum Movement is so far the most 
 definite and coherent expression of this socialization
 
 68 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 of religion. Like other great movements, it had 
 comparatively small beginnings, and its pioneers 
 did not realize the significance of their work. Its 
 development is a splendid illustration of the fact 
 that when any individual does his best, he does 
 more and better than he sees. j 
 
 Wlien Peter Cooper founded the Cooper Institute 
 in 1854, "Devoted to the instruction and improve- 
 ment of the working classes," he did not foresee 
 the great Sunday-evening Meetings that Cooper 
 Union developed years afterwards. Those who 
 established these courses had no notion that on a 
 certain night, George W. Coleman of Boston would 
 be in the audience, and be fired with a purpose to 
 do something similar for his own city. When he 
 had succeeded in starting a Sunday-evening Meeting 
 in Ford Hall, with an audience of only a few hun- 
 dred people, nobody would have ventured to call 
 it "a spiritual Plymouth Rock," or to predict that 
 it would not only develop into a great and influen- 
 tial institution in itself, but become the inspiration 
 and prototype of multitudes of others. 
 
 The essential democracy of this movement is 
 evidenced by the wide dissimilarity of origin and 
 the equally great variety of types among the 
 various independent forums. First in point of 
 time and significance are what may be described 
 as the philanthropic forums, like Cooper Union 
 and Ford Hall, where endowed institutions seek 
 in this way to serve the life and the community 
 of which they are a part. Their success, and still 
 
 1
 
 THE OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 69 
 
 more, their wide human sympathy and their cour- 
 age in presenting unpopular causes, have gone far 
 to answer the question whether or not endowed 
 institutions can keep step with democracy. 
 
 Among those who first caught the spirit and 
 purpose of Ford Hall were socially-minded min- 
 isters and laymen of various churches. Some of 
 them soon began experimenting among their own 
 constituencies. Sometimes the lead was taken by 
 men of conservative ecclesiastical aflBliations, like 
 John W. Ross of Buffalo, Paul Moore Strayer 
 of Rochester, or Doctor Lyon and Doctor Hogue 
 of Baltimore. Some of them have developed in 
 centers of population; others in suburban commun- 
 ities like Melrose, Massachusetts, or small towns 
 like Weymouth, Massachusetts, or more rural 
 communities like Raymond, New Hampshire, but 
 always expressing the new attempt of the Church 
 to apply religion to life, and the new consciousness 
 of social responsibility that is everywhere manifest- 
 ing itself among church people. Other forums have 
 originated among cooperative groups of churches, 
 like those in Newton, Massachusetts, and Stoneham, 
 Massachusetts; while the Young Men's Christian 
 Association forums, such as at Manchester, New 
 Hampshire, and Attleboro, Massachusetts, are di- 
 rectly maintained by institutions that are them- 
 selves supported by churches and church people. 
 
 Another type, that has had its right to the forum 
 name challenged, is that which makes its appeal 
 to some racial or religious element in the com-
 
 70 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 muiiity, like the Ford Hall Italian Forum, or the 
 Russian Forum of the Church of All Nations in 
 New York, or that conducted by the Union Park 
 Synagogue in the South End of Boston and the 
 Common Cause Society of the Roman Catholic 
 church in Boston. When we remember, however, 
 that among the newly arrived people of any race 
 are mutual differences, prejudices, and misunder- 
 standings, not less than those existing among 
 ourselves, it will be realized that the forum has a 
 great field of utility here, and possibly no other 
 type of meeting will lead more directly and help- 
 fully toward democracy. 
 
 Another variety is that which aims at economic 
 education under the auspices of some more or less 
 distinctly organized group, such as the School for 
 Social Science in Lorimer Hall, Boston, of which 
 Miss Louise Adams Grout has been the moving 
 spirit. Such a forum serves not only to extend 
 the ideas of its own group, but to clarify and 
 crystallize their own thinking as well. 
 
 It remains to speak of what may well become the 
 ultimate type, the distinctively community move- 
 ment, which aims to include and represent all classes 
 and conditions, and seeks to become a center of 
 community education and inspiration. Sometimes 
 this has been a natural evolution, as in Melrose, 
 Massachusetts; sometimes it is an intended crea- 
 tion, as in Brockton, Massachusetts, or Lawrence, 
 Massachusetts. A modification of this community 
 form, which is full of possibility, is the school
 
 THE OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 71 
 
 center type, of which three have been already 
 estabhshed in Boston under the splendid leader- 
 ship of Mrs. Eva Wliiting White, with promise of 
 nearly a dozen more, as soon as plans can be made 
 for their institution. 
 
 It will be easily understood that one of the 
 penalties of pioneering in this work has been a 
 constant and growing demand to help new move- 
 ments in widely scattered communities. Those 
 who are already giving themselves largely to their 
 own local work have found it physically impossible 
 to respond to all of these appeals, much as they 
 would have liked to do so. This has made it neces- 
 sary to establish two related organizations, defi- 
 nitely devoted to the task of forum extension: the 
 Ford Hall Foundation and the Co-operative Forum 
 Bureau. 
 
 The Ford Hall Foundation was incorporated in 
 1914 under the laws of the State of Massachusetts, 
 and consists of George W. Coleman, Director; 
 William Horton Foster, Secretary; John K. Allen, 
 Treasurer; and W. V. Bottom, Richard C. Cabot, 
 Louis A. Chandler, Thomas Dreier, William C. 
 Ewing, Everett O. Fisk, George B. Gallup, Harold 
 Marshall, and Felix Vorenberg. Its object is to 
 spread information concerning the meaning and 
 value of the public forum, and to assist local 
 committees to develop such institutions in their 
 own communities. Its oflBcers and members are 
 constantly receiving calls from individuals, groups, 
 and organizations, and have already assisted in
 
 72 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 establishing new forums in nine or ten different 
 States. 
 
 One of the first questions that confronts every 
 forum group is how to obtain speakers. To help 
 answer this question, the Co-operative Forum 
 Bureau has been established, with a managing 
 committee consisting of Harold Marshall, Chairman; 
 Mabel B. Ury, Secretary; and George W. Coleman, 
 Mary C. Crawford, Elmer S. Forbes, and Charles 
 Zueblin. It undertakes to suggest to local com- 
 mittees those who will best meet their conditions 
 and needs, and to work out the problem of how to 
 utilize available speakers to the best advantage 
 and at the minimum traveling expense. It has 
 already proved its usefulness, and will grow in 
 efficiency as it gathers experience. 
 
 It is becoming more and more apparent that the 
 social problems are the insistent ones of our day, 
 and must find their solution not merely in terms of 
 economics, but in a redefinition and reemphasis 
 of moral and spiritual values as well. Everywhere 
 this new social interest is putting a new stress 
 upon individuals and organizations. Those who 
 have seen and felt this most are looking to the 
 open forums for a more adequate expression of the 
 spiritual side of democracy. 
 
 These gatherings have become increasingly repre- 
 sentative, until in the older ones they include every 
 element, — political, social, racial, and religious. 
 The meetings themselves, though entirely free from 
 theological or sectarian expression, show an increas-
 
 THE OPEN FORUM MOVEMENT 73 
 
 ing tendency to become religious in a social sense. 
 The working creed of the Open Forum is "The 
 belief that we must all move together toward the 
 solution of the successive problems of mankind, 
 through the dedication of each to all, the devotion 
 of all to each, and our common consecration to all 
 the nobler ends of life." 
 
 Believers in this religion of democracy are trying 
 all sorts of experiments, inside and outside of the 
 churches, to find and develop effective machinery 
 with which to achieve social salvation. It is too 
 soon to say what share the Open Forum Movement 
 will have in this great endeavor. It is not too soon 
 to say that it is dominated by this ideaL and con- 
 secrated to this effort. The spirit of the Open 
 Forum is the spirit that has changed religious 
 emphasis from selfish other world individualism 
 to an increasingly heroic endeavor to bring in the 
 kingdom of God among men. It is inspired by the 
 religion of the common life. It may yet develop 
 the church of community life.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ONE OF BOSTON'S INSTITUTIONS 
 By A. J. Philpott 
 
 IN 1838 Emerson said: "The time is coming 
 when all men will see that the gift of God to 
 the soul is not a vaunting, overpowering, 
 excluding sanctity, but a sweet, natural goodness, 
 a goodness like thine and mine, and that so invites 
 thine and mine to be and to grow." 
 
 As far as Boston was concerned, the time had 
 come when Ford Hall was necessary, and that is 
 why it became one of Boston's institutions almost in 
 a night. It was in some measure a fulfillment of 
 that prophecy of Emerson's in 1838. For it had 
 real vitality at the start — the kind of vitality that 
 thrives on what it gives. It has given much and 
 it has thrived accordingly. 
 
 It has been an influence of the best kind because 
 there has been a healthy stimulus in its plan and 
 procedure. It has not had to aspire to democracy 
 for it was founded in the truest kind of democratic 
 spirit, — that spirit of democracy which is never 
 arrogant and is courteous and reasonable toward 
 those who are afflicted with different ideas and 
 opinions.
 
 ONE OP BOSTON'S INSTITUTIONS 75 
 
 The thing had happened in Boston that had 
 been happening in all our cities since the Civil 
 War, and that happens in every community into 
 which is poured a continuous stream of new life 
 from outside sources. The old life was satisfied 
 with itself, with its own isms and schisms and social 
 conventions, and with its own methods of doing and 
 thinking, — as it had some right to be. It was not 
 positively opposed to the newcomers, but it was 
 negatively indifferent to their aspirations. The 
 old life was satisfied in its material prosperity and 
 in a kind of isolation that compelled it to exist in 
 that ever narrowing environment which breeds 
 intellectual stagnation and causes loss of virility. 
 
 This figurative explanation does not tell the 
 whole story, but it contains the germs of a thought 
 that had been growing in the minds of many 
 thinking people for years. 
 
 Ford Hall was inevitable, although it was not 
 welcomed with any wild acclaim at the beginning. 
 If it had been its career might have been short 
 and its influence as brief as are all of those influences 
 which quickly stir the passions and emotions of 
 people. And Boston's emotions had been exploited 
 more than once. 
 
 But there were three things that gave Ford 
 Hall an immediate standing and the hope of 
 continuity: its reasonableness, its understandable- 
 ness, and the ultimate satisfaction afforded by the 
 "question hour." For this is above all things a 
 questioning age. The spirit of free inquiry is more
 
 76 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 rampant in the world to-day than ever before. 
 People shun, or smile at, or have an aversion for, 
 the person who presumes to speak ex cathedra, — 
 for the person who asserts and offers neither apology 
 nor explanation. Although people are still fond of 
 illusions, they have little patience with masquerade. 
 
 However, it took the courage of conviction and 
 something of prophetic enthusiasm to launch Ford 
 Hall on the cool and diverse currents of Boston 
 life. But once launched, it was found that it would 
 not only float but sail, and sail well with its own 
 power and with the right kind of a captain and 
 crew, especially a captain who knew all the shoal 
 places and understood the currents of that life. 
 And so after a "tryout" of a season, public con- 
 fidence in the new craft had become so firmly 
 established that she had a full passenger list at all 
 times, and all classes found enjoyment in her 
 sailing qualities. 
 
 So much for metaphor. Here was an institution 
 that proposed to look Truth squarely in the face, 
 no matter who uttered the truth. But the person 
 who uttered it must prove it, — must not get away 
 without satisfying those who may have doubts or 
 may think otherwise. And it was not dedicated 
 to any particular kind of truth. Therein was its 
 greatest appeal to the lay mind, to the public 
 at large, and what is termed "the average person.'* 
 
 Ford Hall was not founded on a philosophy or 
 a theory. It was founded to accommodate the broad 
 spirit of human inquiry for truth, not for the
 
 ONE OF BOSTON'S INSTITUTIONS 77 
 
 protection or propaganda of any ism or schism. It 
 just filled a want in the minds of people to-day 
 who want to know, — without any frills, — the why 
 and wherefore of things, and who want to see if 
 Pilate's question can't be answered: What is 
 truth? 
 
 The men and women in counting-rooms, and 
 stores and shops and factories, and many who were 
 not obliged to labor in such ways, had been asking 
 questions for years, and the answers of special 
 pleaders did not always satisfy them. But Ford 
 Hall gave some of these thinkers and questioners 
 in the mass of the population a chance. It became 
 a clearing-house for the inquisitive. It was a new 
 kind of inquisition, — the inquisition of democracy 
 in which the inquisitors were the plain people. It 
 filled a want because it was vital, and because 
 most of the questions discussed were questions 
 that concerned the actual life and the hopes of 
 the people. And it satisfied the American spirit, 
 because its democracy was both courteous and 
 unaffected; it was just plain common sense. 
 
 That is why the press generally supported the 
 Ford Hall movement. The people of the press 
 are instinctively sensitive to the vital movements 
 of the times, especially to the movements which 
 stir and appeal to the masses. The people of the 
 press sense quickly a new trend in the thought and 
 feeling of the public. They are consciously or 
 unconsciously the "watchdogs" of the community, 
 and like the dog they "smell" of a thing for some
 
 78 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 time before they even "nibble" at it. They first 
 "smelled" of the Ford Hall movement, then they 
 "nibbled" at it; and finally, — well the people of 
 the press became its fast friends. Not only the 
 secular or religious press generally in and around 
 Boston, but the national papers and magazines 
 caught the spirit of the thing and interpreted it 
 largely through the personality of the founder, 
 George W. Coleman. It was a great victory. 
 
 But after all, one of the finest tributes to the 
 worth of Ford Hall, — to what it meant to a great 
 many people, — was the famous "Birthday Book," 
 consisting of "testimonies" and "appreciations" 
 of Ford Hall and the man in whom the Ford 
 Hall spirit is so adequately symbolized, George W. 
 Coleman. That came on the fifth birthday of the 
 Ford Hall movement, and it was the gift to Mr. 
 Coleman of those who had experienced something 
 of the spiritual uplift and stimulus which Ford Hall 
 had afforded for five years. In that book were 
 epitomized the many reasons why Ford Hall has 
 become a Boston Institution.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AN ACTUAL MELTING POT 
 
 By Rolfe Cobleigh 
 
 THE most significant fact in the Ford Hall 
 movement is its realization of American 
 ideals. The Ford Hall Meeting in spirit 
 is a democracy. Democracy is the fundamental 
 purpose of the United States. The process of 
 achieving that purpose is well expressed in Israel 
 Zangwill's phrase, "The Melting Pot." As far 
 as that process has been successful, it has not fused 
 the various racial, religious, and intellectual ele- 
 ments into a mass with the elements no longer 
 distinguishable, but it has brought those elements 
 into harmonious and cooperative relationship. In 
 the early days of the republic, the processes of the 
 "Melting Pot" proceeded with comparative ease 
 because the elements making up the majority of the 
 population were similar. But the rising tide of 
 immigration has swept into congested areas of our 
 great cities so many people so unlike each other in 
 race, language, religion, historic background, and 
 heritage of custom and prejudice that many have 
 not really entered the "Melting Pot," but have 
 remained in little Ghettos, little Italys, and other
 
 80 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 little districts like the lands from which they came. 
 Because of superficial differences, groups have not 
 only failed to mix and cooperate, but have con- 
 tinued old-world antagonisms. Boston is one of 
 the cities in which this has long been a serious 
 problem. Ford Hall is helping to solve it. 
 
 In studying the Ford Hall folks, one is likely to 
 be surprised to find so many different kinds of 
 people, and to find that they all have so much in 
 common. Here indeed is an actual "Melting Pot." 
 The very diversity of the Ford Hall folks is one of 
 their valuable assets. But their most valuable 
 asset is the spiritual alchemy of democracy that 
 pervades the meetings. To that all respond. In 
 Ford Hall, German meets Briton as a brother. 
 Elsewhere he may be an enemy. In Ford Hall, 
 Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Mohammedan, 
 Parsee, Buddhist, and agnostic unite in earnest 
 search for the truth. Elsewhere each may claim 
 exclusive monopoly of the truth. Socialist and 
 anarchist, Republican and Democrat, syndicalist 
 and trade unionist promote the common weal. 
 Elsewhere they may be waging war on one another. 
 Those who attend the Ford Hall meetings listen to 
 addresses representing the most radical and the 
 most widely different points of view. They have 
 learned to listen patiently, attentively; and as they 
 have listened, they have discovered that there are 
 two sides to every question, and that every one 
 may learn much from people whose views differ 
 from his own. As the Ford Hall folks have learned
 
 AN ACTUAL MELTING POT 81 
 
 this lesson with reference to the speakers, they have 
 applied the same principle to those who sit beside 
 them. They have learned to respect the opinions 
 of their neighbors. They come to see the good in 
 their neighbors, and gradually have developed the 
 spirit of good will and good fellowship. 
 
 As Jews are more numerous than any other racial 
 group in the Ford Hall meetings, it has been 
 interesting to note the changed attitude of Ford 
 Hall Jews toward Christians. Some of them came 
 from Russia, and the cruel persecution of Jews by 
 the so-called Christians of official Russia could 
 hardly fail to produce deep-rooted prejudice. Many 
 other races have been reared in an atmosphere of 
 prejudice against the Jew. Freda Rogolsky, — by 
 birth a Russian Jewess, now a patriotic American, 
 — says she has learned that when her Christian 
 friends go to their church and she goes to h>er 
 synagogue, they worship on different corners of the 
 street, but they travel the same road to reach 
 them, — the highway of righteousness. Similar dis- 
 coveries have been made by other Ford Hall Jews 
 and by Ford Hall Christians, who need this vision 
 as much as the Jews; and thus the respect of each 
 for their neighbors of different faith has greatly 
 increased. By knowing each other, prejudice has 
 decreased, and standing together on common 
 ground, they are happy to join forces in seeking 
 the ends that both desire. 
 
 As one looks over the audience in Ford Hall on 
 a Sunday evening, one can hardly fail to be im-
 
 82 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 pressed with tli« earnestness and eagerness upon the 
 faces turned toward the platform. The common 
 purposes seem to be the search for truth and the 
 demand for justice. The individuals may differ 
 as to the methods that should be employed, but 
 since all desire the same ends, it is easy to meet in 
 harmonious relations while those purposes are under 
 discussion. While tolerance and consideration for 
 the other man's point of view has a restraining 
 influence, the meetings are so free that all express 
 themselves with perfect frankness. 
 
 The spirit of the meetings is the spirit of the 
 Chairman. His democracy, his frankness, his 
 fairness have led the way in creating the atmosphere 
 which is characteristic of Ford Hall. His leadership 
 controls the meetings, but that leadership is the 
 leadership of democracy. The Chairman uses no 
 gavel: he needs none. There is no organization: 
 none is needed. There are no rules except the rule 
 of fair play. No obligation embarrasses those who 
 attend Ford Hall except the moral obligations 
 which control men in all social relations. Thus 
 in this little democracy, in the light of truth, in 
 the warmth of brotherhood, in the cooperation of 
 workers for the common weal, the processes of the 
 "Melting Pot" continue. 
 
 The most potent influence in accomplishing the 
 results that have been accomplished in Ford Hall 
 has been the spiritual influence, that many may 
 not recognize or understand, but which is always 
 present. Because it is always present, Ford Hall
 
 AN ACTUAL MELTING POT 83 
 
 succeeds as a "Melting Pot," while other institu- 
 tions of similar purpose but lacking the spiritual 
 element have failed. This influence appeals to 
 one's better self ' and develops character as the 
 Ford Hall folks are inspired to higher ideals and 
 impelled to greater zeal in expressing those ideals 
 in life.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 
 
 By Mary Caroline Crawford 
 
 THE most dramatic incidents at Ford Hall 
 naturally come during the question period. 
 And it is very extraordinary, when one 
 takes into account the fact that the audience then 
 "gets back" at the speaker practically without let 
 or hindrance, that these incidents are so seldom 
 in any way unpleasant. 
 
 Once very early in the movement it looked for just 
 a few minutes as if there might be a need for the 
 blue-coated officer who is always on duty for the 
 purpose of seeing that the aisles are kept clear 
 and the public safety otherwise safeguarded. The 
 night alluded to was when Rabbi Samuel Schulman 
 of New York had been speaking on "What the 
 Jew Has Done for the World and What the World 
 Has Done to the Jew." This lecture was a superb 
 review of the immense contribution which Jews 
 have made to moral, spiritual, and material ad- 
 vance everywhere; and there was no bitterness, — 
 though bitterness might well have been pardoned 
 under the circumstances, — in the speaker's brief
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 85 
 
 reference to the ungenerous fashion in which the 
 world has repaid the Jew for his various services. 
 
 Then came the questions. A number of people 
 asked pertinent but perfectly polite and proper 
 questions which drew out still further the vast 
 fund of knowledge which Doctor Schulman possesses 
 on this subject. Presently a man who wore the 
 blue coat of a veteran arose and said, with a sneer: 
 
 "What have the Jews ever done in time of war 
 for the countries of their adoption.''" 
 
 Doctor Schulman's eyes flashed, and the color 
 mounted high under his swarthy skin. But he 
 controlled himself and again recounted patiently 
 the services rendered by the Jews during the 
 Revolutionary War and quoted some well-known 
 facts and figures concerning their Civil War service. 
 This was what the veteran had been waiting for. 
 
 "Well, I was in the Civil War myself," he re- 
 torted, "and I never saw them except in the sutler's 
 department." 
 
 While Doctor Schulman, unable longer to control 
 himself, was declaring hotly that, though he was 
 glad to answer questions, he would not sit still and 
 hear his race insulted, the veteran slouched out of 
 the room to the accompaniment of the only hisses 
 that have ever been heard at a Ford Hall Sunday 
 Evening Meeting. The people who attend the 
 Ford Hall Meetings believe devoutly in fair play 
 and, that night, they had been immensely moved 
 by Doctor Schulman's praise of the loyal Jews who 
 helped the country in Washington's time, particu-
 
 86 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 larly Hyman Solomon, who at this period loaned 
 the nation money which has never been repaid. 
 They knew from their own reading, too, that during 
 the Spanish War the recruiting offices in New 
 York's East side had been stormed with Jews 
 anxious to enlist, and that a large representation 
 of this race actually went to the front. So they 
 hissed with a will the questioner who asserted that 
 Jews are not patriotic. 
 
 Often there is sparkling repartee between speaker 
 and questioner. On a night when the late Mrs. 
 Ellen Richards of the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology had made a splendid plea for simpler 
 living and higher thinking, there came the question: 
 
 "How is a Russian Jew, engaged in pressing 
 trousers for more than twelve hours a day, to do 
 any high thinking .f^" 
 
 Of course there was a great burst of applause 
 at this; a questioner who can "stump" the speaker 
 is a hero at Ford Hall. But Mrs. Richards was 
 not "stumped." 
 
 "When I did housework," she flashed back, "I 
 used to put in my best thinking while resting on 
 my iron." 
 
 One other passage of wit and wisdom occurred 
 that same evening. 
 
 "If people cannot obtain freedom and justice, 
 how can they be happy .f^" questioned a most 
 unhappy-looking person in the audience. 
 
 "Our fathers found happiness in fighting for 
 freedom and justice," replied Mrs. Richards.
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 87 
 
 But it is not always the speaker who comes out 
 on top. When Doctor Lyman Abbott gave an 
 address on ".Why I Believe in Immortality" at 
 Ford HaU, a man in the audience disconcerted the 
 learned editor by the quickness of his thinking. 
 The question had been asked, "Name any well- 
 known biologist who does not agree that conscious- 
 ness is nothing more nor less than the interaction 
 of nervous forces." Doctor Abbott replied, "Pro- 
 fessor Munsterberg." 
 
 But the questioner would not so be put off. 
 "Professor Munsterberg is a psychologist, not a 
 biologist," he replied quickly. And Doctor Abbott 
 admitted that he could not, offhand, answer the 
 question rightly. 
 
 A dramatic encounter in which a truculent Irish- 
 man had a part occurred some years later. Doctor 
 John Love joy Elliott of New York had referred, 
 in the course of his address, to a recent visit made 
 by him to one of the New York institutions where, 
 as it happened, all the patients in the mental 
 diseases ward had been Jews, and all those in the 
 ward given over to alcoholics, Irishmen. The 
 Irishman construed this as an insult to the Irish 
 race and tried to tangle the speaker up by asking 
 him how he got his information. Doctor Elliott 
 replied that it was a simple matter of record; he 
 had seen the names of both sets of men. But 
 the questioner was still unsatisfied and took his 
 seat only after a tremendous laugh had been turned 
 upon him by the Chairman's saying, "What the
 
 88 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 questioner wants to know is how Doctor Elliott can 
 tell a Jew from an Irishman." 
 
 The questions of one of our Jew friends, Sam 
 Sackmary, always contribute vastly to the interest 
 of the evening. It was Sam who once testified, 
 "I am a Jew, but I want to say right here that 
 nothing in the history of Boston has shown the 
 Christian religion in a better light than these 
 meetings. It has been proved up here that all of 
 us, of all races and creeds, are brothers and can 
 work together. As Faneuil Hall has been called 
 the 'Cradle of Liberty,' so I ask leave to christen 
 Ford Hall Boston's 'Cradle of Fraternity.'" 
 
 Such a man would, of course, ask interesting 
 questions because he is an interesting person. And 
 when the Chairman can "get one" on Sam, every- 
 body, including Sam, enjoys it. Not long ago 
 this happened. Mary Antin was the speaker and, 
 in the course of her address, she had alluded to^a 
 cousin whom she had taken into her home as friend, 
 philosopher, and cook. Sam, during the question 
 period, inquired eagerly, "What has become of the 
 cousm.^ 
 
 "Oh, she's married," replied Mrs. Grabau. 
 
 "Too late, Sam," put in the Chairman. For 
 Sam is a bachelor and highly eligible. 
 
 Another exceedingly interesting Jew who comes 
 to Ford Hall, who has, indeed, been called on more 
 than one occasion "a Ford Hall product," is Freda 
 Rogolsky. She was a young girl of about sixteen 
 when she first came to Ford Hall to hear one of 
 
 I
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 89 
 
 those masterly addresses of Rabbi" Schulman. 
 Because of the persecution her family had felt 
 before they left Russia, Freda was particularly bit- 
 ter toward everything that called itself Christian. 
 When passing a Christian church, she would spit 
 on the sidewalk to express her contempt. Ford 
 Hall softened her heart and won her admiration. 
 About a year after her first appearance among 
 us, she wrote a letter to the Chairman in which 
 she said that she looked forward to the Ford Hall 
 Meetings the way she looked for the stars at night, 
 and that she had never understood what America 
 meant until she came to Ford Hall. She couldn't 
 believe before that people representing different re- 
 ligious faiths might sit down together in a friendly 
 spirit and discuss great themes without wanting 
 to kill each other as they did in Russia. 
 
 Freda's father and mother never come to Ford 
 Hall because they are still too foreign in language 
 to understand, and too orthodox in faith to adapt 
 themselves to such a meeting-place. As soon as 
 they discovered that their little daughter was being 
 blessed and made happy in spirit without being 
 proselytized, they manifested their good will and 
 appreciation by extending to Mr. and Mrs. Coleman 
 an earnest invitation to come to their humble 
 home in the West End and partake of the Passover 
 Feast with them. And they were heard after the 
 event to declare that Mr. Coleman must have 
 Jewish blood in his veins. 
 
 Young men and young women who are "keeping
 
 90 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 company" together are often in the audience at 
 Ford Hall, and sometimes the question that one or 
 the other of them asks the speaker is seen to have 
 a very personal bearing. Such was the case with 
 the tall youth who one night asked Doctor Charles 
 Fleischer very shyly whether a Jew and a Christian 
 would do right to marry. "If both want to, my 
 answer would be 'y^^,' of course," replied the 
 speaker of the evening. "And if you can't find a 
 minister who wants to tie the knot," he added, 
 "come to me." Young men and young women 
 who together have listened thoughtfully to such 
 addresses and discussions as go on at Ford Hall 
 would seem to have taken a very good course 
 preparatory to a safe and happy marriage. Nowa- 
 days it is a truism that the double standard of 
 morals is a thing not to be tolerated. But when 
 Professor William Salter, speaking at Ford Hall, in 
 November, 1908, on "Tolstoi's Story of a Soul's 
 Resurrection", asserted that "the man who sins 
 against chastity is as culpable as a woman," the 
 thought was so new that it got into the headlines 
 of the morning papers. Later Clifford Roe of 
 Chicago spoke on "The Unsocial Evil", and 
 though a woman member of the citizens' committee 
 presided, — in the absence of the Chairman, — 
 and the plainest of English was used throughout 
 the evening, the meeting passed off without any 
 undue strain or any great feeling of self-conscious- 
 ness on the part of the audience. It was much 
 the same when Richard Bennett, the actor, talked
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 91 
 
 about his object in producing Brieux's Damaged 
 Goods; or on the evening (in 1914) when "Breeding 
 Men" was the topic, and two physicians and a 
 clergyman set forth in untechnical terms the right 
 of every child to be well born. 
 
 Probably the most paradoxical thing in all Ford 
 Hall history happened during the season of 1910- 
 1911 when Father Thomas I. Gasson, a Jesuit, 
 spoke on a Baptist platform, — Baptist, at least, 
 in support, — and advocated anti-Socialism to a 
 company of people a large number of whom were 
 ardent Socialists. And the whole occasion was 
 marked by the utmost good will! The numerical 
 response to that meeting was unprecedented and 
 the newspapers of the following morning devoted 
 nearly their entire front pages to reports of the 
 lecture and of the questions and answers. One of 
 these questions was whether Father Gasson would 
 refuse the Communion to a man he knew to be a 
 Socialist. The reply was that it would depend on 
 what kind of a Socialist the man might be. When 
 in answering another question, the speaker of the 
 evening confessed that he had never read the plat- 
 form of the Socialist party, a Socialist who had a 
 place nearby deftly slipped a copy of this economic 
 creed into the Jesuit's hand. 
 
 Norman Hapgood, editor of Harper's Weekly, is 
 a man whom Ford Hall always turns out to wel- 
 come warmly; and there is usually a good deal of 
 life and color in his question period. Once, when 
 he and another man were sharing the questions.
 
 m DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 there appeared to be some doubt as to whom the 
 inquirer wished to have answer his query. "Here, 
 let's match for it," put in Hapgood, stretching out 
 his long figure to reach into his trousers' pocket, 
 and they almost did! Hapgood has a Lincolnian 
 habit of making his effects by means of homely 
 stories which greatly delight his Ford Hall hearers. 
 Once, when asked how much his paper had done 
 to secure presidential primaries, he replied as 
 follows: 
 
 "Young Sammy often listened in wonder to his 
 father's tales of deeds of daring done during the 
 Civil War. One day, after a particularly thrilling 
 account of how father had saved the day for the 
 Union, Sammy asked, 'Say, pa, did any one help 
 you put down the rebellion.f^' " 
 
 For such movements as Foreign Missions, an 
 audience like that at Ford Hall might be supposed 
 to have very little enthusiasm. Their attitude of 
 mind, for the most part, would be more nearly 
 expressed in the question once put here to William 
 T. Ellis, "Doesn't charity begin at home.?" than 
 in that speaker's reply, "Yes, but it ceases to be 
 charity if it stays there." None the less, among 
 the stirring moments in the history of this move- 
 ment, there has been none more dramatic than 
 when Thomas C. Hall of New York, in reply to 
 a question a year ago, belittling the value of for- 
 eign missions, burst out passionately, "Selfish, 
 selfish egoists, are we, every one, if we say that 
 anybody in our backyard is more valuable than
 
 DRAMATIC INCIDENTS 93 
 
 any God-given child under the sun! Every human 
 child needs redemption. If we believe our reli- 
 gion, God will blast us if we do not tell it to every 
 man and woman in the world. Would that I had 
 a thousand lives that I might pour them all out 
 preaching this gospel to men everywhere!" 
 
 The Ford Hall people thrilled to that. For it 
 was an application to the ideals of the Christian 
 of the very thing they care so deeply about. Not 
 a man or woman among them whose soul does not 
 kindle and whose eyes fail to glow when the words 
 brotherhood and democracy are pronounced; and 
 from Doctor Hall, who is working hard, just as 
 they are, at the job of social revolution, the job of 
 making it possible for Christ's kingdom to come on 
 earth, they are very willing to accept a plea for 
 Foreign Missions. They are themselves imbued 
 with the Foreign Mission idea, though they do not 
 realize it. Their desire to set up in other cities 
 forums where other men and women may experi- 
 ence something of the joy and freedom which Ford 
 Hall has meant to them is close kin to the passion 
 of the saved man to go forth and save others. Not 
 long ago at a gathering of the Ford Hall Folks, 
 there was some talk about the advisability of 
 having collections at the meetings and as to the 
 use which should be made of any money that 
 might thus be raised. Nearly all the folk are 
 poor and many of them are brought face to face 
 daily with want, — if not in their own persons in 
 the person of their neighbors. It would have been
 
 94 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 quite natural had they decided to devote whatever 
 sums might be raised by the proposed collections to 
 the alleviation of the material needs of their friends 
 and fellow-countrymen. But that was not at all 
 what they did vote. "Let us put this money into 
 the dissemination of the Ford Hall idea," they said, 
 with almost a single voice. "Let us help to multi- 
 ply throughout America forums which, like ours, 
 will enable Jew and Gentile, believer and unbe- 
 liever, and Christians of every phase and fashion, 
 to understand each other and so become brothers." 
 The Ford Hall people care about and deeply 
 believe in this kind of missionary work. They 
 know that it is true, as James P. Munroe pointed 
 out on a certain anniversary occasion, that, "after 
 two centuries of talking about democracy, we are 
 at last making democracy. Just as Rome was 
 fortunate in having its Mars Hill upon which 
 men like Paul could stand and tell truths, Boston 
 is fortunate," he said, "in having Ford Hall on 
 Beacon Hill."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR DEVOTIONAL EXPRESSION 
 
 By George W. Coleman 
 
 THERE is something about the Ford Hall 
 Sunday-evening Meetings that is unique. 
 Although they were modeled somewhat 
 after the Sunday-evening Meetings held in Cooper 
 Union, New York, every one who is familiar with 
 both says they are distinctly different. More per- 
 haps than any other similar open forum, the Ford 
 Hall Meetings have the power to propagate them- 
 selves. In the writer's judgment this distinctly 
 virile quality is due largely to the deep and broadly 
 pervasive, though entirely unsectarian, religious 
 note which is never lacking and which finds audible 
 expression in the congregational singing, the custom- 
 ary prayer, and the occasional Scripture reading. 
 This manifestation of the devotional element in 
 the meeting, however, was somewhat slow and 
 gradual in its development. The how and why 
 of it make a rather interesting story. 
 
 At the initial meeting, February 23, 1908, it 
 was the writer's intention, as Chairman, to read 
 the twenty-third Psalm, lead in the Lord's Prayer, 
 and ask every one to join in the singing of "Amer-
 
 96 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ica." But the small attendance, — only one hun- 
 dred and fifty in a hall that seats eleven hundred, 
 — was so dunifounding that all preconceived ideas 
 were thrown to the winds, and the situation dealt 
 with as appeared to be wise at the time. As a result, 
 there was no congregational singing, — no devo- 
 tional exercises whatever. Throughout the first and 
 second seasons, the meetings continued to be con- 
 ducted in this fashion, in spite of the very emphatic 
 protest of some of the official members of the 
 Boston Baptist Social Union. 
 
 To the Chairman it seemed that it would be 
 fatal for any one to attempt to prescribe spiritual 
 conventions for this wholly unprecedented audience 
 made up in large part of Jews, agnostics, and non- 
 churchgoers generally; and yet he was hopeful that, 
 by experimentation, it might be possible to find 
 some mode of expression of the religious spirit 
 which would meet with general approval and greatly 
 strengthen the character of the meetings. Strangely 
 enough, on an Easter Sunday night, when he was 
 himself to give the address of the evening on the 
 subject "The Religion of the Crowd" and had 
 made up his mind that the time had come to see 
 if they could pray together without introducing 
 anything divisive, he was earnestly warned against 
 taking such a dangerous step. This was the atti- 
 tude of some of his dearest and most trusted and 
 more spiritually-minded friends, who conceived 
 that prayer was rather out of place on such an 
 occasion. When the suggestion of prayer was made
 
 STRUGGLE FOR DEVOTIONAL EXPRESSION 97 
 
 to the audience, some held their breath lest the 
 beautiful spirit of fellowship and mutual considera- 
 tion which had been so painstakingly developed 
 might be broken down and dissipated at one fell 
 stroke. In view of the presence of three or four 
 hundred Jews, — many of them direct from Russia, 
 still tingling from Christian persecution, — a diffi- 
 cult problem indeed was presented! 
 
 The Chairman had made up his mind, however, 
 that the time had come to attempt devotional ex- 
 pression. He began by telling the audience about 
 that universal prayer which was used at all of the 
 sessions of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 
 and was found to be equally acceptable to Buddhist, 
 Confucianist, Mohammedan, Jew, Catholic, and 
 Protestant; and the suggestion was made that it 
 was reasonable to suppose that this same prayer 
 might prove well adapted to the company at Ford 
 Hall, which, after all, was not so complex as the 
 Chicago one. The audience then joined in that 
 universal prayer, — the Lord's Prayer, — those re- 
 citing it who could, and others holding an attitude 
 of respect or reverence as a matter of courtesy. 
 
 Throughout the next season the Chairman 
 sought, at the beginning of each meeting, to 
 gather up the aspirations of the whole company 
 in some prayerful expression that was devoid of 
 any technically religious language, and which would 
 appeal to the conscience of all sound-hearted 
 people. But because he did this extempora- 
 neously, he was under the triple embarrassment
 
 98 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVLA^KING 
 
 of being self-conscious, aware of the opposing 
 elements in the audience, and fearful of slipping 
 into the use of religious expressions that were like 
 second nature to him but would only be an offense 
 to some of those who heard him. At the beginning 
 of the next season, following the advice of a well- 
 known theological professor, he committed his 
 prayers to writing. This insured brevity, removed 
 his own anxiety, and gave added force. 
 
 Although there were occasional rumors to the 
 
 effect that the meetings were getting "too d 
 
 religious", no serious criticism was encountered on 
 account of the custom of praying together, and it 
 was not long after the written form had been 
 adopted that this astounding thing happened one 
 night: The prayer was followed by a big round 
 of applause! The topic for the evening had been 
 "The Fine Art of Stealing", and the prayer natu- 
 rally dealt with the subject of property and covetous- 
 ness. Although the applause took the Chairman's 
 breath away for a moment, he could not see very 
 much difference between clapping the hands and 
 shouting "Amen", and frankly told the audience 
 that they at Ford Hall did not have to follow 
 precedents, but could make their own; if that was 
 their way of expressing their participation in a 
 prayer, they were welcome to use it. Ever since 
 then, whenever the audience feels so disposed 
 (which is not always, by any means), the prayer 
 is applauded, — with greater or less vigor, according 
 to the interest it has elicited.
 
 STRUGGLE FOR DEVOTIONAL EXPRESSION 99 
 
 At various times, Professor Rauschenbusch's 
 published prayers were, found most acceptable to 
 the audience, and they were used as often as the 
 subject under discussion for the evening made an 
 appropriate selection possible. The audience had 
 come to know and had learned to love Professor 
 Rauschenbusch by hearing him on the Ford Hall 
 platform, and so greatly enjoyed the reading of 
 his prayers. 
 
 In the meantime some fine hymns had been 
 found that could be sung without introducing any- 
 thing offensive to race, class, or creed. "America, 
 the Beautiful," by Katharine Lee Bates, soon be- 
 came a great favorite. Gilbert K. Chesterton's 
 "O God of Earth and Altar" and Ella Wheeler 
 Wilcox's "The Government to Be" are very popu- 
 lar at these meetings. "God Save the People," by 
 Ebenezer Elliott, is also much liked. 
 
 It is wonderful how well this variable and com- 
 plex crowd can sing some of the hymns with which 
 they have become fairly familiar, and their ability 
 along this line is constantly increasing. Mr. John 
 Harris Gutterson, who had general charge of the 
 musical portion of the program for three or four 
 seasons, was largely responsible for the develop- 
 ment of the congregational singing. 
 
 At various times some young Jewess has read 
 a passage from the Old Testament, and occa- 
 sionally a speaker hangs his message on a text 
 from either the Old or New Testament. Thus it 
 is that the devotional element has found very
 
 100 DEMOCRACY IN THE IMAKING 
 
 marked expression in the meetings, with great bene- 
 fit to all and no hurt to any, so far as can be ob- 
 served. During the prayer very many do not bow 
 their heads at all, but this is quite usual in Jewish 
 audiences when prayer is offered. In order not 
 to fall into a conventional habit, an effective poem 
 sometimes takes the place of prayer, and again, 
 occasionally, for two and sometimes three meet- 
 ings in succession, there is nothing at all of this 
 nature. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the character and 
 form of the Lord's Prayer furnishes the type of 
 devotional expression that best fits an audience so 
 conglomerate as this one in its religious predilec- 
 tions. An ascription to deity, couched in varying 
 terms according to the mood of the hour, followed 
 by simple, direct petitions for help and blessing, 
 terminating with a simple "Amen", provides a 
 vehicle for the expression of common aspirations 
 without provoking contention, or stirring prejudice, 
 or incurring ill will on the part of any one. While 
 the prayers have always been more or less uncon- 
 ventional, they have never verged on what is com- 
 mon or cheap. Occasionally some one who never 
 attends the meetings and knows nothing of the 
 hearts and minds of the people who congregate 
 there raises the objection that these prayers are 
 hopelessly futile because they are not offered in 
 the name of Christ. Such a person forgets that 
 the Christian and Jew, who worship the same God, 
 cannot pray together in that way; and he also
 
 STRUGGLE FOR DEVOTIONAL EXPRESSION; lai 
 
 overlooks the form of the model prayer which Jesus 
 himself gave his disciples. 
 
 The prayers have proved themselves to be suflB- 
 ciently effective for the members of the audience 
 to request that they be put in printed form, and 
 this has resulted in the publication, by the American 
 Baptist Publication Society (Griffith and Rowland 
 Press), Philadelphia, of a little book, entitled The 
 People s Prayers as Voiced by a Layman. This 
 book contains, in addition to a selection of about 
 thirty of the prayers, a dozen or more of the 
 hymns that are most used at the Ford Hall 
 Meetings. 
 
 Many surprising and striking incidents have 
 occurred, giving evidence of the strong under- 
 current of religious feeling that pervades the meet- 
 ings. There was a very dramatic occasion, one 
 evening during the fourth season, when Mr. Frank 
 Urbanski, then a firebrand street preacher of 
 Socialism and agnosticism (he has more lately 
 been advocating religion and attacking Socialism, 
 under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church), 
 and a band of his young cohorts, entrenched them- 
 selves in a body in the left-hand gallery. The 
 speaker of the evening. Reverend James A. Francis, 
 D.D., gave a splendid address on the topic, "The 
 Get-Together Basis in Religion." When the ques- 
 tion period reached their gallery, Urbanski led off 
 with the first of a series of questions which he had 
 prepared and distributed among his followers, all 
 of which were in a hateful, carping, bigoted spirit.
 
 im DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 For example, one young fellow wanted to know 
 how the speaker knew that man had a soul; did 
 he ever weigh a person just before he died and just 
 afterward and, if so, how much did the soul weigh? 
 The Chairman went out of the hall that night, 
 discouraged and depressed, spiritually chilled to 
 the bone, a fit subject for spiritual pneumonia. 
 On leaving the building and passing little groups 
 of people still engaged in discussing the meeting, 
 he noticed one made up of Urbanski's company 
 and found them railing at one of their number 
 after this fashion: "Good-by, old man; Good-by. 
 We're sorry to lose you. The Christians have got 
 you!" Turning toward the individual thus ad- 
 dressed, the Chairman recognized one of his flock 
 who was particularly noted for his bitterness toward 
 the church. He was facing his erstwhile compan- 
 ions and met their jeer with great vigor and 
 dignity, declaring repeatedly that he was a Chris- 
 tian, that he believed in Jesus Christ, but that he 
 was no church member any more. He then ex- 
 plained to the Chairman that he had been deeply 
 interested in the lecture of the evening and had 
 accepted every word. 
 
 It is generally recognized that it has been pos- 
 sible to do some things at Ford Hall which are 
 ordinarily regarded as very dangerous or impossible. 
 When it is realized that a Jesuit priest has spoken 
 on a platform supported by Baptist money, and 
 has emphasized the dangers of Socialism in a 
 crowded meeting freely open to every radical mind
 
 STRUGGLE FOR DEVOTIONAL EXPRESSION 103 
 
 and bitter spirit of a great cosmopolitan city with- 
 out incurring any disaster or even reflecting any dis- 
 credit, one begins to understand that there must be 
 something about the atmosphere of the Ford Hall 
 Meetings which is different from that of the usual 
 heterogeneous mass meeting. On the occasion just 
 referred to, both the speaker and the audience 
 handled themselves with credit to all concerned 
 through two hours of intense intellectual conflict 
 and emotional strain. 
 
 In the writer's judgment, it is the all-powerful, 
 though untagged and often unrecognized, religious 
 spirit which pervades the whole company that makes 
 this possible. How otherwise could preacher and 
 atheist, Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, 
 Socialist and anarchist, radical and conservative, 
 syndicalist and monopolist, trade-unionist and 
 trust magnate, hear each other propound antago- 
 nistic views with never a serious violation of the 
 limitations of courtesy, mutual respect, kindly 
 toleration, and fair play.^* That is what goes on 
 at Ford Hall constantly. The result, as may be 
 easily seen, is to mellow and soften the hateful 
 and bitter, to prod and quicken the smug and 
 complacent, to broaden and expand the narrow 
 and bigoted, and to temper and focus the dreamer 
 and visionary.
 
 PART II 
 A REGISTER OF JUDGMENTS
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PART H 
 
 THE Ford Hall enterprise is forever in- 
 debted to the men and women who have 
 freely given of their best on our plat- 
 form that others might have life and have it more 
 abundantly. This is as true of those who have 
 served in our musical programs as it is of those 
 who have come to lecture and then willingly sub- 
 mitted themselves as targets for the rapid-fire 
 questioning of an audience with a high record for 
 marksmanship. The fact that such splendid serv- 
 ice has been rendered, year in and year out, not 
 for gain or personal advantage but simply to help 
 our common humanity, has been in itself a great 
 asset to our work from the very beginning. 
 
 Who, then, would be getter qualified to give a 
 careful judgment as to the worth of the Ford Hall 
 principle and the value of the Ford Hall spirit 
 than some of those very same speakers who have 
 come to know us so well.^^ Their own experience 
 is so rich and their reputation so wide that any 
 judgment they render would carry great weight 
 and travel far. 
 
 Every one of the following chapters is written 
 by a lecturer who has faced a Ford Hall audience 
 from two to eight times. Every one of the speak-
 
 108 DEMOCRACY xN THE MAKING 
 
 ers is greatly respected and admired by the Ford 
 Hall people. They are all top-notchers in their 
 power to instruct and sway this strange, hetero- 
 geneous audience. There are a number of others 
 who might well have been included in this group, 
 did space and circumstances permit. These will 
 suiBce, however, to present an all-round interpre- 
 tation of Ford Hall, gathered from widely varying 
 points of view. The Jew, the Catholic, the 
 Protestant, and the agnostic are all represented 
 among these speakers. Three of them are Socialists 
 of one stripe or another, and at least one is dis- 
 tinctly an anti-Socialist. Irish, German, Hungarian, 
 Swiss, Russian, Austrian, and New England stock 
 is represented among them. Six of them are 
 preachers by profession. Roughly speaking, they 
 are all in the prime of life, around the forties 
 and fifties. Not one of them is a person of wealth 
 or privilege or leisure. They come from England, 
 Minnesota, Iowa, New York, and New England. 
 
 Stanton Coit, the social mystic, whose dec- 
 larations are all wrong from the orthodox point 
 of view, will open his Bible to the text, "Am I 
 My Brother's Keeper.?" and preach to those Ford 
 Hall folks a sermon which, for spiritual insight 
 and practical effectiveness, will be the masterpiece 
 of the season. No one ever comes to our platform 
 with a more contagious spiritual fervor than that 
 which characterizes this speaker. 
 
 Rabbi Wise is immensely popular at Ford Hall 
 with both Jew and Gentile. His coming is looked
 
 INTRODUCTION 109 
 
 forward to every year as one of the great treats of 
 the season. He never fails in his popular appeal, 
 and he always brings a real message of transform- 
 ing power, as I have had occasion to witness more 
 than once. 
 
 No speaker who comes to Ford Hall is more 
 beloved than Professor Rauschenbusch. Jew and 
 Christian alike feel the same warmth of affection 
 toward him. He has kept in the closest touch 
 with our enterprise almost from the very begin- 
 ning, and his great name and influence were a 
 tower of strength to us in our troublous days. 
 
 That night, years ago, when Professor Steiner 
 took us by the hand and led us swiftly up the 
 heights of brotherhood, will forever remain a most 
 delectable memory. There was something almost 
 uncanny in the delicate and yet powerful under- 
 standing that fused us all, speaker and audience, 
 into one great soul that night. "Sitting in heavenly 
 places" would be the only language I know that 
 would properly describe our experience on that 
 occasion. 
 
 If we were to have just one speaker to carry us 
 through a whole season at Ford Hall, Professor 
 Zueblin would come nearer to fulfilling the re- 
 quirements than any man that I know. He comes 
 to us regularly, year after year, with a message 
 each time as fresh, pungent, and practical as the 
 first one we ever heard from him. And I think 
 very likely he understands us more completely 
 than any one else.
 
 110 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 President Faunce perhaps would not be picked 
 among the first choices as a winning speaker for 
 such an unorthodox crowd, from every point of 
 view, as gathers at Ford Hall. But that is where 
 we all would make a mistake. He made a flying 
 start and a hot finish the very first time he 
 appeared before our folks. Our difficulty is to 
 get him as often as we want him. 
 
 Father Ryan is entirely correct in his under- 
 standing of the growing appreciation of and friendli- 
 ness for him on the part of the Ford Hall audience, 
 after his appearance on our platform for three suc- 
 cessive seasons. Not only by the intrinsic value of 
 his addresses and through the attractiveness of his 
 own personality, but also because of what he repre- 
 sented, has he made a marked and very valuable 
 contribution to the thought and feeling of those 
 who attend Ford Hall. It was a distinctly pleas- 
 ant revelation to many of us Protestants to dis- 
 cover that the Roman Church was making such 
 splendid contributions to the economic and social 
 thought of the day. We value highly this friendly 
 commingling with our Catholic friends in these 
 days when religious prejudice is running riot; and 
 I trust that they will understand that Ford Hall 
 is not a church, nor does it teach a religion in the 
 Catholic sense of that word, nor does it assume 
 any guardianship over the messages that are de- 
 livered from its platform. Ford Hall is an Open 
 Forum, and is like an independent newspaper that 
 seeks to give expression to all sides. When Father
 
 INTRODUCTION 111 
 
 Ryan appears on our platform, he is no more 
 
 responsible for the speaker of the preceding or 
 
 the following Sunday than he was responsible for 
 
 all the articles in Everybody's Magazine during the 
 
 months that he was writing for it. 
 
 G. W. C.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 BY A MAN OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Walter Rauschenhusch 
 
 THE first thing that impresses a speaker 
 who is used to church surroundings is 
 the auditorium of Ford Halh In its 
 construction and ornamentation there is no sugges- 
 tion of churchliness; neither is there anything 
 theatrical. It is an auditorium for speaking and 
 for nothing else. It is of ideal size, readily con- 
 trolled by any conversational voice. There are 
 no distant spaces in the rear, where the faces of 
 the audience melt into a dim confusion. Every 
 face which bends down from the gallery to phrase 
 its question is seen by the man on the platform 
 as a laboring and expressive human face with a 
 soul behind it. A larger hall would demand de- 
 clamatory delivery from the speaker, and would 
 suppress all except a few self-assertive persons in 
 the audience. Ford Hall is an ideal place for 
 intellectual discussion to which a friendly human 
 touch can be added. And that is the forum idea: 
 thought jjIus friendliness. 
 
 As I am asked to write this chapter as a repre- 
 sentative of the church, I take satisfaction in the 
 fact that the plant for these meetings was fur-
 
 BY A MAN OF THE CHURCH 113 
 
 nished through church influences. During his 
 Hfetime, the deepest interests and purposes of Mr. 
 Ford were rehgious, and his bequest, though social 
 in part, had the same purpose. He placed it 
 under the control of a religious organization to 
 carry out that purpose. It was very natural that 
 at least a minority of the Baptist Social Union 
 should be in doubt whether these secular meetings 
 are religious enough to justify the use of these 
 trust funds. I can imagine other religious bodies 
 that would never have yielded the use of the prop- 
 erty for such a purpose, or would still be hesi- 
 tating about launching out on uncharted seas. 
 The Baptist Social Union deserves real credit for 
 taking so broad a view of the scope of religious 
 work at all. 
 
 In the same way the Church stands in one way 
 or another behind the great majority of the other 
 forums which are now springing up all over the 
 country. Most of them are under religious aus- 
 pices, held in church buildings, or supported by 
 funds coming from religious men and organizations. 
 Here we can see part of the great plant of the 
 Church, which has been built up by the gifts of 
 generations of religious people, swung into the serv- 
 ice of these new democratic institutions, which 
 have so few marks of traditional religion about 
 them. It takes real prophetic and sympathetic 
 insight to see that these forums are really labora- 
 tories in which the working religion of the American 
 democracy is crystallizing.
 
 lU DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 The outfit of Ford Hall in personalities is also 
 in large part derived from the Church. The most 
 important personal agency in it is George W. 
 Coleman, and the Church has been a great factor 
 in his development. When he was a sensitive and 
 diffident boy, it was the Sunday-school and Church 
 which gave him friendship and stimulus. It was 
 the Christian Endeavor Pledge which compelled 
 him to get up and take part once a week. Under 
 the stimulus of religion, he learned to hold himself 
 in control and to become a public speaker in spite 
 of himself. Within various organizations of re- 
 ligion, he learned to handle public meetings and 
 to work with men in a friendly spirit for ideal 
 ends. After years of that kind of preparation, he 
 stood at the head of the Social Union with the 
 Ford Bequest within reach. So he is a gift of 
 the Church to this new movement. 
 
 The same is true of many of his associates at 
 Ford Hall. These meetings, and the other work 
 clustering about them, are made possible by the 
 trained ability and willingness to serve of a large 
 group of men and women, and many of these are 
 the product of religious homes and of church in- 
 fluences. This is the case also with many of the 
 Jews who are the stanch friends of Ford Hall. 
 Many of them may have broken away now from 
 the synagogue of their fathers, but they cannot get 
 away from its religious influences. In their mental 
 make-up and their instinctive idealism they em- 
 body the historic equipment of the Hebrew people.
 
 BY A MAN OF THE CHURCH 115 
 
 What is true of Mr. Coleman holds true of most 
 of the other men who have initiated forums suc- 
 cessfully in other cities. Not all of them will 
 succeed. The ecclesiastical mind and habit are an 
 almost fatal handicap; the religious spirit and 
 enthusiasm are one of the strongest guarantees of 
 success. 
 
 The participation of organized religion in the 
 forum movement is clear also in the case of the 
 speakers. The ministry furnishes a ready fund of 
 intellectual ability and training in public speaking 
 on which the forums can draw. It certainly 
 argues that at least some ministers have a good 
 deal of adaptability and freedom, if they can fall 
 in with the requirements of such miscellaneous 
 audiences. 
 
 It is not accidental that the forum movement 
 has developed so swiftly. It is a product of the 
 historic spirit of the American people. Ford Hall 
 draws on the heritage of New England. In Roman 
 Catholic countries, audiences would hardly enjoy 
 such freedom of expression, except in anti-clerical 
 organizations. On the other hand, in Northern 
 Europe there would be no such warmth of religious 
 idealism. The spirit of the American forums is 
 neither clerical nor anti-clerical; it is intellectually 
 free, but controlled by religious good will. This 
 combination is a product of generations of American 
 life. 
 
 I am not obeying denominational loyalty only 
 when I add that in the case of Ford Hall, it may
 
 116 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 also be a product of the Baptist spirit. To a 
 superficial observer, the Baptist denomination is 
 very little in evidence there. But it may have 
 contributed more than we realize. The distinctive 
 quality of the Baptists has been their ultra- 
 democracy; their pride is the contribution which 
 they have made to religious liberty. Denomina- 
 tions based more firmly on religious authority 
 might not have been so likely to inaugurate these 
 meetings. Ford Hall and the other similar forums 
 are in line with those forces of the past which have 
 democratized religion and have aided the laity in 
 securing the right to religious self-expression within 
 the church. The questions asked from the floor 
 are the briefest and most compressed form in 
 which the audience can react on the statements 
 of the speaker. Large numbers of individuals can 
 there ask him to verify or amplify his statements 
 and will certainly bring home to him in which of 
 his points his hearers were most interested. In 
 the pulpit a preacher is safe from interrogation 
 and can travel the well-worn paths pleasing to 
 his feet. He may not talk over the heads of his 
 audience, but he is likely to talk past their heads. 
 He may prove over and over again truths which 
 his hearers would grant him with a yawn, and may 
 never touch those questions which constitute the 
 gravest burden of their minds. Imagine a dozen 
 people rising after the ordinary Sunday service to 
 question the preacher! It would be a shock of 
 reality.
 
 BY A MAN OF THE CHURCH 117 
 
 The religious life which is working its way in 
 these forums is not cast in dogmatic molds. It 
 is most deeply interested in the moral and spiritual 
 side of secular life and social problems. A speaker 
 who uses theological terminology will get little 
 response. The man who can express the social 
 longings and demands of the people with religious 
 faith and hope will get an earnest hearing. This 
 shows that the people are moving in line with the 
 historic development of modern Christianity toward 
 increasing simplicity of doctrine and heavier pres- 
 sure on the ethical outcome of religion. Here we 
 can watch the American people working out anew 
 the higher meaning of life, seeking to understand 
 the trend and purpose of human history, and laying 
 hold of those social forces which seem to promise 
 salvation for the collective life of our people. 
 When religion is realized as a powerful support of 
 the ideas of freedom, justice, and brotherhood, they 
 feel its value, and many who thought they had 
 turned their back on religion find themselves 
 returning to it by new ways.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BY A CATHOLIC PRIEST 
 
 John A. Ryan 
 
 MY relations to Ford Hall have been 
 invariably and progressively pleasant. 
 At my first appearance there, in 1912, 
 the questions that I was called upon to answer 
 contained a certain element of challenge, if not of 
 hostility. I have never experienced, and I can 
 scarcely hope to experience again, an hour of such 
 energizing enjoyment and stimulating intellectual 
 combat as the question-period which followed my 
 lecture that evening. The questions addressed to 
 me on the occasion of my second address, in 1913, 
 were considerably less militant in tone, while those 
 that I met at the close of my lecture in 1915 were 
 as friendly as any reasonable person could expect. 
 Moreover, the general attitude of the audience 
 progressed from a sort of neutral politeness at my 
 first appearance to what looked to me like genuine 
 friendliness in 1915. From all this I conclude 
 that the Ford Hall audiences are tolerant and 
 open-minded, and ready to acknowledge the merits 
 of view-points with which they have previously been 
 unacquainted, and toward which they may have
 
 BY A CATHOLIC PRIEST 119 
 
 been prejudiced. And I draw the further conclu- 
 sion that the appearance of a CathoHc priest on 
 the Ford Hall platform can have educational value 
 of the highest kind. 
 
 As I understand the general theory and pur- 
 pose of the Ford Hall Meetings, they aim at the 
 exposition and discussion of socio-ethical problems 
 in the freest manner and in a democratic spirit, 
 with especial reference to the needs of the un- 
 churched and the relatively unassimilated. No 
 one, I take it, will deny the value and nobility of 
 this ideal. Our age and country are perplexed 
 with social questions of great gravity, pertaining 
 to the industrial, civic, and domestic departments 
 of life, and with a great variety of moral questions 
 affecting every field of conduct. That we all need 
 instruction and light on these problems is a plati- 
 tude. That those elements of our population 
 which are unaffiliated with a church, and which 
 have not yet become fully adjusted to our insti- 
 tutions stand in particular need of enlightenment 
 and guidance, wull be universally conceded. That 
 the method and atmosphere of the Ford Hall 
 Meetings, with their spirit of brotherhood, their 
 recognition of the human being as a human being, 
 their opportunities of expression offered to every 
 person who has a question to ask, a suggestion to 
 propose, or a difficulty to be solved, have certain 
 advantages which facilitate the attainment of the 
 main end, will probably be admitted by any one 
 who has studied the method and atmosphere at
 
 120 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 close range. That the average regular attendant 
 at the meetings becomes less dogmatic and more 
 tolerant in his social beliefs, and that many of 
 the frequenters experience a softening of their 
 rampant radicalism, seems to be entirely probable. 
 
 In the issue of Ford Hall Folks which contained 
 the account of my 1915 address, Mr. George W. 
 Coleman declared that he had never come into 
 close personal contact with Catholic clergymen 
 until he met them on the platform of Ford Hall, 
 and he expressed an eager desire for a greater 
 intermingling of the various elements of the com- 
 munity for the advancement of the common life. 
 To this sentiment any intelligent Catholic would 
 give hearty assent. Because they recognize its 
 soundness. Catholics are to be found participating 
 in movements and organizations like the National 
 Conference of Charities and Corrections, the 
 American Association for Labor Legislation, the 
 National Child Labor Committee, the National 
 Consumers' League, and others of the same gen- 
 eral character. 
 
 In the interest of effectiveness, and to avert 
 mutual misunderstanding, however, certain prob- 
 lems of method in this social cooperation ought 
 to be frankly faced. The first of these arises 
 from the fact that no Catholic can conscientiously 
 become a part of any social or civic movement 
 which is organized on a professedly religious basis, 
 or purports to be a religious undertaking, even 
 though the lines followed may be entirely unde- 
 
 i
 
 BY A CATHOLIC PRIEST 121 
 
 nominational. Since the Catholic believes that 
 there is only one true statement of religious faith, 
 and that this statement can be neither increased 
 nor diminished without essentially falsifying it, he 
 cannot possibly assist in promoting any religious 
 platform or program which embodies only a partial 
 statement, or a least common denominator, of 
 religious principles. Consequently, any forum 
 which professes to be a religious meeting cannot 
 command the cooperation of Catholics. If the 
 interpretation of the forums given by Reverend 
 Edgar Swan Wiers on pages 80 and 81 of the 
 Report of the 1914 Sagamore Sociological Confer- 
 ence is correct, they are likely to be regarded by 
 Catholics with suspicion, to say the least. For he 
 suggests that the forums might possibly "mark 
 the birth of a new religion", that they make for 
 the "necessary democratization of our church serv- 
 ices", and in general that they are succeeding 
 where the churches have failed. To the Catholic, 
 all this means that the forums are putting them- 
 selves forward, if not as a church, at least as a 
 virtual substitute for the church, so far as the non- 
 church-going population is concerned. No Catholic 
 can conscientiously participate in or encourage a 
 movement based upon this theory or carried on in 
 this spirit. For the Catholic there is only one 
 religion, and there are no legitimate substitutes. 
 
 As to the Ford Hall Meetings, my understanding 
 is that they do not profess to be religious services, 
 or a substitute for a church. Nevertheless, the
 
 122 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 fact that they make a special appeal to the "un- 
 churched" suggests that they can only with great 
 difficulty refrain from functioning as such a sub- 
 stitute, and from being so regarded by their regular 
 attendants. 
 
 Furthermore, any movement which takes as one 
 of its formal and prominent aims the propagation 
 or the practical application of moral principles, 
 cannot easily be so conducted as to warrant the 
 unreserved cooperation of Catholics. For the 
 Catholic Church has not only a definite religious 
 creed, but a comprehensive code of ethical doc- 
 trine and practice. These affect every important 
 relation of life, social, civic, and domestic. Con- 
 sequently doctrines and theories advocated from 
 Ford Hall and similar forums concerning the 
 ethics of industry, education, civics, the family, 
 feminism, eugenics, and many other social ques- 
 tions, may or may not be in harmony with Catholic 
 teaching in the field of morals. 
 
 By way of concrete application of the foregoing 
 generalities, I would call attention to the list of 
 Ford Hall speakers for the present year, as pub- 
 lished in Ford Hall Folks, October 18, 1914. Of 
 the two dozen speakers in that list at least six are 
 avowed Socialists. Now the Catholic Church has 
 taken a stand of definite opposition to Socialism 
 on fundamentally moral grounds, and because 
 Socialism in its full acceptation has a whole phi- 
 losophy of life which is contrary to her philosophy 
 of life. The fact that the managers of Ford Hall
 
 BY A CATHOLIC PRIEST 123 
 
 may not themselves accept Socialism, that they 
 may merely intend to give a hearing to men who 
 see problems of life from the Socialist view-point, 
 is not sufficient to reassure the loyal Catholic. 
 The latter looks upon such hearings as at best a 
 waste of time, and at worst the propagation of 
 injurious social and moral errors. He no more 
 believes that they are necessary or desirable than 
 he believes that hearings to attacks upon marriage, 
 civil government, or the multiplication table, are 
 necessary or desirable. To be a little more specific, 
 I would say that the letter of Bouck White, pub- 
 lished in the issue of Ford Hall Folks referred to 
 above, would strike any discerning Catholic as 
 condemning beforehand any message that its 
 author might have to give, and putting under 
 suspicion any organization that would give him 
 a hearing. 
 
 I have written thus frankly concerning Ford 
 Hall from the Catholic view-point because I gladly 
 recognize the sincerity and high purpose of its 
 promoters, and because I think that they would 
 want to understand its limitations from that view- 
 point. Just how these limitations might be ob- 
 viated, or whether they can be obviated at all, 
 are questions which spatial and other considera- 
 tions render impossible of discussion at this time. 
 In any case, it is something to have the situation 
 stated.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 BY A RABBI 
 
 Stephen S. Wise 
 
 FORD HALL as witnessed by a Rabbi" is 
 of rather doubtful content. Does it im- 
 ply that even a rabbi may be expected to 
 recognize the obvious? Or am I to register my 
 personal reaction to the Ford Hall Forum? But a 
 true reaction is spontaneous, unconscious, elusive. 
 None the less, I can speak with deepfelt apprecia- 
 tion of the contribution of Ford Hall to our spiritual 
 commonwealth, of its effect, as I have observed it, 
 upon a very considerable number of my fellow- 
 Jews who make up the constituency, — brotherhood 
 were a more apt term, — of Ford Hall. 
 
 Herein I take it, if at all, lies the importance of 
 learning a rabbi's estimate of the influence ex- 
 erted upon his people by Ford Hall. For large 
 numbers of Jews crowd into the Boston Forum and 
 into every Open Forum of the country. Some- 
 times, in facing Ford Hall, I have felt that no 
 synagogue or temple in Boston calls together as 
 many Jewish men and women as may be found 
 every Sunday night at Ford Hall. As I have 
 looked about me, I have at times been half in- 
 
 I
 
 BY A RABBI 1^5 
 
 clined to suspect that I must be in a synagogue, 
 — including of course a goodly sprinkling of 
 Christians, or a sprinkling of good Christians, — 
 though never forgetting that I stood in the pres- 
 ence of that rare being in Christendom, paraphras- 
 ing Emerson's mordant question, a real Christian, 
 George Coleman. 
 
 There are obvious reasons that move my people 
 to accept the catholic hospitality of Ford Hall. 
 Theirs, — ours, — is that intellectual alertness and 
 combativeness which find an outlet under the aus- 
 pices of a forum. Again, rightly or wrongly, and 
 for reasons the elucidation of which, if possible at 
 all, would take us too far afield, the spiritual 
 hunger of the Jew is often left unsatisfied by 
 temple or synagogue and in his quest he finds 
 Ford Hall, which in some part answers his need. 
 
 For one thing the temper of Ford Hall makes an 
 appeal to the Jew, one of whose ancient sayings 
 is in effect: I am ready to learn from whosoever 
 can teach. The Jew dares face the truth, or 
 rather truth as revealed to and through men. I 
 would have my fellow-Jews hear every reverent 
 truth-seeker. That which is true they must not 
 be denied the opportunity to hear, and the false 
 they will in good time reject. But, above all 
 things, they must be free, as free they are, to hear, 
 to determine, to choose. 
 
 Again, Ford Hall is an unique embodiment of 
 the American spirit to which Jews are peculiarly 
 responsive: that every man is to be heard who
 
 126 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 speaks the truth as he sees it with reverence for 
 truth and with good will towards men. Ford Hall 
 is tolerance incarnate, — not that intolerable toler- 
 ance which merely tolerates the statement of 
 differing views, but that broader, finer tolerance, 
 eager to listen appreciatively to the wise and the 
 true, and genially rather than scornfully, even to 
 the less wise. 
 
 Ford Hall means something more to the Jew, 
 whether on its platform or of its constituency. 
 It is a place in which every man may render an 
 account of the faith that is in him rather than a 
 place which calls to every individual to surrender 
 his faith. It is a forum or congress for the rev- 
 erent presentation of varying views, not for the 
 mush of compromise and concession. Its unspoken 
 insistence is that the other side be heard, but it 
 will not yield to the folly of that "otherism" decried 
 by Emerson, which is intolerance solely of one's own. 
 
 Ford Hall aims to stress agreements, but not less 
 to urge the unities which underlie difference and 
 disagreement. Ford Hall sets store by unity of 
 spirit rather than uniformity. It holds that a real 
 fraternalism may arise out of the consciousness of 
 differing judgments howsoever tenaciously cher- 
 ished, that fraternalism which grows out of Milton's 
 "brotherly dissimilitudes." In other words, the 
 primary aim of Ford Hall is not a fusing and 
 merging of convictions, but a furtherance of indi- 
 vidual loyalties real and worth while. The weak- 
 ening of such loyalties is in the interest of confusion
 
 BY A RABBI 127 
 
 alone. Their strengthening enriches the whole 
 through fortifying and exalting the intellectual 
 and spiritual integrity of the individual. 
 
 Putting the case concretely, I cannot conceive 
 of Ford Hall saying or doing aught to turn my 
 people away from that which is best and finest in 
 their life. But I have felt that Ford Hall renders 
 to my younger brothers the high service of moving 
 them rightly to revaluate the deeply significant 
 things of their Jewish heritage. Ofttimes men 
 leave their homes and are helped by finding that 
 the world honors the things by them possessed 
 but little prized. And there is yet another and 
 subtler reaction. All the world loves one loyal to 
 loyalties, and my younger brothers and sisters have 
 come to feel that within the walls of Ford Hall. 
 
 It violates no personal confidence to tell that 
 in the two decades and more of my ministry, I 
 have never known of a more striking example of a 
 member of the House of Israel long recreant and 
 won back to loyalty than came before me in con- 
 nection with a Ford Hall Meeting. Under the 
 caption "^\Tiat's Wrong with the Jew?" I had 
 dealt with the sin of self-contempt and self- 
 obliteration. I had pleaded with the Jew for a 
 high-souled reverence rather than a low self- 
 disregard, for a complete self-knowledge rather 
 than woeful ignorance of the splendor of Israel's 
 story, for a noble self-mastery rather than a policy 
 of ignoble drift. After the meeting, an earnest, 
 thoughtful young woman said to me: "I have long
 
 128 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 denied and hidden tlie fact that I am a Jewess. I 
 shall do so no longer. In the morning, I shall 
 proclaim my Jewishness to every one in the home 
 in which I dwell." And she did, she wrote, after 
 the wracking vigil of the night. This self-conquest 
 of a Jewish soul, this triumph of self -reverence, 
 was achieved not in the Synagogue from which 
 this gifted young woman had long felt herself 
 estranged, but in Ford Hall. Moreover, if my 
 memory serves me aright, the non-Jewish folk at 
 that meeting heard with outspoken approval the 
 appeal of a rabbi to his people to rise to the dig- 
 nity of fitly assessing their priceless inheritance. 
 
 Such is Ford Hall as witnessed by a rabbi. It 
 bids men seek the truth reverently and speak it 
 bravely. It shows forth that men may frankly 
 discuss differing view-points in the spirit of un- 
 lessened good will and fraternalism. Again, far 
 from bidding men abate their individual judgments 
 and convictions, it would have these cherished 
 persistently, not fused into uniformity but feder- 
 ated into the bond of highest unity. 
 
 Best of all, the note which Ford Hall never 
 wearies of striking is the note of service. Life 
 may be given to truth's quest, but truth must 
 be directed toward the service of life. Right think- 
 ing and right believing must utter themselves 
 through right living. I wonder whether Ford Hall 
 does not aim to bid men, Seek the truth that ye 
 may be free to serve. Through freedom to the 
 truth, — that service is life!
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 BY A POPULAR LECTURER 
 
 Charles Zuehlin 
 
 IF Boston is a State of Mind, Ford Hall must 
 be the capital. Certainly there is nowhere 
 else in Boston such an eager, restless desire 
 to compass knowledge and human welfare, — not 
 in the venerable Lowell Institute, not in the mauso- 
 leum of books on Copley Square, not in the society 
 of Orientalists and antiquarians at the Museum of 
 Fine Arts, nor even in the aggregation of antago- 
 nistic specialists that throng Huntington Avenue 
 from the Mother Church to the Young Men's 
 Christian Association and the Harvard Medical 
 School. Ford Hall is not therefore scientific or a 
 seat of culture. It is rather an intellectual and 
 emotional power-house, sending out currents to 
 vitalize the wireless service of the municipality. 
 Ford Hall is not unbiased, but it is tolerant; it is 
 self-conscious, but at the same time open-armed; 
 cosmopolitan, but still organic. It seems to have 
 agreed that "the truth shall make you free." 
 
 One who has lectured for many years to all 
 kinds of audiences learns many things about 
 auditors. They come together usually by effective
 
 130 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 organization, not because of the charms of a matinee 
 idol. They Hsten with intelHgence in proportion 
 as they are trained not in refinement, but in atten- 
 tion. They respond when they are not accus- 
 tomed to repression. Western audiences are more 
 indulgent to radicalism than eastern audiences. 
 New England audiences are more appreciative of 
 humor than middle western audiences. Southern 
 audiences demand the florid oratory that bores 
 northern audiences. The zenith of audiences is not 
 the political mass meeting, but the high school 
 assembly. The tired teacher represents zero in 
 responsiveness. The tired business man responds 
 enthusiastically if there are no women present, for 
 he is only untrammeled when with his kind, and 
 he finds an instructive lecture so much more in- 
 telligible than he thought he would that he is one 
 of the easiest of marks, if the lecture is sugared 
 with flattery. 
 
 What are the characteristics of a Ford Hall 
 audience? It is organized. There is a common 
 spirit, but it is not an accident. It is cultivated 
 by wise management. Yet the auditors are spon- 
 taneous, for the majority are not accustomed to 
 ritualistic services in which they try to put them- 
 selves into an atmosphere of the past. By long 
 training and enthusiasm for knowledge, they are 
 exceptionally intelligent listeners, although there is 
 a sprinkling of those who come to instruct rather 
 than to learn. One of the best tributes one can pay 
 to the Ford Hall audience is that it extends ironic
 
 BY A POPULAR LECTURER 131 
 
 indulgence to the self-appointed instructors on the 
 floor. It is not fooled by them; it knows in ad- 
 vance what they will say, but it accepts them as 
 part of the handicap of democracy. 
 
 The audience has much more humor than some 
 of the auditors. It combines the New England 
 enjoyment of wit with the westerner's love of 
 radicalism. The latter preponderates, however, as 
 the audience is more industrial than Yankee. Its 
 sense of humor is not quite so keen as that of an 
 old New England Lyceum, but its desire for the 
 truth is much keener. Ford Hall cannot be de- 
 luded by horticultural experts, although it is not 
 oblivious to fine phrasing and imagery. It loves 
 romance and imaginative flight, but its preference 
 is for hard knocks. Yet it is no more immune to 
 praise than the rest of us. Rarely does one see 
 weary auditors at Ford Hall, and they must have 
 much more excuse than most leisure class audiences. 
 
 The fault of Ford Hall is in its very excuse for 
 being. The people like to range over the wide 
 fields of human interest; they like to hear repre- 
 sentatives of all faiths, but they also like to have 
 them labeled. It is hard to imagine the kind of 
 person who would dare to address Ford Hall and 
 not find a kindly reception. But there is a sense 
 of dissipation as one visits this big, prompt, vital 
 crowd, year by year. It does represent intelligent, 
 thoughtful receptiveness, but it does not demand 
 mental discipline. The audience that is trained to 
 follow a course of lectures in the unfolding of a
 
 132 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 great idea or cause gets what Ford Hall still lacks. 
 It is not so ineffectual as H. G. Wells rightly says 
 Boston is, but it is not clearly moving anywhere, 
 year by year. The compensation for this comes 
 in the intensification of fellowship that one finds 
 at Ford Hall. It is not merely an audience: it is 
 a spirit. It is by no means wholly socialistic, but 
 is almost wholly democratic. 
 
 Perhaps one may say a professional word of 
 appreciation regarding a condition the audience 
 may not understand. The auditorium is ideal at 
 Ford Hall, the acoustics perfect, the audience just 
 the right size. The Cooper Union auditorium is a 
 sprawling, pillared room in which the audience is 
 knit together by the purpose of the gathering and 
 the intense Eastsidishness of the constituency. The 
 Sunday Evening Club in Chicago is an evangelical 
 gathering that might meet anywhere. It is held 
 together by a masterly organization and a multi- 
 tudinous choir, not by the congregation's desire 
 for the truth. They get no chance to betray that. 
 The Houston Municipal Forum has the advantage 
 of a municipal auditorium and a public subsidy, but 
 the place is big and forbidding, and there is no 
 more consciousness than at Chicago. The litter 
 of forums that Ford Hall is scattering over New 
 England promise to be worthy progeny. They 
 have caught the spirit. As they perfect their or- 
 ganizations in appropriate places, and the people 
 are educated to a common feeling, if not a common 
 mind, they will reveal the secret of Ford Hall
 
 BY A POPULAR LECTURER 133 
 
 success: the people love the leader; they love the 
 place; they love the idea. 
 
 The subtle fitness of things that rationalism and 
 haste obscure finds happy expression in Ford Hall. 
 It is well that it is on the hill, not under the shadow 
 of the State House but in the glow of its radiant 
 dome. If it is not on Beacon Street, it is a beacon 
 set on a hill, and the hill side of Beacon Street means 
 more to the future than the water side. Between 
 the Men's City Club and the Women's City Club; 
 in the thick of the official homes of religion that 
 have clustered for protection on the hills from the 
 hallowed past; neighbor to the open fields of free 
 speech on the Common; reaching out the right 
 hand of fellowship to Faneuil Hall, Ford Hall is 
 the needed forum whence the citizens "of no mean 
 city" may go forth to transform the historic 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts into the prophetic 
 commonwealth of cooperation.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 BY A SOCIAL MYSTIC 
 
 Stanton Coil 
 
 I WAS brooding upon the Ford Hall audience 
 the day after I first addressed it, when there 
 came into my mind some lines from George 
 Eliot's "Spanish Gypsy" which we often use at 
 my Ethical Church in London as an opening 
 benediction : 
 
 Ours is a faith taught by no priest. 
 
 But by our beating hearts; the fidelity of men 
 
 Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands. 
 
 Nay, in the silent bodily presence, feel the mystic stirrings 
 
 Of a common life that makes the many one! 
 
 I had a deep sense that everybody present felt 
 at home. Now there are certain persons who define 
 religion as "the home-sickness of the soul"; but 
 to call that religion is like saying that hunger is 
 food. Religion is the Home Feeling of the Soul. 
 
 Except in Salvation Army testimony meetings, 
 I have found no such joy of the spirit as I sensed 
 at Ford Hall. And it was the same joy in the pres- 
 ence of a Power that renews life and enhances its 
 worth. But the difference between a Salvation 
 Army and a Ford Hall Meeting is as striking as 
 the resemblance of the two; and it was the differ-
 
 BY A SOCIAL MYSTIC 135 
 
 ence that had brought to my memory George 
 Eliot's lines. At Ford Hall nobody is over the 
 audience. The lecturer is not; at least, the night 
 I spoke, I addressed not pupils but judges. Mr. 
 Coleman is not; he was only their representative and 
 spokesman. It was quite evident, too, that there was 
 no God over them; and yet it was equally evident, 
 to a social mystic like me, that God was astir 
 rapturously in and among them, as if He also were at 
 home there. Theirs is a faith taught by no priest but 
 by their beating hearts. They feel the mystic stir- 
 rings of a Common Life that makes the many one. 
 
 Such being my explanation of all experience of 
 religion. Ford Hall was no surprise, no revelation 
 to me of something new. It was only another 
 instance of a universal truth. The people who 
 are shocked at Ford Hall, or count it purely secu- 
 lar, or are puzzled by it are only those who imagine 
 that they themselves have a monopoly of God. 
 And to those who know the Baptist denomination 
 as well as I do, it is the most natural thing in the 
 world that out of John Bunyan's church should 
 come this forum outburst of religious prophesying. 
 
 Such religious meetings must be started by all 
 the denominations in America, if, as I believe, the 
 Common Will, the Reason in us all, the Universal 
 Heart that beats in every human breast, is the 
 Power that redeems, is the source of inward strength 
 and peace. The unifying spirit of any group of 
 human beings, drawn together in devotion to the 
 ideals of life, is God; that is, the Will that makes
 
 136 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 the many one in vision and desire is the All-holy 
 and the supreme Reality. If this be so, there 
 cannot be too many forums, for they give the Com- 
 mon Will, the Universal Heart, a chance to speak, 
 to stir, and to create. 
 
 This right of the Common Mind to speak out, how- 
 ever inarticulately, whatever it sincerely believes, has 
 been too long suppressed. God has been gagged. 
 
 The free discussion that follows the lecture is 
 the significant thing at Ford Hall. When there 
 have been such discussions on all the fundamental 
 problems of life and religion in all the churches of 
 America on every Sunday evening for a whole 
 century, then the nation will be filled with the 
 Spirit of God and every man will walk upheld by 
 Him, and there will be no more stealing by indi- 
 viduals nor by States, and no more wars or even 
 rumors of war. 
 
 Many have been chiefly struck by the feeling of 
 fellowship that prevails in the Ford Hall Meetings. 
 But we must always remember that this feeling 
 is only derived from the practice of frank and full 
 liberty of debate, and from that deep respect for the 
 insight and sincerity of every human being, which 
 must have instituted debate in a religious meeting as 
 an instrument of spiritual revelation and communion. 
 The founders of democratic states, centuries ago, 
 saw the importance of free discussion on all polit- 
 ical questions, if the State is to stand secure for- 
 ever and to grow with experience and with change 
 of circumstances. But in the Church, scarcely one
 
 BY A SOCIAL MYSTIC 137 
 
 man in a hundred thousand as yet sees that free 
 and continual debate upon the foundations of reli- 
 gion is needed, if faith is to be strengthened and 
 to grow into an actual knowledge of God. Mr. 
 Coleman is one who sees that discussion is as essen- 
 tial to organized religious life as is public prayer, 
 or worship, or the reading of the Bible. 
 
 If I am correct in my sensing of the significance 
 of the Ford Hall Forum, it should become evan- 
 gelistic, and go forth throughout the country to 
 champion discussion in religion as a spiritual 
 discipline. It should teach that continual delibera- 
 tion on the fundamentals of faith is necessary to 
 the moral life of a social democracy like America. 
 It should demonstrate that free debate, instead of 
 dividing men up into sects and increasing their 
 disagreements, draws them together by disclosing 
 the Unifying Reason, the Common Will, and the 
 One Heart which is alive at the inmost center of 
 every human being. 
 
 But a warning may be in place. Ford Hall is 
 an experiment along an untried line. It is new. 
 May it not on that account be in some respects 
 somewhat crude? Is it not possible that this new 
 instrument of religious life, — discussion, — may 
 become highly developed.'^ May not debate become 
 a great and beautiful art, on a par in dignity with 
 prayer and ritual, with music and architecture, with 
 verse and rythmic prose.^^ Indeed, until it becomes 
 such will it be able adequately to express the organic 
 life of a democratic nation?
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BY A COSMOPOLITAN 
 
 Edward A. Steiner 
 
 THERE are not very many assemblies 
 where humanity fuses into anything like 
 a complete unit. Even under the spell 
 of some great personality, the more sophisticated 
 group will remain fairly conscious of itself and 
 successfully resist the unifying power of a great 
 emotion. 
 
 The Ford Hall family is the most heterogeneous 
 group I have ever had the privilege of addressing. 
 It is a racial, religious, and social conglomerate, 
 containing the most radically opposed elements 
 thrown together in perfect void and confusion. If 
 everyone would speak in his own tongue. Babel 
 would be out-babeled; and if each would confess 
 his own faith, it would serve as a laboratory in the 
 study of comparative religions; and should each 
 announce his own remedy for the world's social 
 and economic ills, no height or depth would remain 
 unsounded. I have seen this group blending and 
 melting into perfect unity under the power of one 
 thought, — that of Brotherhood. It is a rare 
 privilege to witness this, especially in these days
 
 BY A COSMOPOLITAN 139 
 
 when an age-old dream seems but a dream and of 
 sucli stuff as dreams are made of. 
 
 Here I realized how great and real the problem 
 of race is, how deep the prejudices are rooted, and 
 how prominent the differences. The audience is a 
 sample of the Creator's color scheme, which in 
 the realm of the human is so inharmonious and 
 clashing. Here too one sees the power of traditions 
 surviving in a new age and a new country, and how 
 unyielding they are even before indisputable, 
 scientific facts. 
 
 But here too are revealed the inner depths. Here 
 men lay bare their souls, and one cannot help but 
 see how much more vital are the things in which 
 men are alike than those in which they differ. 
 Above all, one can learn here how upon a certain 
 height all differences disappear, and men become 
 one, — supremely human. The New England busi- 
 ness man who presides lifts himself into complete 
 unity with this varied, unfused mass by his passion 
 for the human, and he becomes the brother of all. 
 The Jew sees in him the Jew at his best: the 
 Catholic gets from him a taste of real catholicity: 
 the Italian sees in him a kinsman who differs from 
 him merely by the restraint of his emotions. Each 
 man can see here the best of his race in men and 
 women who are not of his race, and the best of his 
 creed in those who do not profess it. 
 
 For me, it has always been the hardest audience 
 to address, for here I felt the world-hunger for truth 
 challenging every half truth. Here, too, I felt
 
 140 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 humanity's passion for unity, the eagerness for it, 
 and yet understood the difficulty of realizing it, 
 even in the lives of those of us who most ardently 
 preach it. For weeks after I have done my task 
 there, I can feel my own message challenging me, 
 and my own faith in the thing for which I plead 
 wavering, and then faith comes back more strongly 
 when I remember the splendid response to the 
 highest hopes to which my faith can wing itself, 
 made by this mass of men and women, most of 
 them the victims of prejudice and hate and of that 
 unbrotherliness which is the source of wars and of 
 all those evils related to it. 
 
 As a splendid challenge to the world's faith in 
 brotherhood, Ford Hall is quite worth while, for 
 here has been accomplished in a small degree what 
 some of us are hoping and dreaming shall come to 
 the world at large, and that which must come into 
 our own lives first before it can grip the world. 
 
 I have never been in Ford Hall as a mere spec- 
 tator, but sitting on the platform and facing a 
 singing or listening audience, I felt myself enrapt by 
 the all-human, and by it so lifted above the mere 
 human that I felt the touch of the All-Father. The 
 great Spirit seemed to fill the place, and I knew 
 that He was yearning for the new Pentecost. May 
 it speedily come to this strife- weary world.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BY A COLLEGE PRESIDENT 
 
 William H. P. Faunce 
 
 THE Ford Hall Movement is one of the 
 most successful attempts in our genera- 
 tion to educate the people of a large city. 
 Not propaganda, not evangelism, not proselytism, 
 not particular reforms, but education is its prime 
 object. Hence its results are not to be measured 
 by any single address, any one evening, but by the 
 lifting of the community consciousness through a 
 series of years. 
 
 Like the Young Men's Christian Association 
 Movement, it owes its success to the fact that it 
 has steered clear of all the men who have wanted 
 to capture it, exploit it, and harness it to some 
 private platform. The Socialists would have been 
 glad to capture it and shape it to their specific 
 purpose. The political orators would eagerly utilize 
 such a platform as a political engine. The evan- 
 gehst would gladly minimize the educational ele- 
 ment at Ford Hall, and make every service a part 
 of "decision day." The agnostic would gladly 
 distribute his literature to such an assembly and 
 eagerly proclaim his ignorance. But just as we
 
 142 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 cannot allow our schools and colleges to be per- 
 verted to partisan or sectarian ends, so Ford Hall 
 could not "give up to a party what was meant 
 for mankind." It seeks primarily to educate the 
 people in the discovery of truth and the immediate 
 application of truth to life. 
 
 In this educational process it has wisely adopted 
 the Socratic method of question and answer. We 
 must grant at once that Ford Hall education faces 
 certain great difficulties. It cannot grade its 
 students. It cannot be sure of the same class from 
 evening to evening. It cannot have final examina- 
 tions with certificates of graduation. But it has 
 all that Socrates had when he visited the workshops 
 of ancient Athens, or argued with young Greeks 
 in the public square. He delighted in the crowd. 
 "Fields and trees won't teach me anything," he 
 said; "the life of the streets will." Wherever he 
 found a crowd, there he found a prize. At once 
 he started in with some unusual proposition, some 
 ironic suggestion, some pungent, unsettling inquiry, 
 and soon a group of men were all agog with novel 
 discussions, which searched the foundations of the 
 social and the moral order. By opening their 
 mouths, the people opened their minds. In the 
 swift give and take of frank debate, truth was 
 separated from error, sophistry was exposed, and 
 the popular mind was both clarified and concen- 
 trated. 
 
 When President Garfield said a true college might 
 be "an old log with Mark Hopkins on one end and
 
 BY A COLLEGE PRESIDENT 143 
 
 a student on the other", he was returning to the 
 Socratic ideal. WTien Francis Way land was the 
 President of Brown University, and his voice was 
 heard 'round the world, the institution had three 
 buildings and a total endowment of thirty-one 
 thousand dollars. But there are men now living 
 who trace their whole career to some searching 
 inquiry or some challenging paradox uttered by 
 Doctor Wayland. 
 
 On the other hand, there are superb college 
 lecture-rooms in which the students are half-asleep, 
 and lectures are so polished and perfected as to be 
 "icily regular, splendidl}' null." I do not say that 
 many years of attendance at Ford Hall could take 
 the place of attendance at a school. Far from it. 
 But I do say that the essential element in all 
 education, — the clash of minds, the challenging of 
 error, the solving of mental problems by discussion 
 and experiment, — lies at the basis of the Ford Hall 
 Movement. 
 
 We have altogether too many lectures, addresses, 
 and sermons with no chance for reaction on the 
 part of the hearers. This is the defect of the other- 
 wise excellent Chautauqua assemblies. At a sum- 
 mer Chautauqua, one can meet scores of persons 
 who are attending two or three lectures or concerts 
 each day for some weeks, persons as absorbent as 
 blotting-paper and as destitute of effective character. 
 This is the defect of many women's clubs, which 
 listen endlessly to talkers, and preserve a sponge- 
 like attitude toward them all. This was the defect
 
 144 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 of the excellent "lyeeum lectures", so popular in 
 the last generation. The audience listened, ap- 
 plauded, and went home. This is the defect of 
 modern preaching, which too often gives the im- 
 pression of hopeless finality, with no chance for the 
 meeting of individual difficulties afterward. Ford 
 Hall avoids mere desultory debate by giving each 
 speaker time to develop his own message without 
 interruption. But when the speaker is through, 
 the assembly refuses to go home. It is electric 
 with expectancy, eager to tackle its teacher, and 
 the obscure young man in the front seat with the 
 unpronounceable name may flash out an idea that 
 will severely test the wisest man on the platform. 
 
 No one who has once been present at one of those 
 Sunday-evening grapplings can ever forget it. The 
 crowded hall, the heterogeneous brotherhood, the 
 keen appreciation of the music, the swift response 
 to appeal (which may lead to applause instead of 
 "Amens" after prayer), the vigorous retort, the 
 merciless aversion to dullness, the divergent minds 
 all united in social aspiration, — all that is unique 
 and impressive. The easy mastery of Mr. Coleman, 
 as he encourages the timid questioner and repeats 
 the inaudible question, as he snubs the impertinent 
 objector or silences the interrupter, as he deftly 
 guides the discussion away from rocks and into 
 navigable waters, — all that is fascinating to 
 witness. And the final dissolving of the assembly, 
 the stream of human beings debouching on the 
 sidewalk, none of them apparently weary, all of
 
 BY A COLLEGE PRESIDENT 145 
 
 them talkative, stimulated, excited, illuminated, 
 educated by the evening's experience, — that is 
 suggestive of what might be achieved in every large 
 center of population. 
 
 By such an assembly and such discussion false- 
 hood is swiftly punctured. The long-haired anar- 
 chist rises to ventilate his theory and sometimes 
 receives from the speaker of the evening a knock- 
 out blow. The faddist, who has read only one side 
 of a social theory, is forced to hear the other side 
 expounded. The single-taxer has a chance to air 
 his pet doctrine and hear it strongly assailed. The 
 Protestant discovers that a Catholic prelate can 
 make an excellent address on human brotherhood. 
 The foreigner just landed in Boston harbor hears 
 American ideals set forth in compelling fashion. 
 The blatant sceptic finds that all this free discus- 
 sion is furnished by the Christian church and guided 
 by disciples of the Nazarene. The narrow pietist 
 learns the real breadth of Christianity, and sees how 
 nothing human can be foreign to the Christian church. 
 
 Thus prejudice is disarmed or dispersed. Real 
 diflficulties are frankly met. The right of private 
 judgment is emphasized, but the right of social 
 control is made equally clear. Truth is explained 
 and commended. Specific reforms are seen in their 
 relation to the entire social problem. And all 
 social and economic problems are bathed in the 
 "light that never was on sea or land", the light 
 that streams from faith in God the Father and his 
 only son Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
 146 DEMOCRACY IN THE lylAKING 
 
 Who can estimate the results of such a work? 
 It is not perfect. It is necessarily fragmentary, 
 scattering, — almost as much so as when a certain 
 "sower went forth to sow." It is not the intensive 
 and ui)building work of a college. It is and must 
 be experimental and tentative. But so is all the 
 writing of books, the preaching of sermons, the 
 painting of pictures. It is to shoot an arrow into 
 the air, and find it only long after, "still unbroke." 
 It is to cast real bread on the turbulent, rushing 
 waters of city life, and find it after many days.
 
 PART III 
 A ROLL OF PERSONALITIES
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PART III 
 
 A SEAT on the platform at Ford Hall, 
 Sunday evenings, is a great privilege. 
 It does not make you feel conspicuous 
 because there are three-score or more individuals 
 who keep you company, every inch of space being 
 taken. But it is a rare delight to look that audience 
 in the face, especially when its turn comes to talk 
 back to the lecturer of the evening. It is a virile, 
 sensitive, responsive mass of human beings who 
 somehow or other feel closely related to each other. 
 It is unlike the face of any other audience you ever 
 looked upon. The proportion of men to women is 
 as two to one, sometimes as three to one. Bald 
 heads and gray hairs are conspicuous by their rarity. 
 Young couples are a good deal in evidence. Whole 
 squads of young lads are easily discernable, bunched 
 here and there all over the hall. Jew and Gentile, 
 in the proportion of one to two, are as intimately 
 mixed as if they were part and parcel of one grand 
 mosaic. The Socialists are readily discerned by 
 their vociferous applause, although it would be 
 difficult to guess just what proportion their num- 
 bers bear to the enthusiasm they display. Here 
 and there you may discover some unusually good 
 representative of the colored people, and a
 
 150 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Hindu, Japanese, or Chinese is no uncommon 
 sight. 
 
 I know the church people of Boston pretty well, 
 but can find few of them in this audience, unless 
 it be that some hero of the church is the stated 
 speaker of the evening, when there will be a notice- 
 able sprinkling of faithful church adherents all 
 through the house. There are always present a 
 score or more of devoted philosophical anarchists, 
 but rarely do they make their presence manifest. 
 Employers, teachers, lawyers, merchants, and poli- 
 ticians seem to enjoy the meetings quite as much as 
 the labor unionist, the Industrial Workers of the 
 World devotee and the free lance. The agnostic 
 and the atheist are not discomfited, and the Cath- 
 olic and the Protestant do not know which is which. 
 
 But you must hear them ask questions before 
 you can say that you really know that audience. 
 For an hour they rebound and react. Not only do 
 they challenge the message to which they have 
 given absorbing attention, but they also take into 
 account the personality through which the message 
 was delivered. They do not mind asking in a very 
 sincere but pointed fashion if the speaker practises 
 what he preaches and, if so, where and when. If 
 they want to know whether or not you are a 
 Socialist, they will ask you point-blank. Then they 
 are just as likely to ask if you said what you said 
 on your own account, or because it was the point 
 of view of the institution, church, or class that you 
 represented.
 
 INTRODUCTION 151 
 
 But something more is necessary than a general 
 view of this audience, even when seen in action. 
 You must know the life stories of some of the indi- 
 viduals. A passionate question from one of them, 
 evolved perhaps with great difficulty and indiffer- 
 ently expressed, means so much more to you when 
 you know something of the turmoil and struggle 
 going on in the soul of him who had the courage 
 and force to give the question expression. 
 
 The intimate miniature biographical sketches that 
 make up this section of the book were not intended 
 originally for the eye of the stranger to our Meetings 
 but were prepared and printed from week to week 
 in our little Ford Hall Folks magazine for the pur- 
 pose of introducing our auditors to each other. But 
 they will be just as effective in giving the readers 
 of this book a peep into the hearts and lives of the 
 men and women who are component parts of this 
 extraordinary audience. 
 
 In so far as might be possible, I have selected for 
 this collection of biographical stories those sixteen 
 individuals who represent distinctly different types 
 in our audience. Many others of equal interest 
 might have been added easily. But these will 
 suffice to give a very fair idea of the kind of people 
 who make up a Ford Hall audience. 
 
 These sketches were all written by Miss Mary C. 
 Crawford, who has a very happy faculty in just 
 this sort of work. It has not been easy always to 
 get these friends to open up and tell their story. 
 That it was for the good of Ford Hall was a clinch-
 
 152 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ing argument when everything else had failed. And 
 
 Miss Crawford was so well known to them and had 
 
 done so much herself for the Ford Hall enterprise, 
 
 it was difficult to resist her appeal. These sketches 
 
 constitute an invaluable part of the story of Ford 
 
 Hall. 
 
 G. W. C.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AN INVOLUNTARY PHILANTHROPIST 
 Mrs. Eva Hoffman 
 
 ONE interesting thing about the Ford Hall 
 Meetings is that they unite families. This 
 is said to be true, also, of the automobile 
 and of the moving-picture show. But it is pecul- 
 iarly true of our movement because its appeal 
 and power last through the week. What happened 
 at Ford Hall on Sunday evening last and is going 
 to happen here next Sunday evening is animatedly 
 discussed in hundreds of households all over Greater 
 Boston! Mrs. Eva Hoffman, our energetic Socialist 
 friend, has once or twice brought her "baby", 
 aged seven, to the meetings, often brings her other 
 daughter, now in her second year at High School, 
 eagerly discusses what is said here with her younger 
 son, who will enter Harvard next year, and reports 
 with pride that her elder son, now a law student at 
 Boston University, has decided to join our Town 
 Meeting debates for the reason that every kind of 
 politics and party view will there be represented. 
 Nor is the head of the Hoffman family without his 
 share in our affairs. On a recent noteworthy 
 Tuesday, he "did what he could" for our leader, —
 
 154 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 cast a vote which helped elect Mr. Coleman a mem- 
 ber of Boston's City Government, — and he chanced 
 to be the only member of the Hoffman family who 
 could do just that particular thing. Though Mrs. 
 Hoffman organized, some time ago, an Alice Stone 
 Blackwell circle for suffrage work, she has not yet 
 been able to get herself a vote. 
 
 Mostly however, Mrs. Hoffman gets what she 
 goes after. She it was who led the recent fight 
 against the exorbitant price of meat that resulted 
 in a chain of cooperative butcher stores being 
 started for the Jewish people; the one in Brockton 
 is still in successful operation by reason of the fact 
 that local conditions in that town are favorable to 
 advantageous buying. 
 
 Helping individuals, though, is the thing which 
 Mrs. Hoffman does best, notwithstanding the fact 
 that, as a Socialist, she cannot approve of such 
 help when paid for privately. She believes that 
 nine out of every ten people who become a burden 
 to society might have continued self-sustaining if 
 intelligently organized aid had been given at the 
 proper moment. "I say that I must save two 
 persons a year from pauperism," she concludes, "and 
 mostly I have been able to do that." 
 
 Wliat a record for a woman without means, who, 
 in addition to caring for her large family, helps her 
 husband by conducting one of his two photograph 
 studios. The family home is connected with the 
 Boston studio, in the heart of Boston's Ghetto, and 
 so Mrs. Hoffman, by night as well as by day, is
 
 AN INVOLUNTARY PHILANTHROPIST 155 
 
 accessible to every poor immigrant who lacks a 
 friend. WTien an interpreter is needed by some 
 one too poor to pay for such service, Mrs. Hoffman 
 is called upon and answers the call. If money must 
 be found to send a consumptive to California or 
 to set up a deserted wife in a little candy business, 
 it is Mrs. Hoffman who undertakes and carries 
 through the job. She knows how it feels to be a 
 poor immigrant in a strange land, for she came to 
 this country from Russia, an orphan of thirteen, 
 and during her teens made her living as a garment 
 worker. She understands better than almost any 
 other person in Boston, too, the psychology of 
 woman's nature. To hear her plead for a poor 
 woman who refuses to give up to charity the baby 
 to whom she has been a foster-mother — is to have 
 your heart-strings wrung! 
 
 The West End peddlers are another of her con- 
 cerns. These men pay the city license fees to be 
 allowed to sell fruit or vegetables from their side- 
 walk carts, but the police, egged on by neighboring 
 merchants who rent stores, make life a burden for 
 the handcart men. Scarcely a day passes but one 
 of them is arrested for having "stayed in one spot 
 longer than the law allows"; and the fines which 
 used to be imposed on the poor fellows, after a trial 
 conducted in a language they did not understand, 
 forced many a little family into direst poverty 
 before IVirs. Hoffman and her interpreters came to 
 the rescue. This woman has never forgotten how 
 it feels to be a stranger in a strange land, and her
 
 156 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 big heart beats warmly for all the oppressed. Stir- 
 ringly she voices to all those who may help the 
 inarticulate needs of her immigrant friends. And it 
 is just here that she is perhaps of greatest service. 
 To the comfortable who come to the Ford Hall 
 Meetings, the men and women who, though they 
 "care", do not know at first hand the meaning of 
 poverty and injustice, Mrs. Hoffman is in her turn 
 an interpreter. Through her many have come to 
 understand as they never could have understood 
 without her the hopes and fears, the struggles and 
 aspirations, the prejudices and passions of the poor. 
 Mrs. Hoffman's presentation of conditions is 
 never complacent. Even while she asks a rich man 
 to give her money that will help one of her sick 
 people in an emergency or will tide over a family 
 about to be evicted, she states her conviction that 
 palliative measures are but poor measures at best. 
 For she believes devoutly in the New Order that 
 is to come, an order under which, she tells you, 
 poverty and injustice will have disappeared forever. 
 And somehow, as you talk with her, you, also, 
 come to believe in that New Order.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A MAN WHO WRITES LETTERS 
 Alfred Williams 
 
 WE often hear it said in these days that 
 the art of letter-WTiting is disappearing 
 in the face of telephones, telegrams, 
 and the terse and business-like typewriter. Alfred 
 Williams, however, is one of the few who still write 
 letters. A number of years ago, before ever I knew 
 him at Ford Hall, I was immensely impressed by a 
 letter which he wrote to the Boston Transcript and 
 which received editorial comment as well as the 
 honor of being printed in full. In this letter he 
 deplored the attitude taken by most landlords 
 towards tenants who have a family of young chil- 
 dren. This is a subject very near to Mr. Williams's 
 heart and one on which he will talk eloquently at 
 any time if given half a chance. For he himself 
 has a fine family of youngsters, and he deeply 
 resents having them regarded by house-owners as 
 "undesirable" tenants. Once he wrote a letter to 
 Rockefeller about this same matter, addressing that 
 distinguished Baptist as one who, by virtue of the 
 fact that he is the custodian of great wealth, should 
 feel a grave responsibility in the matter of ideal 
 city dwellings for workers and their families.
 
 158 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Whenever pleasant, sunny homes for children and 
 their parents are under discussion, somebody with 
 the happy air of proposing a panacea always sug- 
 gests the "back to the land" remedy. But Alfred 
 Williams punctures at once the sophistry of this 
 prescription. "My job is that of a linotype oper- 
 ator," he says. "I have absolutely no qualifica- 
 tions as a farmer. And a man who must put in a 
 hard day's work in the city cannot afford the time 
 and the strength necessary to long trolley trips or 
 train journeys to the country. Besides, I am 
 interested in city things. I agree with the position 
 said to have been taken by Spargo when Jacob 
 Schiff asked him to lend his support to a movement 
 which should put all immigrants on the land, re- 
 gardless of their desire or fitness for agricultural 
 pursuits. Spargo claimed that an immigrant, as 
 well as any other man, ought to be given the right 
 to say where he would live. And he added that 
 there is much to be said for city life as a socializing 
 force." 
 
 Alfred Williams is an immigrant who knows 
 country as well as city. He was born in a little 
 ivy-covered cottage on the border of Cork and 
 Kerry counties in Ireland; but when his stepfather, 
 a longshoreman who earned good wages, came to 
 America and forgot the little family left behind in 
 the old country, Mr. Williams's mother went into 
 the business of keeping a boarding-house in Cork, 
 a city not unlike Boston in general aspect. Here 
 the lad went to school until he was twelve, when
 
 A MAN WHO WRITES LETTERS 159 
 
 the mother and her little brood came to America. 
 Middleboro was the town in which they settled, 
 over here; and then young Williams had a few 
 more years at school before, at the age of fifteen, he 
 went to work as printer's "devil" on a weekly 
 newspaper and so got his start in his present trade. 
 
 All keen young men in printing-oflBces learn a 
 good deal, — and Alfred Williams learned more 
 than most. Organization interested him, and he 
 became a member of the powerful Typographical 
 Union. Then the teachings of Socialism made their 
 appeal to him, and he became a follower of the 
 Socialists. "One, however, who does not follow 
 them everywhere they go," he qualifies. About ten 
 years ago his interest extended to include the 
 Industrial Workers of the World which he regards 
 as of very great potentiality in socializing the un- 
 skilled foreign-born workers of this country; but 
 for sabotage and the Industrial Workers of the 
 World's practice of ignoring the power of the ballot 
 this clear-thinking Irishman has no respect what- 
 ever. 
 
 "I myself vote the Socialist ticket," he says, 
 "though I do not vote it exclusively. For instance, 
 I voted for Mayor Curley. And ten days before 
 Curley's election, I wrote to him and told him why 
 he would have my support; because, as I explained, 
 he represented a radical element in the community 
 which seemed to me to be sadly in need of a savior." 
 
 Alfred Williams feels this very deeply. Ireland, 
 he points out, is constantly spoken of as very poor.
 
 160 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 but he says that he never saw more poverty in 
 Ireland than can be seen right in this city of Boston. 
 Nor would any spectacle encountered over there be 
 more utterly depressing than was the line of men 
 that one winter thronged the soup kitchen at which 
 he worked hard every night as one of the Ford Hall 
 Folks. For, though Alfred Williams disbelieves in 
 philanthropy quite as much as Mrs, Hoffman does, 
 he cares very much about men and women and 
 little children, — particularly the children. The 
 Cooperative Commonwealth especially appeals to 
 him by virtue of the happy homes set in tidy little 
 gardens which it will bring to all workingmen. 
 And in all the gardens will be happy, healthy chil- 
 dren at play.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 A VIRILE YOUNG JEW 
 
 Samuel Sackmary 
 
 THOSE wlio attended the Fifth Birthday 
 Party of the Ford Hall Meetings will 
 recall a very remarkable letter printed on 
 the souvenir program. To this letter was appended 
 the name "Samuel Sackmary." The writer of that 
 letter and the vigorous, quick-spoken youth who, 
 at Mary Antin's Meeting, asked a question about 
 the speaker's cook, to which Mr. Coleman replied 
 amid a roar of laughter, "You're too late, Sam, 
 she's married," are one and the same. 
 
 Everybody calls him Sam — or wants to. He 
 himself calls his interesting antique shop down on 
 Temple street "Sam's Outlet", which it appears to 
 be in more than the commercial sense. For all the 
 well-known figures in West End life drop in there 
 in the course of the week, — and they do not all 
 buy antiques. Any one who has once heard Sack- 
 mary talk for half an hour is likely to want to hear 
 him again. He speaks with as much fervor as does 
 Stephen Wise; and, also like Wise, he says interest- 
 ing things. 
 
 His has been an interesting career, too. Born
 
 162 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 in the East Side of New York, he haunted, as a lad, 
 the newsboy galleries of the old New York theaters 
 and drank in eagerly the vivid pictures of humble 
 East Side life there being presented by Harrigan 
 and Hart — the Ward and Vokes of their day, 
 though much more serious in purpose than Ward 
 and Vokes have ever been. To hear Sam Sackmary 
 relate, with dramatic gesture, what Ned Harrigan 
 and his portrayal of city types meant to him as a 
 youth is to feel afresh the glow and lure of hero- 
 worship. 
 
 Removal to Boston was followed by attendance 
 at the Phillips School in the West End. Then, at 
 fifteen, the lad with the ardent eyes became a 
 "drummer on the road selling stationery." Always 
 however, his desire was to get into some sort of 
 work which should satisfy his art-instinct. Soon he 
 found himself collecting rare old things and selling 
 them again for a profit. But the Chelsea fire wiped 
 out his little stock and left him with less than five 
 dollars in the world! Yet, as he tells the story, 
 what he seems to lament most, in connection with 
 the fire, is that through it he lost a symphonic 
 composition, upon which he had long been at work 
 in his spare minutes, and which had been scored 
 for eighty -five instruments. 
 
 Music is Sam's passion. The great pleasure of 
 his life is playing old-fashioned tunes and airs which 
 have a resonant minor strain in them upon the organ 
 of the little West End home in which he and his 
 aged mother live together. This mother is a devout
 
 A VIRILE YOUNG JEW 163 
 
 and Orthodox Jewess, — from Hungary, — and 
 largely because of her, probably, Sam has kept close 
 to the faith of his fathers. But he is a convinced 
 Socialist none the less, ever since the day he read 
 Bellamy's Looking Backward. It seems to me not 
 without interest, therefore, that the synagogue 
 which he and his mother attend is the very building, 
 — on Smith Court, off Joy Street, — in which the 
 New England Anti-Slavery Society, the first asso- 
 ciation established in this country for the purpose 
 of freeing the blacks, was organized on a stormy 
 night of January, 1832. The building was then a 
 church for colored people, and hence a natural 
 rallying place for Garrison and those working with 
 him to free the slaves of the nineteenth century.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 A FINE IRISH COUPLE 
 Mr. and Mrs. John J. Sullivan 
 
 OCCASIONALLY, even in these days, one 
 meets a couple who seem perfectly matched. 
 When such a couple are no longer young 
 people, have indeed grown children of whom they 
 are justly proud, they help the sceptical among us 
 back to renewed faith in marriage as an institution. 
 But this is the story of Mr. and Mrs. John J. 
 Sullivan, — not a dissertation on the Ethics of 
 Marriage and Divorce. 
 
 Mr. Sullivan is a gentle, gray-haired man with 
 kindly blue eyes behind his gold-bowed spectacles. 
 His tastes are those of a scholar, though he is no 
 less enthusiastic over the joys of raising straw- 
 berries, peaches, gooseberries, and plums on the 
 half acre of land at his West Roxbury home than 
 over Thomas Buckle's History of English Civiliza- 
 tion, Spencerian philosophy, and the fascinating 
 literary style of our own John Fiske. Alfred 
 Russel Wallace is another of his book friends; the 
 optimistic note in this man's work and the way in 
 which he reconciles religion and science particularly 
 recommends itself to one of Mr. Sullivan's tempera- 
 ment.
 
 A FINE IRISH COUPLE 165 
 
 For John J. Sullivan Is one of our "incurably 
 religious" people; he declares indeed that it is the 
 constant emphasis put at Ford Hall on the spiritual 
 side of life which chiefly attracts him to our meet- 
 ings. A Roman Catholic by birth and training, he 
 had been wandering about for many years outside 
 the Church, searching everywhere for something 
 he could not find until, on the night when Charles 
 Sprague Smith gave his wonderful talk on "The 
 Brotherhood of Man", — back in our first season, 
 — he happened in at Ford Hall and found a new 
 heaven and a new earth opening to his hungry soul. 
 Ever since, he and his wife have been among our 
 most enthusiastic attendants. Mrs. Sullivan has 
 never ceased to be a good Catholic; Mr. Sullivan 
 confesses that he is now pretty nearly ready to 
 return to the Church of his fathers. Through 
 radicalism and revolt, he has come back, with our 
 help, to religion. 
 
 The Sullivans have four boys. The oldest of the 
 four, now twenty-five, his father w^himsically pro- 
 nounces a "sad reactionary." Graduated from the 
 High School at the early age of twelve, this lad was 
 sent by his father, at considerable sacrifice, to 
 Bowdoin College. There, however, he worked very 
 hard and so was able to complete his four years' 
 course with honors in three years. Young Sullivan 
 is doing exceedingly well for himself in the world, — 
 so well that he thinks there is no reason every other 
 youth may not attain just as great success as he 
 has done.
 
 16G DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 Those of us who are older and can see farther 
 feel that his contention might be sustained — if all 
 the other young fellows had been blessed with 
 parents like his!
 
 CHAPTER V 
 A JOURNALIST IN THE GERM 
 
 Philip Everett Sage 
 
 IN Ford Hall Folks there once appeared a sketch 
 entitled "Ford Hall and Satan", which a 
 great many people immensely enjoyed. The 
 author of the sketch was Philip Everett Sage, a 
 youth of seventeen who intends to be a journalist 
 one of these days, and who is now fitting himself 
 with singular thoroughness for his future profession. 
 If he had continued in school, young Sage would now 
 be a freshman in college. But he left school some 
 time ago in order to contribute to the family sup- 
 port, and it is by way of the preparatory classes at 
 the Young Men's Christian Association that he will 
 one day reach the Harvard of his desire. 
 
 Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday 
 evenings find this lad at his desk in the big building 
 on Huntington Avenue, busy over Latin, French, 
 ancient history, and government. Wednesday and 
 Saturday evenings he spends on the preparation of 
 his lessons; and every Sunday night he acts as an 
 usher at Ford Hall. From 8 to 5.20 daily he works 
 as a compositor in a big printing-office on Atlantic 
 Avenue, Boston. Not much opportunity in a week
 
 168 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 as full as this for the idleness that breeds mis- 
 chief ! 
 
 Unless ill health or some other untoward fate over- 
 takes him, Philip Sage will be in Harvard in three 
 years, — and a journalist at the end of four years 
 more. He has the kind of determination which 
 will carry him through. He has missed only one 
 night at Ford Hall in four years and that in spite of 
 the fact that Sunday is his one time of leisure in 
 an over-crowded week, — the only time when he 
 could do some of that reading he cares so much 
 about. He doesn't at all mind working as hard as 
 he now has to, he says, or even walking back and 
 forth, four evenings a week, from his home at 
 Cottage Park, Cambridge, to the Young Men's 
 Christian Association at Huntington Avenue, Bos- 
 ton; but it is hard not to have more time to read 
 Emerson and Homer, whose acquaintance he has 
 recently made in hours stolen from more pressing 
 scholastic duties. 
 
 "I greatly enjoy walking back and forth to my 
 classes," confided this strenuous young student. 
 "You see, it gives me a chance to review in my 
 mind the lecture of the Sunday evening before at 
 Ford Hall. I repeat many a passage to myself, 
 then analyze what the speaker has said, and, 
 perhaps, wish I could ask him the questions that 
 suggest themselves to me." 
 
 Philip never fails to ask a question at the meet- 
 ings. Once in a while it is a question that has 
 already been answered, but this is because he has
 
 A JOURNALIST IN THE GERM 169 
 
 been so intently thinking about the best form in 
 which to put his query that he has failed to hear 
 some of the other folks' questions. No attendant 
 at Ford Hall takes the meetings more seriously than 
 this ardent young Jew. 
 
 Prejudice, as those who read the sketch about 
 Ford Hall and Satan must have gathered, is the 
 Big Vice to young Sage. So desirous is he not to 
 be prejudiced himself, that he will not call himself 
 a Socialist, though greatly interested in the Socialist 
 philosophy; and so bent is he on avoiding preju- 
 dice in others, that he does not wish to be identified 
 with the Jewish race, though a loyal son of devout 
 Jewish parents. "It isn't that I'm ashamed of 
 being a Jew", he explains, "only that I don't want 
 to be pre-judged. I expect to write one day and to 
 have to sell my writings; I want then to find an 
 open field without more handicaps than must be 
 met by the next man. If everybody were like the 
 good Ford Hall folks, and took people for what they 
 are worth, regardless of race, class, or creed, it 
 would be a lot easier for us Jews. But we have 
 been sadly persecuted in the past. I have read the 
 five big volumes of Graetz's History of the Jews, 
 and am by no means ignorant of the difficulties my 
 people have had to overcome. Yet I am not bitter 
 about this. And all I want for myself is a chance 
 to get an education which will enable me to serve 
 the world, — all kinds of people, — whatever way 
 I can."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A TYPICAL MOTHER 
 
 Mrs. G. E. Blanchard 
 
 MRS. G. E. BLANCHARD is the middle link 
 in a very interesting family group, all 
 of whom are profoundly interested in 
 Ford Hall, and one of whom has followed the move- 
 ment from its very first meeting. This group be- 
 longs to that important category of persons whom 
 we are wont to declare happy because they have no 
 history. "I shall be very much gratified if you 
 leave me out of your budget of sketches", wrote 
 Mrs. Blanchard to me, when I told her I wanted to 
 write about her, "because I am really very ordi- 
 nary and commonplace, with no talent for anything 
 except helping a little in my own small corner. 
 Only, my feeling of loyalty to the 'Ford Hall spirit' 
 urges me to leave it to you to do as you think best 
 about the matter." 
 
 I greatly appreciate Mrs. Blanchard's confidence. 
 But I am writing about her just the same because 
 the fact that she and her mother and daughter are 
 enthusiastic attendants at Ford Hall proves that 
 one does not need to be a Socialist, an Anarchist, or 
 a Single Taxer to find much that is valuable and
 
 A TYPICAL MOTHER 171 
 
 stimulating in these meetings. Mrs. Blanchard has 
 been coming to the Meetings ever since the night 
 Keir Hardie spoke to us, some five years ago; and 
 her mother has been here ever since the first night, 
 while her daughter, a recent graduate of the Prac- 
 tical Arts High School, now comes regularly also. 
 Obviously the talk at the Blanchards' table and 
 their points of view concerning social matters must 
 be very different from that of the ordinary com- 
 fortable suburban family. (For these people live 
 an hour's ride from Beacon Hill on the electric 
 cars; coming to our Meetings with them is a thing 
 that takes time and so has to be carefully planned.) 
 It is worth noting that, in this family, however, 
 the Ford Hall Meetings are not a substitute for 
 regular religious aflSliations. Mrs. Blanchard is a 
 devout and loyal Methodist, actively interested in 
 foreign missions and chairman of the itinerary of 
 women missionaries for New England. She is also 
 the efiicient head of a family which consists of a 
 husband, two sons, and an adopted daughter. She 
 is of Revolutionary ancestry, — though she doesn't 
 make any fuss about it, — one of her ancestors 
 having been an oflBcer under Washington. The 
 same kind of grit that made this ancestor an effec- 
 tive person in his generation is possessed by Mrs. 
 Blanchard's sons. One of these sons, who is now 
 twenty-four and a successful chemist in Syracuse, 
 New York, lived in Vermont, eight miles from a 
 public library, during part of his student years, — 
 the family having gone temporarily into the country
 
 m DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 for reasons of health. Yet by the aid of some 
 correspondence school courses, supplemented by 
 work at the Franklin Union when he returned to 
 Boston, this disadvantage was so successfully over- 
 come that no real detriment was done to his career. 
 The second son is studying drafting and bids fair 
 to do as well in his profession. 
 
 Quiet yet strong-souled, unassertive yet executive, 
 Mrs. Blanchard typifies an element in the Ford 
 Hall work which has added more to the value and 
 sanity of the movement than can perhaps ever be 
 estimated. Especially since, through the "Ford 
 Hall Folks" gatherings, we have been able to con- 
 centrate and utilize the good sense and unprejudiced 
 conservatism which she and several other house- 
 wives in our group contribute. There are many 
 among us who, because of our temperaments, must 
 inevitably hitch our wagons to stars; but happily 
 our work can never get too far away from good 
 sound Mother Earth so long as Grace Emery 
 Blanchard and other women like her stand solidly 
 with us and constantly lend us their counsel.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A RED-HOT SOCIALIST 
 
 Martin Jordan 
 
 MARTIN JORDAN is a Socialist and a 
 Roman Catholic. Martin Jordan is a 
 Roman Catholic and a Socialist. Appar- 
 ently he does not find the two things mutually 
 antagonistic, as many of the Ford Hall audience 
 seem to think they must be. Nor does he find 
 either or both of them at all an impediment to 
 thorough appreciation of the Ford Hall Meetings. 
 There are two or three other interesting and unusual 
 things about this cheery little gray-haired man, who 
 sells his papers every Sunday night to the crowd 
 outside our doors. One of them is that though an 
 Englishman by birth, he has the whimsical wit of 
 an Irishman. Another is that though a Socialist, 
 he will cooperate with anybody in doing a good 
 deed. A third is that while his questions in the 
 hall always sound very, very fierce, he is the kind- 
 liest soul in the world. 
 
 Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, was Mr. Jordan's 
 birthplace, but he came to America at the age of 
 ten and was soon working for a dollar and a quarter 
 a day in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. He is
 
 174 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 not at all bitter as he tells about those days. In 
 fact, he says that he liked his work for the most 
 part, and that a good deal of the talk concerning 
 the unhealthiness of mining is sheer exaggeration. 
 By the use of modern methods, working in a mine 
 may be no worse than working in an elevator, he 
 insists. After his mining experience, Mr. Jordan 
 was employed for a number of years in a carpet 
 factory, and then, for eighteen years, in the Wal- 
 tham Bleachery. During this latter period, he 
 organized the first Knights of Labor that ever met 
 in Waltham. At this time he was a member of the 
 Populist party. In 1896, however, he became in- 
 terested in Socialism, and turned his propagandist 
 zeal into the service of that party. He works 
 valiantly all the time for the cause of humanity 
 everywhere; whether it be collecting clothing 
 for Lawrence strikers, helping to distribute Ford 
 Hall circulars, or softening the prejudices of Cath- 
 olics against Socialists — or of Socialists against 
 Catholics.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF 
 Clarence W. Marple 
 
 THERE is a kind of fine poetic justice in 
 the fact that it was by means of an ad- 
 dress given at a Ford Hall Meeting by- 
 President Faunce, Baptist, that Clarence W. 
 Marple, a Baptist born and bred, — who had, how- 
 ever, been driven from the church of his childhood 
 through lack of sympathy with old-fashioned the- 
 ology, "found himself" in the world and began to 
 live vitally for the first time. Mr. Marple is secre- 
 tary of the Ford Hall Folks and chairman of the 
 Town Meeting's committee on transportation. 
 But for Faunce he would have been neither. And 
 therein lies his story. 
 
 The Clarendon Street Baptist Church, of which 
 our director is a deacon, was presided over in the 
 days when Clarence Marple and our director were 
 both boys by Doctor A. J. Gordon, a splendid type 
 of militant Christian who was, however, thoroughly 
 orthodox on his theological side. Different natures 
 take things differently. Doctor Gordon's orthodoxy 
 did not repel young Coleman; nor did it retard his 
 development into the kind of man who can to-day
 
 176 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 love and be loved by many varieties of Jew and 
 all varieties of Christian. Young Marple, however, 
 ere long found himself outside the church because, 
 being unable to accept the Bible in toto and literally, 
 he decided that he could not accept it at all. "If 
 only the ministers and teachers had told me," he 
 now says wistfully, "what was allegory and what 
 fable in the Bible, — instead of leaving me to find 
 out for myself, — I should probably be in the church 
 to-day instead of outside, as I am." 
 
 Under these circumstances the fact that the Ford 
 Hall Meetings were under Baptist auspices naturally 
 did not make Clarence Marple look them up with 
 any great degree of alacrity when, returning to 
 Boston a few years ago, after five years' residence 
 in Vermont, his attention was first called to the 
 new institution. But he had developed an interest 
 in Socialism, while away from Boston, and the desire 
 to hear Spargo, whom he saw was to speak at Ford 
 Hall, proved to be stronger than the old-time 
 prejudice. That meeting was the beginning of a 
 great loyalty. Baptist though it was. Ford Hall 
 henceforth drew Clarence Marple. 
 
 As a youth reading and study had meant nothing 
 to this man, but he was now reading a good deal in 
 a rather haphazard fashion, earning his living the 
 while as shipper in a large manufacturing concern. 
 He brought a keen interest, therefore, to President 
 Faunce's remarkable lecture, "Education Without 
 Schools." Hearing this lecture, Clarence Marple 
 woke up. Faunce had spoken of many men who
 
 A MAN WHO FOUND HIMSELF 177 
 
 were developing themselves through correspondence 
 courses in law, draughting, etc., and Mr. Marple, 
 determining to study something effectively, inves- 
 tigated tentatively the opportunities such courses 
 might hold for him. But he was a family man, 
 with a wife, two girls, and a boy dependent upon 
 his earnings, and dilettante dabbling in study for 
 the sake of study was not to be thought of. Then 
 it came to him that there was plenty that he did 
 not know about the devious methods by which the 
 boxes which he every day sealed up reached their 
 destinations in Europe and on the other side of this 
 great country, — and he decided to take a course in 
 Interstate Commerce with the LaSalle University Ex- 
 tension of Chicago. No one who has heard him 
 discuss the problems of transportation at Town 
 Meeting can be in any doubt about what this 
 course has meant to him mentally. 
 
 Spiritually it has been his salvation. "To work 
 is to pray," declares a fine old Latin motto. To 
 work with enthusiasm and ever-deepening interest 
 in the vast sociological questions bound up with all 
 work in our time is to become a child of God, — 
 the kind of responsible human being for whom Earl 
 Barnes was calling in his lecture of a few months 
 ago. People who work in that way rise above their 
 immediate environment, no matter how humdrum 
 their work may be. So Clarence Marple's mind 
 goes on long journeys and considers many things 
 while he is nailing up a box of twine and paper for 
 use at a far western trading-post. That he has
 
 178 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 become vastly more valuable to his employers as 
 a result of his deepened interest in the technique 
 of transportation seems to me much less important, 
 though this is the side that the Correspondence 
 Schools always play up in their advertisements, 
 than that to himself he has become a significant 
 figure in the work of the world. There is a lesson 
 in his story for the rest of us Ford Hall folks.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A WARM-HEARTED UNBELIEVER 
 
 Michael Rush 
 
 MR. RUSH was first attracted to the 
 Sunday-evening gathering at Ford Hall 
 by the Town Meeting; a member of 
 the English Secular Society, he had previously 
 thought himself sufficiently served on Sunday by 
 the Free Thinkers' services in Paine Memorial Hall. 
 He dropped in at Town Meeting, one Thursday 
 night, however, because he is a man with large 
 leisure, interested in every kind of effort for human 
 betterment. Mr. Foster as a presiding officer 
 immediately won his admiration; he says that he 
 would back him any time against the speakers of 
 the Massachusetts House of Representatives, whom 
 he often studies in action, as it were. But at the 
 Town Meeting he heard talk of "Sunday nights" 
 and of "Mr. Coleman", and this roused his curi- 
 osity. So one Sunday night he found himself in 
 our upstairs audience. And he has been coming 
 ever since. 
 
 "There's such a grand democracy about those 
 Meetings that they make my heart bubble and boil 
 like a little sauce-pan," he confided to me recently.
 
 180 DEINIOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 I have come to like them so much that I don't even 
 mind their being fathered by a rehgious organiza- 
 tion! I thought that I was through with prayers 
 for all time, but Mr. Coleman's prayers mean some- 
 thing to me. He's an honest man, as honest as 
 Charles Bradlaugh, that great agnostic with whom 
 I worked in England, and whom I honored so much 
 that I traveled a hundred miles just to shake his 
 hand when I was leaving home for America, more 
 than thirty years ago." 
 
 It is very interesting to hear Mr. Rush talk about 
 the way he became an agnostic. He took the step 
 as deliberately and after as deep searching of the 
 soul as usually accompanies "conversion" and 
 subsequent "joining the church." For he had 
 previously been a most ardent and earnest Metho- 
 dist. All the education he has, indeed, was ob- 
 tained from Methodist Sunday-schools, and he was 
 so eager as a lad to improve these scant oppor- 
 tunities that he used to get up at five o'clock to 
 attend their classes. Soon he became an " exhorter " 
 and it is easy to believe his own statement that 
 "no one slept while I talked." 
 
 The harsh conditions attending life among the 
 poor in England he knew very well all this time. 
 For, like John Spargo and Keir Hardie, he exper- 
 ienced child labor in his own person. His employer, 
 at the tender age of seven, was a Church of Eng- 
 land rector who paid him thirty-six cents a week 
 (in our money) for "scaring the birds from the 
 corn." "I used to run up and down the field
 
 A WARM-HEARTED UNBELIEVER 181 
 
 rattling a huge pair of wooden clappers," is Mr. 
 Rush's own exposition of the methods he employed 
 in this primitive agricultural pursuit. From this 
 to sixty cents a week as a farm helper, and from 
 that to peddling with a basket were natural steps. 
 But since seventeen, as he relates with pardonable 
 pride, he has been his "own boss", — a donkey to 
 carry the basket being his earliest capital invest- 
 ment. 
 
 A furniture business in the West End of Boston 
 enabled him to accumulate a modest competence 
 and do a great deal of thinking. He is now retired 
 from business, and so can think uninterruptedly. 
 Meanwhile his two sons, with a real estate office in 
 the Old South Building, are creditably carrying on 
 the family traditions of honesty and effectiveness. 
 
 I have said that Mr. Rush is an ardent agnostic. 
 I should add that he is most rigorously and actively 
 ethical. WTiile he insists on "one world at a time", 
 he takes his "one world" very seriously. He 
 believes that it is a man's duty to help every good 
 movement and to be kind and just in all his deal- 
 ings- "Lie down each night with a clear con- 
 science," he counsels. To preach this is much; to 
 practise it infinitely more. Michael Rush both 
 preaches it and practises it.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A LOVER OF FLOWERS AND CHILDREN 
 Mrs. Nellie McLean Atwood 
 
 FLAGS instead of fire-crackers, flowers in 
 the place of the deadly toy pistol! These 
 are "safe and sane" implements surely, 
 with which to celebrate the Fourth of July. And 
 if you think that children do not enjoy them, come 
 around to the East Boston home of Mrs. Nellie 
 McLean Atwood next Fourth of July morning and 
 change your mind. For the children begin to stand 
 in line for their flags and flowers two or three hours 
 before distribution of them begins at ten o'clock. 
 Of course, having been a child myself, and being 
 still exceedingly fond of cake, I would be the last 
 to say that the spread which Mrs. Atwood and her 
 co-workers furnish afterwards for the children has 
 not at least something to do with their great interest 
 in the flowers and the flags. The Massachusetts 
 Floral Emblem Society, of whose East Boston 
 branch Mrs. Atwood is president, has always had 
 the wisdom to make this attractive combination of 
 food and flowers, as I recall. 
 
 The money for this Fourth of July celebration is 
 almost all raised by Mrs. Atwood herself by means
 
 A LOVER OF FLOWERS AND CHILDREN 183 
 
 of cake sales and whist parties. But tlie Flower 
 Market helps gloriously by contributing nearly 
 fifty thousand pinks, roses, and lilies which they 
 send out to East Boston, express prepaid, as their 
 share of this unique festival. Their generosity in 
 this matter is very deeply appreciated by Mrs. 
 Atwood; and she shows it by giving at least five 
 hundred pinks, each Fourth, to the operators of 
 the East Boston Telephone Exchange, who may 
 have been helping by their service and civility, on 
 a day when most people are distinctly averse to 
 working, the very florists who have contributed 
 the flowers. Usually Fourth of July in Boston is 
 so hot as to need no firework accompaniments, and 
 it is an exceptionally trying day, with its accidents 
 and fires, for telephone girls. A large bunch of 
 flowers which each girl may take home with her is 
 not the least gracious, therefore, of the many 
 beautiful and kindly acts of service rendered by 
 Mrs. Atwood. 
 
 Born in Machias, this "State of Maine" woman 
 has shown not a little business ability in preparing 
 and marketing pure foods in her own home, adding 
 considerably to her income by making cake, bread, 
 and other foods of such excellent quality that they 
 sell on sight, — and yet she has time for many 
 kinds of neighborly service and work looking to 
 community betterment. Last year she laid plans for 
 recreation work in connection with the Ford Hall 
 Town Meeting, and during the coming summer will 
 doubtless bring her playgrounds into efiicient service.
 
 184 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Mrs. Atwood attended Mr. Coleman's first series 
 of Sunday-night lectures, more than seven years 
 ago, and has been coming steadily and enthusi- 
 astically ever since. Interest in the meetings sup- 
 plied her only solace during the crushing blow she 
 experienced a year ago in the sudden death in the 
 West of her only son. Our various activities here 
 were of very great comfort to her, she says, partic- 
 ularly the work we were then carrying on for the 
 down-and-out sons of many other loving mothers 
 all over this broad land.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A STREET PREACHER 
 
 D. W. Carty 
 
 NEARLY every one who regularly attends 
 the Ford Hall meetings has an interesting 
 history, but few stories that I have heard 
 are so full of fervor and color as that of D. W. 
 Carty, the old gentleman with the serene face and 
 the long white beard, who usually asks a penetrat- 
 ing socialistic question during our question period. 
 Mr. Carty humorously characterized himself at 
 Town Meeting a few weeks ago, as a " Tipper ary 
 boy", and it is a fact that he was born seventy-two 
 years ago in that district of Ireland recently made 
 famous by this song of the British soldiery. He left 
 his Irish home when only nine years old, however, 
 because he could not get on with his stepfather; 
 even at this early age the man's strong individualism 
 appears to have asserted Itself, also his pronounced 
 free-thinking bent. For though as a boy he was 
 immensely interested in things religious, he could 
 never find exactly the faith which utterly satisfied 
 him. 
 
 For a while after coming to America, he continued 
 to go to church, first in Canada and then in the
 
 186 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 United States, but the age of twenty found him 
 "hving the life of a roustabout in Buffalo" and 
 estranged from every form of religion. He earned 
 his living at this time as a deck-hand on a lake 
 steamer, and one night was caught in a storm which 
 threatened the ship and his life. In this crisis, the 
 habit of prayer returned and, clinging to the hulk 
 of the ship, he vowed to God that he would be a 
 better man if his life were saved. 
 
 The following Sunday and many successive Sun- 
 days found him in attendance at one or another of 
 the popular churches of the city. But no one 
 offered to shake hands with the shy youth, and he 
 was left with the desolating impression that no 
 man cared for his soul. One Sunday, the saving 
 thought came to him that he would better go to a 
 church on a back street, and following this sugges- 
 tion he sought out the unfashionable quarter of the 
 city and walked for several blocks until, over the 
 door of what had formerly been a theater, his eye 
 caught the sign Free Church. 
 
 The congregation here proved to be a Methodist 
 one, presided over by a very eloquent preacher, and 
 the atmosphere was so congenial to young Carty, 
 who now had a job in a rolling mill of the city, 
 that every free night at his disposal found him 
 worshipping in his new church home. Soon a 
 season of revival came, and he experienced con- 
 version. Through a prayer which he made at this 
 time, it was revealed that here was a preacher in 
 embryo, and he was assisted with books and advice
 
 A STREET PREACHER 187 
 
 until he had done much to overcome the handicap 
 of an exceedingly limited education. For in Ireland 
 the boy had had almost no schooling, and the six 
 months of regular teaching which he had enjoyed 
 in Canada had not helped him very much. What 
 did prove of great help, however, was the five 
 months of tuition which came to him soon after he 
 had arrived at man's estate, through the kind 
 intervention of a church friend, who gave him a 
 home for a time just as he had previously given him 
 a job. 
 
 Reading until three or four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing in works of theology and philosophy eventually 
 developed this man's naturally analytical mind to 
 such an extent that the discrepancies to be found 
 in the various theological systems assumed a much 
 greater importance to him than the body of truth 
 behind all theology. Yet all the while he was in- 
 vesting a large part of his time and energy in lay- 
 preaching, reaching great numbers of people in this 
 way and stirring them powerfully by his fire and 
 eloquence. 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century this went 
 on until, one night at Toledo, Ohio, after preaching 
 on the street to three thousand people it suddenly 
 came to Mr. Carty with the force of utter convic- 
 tion that he did not himself believe what he had been 
 saying. That was the last sermon he ever preached. 
 Some of you who read this may remember having 
 heard him quite recently speaking in Pemberton 
 Square, and it is a fact that he was there, not long
 
 188 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ago, for twenty-four nights in succession. But that 
 was lecturing, not preaching, he insists. For, since 
 the night when, following Emerson, he took himself 
 for his portion, "ventured to trust himself for a 
 taskmaster," he has definitely cast aside "every- 
 thing of a religious nature that does not present 
 to his reason the elements of sound logic, actual 
 justice and plain common sense." Thus, for the 
 past twenty-seven years, he has been a progressive 
 thinker of the Emersonian-Unitarian type, a most 
 pronounced individualist in religion just as, in other 
 directions he is the freest of free lances. With 
 pardonable pride he asserts that, though he hasn't 
 found a fortune in America, he has found himself.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A THINKER WHO WALKS IN DARKNESS 
 
 Joseph Cosgrove 
 
 SEVERAL times interesting questions about 
 Mexico and the Mexican situation have been 
 asked at our meetings by a gentle-voiced, 
 light-haired young man who sits in the right-hand 
 gallery. This man is totally blind, — although that 
 fact is not immediately obvious, — and he lost his 
 sight as a result of a plot against Americans made 
 by Mexican mine workers. A very sad and terrible 
 story his. Yet he tells it without bitterness; and 
 adds that his sympathies always go out to the Mex- 
 icans even though they are responsible for his 
 irreparable loss. The Americans down there are 
 usually overbearing and insolent, he says, and while 
 they bear away wealth with them, the natives 
 remain to suffer every kind of poverty and want. 
 Moreover, the plot which cost him his sight was 
 not aimed at him personally; and it grew out of 
 the deep superstition in which these people have 
 been plunged since time immemorial. 
 
 Born in Massachusetts, young Cosgrove heeded 
 the call of the West; and after spending five years 
 in the gold and silver mines of California, went to
 
 190 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Arizona, and thence to Mexico to prepare himself 
 for a position of importance in the copper mining 
 district. The town in which he settled down there 
 was called Navidad (Spanish for Christmas), the 
 very place, I believe, in which one of the recent 
 insurrections had its birth. The fourth day of 
 May, Cross Day, — when a new cross is set up in 
 every Mexican mine, — is of all days of the year to 
 them most sacred. The exigencies of work in Mr. 
 Cosgrove's mine made it necessary for him and an 
 English comrade to collect some samples of ore on 
 this most sacred day, however: and so the two 
 made their way in a cage to a point several hundred 
 feet below the surface of the mine to do their 
 assaying. They had their drilling tools with them, 
 but chancing to find a hole already drilled, made 
 use of it. As a result the Englishman was killed, 
 and Cosgrove blinded. The hole, it appears, had 
 been filled with dynamite and topped with high 
 pressure caps, so that only a few light strokes of 
 a hammer were necessary to make it immediately 
 death-dealing. 
 
 For so much of our friend's troubles, we may 
 blame the ignorant superstition of insanely wrong- 
 headed natives. But immediate medical assistance 
 would have alleviated, if not cured, his particular 
 case. And the American owners of these rich and 
 productive mines had not thought it worth while 
 to provide a resident doctor. Hence horrible, 
 indescribable suffering on the part of this innocent 
 worker. He barely escaped having his eyes re-
 
 A THINKER WHO WALKS IN DARKNESS 191 
 
 moved from his head by main force at the clumsy 
 hands of an orderly who had once had some distant 
 connection with a hospital. 
 
 Of course it was too late for successful operation 
 when, nearly four weeks later, young Cosgrove, 
 traveling with infinite pain in a stage-coach drawn 
 by four mules, managed to achieve the mountain 
 journey of eighty-six miles which set him down in 
 the presence of an oculist. So soon after as he 
 could gather enough strength he set out, alone and 
 blinded, on the journey of thirty-five hundred miles 
 back to his native Massachusetts. 
 
 That was seven years ago. During these years 
 he has taught himself Braille, though he does not 
 use it much, and studied Socialism. Accidents 
 similar to this are happening all the time in mines; 
 but they need not be so terrible in their results, he 
 insists, if Capital provides proper medical atten- 
 dance. Yet he is not a bitter person when he talks 
 of Capital, any more than when he talks of the 
 Mexicans who did him so grievous a wrong. He 
 declares that he is very happy, too; and finds 
 plenty of things with which to make his days inter- 
 esting as, attended only by his cane, he comes to 
 Ford Hall functions and to Committee hearings at 
 the State House over the way. In four years he 
 has missed but two Ford Hall meetings, and his 
 voice breaks with deep feeling as he tries to express 
 what the discovery of us meant to him. "You were 
 joyously talking here," he says, "what I had long 
 been silently and sadly thinking!"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A FORD HALL PRODUCT 
 
 Freda Rogolsky 
 
 FROM Polotzk and from the Pale which 
 Mary Antin has uniquely celebrated comes 
 Freda Rogolsky, who has found in the 
 Ford Hall Meetings what Mary Antin found in 
 Boston's public schools. Freda came to America 
 "the year McKinley was shot." That any one 
 should have killed the good man who was presiding 
 over the destinies of her "Promised Land" was as 
 incomprehensible to her as apathy towards our 
 American institutions is to Mary Antin. Freda's 
 father had come over two or three years in advance 
 of his family, and they could not obtain passports. 
 So there was a wild rush in the dead of night across 
 the plateau which separates the German and the 
 Russian frontiers, and even a short detention in 
 prison before Freda, in disguise (because she was 
 using some one else's passport) attained safe harbor 
 beneath the German flag. Then, two weeks in 
 Germany and four weeks in London preceded the 
 long sea voyage, after which the little girl landed in 
 Boston and began her education as an American 
 citizen at a West End school, which then bore the
 
 A FORD HALL PRODUCT 193 
 
 name of Emerson and now, remodeled, bears that 
 of Elizabeth Peabody. This was fitting, because 
 the Elizabeth Peabody Settlement House, of whose 
 classes Freda soon availed herself, and to whose 
 staff she is now attached as a paid worker, was to 
 mean much to her; almost as much as Ford Hall, 
 which the eager child early discovered, — and be- 
 cause of which her educational career came abruptly 
 to an end soon after she had been graduated from 
 the grammar school in 1908. 
 
 The occasion of Freda's break with Boston's 
 educational system was Shakespeare. Her class in 
 high school was studying the Merchant of Venice, 
 and one of the girls in the class spoke slightingly 
 of Jews by reason of the bloodthirstiness she thought 
 she saw in Shylock. "That is not true," Freda 
 flamed up. "The Jews are a peaceful race. There 
 is nothing murderous about them. How many 
 Jews have been sent to the electric chair in Massa- 
 chusetts.? Rather is it the Christians who show 
 themselves bloodthirsty when they massacre my 
 people. Shylock seems to me a far more noble 
 character than Antonio, who asks Shylock to give 
 up his religion. I go to Ford Hall and there they 
 say that every person should stick to his own reli- 
 gion and be earnest about his life in his own way. 
 If only you would all go there you would see. . . ." 
 
 Very likely there was more in the heat of the 
 moment, something which might have justified the 
 teacher in asking Freda for the apology the girl 
 steadfastly refused to give. Neither would yield.
 
 194 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 so Freda had to leave school. She has not stopped 
 studying, however, as the following schedule shows: 
 Sunday night, Ford Hall; Monday and Thursday, 
 a dressmaking class at the Young Women's Chris- 
 tian Association; Wednesday, the Efficiency course 
 which Miner Chipman is giving at the School of 
 Social Science; Tuesday evening, preparation at the 
 Public Library for the college extension course in 
 English composition which she is taking this year 
 for the second time; and one evening a week for the 
 Ford Hall Town Meeting. 
 
 All of which, when added to work every week 
 day at the Settlement and attendance every Sunday 
 morning at the Temple Israel, must make Freda's 
 life in the Promised Land a very full one at present.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED COLORED LAWYER 
 
 Butler R. Wilson 
 
 ONLY two or three colored men come regu- 
 larly to Ford Hall. One of them is Willis 
 Q. Browne, who, though he is too modest 
 to allow a sketch of himself to be prepared for this 
 book, almost always musters sufficient courage to 
 ask the speaker a question. Another regular repre- 
 sentative of the negro race here Sunday nights is 
 Butler R. W^ilson, who is a prosperous lawyer in 
 Boston and a member of our citizens' committee. 
 When I asked him why his race is so sparsely 
 represented at our meetings he said: "It is because 
 the colored people are religious folk, and are in the 
 habit of attending services in their own churches 
 Sunday nights. They are really very deeply 
 interested in all the problems discussed at Ford Hall, 
 though, and, if you met in the afternoon instead of 
 the evening, would be on hand in large numbers." 
 This answer illustrates the kind of illuminating 
 information Butler Wilson is always dispensing. If 
 you want facts and not oratory on any colored 
 problem, go to him. Boston long ago found out that 
 he has an excellent habit of being just as sane and
 
 196 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 judicial when discussing the problems of the colored 
 people as when discussing any other problems, and 
 it values him accordingly. For to a mind essen- 
 tially fair, he adds exact knowledge. Though the 
 Massachusetts Senator now in Charles Sumner's 
 place at Washington appears not to have known it, 
 Butler Wilson was able to tell him that Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1843, on the petition of William Lloyd 
 Garrison, repealed a law to prevent intermarriage 
 between the whites and the colored people, — just 
 such a law as was recently up for discussion at 
 Washington. We have very little intermarriage 
 in Massachusetts to-day between whites and 
 negroes, and Mr. Wilson was undoubtedly right in 
 pronouncing the impending bill "uncalled for, 
 meddlesome and exceedingly irritating." It is 
 related, of course, to the offensive segregation rules 
 passed some time since in the government depart- 
 ments at Washington. These rules are said to have 
 been made for the purpose of preventing inter- 
 marriage; the argument was that white people 
 and colored people, from working together in the 
 departments, got to know each other outside and so 
 contracted marriages. Yet a careful investigation 
 showed that no such marriages had occurred. Far 
 from there being any need of such a law as has 
 been threatened, there is the utmost necessity that 
 legal possibility of marriage shall remain. Other- 
 wise colored girls and women are utterly at the 
 mercy of white libertines. And no protection of 
 any kind is afforded to children that may spring 
 
 J
 
 A DISTINGUISHED COLORED LAWYER 197 
 
 from illicit unions, there being no bastardy law in 
 the Southern States. 
 
 All this and much more about present negro 
 problems I learned during a long talk with Butler 
 R. Wilson in his pleasant law office opposite City 
 Hall on School Street. I had never been able to 
 understand, for instance, why the negro who knows 
 how to read and write cannot vote down South. 
 He explained it to me. The presence in the office 
 of three registrars, it appears, is technically neces- 
 sary down there when a man is qualifying for 
 citizenship. When a colored man comes in, this 
 rule is utilized to his disadvantage. Mr. Wilson 
 told of a colored friend of his, the principal of a 
 school in a Southern city, who could never register 
 because, when he came in, three men could never 
 be found on duty; meanwhile, by virtue of the 
 *'grandfather clause", many white men who are 
 quite illiterate may vote. Possessing a grandfather 
 who fought in the Mexican War puts them beyond 
 the reach of literacy tests. 
 
 In reply to a question as to why so few negroes 
 are in the Socialist party, Mr. Wilson informed me 
 that in New York State and in the Middle West, 
 many colored people are Socialists. He added that 
 it is his opinion that the Socialist party may split 
 on the negro question. 
 
 Mr. Wilson is a Republican, and he himself has 
 never suffered any of the hardships that fall to the 
 lot of so many negroes. For though he was born 
 in Georgia, eighty miles from Atlanta, he had plenty
 
 198 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 of educational privileges, and after graduating from 
 the University of Atlanta, in 1881, studied law at 
 Boston University. Entering upon practice here, 
 he was quite promptly able to build up a good list 
 of clients, most of whom, rather oddly, are white 
 people. Mrs. Wilson, who boasts of an uncle and 
 a cousin who were with John Brown at Harper's 
 Ferry, feels the wrongs of her race much more 
 personally and passionately than does her judicial- 
 minded husband. As she talks, she can make an 
 audience feel them too! Five charming children, 
 one of whom is a junior in Radcliffe College, and 
 another of whom is a sophomore at Harvard, 
 brighten the Wilson home. It will be interesting 
 to see what they do with their promising young 
 lives.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A YOUTH WHO BEGAN AS A NEWSBOY 
 Jacob London 
 
 WE, at Ford Hall, know him as Jack London, 
 but his name is Jacob London when 
 he signs it to letters designed to push 
 Ford Hall Folks. He is coming to be more and 
 and more glad all the while that his personality 
 is linked for all time with that of the ancient people 
 of Israel. 
 
 Jack's pride in Ford Hall Folks is unbounded; 
 and well it may be, for he is its father. All of 
 the old guard will remember how, at the Kingsley 
 Hall meetings about three years ago, he first began 
 to urge upon us this matter of publishing a paper. 
 And continued to urge it until his dream had 
 to become a reality! And it was his persistent 
 hammering that led to the publishing of our book 
 of prayers and to the formation of the plans for 
 this book. 
 
 It seems to have been like that always with Jack; 
 and this same quality of smiling persistence will one 
 day, I doubt not, give him that important position 
 in the government of his adopted city towards which 
 he has been steadily working for some years now.
 
 200 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 For Jack would be a lawyer; and a lawyer who has 
 specialized in corporation and municipal law! He 
 says that he has wanted this ever since he was old 
 enough to want anything intelligently, and that this 
 ambition has helped him and spurred him on 
 through all the hardships of his short, but eventful 
 life. 
 
 Jack's mother is an orthodox Russian Jewess, but 
 he himself best remembers Vienna of the cities in 
 which he passed his childhood. And of the long 
 and toilsome journey from the Austrian capital to 
 Boston on Massachusetts Bay, he recalls most 
 distinctly the six months that the little family had 
 to stay in London. They would have had to stay 
 quite a while anyhow, because the brave little 
 mother had to earn by washing and other ill-paid 
 work the money which was necessary to take them 
 all on to America. But because Jack, playing ball, 
 broke a window which cost a whole lot of money to 
 replace, they had to stay considerably longer than 
 they would otherwise have done. Jack speaks 
 rather sadly of that now. 
 
 But he cannot be sad long, this youth of the 
 cheerful grin. He will tell you very happily that 
 he once got thirty-nine separate and distinct rattan 
 punishments in a month while a pupil in the Quincy 
 School down on Tyler Street, Boston; he adds that 
 he deserved them all. His mother was supporting 
 her three children at this time by keeping a little 
 grocery store on Oneida Street where they all lived, 
 Jack eking out the family income by selling papers
 
 A YOUTH WHO BEGAN AS A NEWSBOY 201 
 
 and blacking boots. He could have continued to 
 do this and to attend school, but after he had got 
 just a taste of "higher education" at the Boston 
 Latin School, the lessons of the street bore their 
 fruit, and he left home to fend for himself. Finding 
 a job as plumber's assistant at three dollars and 
 fifty cents a week was not hard: but Jack was not 
 the boy to stick to such a calling; and soon he was 
 again selling papers and leading the alluring vaga- 
 bond life of the street. 
 
 Then it was that Philip Davis found him and 
 interested him in the work of the Civic Service 
 House. This was the first step in Jack's upward 
 career. The next step came when, having heard 
 "Daddy" George talk at Keith's Theatre about the 
 George Junior Republic, Jack decided that he would 
 go to Freeville, New York, and become a "citizen." 
 The Republic made a man of him. Always a good 
 public speaker, he won many prizes up there for 
 proficiency in this direction; and he learned also a 
 great deal about self-respect and self-control. 
 
 He was now ready to respond to Ford Hall. 
 When he heard Freda Rogolsky descant on our 
 charms down at the Civic Service House Camp in 
 West Gloucester three summers ago, he resolved to 
 get acquainted with us just as soon as we opened 
 in the fall. His first meeting was the one with 
 which Doctor Thomas Hall inaugurated our season 
 of 1912-1913. A little later that year the Ford 
 Hall Folks organized. And at almost their first 
 meeting, Jack emerged, pleading that we have "a
 
 202 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 paper of our own." He had been editor and busi- 
 ness manager of a paper at the Republic, you see, 
 and so knew something about the joys and cares 
 of such an enterprise. Mr. Coleman, who knows 
 nearly all there is to know about the publishing 
 business, was of enormous service to our boy pub- 
 lisher as the little paper developed. "I learned for 
 one thing that he never takes excuses," Jack said 
 to me naively the other day. Jack is not so prolific 
 in excuses as he was before he learned this. 
 
 During the early part of Jack's connection with 
 Ford Hall Folks, he was earning his living in a de- 
 partment store. But he had led much too free 
 a life to submit docilely to the rules and regulations 
 governing such institutions as these, and so was 
 profoundly unhappy in his work. He was still 
 something of a vagabond, having a cheap little 
 room in which he cooked his own meals and did his 
 own washing. But he always managed to look 
 exceedingly neat and to appear well fed. For he 
 had pride, — the pride, shall we say, of his race? 
 Once when he threw up a disagreeable job, he went 
 from Saturday noon until Monday night with 
 absolutely no food, — after exhausting the small 
 sum he had been able to raise by pawning the pre- 
 cious watch won in a speaking contest. Frequently 
 he lived three days on a can of beans, — and kept 
 smiling all the time. 
 
 Last year he studied law at the Young Men's 
 Christian Association; and for some time now he 
 has been living very comfortably in the splendid
 
 A YOUTH WHO BEGAN AS A NEWSBOY 203 
 
 new home of that organization up on Huntington 
 Avenue. At present he has a good job in which his 
 persistence and resourcefulness are proving to be 
 exceedingly valuable assets. And he is taking the 
 second-year law course. In the public speaking so 
 dear to his heart, he is finding practice at the Town 
 Meeting and by giving little talks to church 
 bodies near Boston on "Democracy and The Ford 
 Hall Spirit." Jack is also an enthusiastic member of 
 the Committee in charge of the Forum at the Young 
 Men's Christian Association. He does not need to 
 tell every one whom he meets that he is happy. 
 But he tells them just the same. And he adds that 
 it is all due to the five men whom he calls his 
 "hand of life:" Philip Davis who helped him when 
 nobody else cared, "Daddy" George, George Gallup, 
 Thomas Dreier, and George W. Coleman. 
 
 Jack is very fond of all these men, but he adores 
 Mr. Coleman. If you have never had this kind 
 of admiration for an older person who was at once 
 a guide, friend, and dear playfellow you will not 
 understand, — as I did very well, — why Jack's 
 always happy face was simply radiant one Saturday. 
 "I am going to play hand-ball with him at the 
 Gym this afternoon," he confided, "and then I am 
 going to his house for supper, and after supper we 
 are going to the theater together! ! !" I did not 
 need to ask who the "him" was nor why Jack 
 looked so supremely joyful. I have been a hero- 
 worshipper myself in my time.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AN IDEALISTIC BUSINESS MAN 
 George B. Gallup 
 
 IT helps you to understand George Brewster 
 Gallup to know that he writes poetry. Some 
 of his serious verse has been very highly 
 praised by critics who know good work in this field ; 
 and, though he says little about this verse-writing, 
 one feels the poet behind the advertising man when- 
 ever Mr. Gallup talks his favorite theme, city plan- 
 ning. To this man, city planning means bringing 
 the Holy City down to earth — "making His 
 Kingdom come", in the striking phraseology of the 
 world's greatest prayer; to a sermon he once heard 
 preached on the text, "Seek ye first the Kingdom 
 of Heaven", Mr. Gallup dates his spiritual rebirth 
 into this passion of his life. 
 
 George Brewster Gallup is of the purest Puritan 
 strain so far as his family is concerned. He doesn't 
 bother much about this, for he is a democrat with a 
 big D, but he says it strengthens his sinews to 
 remember it when he is fighting, against great odds, 
 to make this world a fit place for children to be 
 born into. For that to him is the whole meaning 
 and purpose of "city planning": the elimination
 
 AN IDEALISTIC BUSINESS MAN 205 
 
 of the inhumanities and barbarities of cities as we 
 see them to-day. He once wrote for the leading 
 paper of a city not a thousand miles from Boston a 
 series of one hundred and fifty articles which cov- 
 ered the whole field of city planning as we now 
 know it; and yet this science had not then been 
 given a name. It was his idealistic enthusiasm for 
 a more perfect city that first drew him and George 
 W. Coleman together. This has meant much to 
 the Ford Hall Meetings. 
 
 Mr. Gallup was born in a little town near Albany, 
 New York, and served his newspaper apprenticeship 
 as reporter on the Albany Argus. Then he became 
 interested in library work and helped to organize 
 the first State Library Association of which Melville 
 Dewey was president. Somewhat later he was 
 called to a newspaper position in another New York 
 city where, at that time, capital and labor were 
 engaged in deadly combat. The vision of what the 
 city might become if these two opposing forces were 
 made to work together smote Mr. Gallup with 
 mighty force, and he began to try what he could do 
 towards bringing this happy thing to pass. The 
 president of the labor union was a friend of his and 
 so was the president of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 Through Mr. Gallup's good offices, the two were 
 made to know each other as men and as citizens, 
 with the result that the union label was soon to be 
 found on all the city printing and men began to be 
 proud of residence in a community of which they 
 had heretofore been ashamed.
 
 206 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 In the great work of stimulating a similar pride 
 in our New England communities, Mr. Gallup now 
 gives scores of addresses every year before all sorts 
 of civic bodies on The Perfect City as he sees it. 
 At the Ford Hall Town Meeting his vision has 
 already kindled the imagination of the citizens and 
 has borne fruit in actual civic improvement. For 
 Mr. Gallup is quite as ready to lend his shoulder 
 as his silver tongue to the boosting of any good 
 movement; seconded by Mrs. Gallup, he has been 
 of immense service to those in charge of our soup 
 kitchen enterprise. 
 
 The Gallups are, indeed, a refreshingly congenial 
 and like-minded couple, and their one son is now 
 enthusiastically following his father's profession. 
 Such families serve to keep our faith firm in the 
 principles upon which New England was builded.
 
 PART IV 
 
 A REVIEW OF ADDRESSES 
 SIX TYPICAL FORD HALL TALKS
 
 INTRODUCTION TO PART IV 
 
 AT first it was very difficult to find suitable 
 speakers for the Ford Hall platform. 
 Now we have an embarrassment of riches. 
 In the beginning it was not so easy to get lecturers 
 to understand the limitations we were under in 
 avoiding everything that might give offense to race, 
 class, or creed. We granted the widest liberty, 
 but permitted no license. We welcomed difference 
 of opinion, but would not tolerate rancor and bitter- 
 ness. But in spite of these very necessary limita- 
 tions, we wanted real messages: no colorless, 
 denatured, platitudinous declarations would serve 
 our purpose in the very least. 
 
 For our first season and some little time after- 
 wards, we drew heavily on those speakers who had 
 made conspicuous successes at Cooper Union, in New 
 York, and many of whom I personally had heard 
 Sunday evenings on the Cooper Union platform. 
 For some time after starting, we also had to explain 
 a good deal to speakers why we were asking them 
 to speak for us without compensation. I remember 
 well the compromise we entered into with one of 
 our most popular speakers the first time he ever
 
 210 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 came to us. It was in that period when the size 
 of our audience was growing very rapidly. He said 
 that if he were not to receive his regular fee of 
 seventy-five dollars, we must at least assure him 
 an audience large enough to make it worth his 
 while to give us his services. He insisted on the 
 regular fee, but agreed to deduct ten dollars for 
 every hundred people in the audience. As there 
 were nearly a thousand people present that night, 
 he was indebted to us about twenty -five dollars! 
 
 As Ford Hall grew in reputation with each pass- 
 ing season, we found that well-known speakers, 
 such as we were after, understood all about the 
 work we were doing and counted it a privilege to 
 have a share in our program. Now we haven't 
 dates enough by half for the list of speakers whom 
 we should like to invite each season. 
 
 Sometimes we assign just the particular topic we 
 want to have presented, but frequently we ask the 
 speaker to suggest topics from which we make our 
 choice. Perhaps it is the man we want above 
 everything else, and we care little what topic he 
 takes, while at other times we hunt around to find 
 just the right person to handle some special topic 
 that we have in mind. 
 
 In the following addresses, — six in number, — 
 we have a fair presentation of the topics and 
 speakers that are most representative of the Ford 
 Hall platform. They are arranged in chronological 
 order, the first one, on "The Religion of the Crowd," 
 having been given at the end of the second season.
 
 INTRODUCTION 211 
 
 six years ago, and "The Search After God" having 
 come at New Year's time, 1915. It is interesting 
 to note that both of these were wholly religious in 
 their appeal. Two of the others deal with Socialism, 
 one for and one against, while the remaining two 
 treat of democracy from different points of view. 
 
 It should be remembered that none of these 
 addresses were ever put in manuscript form. They 
 were all delivered extemporaneously and were taken 
 down and condensed by our official stenographer. 
 They are not supposed to be in the best literary 
 form as here presented, but are intended to be a 
 fairly faithful approximation of the gist of what was 
 really said. The same thing applies to the ques- 
 tions and answers which were reported in the same 
 manner. We have no record of the questions and 
 answers that followed the address on "The Religion 
 of the Crowd." We were not publishing any paper 
 at that time, and it is only by chance that we have 
 any record of the address itself. 
 
 The author or editor of this book, whatever he 
 may properly be called, wishes to disown all respon- 
 sibility for printing his address on "The Religion 
 of the Crowd." It was called for and insisted upon 
 by the publishers of this book. Whatever merit it 
 may lack as an address, it certainly embodies the 
 Ford Hall point of view on religion, and explains 
 and justifies the establishment of open forums shot 
 through with the religious spirit. 
 
 It is to be regretted that we haven't a fuller 
 account of Father Gasson's address on "The
 
 212 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Menace of Socialism." We have drawn upon a 
 newspaper report for what we do present. This 
 was given in the period before we had an official 
 stenographer. Those who heard this address will 
 never forget the occasion. Of course the hall was 
 thronged, and thousands were turned away. Every 
 moment of two mortal hours was tense with strain 
 and feverish with excitement. Still there was no 
 untoward happening, and mutual respect prevailed 
 throughout. Both sides learned something. 
 
 Professor Fagnani is especially beloved at Ford 
 Hall, not alone for his own worth's sake, but also 
 because it was he who was the inspiring speaker the 
 first time I ever entered Cooper Union, and it was 
 there we got our idea for the Ford Hall Meetings. 
 This address on "God and Democracy" is still 
 quoted among the devotees of Ford Hall, although 
 it is years since they heard it. Our report of it is 
 all too brief. 
 
 Editor Hapgood captures his Ford Hall audience 
 every time, and seemingly without trying. He is 
 entirely without oratorical arts, never grows im- 
 passioned and is always painstakingly fair, no 
 matter what topic he is handling. But a Ford 
 Hall audience would sit and listen to him all night, 
 a decided comphment, it seems to me, to the 
 thoughtfulness and seriousness of that audience. 
 And ihey do especially like to hear him talk about 
 the stage or the press. 
 
 Reverend John Haynes Holmes is the young 
 man eloquent of the Ford Hall platform. The
 
 INTRODUCTION 213 
 
 sweep of his oratory is irresistible, and he carries 
 conviction by storm. I shall never forget the first 
 question plunked at him the first time our people 
 heard him. "Do you preach those principles in 
 your own pulpit among the rich in New York?" 
 was the searching interrogation. An emphatic 
 affirmative answer made him a friend of that audi- 
 ence for all time to come. Even those who do not 
 agree with him like him just the same. 
 
 Probably the Ford Hall people ^vere never put to 
 a severer test of seriousness and brain-power than 
 they were the night Doctor George A. Gordon led 
 them through the age-old labyrinth of speculative 
 philosophy in "The Search After God." It could 
 have been but a short time before when many of 
 them would not have been willing to listen to a 
 minister at all on any religious subject. There 
 they sat for two blessed hours, discussing God with 
 a doctor of divinity whom they had never seen and 
 very likely had never heard of before. And Doctor 
 Gordon enjoyed the novel situation as much as they 
 
 did. 
 
 G. W. C.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, April 11, 1909 
 
 By George W. Coleman 
 
 I AM sure that not one of you expects that I am 
 going to attempt an oration or a great speech 
 to-night; that is not in my Hne. I would not 
 for a moment undertake to put ^nyself by the side 
 of those splendid men who have stood on this plat- 
 form and thrilled us with their magnificent mes- 
 sages; but I do want to have a frank, plain, homely 
 talk with you with reference to something that has 
 been very much upon my mind and heart for three 
 years, and increasingly so this winter, as we have 
 been gathered together here Sunday nights. 
 
 When I said to a friend of mine the other day, 
 a Baptist minister, that I was going to talk here on 
 "The Religion of the Crowd," he said: "You will 
 find more religion there, if you look for it, than 
 most people think. The hardest people that I have 
 had to get along with have always been the best 
 people, — from their own point of view." 
 
 The Religion of the Crowd that I want to talk
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 215 
 
 to you about to-night is not a new religion. When 
 Bishop Brooks was about to sail for England, a 
 friend jocosely remarked to him: "Well, Bishop, 
 you may possibly find on the other side a new 
 religion that you can bring to Boston; but, if you 
 do, be sure it is one that you can get through the 
 Custom House." And the Bishop replied: "Oh! 
 there will be no trouble about that at all. If I 
 can find a religion that will be popular enough to 
 bring to Boston, you may be sure there will be no 
 duties attached to it." So the Religion of the Crowd 
 is not a new religion to introduce to Boston, which 
 now has more religions than some of us know what 
 to do with; neither is it that old-time religion which 
 some of us heard during the Chapman-Alexander 
 revival meetings. You may remember they had a 
 very popular song, the refrain of which ran like 
 this: "The old-time religion is good enough for 
 me." Now there is a sense in which that is true. 
 Every man who had a saintly mother and an 
 honored father must certainly hold in reverence 
 that old-time religion of his mother or father, no 
 matter how far he may have wandered from their 
 religious moorings. We certainly have a reverence 
 and respect for the old-time religion that made the 
 saintly mother and the honored father what they 
 were. But there is another sense in which that is 
 not quite so true, in which we do not accept the 
 old-time religion; and that was put to us very 
 pointedly by Rabbi Wise when he said on this 
 platform, "Be careful that the milestones of your
 
 216 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 fathers do not become the millstones around your 
 neck. You are not to stand," he said, "where 
 your fathers stood, no matter how noble they were, 
 no matter how great a work they did in the world; 
 you are to start where your fathers stopped, and 
 keep going in the same direction in which they 
 started." 
 
 Then another rabbi, — Rabbi Schulman, — pre- 
 sented it in another way. You will remember that 
 he talked to us about "Things That Separate Men 
 and Things That Unite Them", and how strong 
 and true and noble he was in pointing out the value 
 of the things that divide, as well as the value of 
 the things that unite. Also that the last section 
 of his address dealt with religion in the same way, 
 and how succinctly he put it when he said, "Reli- 
 gions divide, but religion unites", recognizing the 
 value of the religions that divide and the training 
 of different people with different characteristics in 
 different ways, but asking us to understand also 
 that religion, fundamental and broad and deep, 
 unites men. 
 
 It is said that Edison, the great inventor, as he 
 looked about on the restless Atlantic Ocean, was 
 very much disturbed by the enormous waste of 
 physical energy that he saw in the tossing of the 
 turbulent waves. It distressed his soul to realize that 
 that terrible waste of energy going on all the time 
 could not be harnessed for human purposes. I 
 think man, when he looks out upon life, — upon the 
 sea of humanity, — and sees the tossings and the
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 217 
 
 turnings of human souls and the restlessness of 
 human nature, must feel that there is a tremendous 
 loss of moral and spiritual energy that we as a 
 people, as a human race, have not learned to har- 
 ness up and to use. 
 
 Three years ago, I got a vision that helped me to 
 see for the first time in my life that there was a 
 way in which these enormous waste energies might 
 be in some measure harnessed up. That was when 
 I stepped one Sunday into that meeting in Cooper 
 Union, — a memorable night in my life. I shall 
 never forget it as long as I live; for there for the 
 first time I saw what possibly I might have sensed 
 only in my dreams: namely, men of every faith 
 and of no faith sitting down together, as it were, 
 in heavenly places and discussing, to their mutual 
 profit and joy, moral and spiritual truths. And it 
 is about that thing that they have been doing in 
 Cooper Union for twelve years, and that we have 
 been doing for a year or more in Ford Hall, that 
 I want to speak to you. 
 
 There have been three great forces working in the 
 world during the last century that have been draw- 
 ing men together, forcing men together, removing 
 geographical barriers, removing barriers of prejudice 
 and ignorance. One has been the introduction of 
 steam and the discovery of coal. With the develop- 
 ment of all the modern arts, the means of trans- 
 portation and the means of communication have 
 developed so that men are now brought together in 
 great companies in factories, where heretofore they
 
 218 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 worked isolated in small shops scattered all over 
 the face of the country. This single transforma- 
 tion in the last hundred years has been enough 
 to turn the world upside down. But working 
 right alongside of it has been another great force: 
 that has been the scientific method of thinking or 
 reasoning, by which we have learned to go and find 
 out what the facts are, to prove the facts, to gather 
 them together, to compare, to collate, to analyze, 
 and then find out what they teach, and go in the 
 direction in which they do teach. That is the 
 scientific method of thinking; and it has revolu- 
 tionized the intellectual world just as the discovery 
 of coal and steam has revolutionized the physical 
 world. 
 
 A third force, an idea, has been receiving its 
 greatest development during the last hundred years, 
 and that is the democratic spirit. It began first to 
 express itself in religion, then in politics, and is now 
 trying with all its might to work its way out in 
 industry, business, commerce, and economics. 
 
 Now when you stop to think that these three 
 tremendous ideas have been working for a century, 
 bringing about all these enormous changes, is it 
 any wonder that we have come to a place where we 
 can begin to consider such a thing as the Religion 
 of the Crowd.'' 
 
 There are signs of the times right here in our own 
 day that indicate how this is being worked out. 
 Think of our religious papers and our newspapers, 
 for example; recall how in the last dozen or fifteen
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 219 
 
 years they have begun to trench a little bit on each 
 other's ground. I can remember, since I have been 
 in the publishing business, when the religious paper 
 gave very little attention to the news of the day; 
 and I think I can remember the time, too, when we 
 didn't find in the daily papers such a splendid, 
 comprehensive, fair assortment of religious news as 
 we find in our best newspapers to-day. A religious 
 man of to-day who wants to keep up with the times 
 must read the daily papers in order to get the news. 
 And how is it with our magazines.'^ Fifteen j^ears 
 ago, our great popular magazines were confined 
 almost exclusively to scientific, artistic, and literary 
 topics and subjects; rarely did they deal with life 
 itself. How has it been during the last ten years .'^ 
 Why, our great popular magazines have led the way 
 in the moral awakening, in business and politics! 
 Not only that, but one of the New York magazines 
 woke up recently and put out a statement some- 
 thing like this: We magazines have been searching 
 every corner of the world to find things of interest 
 to give to our people to read, and we have over- 
 looked the one subject that is of chief interest to 
 all mankind; namely. Religion, and we are going 
 to take it up. They have been taking it up, — of 
 course, not sectarian religion, but religion on its 
 broad and fundamental bases. Then The American 
 Magazine set its brilliant young editor, Ray Stan- 
 nard Baker, at work writing on this very significant 
 topic — Spiritual Unrest. 
 
 So we find that the newspapers and the maga-
 
 220 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 zines reflect the changes that have been brought 
 about through these three great forces that have 
 been at work in the world for a hundred years; and 
 are bringing us to a point where we are just begin- 
 ning to find out that although we may not discuss 
 sectarian religion, nevertheless that does not mean 
 that all religion, all moral and spiritual truth, needs 
 to be excluded. We are finding that there is a 
 common platform of moral and spiritual truth that 
 all broad-minded and right-hearted people can get 
 together upon. 
 
 Now, before proceeding to discuss more definitely 
 the Religion of the Crowd, it might be well for us 
 to have before our minds some definition of religion. 
 
 I heard a presentation of religion in Chicago a 
 few weeks ago that impressed me very much, given 
 by Rabbi Hirsch. He said, "Religion is the appeal 
 to man to remember that he is made in the image 
 of God." Then he went on to develop that: He 
 said men must have moral eflSciency as well as 
 technical efficiency. We have got to learn that 
 men must be trained as men no less than as artisans 
 and lawyers and what not. He says religion teaches 
 us that if we ought to do a thing, we can. Now I 
 like that definition of religion very much; religion 
 is the appeal to man to remember that he is made 
 in the image of God. But it doesn't quite suit me 
 for our purpose this evening, for it might not 
 include our agnostic friends, raising the question 
 whether there is or is not a God as we look at it 
 from the Christian point of view. So I would put
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 221 
 
 it this way, and it seems to me in putting it this 
 way I do not lose anything for those who beheve 
 in God, and I open the door for every honest 
 agnostic to come in and share the definition with 
 us: reHgion is that which puts a man in tune with 
 the universe. Every sane man wants to know in 
 what direction this universe is going and go along 
 with it, and no sane man wants to go against the 
 laws of the universe; and so my definition of 
 religion would be that which puts a man in tune 
 with the universe. 
 
 Now just a word as to the definition of the crowd, 
 for those are the two terms in our topic this even- 
 ing. The crowd is simply an unrelated company 
 of people; that is all. 
 
 Before I get through, I shall want to remind you 
 that simply because you have a crowd, it doesn't 
 necessarily follow that it has the Religion of 
 the Crowd. I shall want to show before I get 
 through that you cannot have any religion in the 
 crowd unless you have religion in the hearts of the 
 people that are in the crowd. 
 
 The first essential, however, in developing the 
 Religion of the Crowd, according to my idea, is 
 charity; and by charity I do not mean liberality. 
 Liberality is a very much abused word, especially 
 here in New England. I am sure all of us have 
 seen most extreme exhibitions of illiberalism on the 
 part of people who call themselves liberal. Some 
 people seem to think that because they have the 
 notion that one religion is as good as another, and
 
 222 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 because they care little for any of them, that they 
 are very liberal in religion. Now you can't be 
 liberal with something you haven't got. You 
 cannot be liberal with a thing when you haven't 
 any conviction about it. And again, by charity 
 I don 't mean toleration, — that attitude toward 
 another man's ideas which says: "Oh, yes! I tol- 
 erate you. I am indifferent, I am cold about it; 
 but I will tolerate you." I mean real charity, a 
 loving, generous recognition of common rights; fair 
 play, and forbearance toward those with whom we 
 disagree. 
 
 Something came to my ear, something that was 
 said in the hall here some weeks ago, that pleased 
 me very much. A couple of Jewish people were 
 discussing what manner of man the Chairman of 
 these meetings was, and they finally came to the 
 conclusion that he was a Jew. When I heard that, 
 I said : " That is the finest compliment that I have 
 ever had. If I have so conducted myself on this 
 platform, if I have been so sympathetic toward the 
 other man's point of view that the Jew has taken 
 me for a Jew, and the Gentile has taken me for a 
 Gentile, I thank God for it." 
 
 Now, in developing this idea of the Religion of 
 the Crowd, I have come to believe that every man 
 is entitled to three kinds of religion, just as a 
 man may love his home and his city and his 
 country — three different kinds of love all centering 
 in the home. (The home is the root of patriotism, 
 and if a man doesn't love his own home, he cannot
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 223 
 
 be much of a patriot either to his city or his 
 country.) But the three interests are entirely dif- 
 ferent from each other, although they overlap. So 
 it is with reference to these three kinds of religion. 
 I think a man has, first, a religion of his own heart, 
 of his own personal life, which is his relation to 
 God, or to the universe, and to his fellow man. He 
 is different from everybody else in the peculiarities 
 of this relationship. It is his own, absolutely his 
 own, and he cannot share it altogether with any 
 one else. That is the first religion. 
 
 And the second religion is when a man moves 
 out and finds himself in association with other 
 people who hold similar ideas, and thus he be- 
 comes a member of, and has fellowship v/itli, some 
 church or sect, or denomination. You see this does 
 not interfere at all with his own personal religious 
 life, which is his own; but he finds on certain 
 things he is in harmony with other people, and that 
 constitutes the fellowship of his sect or denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 Then I believe he can move out beyond that and 
 find a larger fellowship with those who may disagree 
 with him still more widely, but nevertheless agree 
 on certain fundamentals. Let me give a brief 
 illustration from my own experience. I think you 
 have all found out by this time that I am a Bap- 
 tist. I am a Baptist not only by training, but by 
 choice. You know some people are Americans 
 because they cannot help it; they were born that 
 way. Some are Americans because they have
 
 224 DEINIOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 coine to this country and have become naturalized. 
 But I am a Baptist both by training and by choice. 
 I say choice because, when seventeen or eighteen 
 years of age, I experienced a great intellectual 
 revulsion against Christian dogma, — I suppose 
 you would call it that, — and for four years I was 
 an agnostic, practically speaking, and never ex- 
 pected in God's world to be anything else, because 
 it seemed to me that to be anything else was to 
 believe the impossible. But I want to tell you that 
 when I came out of agnosticism to a restoration of 
 the faith of my childhood and my youth, I came 
 out through a purely intellectual process of logic. 
 It was not a matter of feeling or of self-interest with 
 me at all; it was a matter that was painfully and 
 laboriously worked out. Then I plunged into 
 Christian work; and I found myself not only devel- 
 oping a heart-life experience entirely my own, but 
 very soon, through my connection with the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Societies, I found myself looking 
 over the fence, as it were, of my own denomination; 
 and pretty soon I found myself shaking hands and 
 having delightful fellowship with the young people 
 of forty other Protestant denominations. That is 
 one of the things that Christian Endeavor has done 
 for the world: bringing the young people of forty 
 different Protestant denominations into a generous 
 fellowship together. And then, when I went over 
 to Cooper Union, I found there were other fences 
 that I could look over. So you see in my own 
 experience I have three religions: that which is my
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 225 
 
 own, peculiar to myself; that which is shared 
 by the church and denomination to which I 
 belong; and that which we all share here this 
 evening. 
 
 Now you may think that, practically speaking, 
 there is too much diversity in a cosmopolitan 
 crowd to get any unity of religion out of ft even on 
 the broadest and most fundamental basis that you 
 might choose. Here you are mistaken. Nature 
 is teaching us the contrary all the time. I had a 
 wonderful lesson in that line just three days ago 
 when a friend of mine invited me, with a few 
 others, to look at something that he loved very 
 much. He threw on to a screen, by means of 
 lantern slides, pictures of snowflakes, hundreds of 
 them, with their very beautiful figures and delicate 
 tracery, — one of the most wonderful and beauti- 
 ful sights that I ever saw. And he revealed a 
 most astounding fact, — that, so far as man knows, 
 from the earliest beginning of this universe, when 
 snow first fell to the earth, there never have been in 
 all that time any two snowflakes alike; and he 
 showed us hundreds of them on the screen, and we 
 could detect no two alike. Surely that is diversity. 
 You would hardly expect to find any unity in that 
 diversity, but the most miraculous thing is that 
 every snowflake is built on the principle of the 
 hexagon. You can trace it in the countless parts of 
 the snowflake; with all that elemental diversity, 
 there is that unity. Surely we need not be dis- 
 couraged then, in a crowd with all its diversity,
 
 226 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 in looking for certain fundamental religious prin- 
 ciples upon which we can all unite. 
 
 Another thing teaches us the same lesson. We 
 who are outside of a denomination or sect natu- 
 rally look upon it as one homogeneous whole. 
 That is the greatest mistake in the world. The 
 Baptists are held together by four or five funda- 
 mental principles, such as the separation of Church 
 and State, a regenerated church membership, the 
 Bible as the only rule of life and faith, the right 
 of individual interpretation of the Bible, and one 
 or two other things. That is all that holds us 
 together. We have no central organization that 
 can legislate for the individual church. Every 
 church is absolutely independent, not subject to 
 the authority of any one. We as Baptists dis- 
 agree in matters of conduct and in matters of faith, 
 that are more or less important. And it is not 
 only so with Baptists, but with other denominations. 
 
 You will find a very different attitude toward 
 the use of tobacco in the North and South among 
 the same sects. With the use of beer and wine on 
 this side of the water and on the other, there is a 
 great difference in practice among people of the 
 same church. 
 
 In the matter of special doctrines dear to the 
 hearts of the people who hold them, excepting 
 these five or six doctrines upon which Baptists are 
 all united, I find great differences of opinion that 
 seem to be determined a good deal by geographical 
 location. Denominations are held together by cer-
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 227 
 
 tain main propositions, yet there is great diversi- 
 fication among them. 
 
 We might easily become discouraged, however, in 
 view of the diversity of the crowd, in our effort 
 to bring out this unity even when we know it 
 exists. It seems to me that one of the best ways 
 to bring out the unity of the crowd is to apply that 
 magnificent test which Jesus gave us, and which I 
 think the churches have partially forgotten. He 
 said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Now 
 we are too often in the habit, in the churches, of 
 substituting for that, "By their opinions ye shall 
 know them." I think it was Doctor Hall, of 
 Union Theological Seminary, who, lecturing in 
 Symphony Hall two or three weeks ago, said that 
 there were really only two divisions of men, — 
 men of good will and men not of good will. I am 
 sure, if we take that test of Jesus, "By their 
 fruits ye shall know them," we shall find things 
 very much simplified. I am sure you have all 
 had the experience that I have had, — you have 
 known men who were agnostics, and possibly 
 called themselves atheists, who lived sweeter and 
 m.ore adm.irable lives than some people you know 
 who call themselves strictly orthodox. Now if we 
 take Jesus' test, "By their fruits ye shall know 
 them," we won't mistake and put wrong labels 
 on people. 
 
 It may be helpful to pass now from the abstract 
 to the concrete and pick out a man whom we all 
 know who represents magnificently in his life and
 
 228 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 record and career, to my mind, the Religion of 
 the Crowd. I find that such a man was Abraham 
 Lincoln. A minister recently said that, though 
 Abraham Lincoln was not a church member, he 
 filled Doctor Charles W. Eliot's definition of 
 religion most admirably. Doctor Eliot's defini- 
 tion is "To do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 walk humbly with thy God." When you analyze 
 that, you will find it includes the moral and 
 spiritual truths that we love to talk about here 
 in this hall. "To do justly" is to live a moral 
 life; "to love mercy," according to my mind, is 
 to live a spiritual life; and "to walk humbly 
 with thy God" is to revere and to cherish human- 
 ity in all things. A man recently analyzed most 
 admirably Lincoln's character in four simple sen- 
 tences. He said, "He never boasted, he never 
 pretended, he was not a self-justifier, and charity 
 was a part of his nature." Surely, that is a 
 beautiful analysis of the character of perhaps our 
 noblest American. 
 
 I think we ought to have other centers than 
 Cooper Union and Ford Hall to develop and prac- 
 tise the Religion of the Crowd. I have been very 
 much interested in watching the things that seem 
 to have interested this company of people most in 
 the different lectures that we have had here, and — 
 do you know? — it has been perfectly clear that 
 when we have had the most truly, fundamentally, 
 and deeply religious topic under discussion here, 
 that has been the meeting that has gripped us the
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 229 
 
 most; and when we have had a topic that bordered 
 most on a purely bread-and-butter question, that 
 was the time when we showed the least interest. 
 Do you remember the time that Professor William 
 Salter was here and gave us "Tolstoi's 'Story of a 
 Soul's Resurrection'"? I never was in a more 
 religious meeting in my life. Although we dis- 
 pensed entirely with theological language and 
 technical terms, we were that night all together, 
 with one accord, with great delight and interest, 
 discussing the fundamental laws of the human 
 soul with Professor Salter. 
 
 There is a phase of this topic that might well 
 have an evening given to it. Our magazines have 
 taken it up, and Cooper Union has found it out, 
 and Ford Hall has dealt with it. Why can't we 
 have something of the same sort in our public 
 schools? I will be second to no man in paying 
 respect and honor to our public schools (all the 
 formal education I have came to me in our public 
 schools); but I think there is an element lacking 
 there that ought to be supplied. And the reason 
 it is lacking is because we have never waked up 
 to the lack. Because we do not want sectarian 
 religion in the school, therefore we think we cannot 
 discuss moral and spiritual truth. I believe that is 
 a great mistake. I am not enough of a pedagogue 
 to suggest methods, but I can see what ought to 
 be done and see that it is quite possible to do it. 
 
 Jane Addams says that some high school boys 
 came to her and said of their teacher, "He is all
 
 230 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 right on the lessons — he keeps hammering on the 
 lessons all the time, but we cannot get anything 
 out of him about life." And Miss Addams asked 
 them what they meant. "Why," they said, "he 
 never talks to us about what we are going to do 
 in the world." Now those boys were just hunger- 
 ing for a discussion of moral and spiritual truths 
 that the teacher was not giving them, and I think 
 we find there is that lack in the curriculum of the 
 schools and that it could be supplied without 
 interfering with anybody's special religion. 
 
 We are indebted, as you all know, to one of the 
 noblest men that this city has ever produced, — 
 Daniel Sharp Ford, whose picture hangs on this 
 wall, — not only for this beautiful hall in which we 
 meet, but also for the funds that make these meet- 
 ings possible. Naturally, I have been very much 
 interested to know for certain whether the work 
 that we are doing here is the sort of work that 
 would appeal to him if he were living to-day. A 
 man who worked daily with him for fifteen years, 
 once came to me to congratulate us on the work 
 that we are doing here, and said, "Do you know 
 what Mr. Ford said to me one day.? He said, 'I 
 am helping to provide the funds for the running 
 of four Baptist churches in this city (this was a 
 good many years ago), and I believe in that work 
 with all my heart, but do you know what I would 
 like to do, too, and what I want to do some day? 
 I should like to take a building in a congested 
 district and give it over entirely to the use of the
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 231 
 
 people for their ministration during the week, and 
 have meetings on Sunday that would appeal to all.' 
 He said, 'I don't think I would call it a church. 
 I don't know that I would have a minister settled 
 over it. But that is the kind of work that I should 
 like to do.' " And this friend said he was so glad, 
 knowing that this was in Mr. Ford's heart, that 
 we have started a work like this we are doing 
 to-night. 
 
 Now you have heard about the great work Mr. 
 Ford did with The Youtlis Companion. Here is 
 what The Youth's Companion was before Mr. Ford 
 took it, — a little, four-page, evangelical, religious 
 paper for children. This copy of The Youth's Com- 
 panion that I hold before you is eighty-two years 
 of age. My associate and beloved leader,^ Doctor 
 Francis E. Clark, in going over some old things 
 that his mother had left among her belongings, 
 found this copy of The Youth's Companion, pub- 
 lished in 1827. When Mr. Ford took this paper, it 
 had a circulation of five thousand copies, and when 
 he died, he left a paper with more than five hun- 
 dred thousand circulation. Here is The Youth's 
 Companion of this week, — a very different sort 
 of paper. Now the very significant point that I 
 want to call to your attention is this: that Mr. 
 Ford, a deeply religious man, a Christian, a Baptist, 
 a man who remained a Christian and a Baptist to 
 the last day, who devoted his money and his time 
 and strength and his work to propagating the in- 
 terests of Christianity and of the Baptist denom-
 
 232 DEIMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 ination; — this man took this little Sunday-school 
 sheet, which was a strictly religious paper (I 
 should say, from the reading of it, a dyed-in-the- 
 wool religious paper), and what did he make of it? 
 He made of it a paper that embodied, according 
 to my mind, most remarkably this idea of the 
 Religion of the Crowd; for there has been excluded 
 from it, in all the years since Mr. Ford developed 
 it to what it is now, everything in the least sec- 
 tarian and anything that would give offense to 
 any man's religion. And yet, notwithstanding the 
 large sums of money which Mr. Ford gave away 
 while he lived; notwithstanding the fact that he 
 made a record, that has been excelled by no other 
 man I know of, in leaving more than nine-tenths 
 of his property for religious and philanthrophic 
 work and less than one- tenth to his daughter; 
 notwithstanding he was such a noble and generous 
 giver; — everybody who knows The Youth'' s Com- 
 panion and his work on it will say that the greatest 
 thing he did with his life was the making of The 
 Youth's Companion itself, through which he de- 
 veloped the characters of American youths for two 
 generations. Now Mr. Ford was loyal all his life 
 to a Baptist paper that he once published in con- 
 nection with The Youth's Companion; but I think 
 he saw perfectly clearly that whereas there is a 
 place for the religious paper that no other paper 
 can supply, there is also a place for a paper like 
 The Youth's Companion that represents the Reli- 
 gion of the Crowd, that presents moral and spiri-
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE CROWD 233 
 
 tual truth such as all men and women and children 
 can enjoy. 
 
 Just a third testimony with reference to what 
 might be Mr. Ford's attitude toward this work if 
 he were living to-day. I have a letter here that 
 I want to read you. It came to me from the man 
 who was Mr. Ford's pastor at the Ruggles Street 
 Baptist Church for fourteen years, — Doctor Robert 
 G. Seymour. This is what he wrote me just a 
 few weeks ago: 
 
 "I have been greatly interested in hearing and reading about the 
 really great meetings which have been held in Ford Hall under your 
 inspired leadership. I send to you my most hearty congratulations 
 and commendation. I was the pastor of Mr. Daniel S. Ford for four- 
 teen years, and was in closest relationship with him in his work of 
 benevolence; I knew his mind and heart. While he was a Baptist, 
 and worked in closest sympathy with his denomination, he had the 
 broadest sympathies with those of any faith who were trying to better 
 humanity. He had an intense longing to reach those who did not 
 come into sympathy with the Christian church. One object he had 
 for making a home for the Social Union was that there might be a 
 place where our best and most thoughtful laymen might meet men as 
 men, irrespective of church relations, and show them Christianity in 
 practical everyday life. I think your work is carrying out his idea, 
 and it has my most hearty benediction." 
 
 Every religion that is religion at all, has a per- 
 sonal application. The Religion of the Crowd has 
 a personal application. As I stated in the begin- 
 ning, I don't believe you can have the Religion of 
 the Crowd unless you have religion in the hearts 
 of some of the people in the crowd. That is a 
 necessity. 
 
 But instead of making any application of my
 
 234 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 own, I want to make an application that I found 
 in one of our own daily papers, written by a news- 
 paper man who happens to be in this audience 
 to-night, and with his words I will close. This 
 is his application, — a personal application to each 
 one of us of the Religion of the Crowd. He says: 
 "Practically, revival or no revival, every man 
 sooner or later has to decide whether he will seek 
 to have his own way in the world, riding over 
 every one else, or whether he will wheel his wishes 
 and desires into line with the great moral forces 
 of the universe." 
 
 This is precisely the personal application of the 
 Religion of the Crowd. It is something that we 
 all need to think about. May God give us, each 
 one, grace to face it and to settle it right. . 
 
 i
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE MENACE OF SOCIALISM 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, February 5, 1911 
 
 By Reverend Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., President 
 of Boston College 
 
 IT is indeed a pleasure to come before a body 
 of men and women who are interested in 
 what is one of the most vital questions of 
 the day. 
 
 The subject upon which I have been asked to 
 speak and the side I shall try to maintain is, of 
 course, one of great interest to the world at large 
 at the present time. We are all interested in the 
 welfare of our fellow-beings. We all feel that there 
 is something wrong in society at the present time. 
 
 There are colossal fortunes and there are 
 depths of poverty. There are those who know 
 not what to do with their wealth, and those who 
 have to cry out for a mere pittance only to keep 
 body and soul together. 
 
 Consequently, when Socialism comes to us and 
 states that its great aim is to benefit humanity, 
 to lessen poverty, to make life brighter and more
 
 236 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 full of sunshine, we must every one of us say 
 that with this aim and object we are in hearty 
 accord. 
 
 Therefore I would not have any one understand 
 for a moment that because I want to speak of 
 the dangers of Socialism that I am not deeply 
 interested in the welfare of humanity. My whole 
 life has been spent for others. 
 
 I belong to one of the religious orders of the 
 church, and we receive nothing for our services. 
 Therefore I am in hearty sympathy with that aim 
 of Socialism. Socialism is rather a shifting name. 
 It may be that the Socialism that some of you 
 follow is not the Socialism the dangers of which 
 I am speaking about. 
 
 I beg all to understand that when I speak of 
 the dangers of Socialism I am speaking of what 
 occurs to me and others as the positive dangers 
 of a specified form known as Socialism. The So- 
 cialism of which I speak is that economic, social 
 theory which wishes to place the ownership, pro- 
 duction and distribution of all goods in the hands 
 of one body, the State. The great authors of the 
 system of Socialism of which I speak are Karl 
 Marx, Engels, and others. 
 
 There is need of reform at the present time, 
 but this reform should come through legitimate 
 channels and not in ways which would overturn 
 society. 
 
 Socialism, as propounded by certain of its 
 teachers, contains principles which are subversive
 
 THE MENACE OF SOCIALISM ^37 
 
 to personal integrity, domestic integrity and na- 
 tional integrity. 
 
 Even suppose these dangers did not exist. 
 Socialism would be an impracticable system for 
 our everyday interests. The life and the vigor of 
 the nation depend, in its ultimate analysis, upon 
 the vigor and the integrity of the individual. 
 If the men and women of the nation are all right, 
 if they are just, if they possess all that range of 
 virtues which goes to make up personal integrity, 
 the nation will be strong and will endure. 
 
 Personal integrity depends upon two things, 
 namely, the view of life and the laws of morality. 
 If we propound the view that there is nothing in 
 life except what is material, if a man is nothing 
 but a combination of chemical atoms, if back of 
 this body I see there is no undying spirit, what is 
 the view of life.'^ If there is nothing but matter, 
 then the battle must be beween matter and matter, 
 and might must be the victor. 
 
 If beyond this life there is no future life, if 
 there is no settling up, no bringing to the bar of 
 inflexible justice, then why should a man repent 
 of crime? 
 
 I say, since personal integrity depends upon the 
 entire view, and that view must always be that 
 there is something in man which is not material, 
 that back of what we see with our eyes there is 
 an undying spirit, and that the dignity of man 
 depends upon the growth of that spirit and the 
 power and influence of that spirit, and that the
 
 238 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 dignity of man rests entirely upon the supremacy 
 of that spirit, and where the dignity is supreme 
 and covers the body, I say, where the spirit is keen 
 and holds the body in check, then we have per- 
 sonal integrity. 
 
 Now, if we take the writings of the Socialists 
 of whom I speak, we shall find that they do teach 
 this doctrine, which, as I have said, is subversive 
 of personal integrity. The theory as advocated by 
 Engels and others seems to be: "Every form of 
 being is material. Motion is the mode of being of 
 matter. Beyond life there is nothing and in life 
 there is nothing except matter." 
 
 While that seems a simple sentence, you can 
 see how from that germ-thought there can spring 
 the whole forming of a man's character, and, there- 
 fore, I say the first great danger we detect in the 
 Socialistic theories, as propounded by certain 
 authors, is the danger to personal integrity. 
 
 Now, the second danger which I would detect 
 in Socialism comes from the danger to the family. 
 The strength of a nation lies first of all in the in- 
 tegrity of its citizens; but it lies also, and almost 
 in greater measure, in the integrity of the family, 
 in domestic integrity. 
 
 Unless family life in the nation is safeguarded, 
 unless the bond of marriage is regarded as sacred, 
 unless child life is respected, and unless citizens 
 regard as the greatest treasure of the nation the 
 child, and consider it as the most important obliga- 
 tion of a nation to take that child and train that
 
 THE MENACE OF SOCIALISM 239 
 
 character, the nation will inevitably go to pieces. 
 The nations all safeguard the family; woman must 
 be safeguarded and the child must be safeguarded. 
 
 Now, if we take the teachings of many of the 
 Socialists, what do we find in regard to the mar- 
 riage bond.? We find that many of them advocate 
 more or less temporary relations between men and 
 women — a sort of legalized free love. 
 
 Consequently, a theory which would advocate 
 such a change in society as would be brought 
 about by temporary relations, or free love, would 
 constitute a grave danger to the republic. What 
 would become of the child under these conditions.? 
 You may say that the child would be taken over 
 by the State, but the naturally constituted trainers 
 of the child are the parents. 
 
 Therefore the second danger comes from the 
 fact that according to the teaching of many So- 
 cialists, family life would be disrupted and that 
 family care would be denied the child — and that 
 is a danger to the nation's life. If we are to ac- 
 cept the materiaHstic evolution of Socialism, then 
 the great familiar law of justice is lost, and where 
 you lose justice, where justice fades out of a na- 
 tion's life, there you make the grave of that nation. 
 
 The teaching of many of the leaders of social- 
 istic programs that, except in mathematics, all 
 laws are changeable, is dangerous to the nation. 
 
 Socialism practicable? If every man and woman 
 were perfectly made, and every man and woman of 
 the highest character and determined to live for
 
 240 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 others, then we might possibly come to a social- 
 istic world. But we have got to take them as they 
 are; and you cannot change people's dispositions 
 by making laws. 
 
 Socialists are fond of talking of the equality 
 of all men. This is a beautiful phrase and in 
 many senses true. We are all equal before the law 
 and in the sight of the Almighty, but are we all 
 equal in regard to strength of body or of mind-f^ 
 Do we all have the same attractive manner or 
 possess agility.'^ 
 
 I am not saying that the present evils should 
 not be held down by legislation, but I am saying 
 that as long as men and women are constituted as 
 they are, there must be evils. Then again, remem- 
 ber that, if we were now to banish all private 
 ownership, so that men and women worked for 
 a common State, you would take away the great 
 incentive of human energy because of the fact 
 that by our energy we become owners of this 
 or that property. 
 
 So, even supposing there were no dangers, it 
 would be impractical to carry out the theories of 
 Socialism. 
 
 The Questions 
 
 Q. If orphanage asylums provide the proper 
 care and love for the child, why could not the 
 State do it? 
 
 A. If the objector were familiar with the 
 ordinary police courts and knew their method of
 
 THE MENACE OP SOCIALISM Ml 
 
 handling children, I hardly think he would feel 
 like trusting his own to State officers. 
 
 Q. Do not careful Socialists to-day deny the 
 principles which the speaker has justly denounced? 
 
 A. The Socialists I was speaking of are the 
 Socialists who propounded these principles. 
 
 Q. Why cannot Catholics and Protestants alike 
 unite on a common subject, as for instance, tem- 
 perance? 
 
 A. I think we are united, as the Chairman said, 
 we met on a common platform in our efifort to 
 improve the South End. 
 
 Q. Has the speaker ever seen or heard of any 
 Socialistic program which meant to alter or change 
 marriage customs? 
 
 A. I was intending to read citations from several 
 Socialistic authors, but unfortunately my eyesight 
 is bad. (Father Gasson had the works of several 
 Socialistic authors on the desk.) 
 
 Q. Since the Socialistic movement has accom- 
 plished so much for the working class in Germany, 
 why should Socialism be considered a danger to 
 those whom it seeks to benefit? 
 
 A. I rather anticipated that question when I 
 said that all were interested in the great aims and 
 the object of Socialism. I tried to dwell with some 
 force on not allowing labor to be treated as a bale 
 of merchandise. In the early part of the reign of 
 Pope Leo XIII, he said that no capitalist should 
 fail to give to labor a wage which would enable 
 the toiler to live in decent circumstances. It is a
 
 242 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 matter of lilstory that the clergy, as a rule, have 
 championed the cause of labor. 
 
 Q. Will the speaker give an explanation or 
 definition of free love? 
 
 A. Any system which would advocate trans- 
 ferring from one woman to another that love which 
 a man gives to one and which she claims is that 
 love which would enable him to make her his 
 wife. 
 
 Q. What reason have you to believe that So- 
 cialism would bring more hardship to family life 
 than the present economic pressure.'^ 
 
 A. Because the principles of Socialism, if car- 
 ried out, would result in tyranny more severe than 
 anything from which we suffer at present. I don't 
 think we have any right to attribute to economic 
 pressure all the evils under which we labor. In 
 New York thirty-seven cents a head a day is 
 spent in one community for liquor, and that money 
 would do much to abolish some evils. 
 
 Q. How is it that France, for generations a 
 Catholic country, had a death rate higher than the 
 birth rate, while now as an infidel country its birth 
 rate is higher than the death rate? 
 
 A. There are very few parts of France where 
 that holds good, I believe, because in a recent 
 article written on "The Peaceful Conquest of 
 France by Germany", it showed that owing to 
 the low birth rate in France, Germans were march- 
 ing quietly in and settling there. The teachings 
 of the Catholic Church, carried out, would abolish
 
 THE MENACE OF SOCIALISM 243 
 
 race suicide. Her teaching is that no man can, 
 even in thought, contemplate wrecking or destroy- 
 ing the life of an unborn child without endangering 
 his soul. 
 
 Q. Why do seven-eighths of the other churches 
 believe that Socialism is Christianity? 
 
 A. I don't think they do consider it in that 
 light. The only true Socialists, anyway, are mem- 
 bers of religious orders of the Catholic church. 
 
 Q. How is it that those who have been ex- 
 ponents of the materialistic theory so often 
 outshine in virtues those who hold to the other 
 theory .f^ 
 
 A. I do not think that is true. I think that if 
 you will take the lives of men and compare them, 
 you will find far stronger virtues among those who 
 adopt the spiritualistic theory. 
 
 Q. Are not the present conditions as bad as 
 those the speaker fears would prevail under 
 Socialism? 
 
 A. I said in my words at the start that there 
 is something wrong with the present conditions. 
 I said also that a man was bound to get a fair 
 wage, but I believe that much can be brought 
 about by legislation. 
 
 Q. If a worker believes that equality will come 
 with Socialism, why should not a worker become 
 a Socialist? 
 
 A. Because we have got to go by principles. 
 If Socialism advocates principles subversive to 
 society, we should not follow its principles.
 
 244 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Q. Is your attitude your own or that of your 
 church? 
 
 A. Both. I am bound by a pledge of obedi- 
 ence, but it reads "in all things, except what is 
 sin." I would not stand for anything that is not 
 right. 
 
 Q. Did Marx or Engels ever write or speak of 
 the home as pictured by the speaker? 
 
 A. Not exactly as pictured, but if their prin- 
 ciples were carried out they would lead to the 
 picture I have drawn. 
 
 Q. If the sale of liquor were stopped, would 
 the trusts not still control all the necessities of 
 life? 
 
 A. I believe that if the liquor evil were wiped 
 out, a great part of the difficulties would be solved. 
 
 Q. When a movement carries ten million votes 
 is it not unfair to take the view of an ex-Social- 
 ist? 
 
 A. I did not draw all my inspiration from 
 Goldstein. I got the most of it from Karl Marx, 
 the leader of the Socialists. 
 
 Q. Isn't it true that the Socialist party Is the 
 only one that wants to give the working man a 
 home? 
 
 A. There are a great many societies organized 
 to enable the working men to own their own homes. 
 
 Q. Haven't the same charges been made against 
 the great reformers such as Martin Luther? 
 
 A. It is true they were maligned, but what I 
 am trying to bring out is that the teachings of
 
 THE MENACE OF SOCL\LISM 245 
 
 Socialism would bring about the downfall of the 
 nation. 
 
 Q. As the Republicans and Democrats have 
 been legislating for years and have done nothing 
 for the working man, why not try the Socialists? 
 
 A. Socialism is not only politics. It comes 
 into the domain of morality, and when you reach 
 the question of morality, you are in the province 
 of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Q. Why is it that the most ignorant people in 
 the world, the Russians, are the most religious.'^ 
 
 A. I don't think they are. 
 
 Q. What incentive do capitalists ofiFer the work- 
 ing man? 
 
 A. They do not offer many, but there is the 
 incentive of seeing your work well done. 
 
 0. Are not Catholic countries, such as Spain, 
 Portugal, and Mexico, backward in civilization, 
 containing many illiterates? 
 
 A. There are parts of Kentucky in which the 
 inhabitants display greater illiteracy than in any 
 part of the world. 
 
 Q. Don't you believe that any incentive other 
 than material gain could be supplied to those not 
 in religious orders? 
 
 A. I don't believe that you can get the major- 
 ity of the people to work for that incentive. 
 
 Q. If Socialism is against capitalism, and cap- 
 italism is money and money is the root of all evil, 
 why is the Catholic church against Socialism? 
 
 A. Because she wishes to safeguard humanity.
 
 246 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Q. Is it legitimate to suppose that behind the 
 reverend gentleman's speech is the spirit of economy 
 for the property of the Catholic church? 
 
 A. The church never considers property or 
 wealth when the question of a home, a woman, or 
 a child is before it. It stands, as it always has 
 stood, by the cradle, by the wife, and by the 
 grave. 
 
 Q. Is not free love existing at the present time 
 in our heiresses selling themselves to nobility? 
 
 A. There are certainly many American women 
 who don't sell themselves. It is the abuse of mod- 
 ern society which leads to these things. 
 
 Q. Can the speaker point out one place in Karl 
 Marx's Das Capital in which he advocates free love 
 and the bringing up of the child by the State? 
 
 A. By following out his teachings both these 
 things would come to pass, 
 
 Q. Should not a Catholic priest, speaking of 
 Socialism, differentiate between the different brands? 
 
 A. I think it would be helpful to all of us if 
 there was a general clearing up of the term which 
 goes with the principles I have indicated. 
 
 Q. If I should come to you in confession next 
 month and tell you that I was a Socialist, would 
 you refuse me absolution? 
 
 A. I should require an investigation into the 
 special brand of Socialism you favor. 
 
 Q. Would the Catholic church object to one of 
 its clergymen becoming a Socialist? 
 
 A. I am inclined to think it would. 

 
 THE MENACE OF SOCIALISM 247 
 
 Q. If the government sold liquor at cost, would 
 that not do away with it in the end? 
 
 A. I believe it would in great measure reduce 
 the evil. 
 
 Q What particular kind of Socialism does the 
 speaker agree with? 
 
 A. I was never accused of being a Socialist 
 before. I'm afraid I don't belong to any of the 
 brands.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MODERN DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, December 7, 1913 
 
 By Norman Hapgood 
 
 ACROSS the ocean they have a real censor, 
 and it is not necessary to depend upon 
 the mayor or the pohce to tell us if it is 
 right for the more enlightened members of the 
 community to see a play like Damaged Goods. In 
 England the censor is a man who never goes to the 
 theater, but to whom all plays must be sent before 
 they can be produced. Miss Angela Morgan in 
 her poem has compared Mr. Richard Bennett to 
 John the Baptist, because Mr. Bennett has had 
 the courage to give Damaged Goods. In England 
 John the Baptist can't appear on the stage — ex- 
 cept in a dress-suit, singing in an oratorio. But 
 even in England there is a growing sentiment in 
 favor of a drama free to express itself as a social 
 force. 
 
 In talking about the drama as a social force, 
 I don't want to narrow it to the one moral ques- 
 tion which is agitating this city to-day. The drama
 
 MODERN DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 249 
 
 is the greatest general social agent of any of the 
 arts. It is the one art which in a short space of 
 time is capable of expressing the highest flights 
 of the human imagination and bringing all kinds 
 of people together, just as religion does. I was 
 startled at first by Mr. Coleman's prayer (a prayer 
 for those of the theater) but then I remembered 
 that the drama started in religion and that even 
 to-day it finds its highest expression at Oberammer- 
 gau. No play of recent years has left a more pro- 
 found stamp on my mind than Everyman. That 
 wonderful sermon and picture and story expressed 
 all human life and thought. 
 
 If you don't take the drama this way, if you 
 don't realize those opportunities and possibilities 
 and get the genius of the nation to working them 
 out; if you take a hostile attitude and try to keep 
 the drama from expressing what the nation is 
 thinking about; then you will bring about the very 
 evil you seek to avoid. That happened in England 
 when the Puritan conscience was uppermost. It 
 boycotted and suppressed the theater; and the 
 result was the only genuinely licentious stage 
 England has ever had. If the people in this 
 country who are trying to stifle expression on the 
 stage were of the majority, the result would be an 
 outbreak of some form of indecency. 
 
 Some ten years ago the American stage did 
 not express very much. What it did express is 
 represented by Rip Van Winkle — a marvellous 
 performance, but the play itself a picture of a
 
 250 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 drunkard, with the audience invited to think what 
 a splendid fellow he was, and how hard his family 
 was in not liking to have him drunk. Most of 
 the plays of that time were either sentimentality 
 without sense, like this one, or pretty stories of a 
 girl and a boy, with some not too serious obstacles 
 before them, who in the end were married and 
 lived happily ever after. They were all done by 
 one pattern. Now the drama is a great con- 
 structive and expressive force. 
 
 One name must stand out in any survey of the 
 change, and that is the name of Henrik Ibsen. It 
 is seldom that a great man can mean as much to 
 a different civilization as to his own. Ibsen can 
 never be to the masses of the American people 
 what he might have been had he been an American; 
 but he showed a wonderfully superior mind and 
 technique in approaching the problems of his day, 
 and others have followed him. In Spain we have 
 Echegaray; in Germany, Hauptmann and Suder- 
 mann. In France the influence, though not so 
 strong or direct, was felt. And in England the 
 entire drama was made over. The "tea cup 
 drama" disappeared, and we have a series of men 
 now, in England and in this country, that have 
 made this one of the notable dramatic eras of all 
 time. (The speaker illustrated this by speaking 
 of the work of Shaw and Galsworthy, and the 
 new one-act plays of Barrie.) 
 
 We cannot have a great stage unless it repre- 
 sents the genius of its time. It may be a comic
 
 MODERN DRAIVIA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 251 
 
 genius, as with Moliere in France; but our people 
 are serious. We are the first great real democracy 
 that has ever existed, and we have many prob- 
 lems. We have been compelled to realize that 
 even in America the drama is the expression of 
 the ideas of grown people, and not a toy for chil- 
 dren. A singular thing is that this complaint 
 against frank speaking is always aimed at serious 
 plays. 
 
 It is extraordinarily important that we should 
 win this fight, and win it good and hard. Democ- 
 racy is an exciting thing, but allowed to go in the 
 wrong direction, it can be made comfortable and 
 commonplace instead. Let us go in the right 
 direction, realize all our possibilities, and we shall 
 have great geniuses and great art. And the drama 
 will do this for us if we see that it treats of the 
 real. Do this for the drama, and you will find that 
 it is as enriching and valuable and proud a posses- 
 sion as the nation has. 
 
 The Questions 
 
 Q. Will you kindly give your opinion of Shakes- 
 peare's The Merchant of Venice? 
 
 A. All I can say in a short space is that I 
 think it is one of his best plays from two points 
 of view — plot and acting parts. 
 
 Q. The churches teach good and evil in an 
 abstract way, but in such plays as Damaged Goods 
 we get action and reaction and result; and in such 
 cases does not the drama go beyond the church?
 
 252 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 A. Personally, I like to confine myself to what 
 I am sure of. I am sure both have done a great 
 deal of good and are going to do more. 
 
 Q. Do not scenes of violent crime act as a 
 stimulant to young minds? 
 
 A. It depends on how it is done. The murder 
 of Banquo and Duncan by Macbeth never inspired 
 any one to murder. 
 
 Q. What is your opinion of William Winter's 
 criticism of the present-day stage? 
 
 A. I think it is piffle. 
 
 Q. Since you have criticized the dramatic critic, 
 why do you not criticize the editor who is respon- 
 sible for him? 
 
 A. I am perfectly willing to divide the respon- 
 sibility between them and the public, which I hope 
 soon will demand something better. 
 
 Q. Are there any plays depicting the unjust 
 economic system between labor and capital? 
 
 A. There has been a stream of them, from 
 Hauptmann's The Weavers to Charles Rann Ken- 
 nedy. But the best playwrights make such dis- 
 cussions a part of a genuine presentation of life. 
 
 Q. Has the modern problem play, like The 
 Second Mrs. Tanqueray, an uplifting influence on 
 the community? 
 
 A. I think the problem play has a very uplift- 
 ing influence, and that particular play was a pioneer 
 in the field. 
 
 Q. What do you think of Tolstoi's The Kreutzer 
 Sonata f
 
 MODERN DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 253 
 
 A. My opinion, given with the utmost humility, 
 is that it is the expression of a great mind become 
 morbid. 
 
 Q. Will the drama transform or eliminate from 
 human nature the innate quality of selfishness? 
 
 A. I think that is a pretty large order to give 
 the drama. 
 
 Q. Won't the young people be unduly and too 
 early interested in sex by its free discussion.'* 
 
 A. I think not. In my youth the young people 
 talked about it in a smutty manner. Discussing 
 it frankly would do away with that condition. 
 
 Q. How can we expect the police, who are in 
 league with vice, to censor plays like Mrs. Warren's 
 Profession ? 
 
 A, You all know the answer: we can't. 
 
 Q. Is the working agreement recently effected 
 between the syndicate and the Shuberts going to 
 affect freedom in producing plays outside of that 
 group? 
 
 A. One of the things that held back the Amer- 
 ican drama was monopoly. Then the split came 
 and gave opportunity to adventurous playwrights. 
 But soon two theaters were being erected in towns 
 that could support only one, and that has led to 
 the present agreement. If it lives up to the pres- 
 ent terms, very well; but there is danger that the 
 drama may again be set back seriously. 
 
 Q. What do you think of Shaw's criticism of 
 Shakespeare? 
 
 A. I think that usually genius is humble, but
 
 254 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 sometimes you have genius in a person who has 
 also the spirit of paltry vanity, and that is Shaw. 
 
 Q. What do you think of plays dealing with the 
 problem of assimilation? 
 
 A. The only one I know is The Melting Pot, 
 and that is a winning, but not a great, play. 
 
 Q. What do you think of Ibsen's Ghosts? 
 
 A. I think it is an over-protest. 
 
 Q. As between The Follies of 1913 and Damaged 
 Goods, which would you prefer your daughter to see? 
 
 A. If there is any one in the audience who 
 would prefer his daughter to see the Follies, let 
 him speak up! 
 
 Q. Why do you say you haven't any scale for 
 weighing the church against the drama? 
 
 A. Because it is true. 
 
 Q. What will be the effect of the enfranchise- 
 ment of women on the social evil? 
 
 A . The enfranchisement of women — the set- 
 ting free of their ideals so that they can work 
 effectively in the community — will have many 
 great advantages, none greater than the raising 
 of the sexual standard. 
 
 Q. Don't the economic conditions of to-day pre- 
 vent a poor man from seeing plays like Damaged 
 Goods, playing in a high-class theater at high prices? 
 • A. Yes, but the whole thing will be in moving 
 pictures soon. 
 
 Q. Do you know any play that will teach the 
 working people to keep what they create? 
 
 A. I don't think plays can go ahead of the best
 
 MODERN DRAIVL^ AS A SOCIAL FORCE 255 
 
 intelligence of the community and that problem 
 has not yet been solved. 
 
 Q. What effect have the moving pictures on 
 our children who go to see them so much? 
 
 A. The only bad effect I have seen is the lack 
 of continued attention. On the other hand, they 
 are reaching millions who never before had any- 
 thing to feed their minds. 
 
 Q. What do you think of Ibsen's Nora.^^ 
 
 A. Nora is an event in history. The feminist 
 movement, first heralded by her, is the biggest 
 movement of our time. 
 
 Q. Isn't sex something too delicate to handle 
 anywhere but in the family .f* 
 
 A. That isn't the choice that is present. It is 
 a choice between having light as we can get it 
 or no light at all. 
 
 Q. Couldn't Damaged Goods and plays of that 
 sort carry out their purpose without being so out- 
 spoken.'^ 
 
 A. No; exactly what is unhealthy is this idea 
 that when we speak about sex we have got to feel 
 embarrassed. 
 
 Q. Did not Ibsen go too far in abolishing some 
 points in the technique of the drama.^* 
 
 A. Because Ibsen did a thing with superb re- 
 sult doesn't mean that every one has to do the 
 same thing, and every one doesn't. 
 
 Q. Isn't it because people don't want to know 
 the truth that they object to plays like Damaged 
 Goods f
 
 256 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 A. I am afraid tliat is true of a large part of 
 the male half of the human race. The men com- 
 plain where the women applaud, because people 
 always object to having a privilege taken away from 
 them, and because they have been accustomed 
 from boyhood to think of sex in a smutty way. 
 
 Q. Why, when all the people are thinking of 
 this thing, are we so afraid to face the truth and 
 the facts? 
 
 A. We are less and less afraid every year. 
 
 Q. Do you think that the moral effect of such 
 a play as Damaged Goods is lasting? 
 
 A. I certainly do. I believe that such plays 
 are helping the feminist movement to stamp out 
 prostitution as a business. 
 
 Q. I should like to know if, under a state where 
 Socialism would exist and profit be wiped out, 
 prostitution would not be wiped out also? 
 
 A. Socialism or any other method which puts 
 woman on a footing of equality with man will re- 
 duce prostitution. 
 
 Q. If it is true that a majority of the men and 
 women of America have little knowledge of the 
 drama as a great art, why would it not be wise 
 to teach it in the high schools? 
 
 A. It is being taught, more and more, and in a 
 way they can understand, and the little children 
 are being grouped together and put to acting 
 fine plays. 
 
 Q. Isn't sex hygiene too serious a subject to 
 be taught in the grammar schools?
 
 MODERN DRAMA AS A SOCIAL FORCE 257 
 
 A. Certainly it would be better taught in the 
 homes, if they were very, very wise; otherwise in 
 the schools, if we had ideal teachers. It is a case 
 where experts disagree. 
 
 Q. In view of the fact that actors are well 
 known to be people of loose morals, are they the 
 people to teach us.^^ 
 
 A. Even if that were true, it would be no 
 reason why they should not express moral teach- 
 ings. My opinion is that stage people have a 
 good deal less hypocrisy than others. In view of 
 their temptations they show as high a standard 
 morally as any other class. 
 
 Q. I should like you to tell me who you think 
 is the greatest American dramatist and what is 
 his masterpiece. 
 
 A. A generation ago I should have said James 
 A. Heme and Margaret Fleming. To-day there are 
 too many to say. 
 
 Q. What is your attitude toward Bought and 
 Paid For? 
 
 A. My attitude is not that of most people. I 
 consider it a well-constructed play with a good 
 moral, but of commonplace texture. 
 
 Q. What do you think of Salvation Nell and of 
 the work of the Salvation Army.^^ 
 
 A. I admire the play and I think very highly 
 of the work of the Salvation Army. 
 
 Q. What do you think of the five-cent vaude- 
 ville theaters? 
 
 A. Just what I said I did of the "movies."
 
 258 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Q. Is there any call for a play like Hindle 
 Wakes? 
 
 A. That is in a different class from these plays 
 we have been discussing, and I do not think from 
 merely reading it I can criticize it, but I should 
 be among the radicals if it were produced here, 
 and advocate the expression of any ideas of sex 
 liberty whatsoever upon the stage.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, December 29, 1913 
 
 By Professor Charles Prospero Fagnani, D.D., of 
 Union Theological Seminary, New York 
 
 GOD and Democracy. That is the greatest 
 subject in the world. I do not say sub- 
 jects, because God and democracy are 
 one. You cannot separate God and democracy, 
 the God of the Hebrew prophets and of Jesus of 
 Nazareth. And you cannot separate democracy 
 from God. For if we believe in democracy, we 
 believe in God's purpose, God's ideal, and that is 
 believing in God. 
 
 If we say that we believe in God, that commits 
 us to his program for the world. I want to say, 
 of course, that what I mean by democracy is 
 something special. It is not the kind of democracy 
 of this poem from a Texas paper, written shortly 
 after the last election: 
 
 " Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 
 Bring forth the crops and let them grow. 
 The party banner raise on high 
 Let trumpets blow, let people shout.
 
 260 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Let everybody dance with glee. 
 Democracy! Oh, bless the day! 
 The one for whom we oft did pray 
 Has won, and now the jobs are ours. 
 We dwell henceforth in fairest bowers. 
 In custom houses we'll hold sway — 
 It surely is a time to pray." 
 
 This is one kind of democracy; but democracy, 
 when we conjoin God with it, is the thing that we 
 ask for in the Lord's Prayer when we say "Thy 
 will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven." 
 It means the kingdom of God on earth. The 
 kingdom of God is the Jewish term and the Chris- 
 tian term for democracy. I want to carry you 
 along with me in connection with some pre- 
 suppositions. 
 
 I want to assume that you agree with me in 
 regard to certain matters. The first of the three 
 suppositions that I will assume is that you all 
 believe in change, in perfection, in development, 
 in progress, in evolution; that you believe that 
 "the best is yet to be," that progress is divine, 
 that our God is a living God whose motto is 
 "Behold, I make all things new"; that what man 
 has done, man can do better, and man must do 
 better. 
 
 We cannot get along without institutions, but 
 we have always got to be on our guard with 
 respect to institutions. Institutions are always 
 more or less antiquated; they cannot become 
 institutions until they are antiquated. Now an 
 egg-shell is an institution; but the living chick
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 261 
 
 inside must not be sacrificed to the integrity of 
 that institution. I have read this with regard to 
 the constitution: "The constitution is one of the 
 few formal documents without which a democracy is 
 impossible; it professes that progress cannot be 
 made by providing that things shall not change. 
 It was a happy compromise of a wrangle by our 
 forefathers, than whom nobody since has been 
 wiser. The beauty of it is that it can mean 
 almost anything, but it takes a Supreme Court, 
 or a majority thereof, to decide what it means; 
 it has lasted so long and meant so many things 
 that it is now famous." 
 
 Conservatism, reputable and respectable though 
 it claims to be, is in essence opposition to God, 
 that is, to the living God. It is sincerely reverent 
 of a God who did things long ago. Conservatism 
 justifies its opposition to progress by claiming that 
 without it progress would be too fast; and it uses 
 figures of speech and says that brakes are necessary 
 to the chariot of progress. That all depends on 
 which way the chariot is headed. If we believe 
 in God, we believe that the chariot is going up- 
 hill, and not down. No man in his senses would 
 apply the brakes in going uphill; and progress 
 is always uphill. 
 
 So we sometimes hear that unbridled democracy 
 is a bad thing. It is not difiicult to understand 
 what unbridled democracy is. It is democracy 
 without a bridle, and we presume that democracy 
 without a bridle is a free democracy, one which
 
 262 DEMOCRACY IN THE I^iAKING 
 
 may wander whithersoever it listeth. Is that a 
 good thing or a bad thing? Was the American 
 Revolution, for instance, a form of bridled or 
 unbridled democracy? If democracy is going to 
 wear a bridle, who is going to put it on, and who 
 is going to hold the reins? 
 
 I will assume that you believe in progress, in 
 perfection. Unfortunately, not every one does, 
 and I am paying you a big compliment. Men 
 have been taught to be afraid of change, to oppose 
 it on principle. We constantly hear people say, 
 "What has been good enough for our forefathers 
 ought to be good enough for us." And that is 
 the people's sentiment in many quarters. Why, 
 I have even heard it applied to Hell. I know of 
 a Presbyterian who said, "For my part, I believe 
 in an old-fashioned hell; a hell that was good 
 enough for my father is good enough for me." 
 Now the fact is that something that was good 
 enough for our father is not good enough for us. 
 Our fathers, if alive to-day, would want better 
 than they had in their time; and would reproach 
 us for our idolatry of their outworn and anti- 
 quated institutions and constitutions and every- 
 thing else. 
 
 Do you suppose that if George Washington were 
 in Boston to-morrow and he wanted to go to New 
 York (as he probably would), that he would prefer 
 the stage-coach to the Bay State Limited? Not 
 much, — I can speak for George. 
 
 I believe that you take the helpful view and the
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 263 
 
 divine view, and that you are not afraid of prog- 
 ress. 
 
 Now my second presupposition is this: I will 
 take for granted that you believe with me in the 
 essential dignity and worth and goodness of human 
 nature; that you do not believe in total depravity; 
 at least, not as much as you used to; that you 
 agree with me that what human nature needs is 
 not so much a change as a chance. Humanity has 
 never had a fair chance yet. To believe in God is 
 to believe in men. We may take Jesus of Nazareth 
 for an example in this matter. The supreme 
 believer in God was the supreme believer in his 
 fellow men. I will assume that you share the 
 confidence of Jesus in human nature, that you 
 believe that man would rather be decent than not; 
 that woman would rather be decent than not. 
 That men would prefer the approbation of their 
 fellows to their scorn; that men would be infinitely 
 better if they had more help and fewer handicaps. 
 I know, however, that many cherish the doctrine 
 of total depravity, like the old lady who said, 
 *'If you take away my total depravity, I won't 
 have any religion left." 
 
 My third supposition is this: that you believe 
 in freedom, in liberty. This follows necessarily. 
 If man is inherently trustw^orthy, you are not 
 afraid to "loose him and let him go." I will 
 assume that you agree with me that men were 
 made for freedom and not for bondage, that men 
 flourish best when most free, that all the wars of
 
 264 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 humanity throughout history can be traced back 
 to some form of oppression, of coercion of man by 
 man. 
 
 Let me trace with you the historical connection 
 between rehgion and democracy. I would like to 
 take you on an aeroplane trip across the mountain 
 peaks of the Bible. The dawning of democracy 
 goes back to Moses, about twelve hundred years 
 before Christ, more than three thousand years ago. 
 Moses was a labor agitator who headed a success- 
 ful strike, the result of which was a permanent 
 lock-out on their own part of a number of Hebrew 
 slaves who laid down their tools and marched out 
 of Egypt never to go back again. Moses is the 
 great type of class-conscious emancipator. You 
 see, Moses had the choice of continuing to be 
 the favorite of the Egyptian king as the adopted 
 son of Pharaoh's daughter; but he preferred to 
 make common cause with his own people. 
 
 The Jews became the custodians of the world. 
 We must understand the story of their develop- 
 ment. There are few Jews that know the story 
 themselves. The Jews are not a pure race, any 
 more than any other race is pure. They are a 
 mixed race. Their religion has been a com- 
 promise between two distinct elements that may 
 be described as Jehovistic and Baalistic, the reli- 
 gion of the Amorites with which it was assimilated. 
 Now Judaism is the result of a mixture of these 
 two elements; and Christianity, which absorbed 
 the essence of Judaism, absorbed those two strains.
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 265 
 
 You find two different ideals fighting for the mas- 
 tery, — the brotherly love of the nomads and the 
 ritualistic religion of the city civilization. You 
 find two different ideas of God, the Hebrew idea 
 of God that puts the emphasis on justice, and the 
 Canaanite idea which puts it on sacrifice and ritual- 
 ism. You find two different ideals of Society, — • 
 one in which brotherhood is the ideal, the other 
 marked by class distinctions. Now these two 
 diverging lines have come down to us of the 
 present day, the religion of the priests and the 
 religion of the prophets; religion of the priestly 
 type which puts the emphasis on the things to 
 be done to God, and the other which cares about 
 the things that we are to do for our brother man. 
 The Hebrew prophets are tribunes of the people — 
 the dauntless and fearless arraigners of kings and 
 princes, and governments. The Hebrew priests 
 had the idea that God needed to be placated by 
 gifts and sacrifices, and even by human sacrifices. 
 The prophets boldly stood forth against tyranny 
 and oppression whether in the Church or in the 
 State. Their entire zeal was not for the services 
 of the shrine and of the temple, but for the social 
 relations of men through justice and brotherliness. 
 Read the Hebrew prophets; listen to the words 
 of Amos which he spoke about the year 750 B.C. 
 in the Hebrew shrine at Bethel. Also the prophet 
 named Ezekiel, who lived some century or more 
 later. When you go home take a Bible, find the 
 thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, and see if you don't
 
 2GG DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 get news there that will be more recent than any 
 you can find in the papers to-morrow morning. 
 
 Now, whatever else Jesus of Nazareth was, he 
 was the successor of the prophets and the greatest 
 of them. All the stress of his tremendous person- 
 ality was put on loving men. I want you to hear 
 some of the words of Jesus as recorded by tradi- 
 tion, and you will see why he is to rank among 
 the prophets of the early times. He is reported as 
 having begun his ministry by claiming happiness 
 for poor people especially. "Happy are the poor: 
 for yours is the Kingdom of God." It does not 
 mean that they were happy then but were going 
 to be happy when the kingdom of God came. 
 "Happy are ye that hunger; for the kingdom of 
 God is coming, and then you shall eat." "Happy 
 are ye that weep." Whereas in connection with 
 that was, "Woe unto you that are rich, woe unto 
 you that are full now and have all that you need, 
 for ye shall hunger for the things that the king- 
 dom gives." In the Lord's Prayer we find, "Give 
 us this day our daily bread"; that includes chops, 
 steaks, bread and butter. Some people have the 
 idea that Jesus was too high-toned to have anything 
 to do with the things necessary to us and they 
 interpret "bread" as spiritual food. Jesus did not 
 mean anything of the kind. He meant substan- 
 tial bread, bread made out of wheat, whole wheat. 
 
 Now, I am going to tell you something that 
 none of you know, absolutely none. I am going 
 to read you from the revised version; and then I
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 267 
 
 am going to tell you what Jesus really said, and 
 the way it should be translated. 
 
 "When he saw the multitude he was moved with 
 compassion for them because they were distressed 
 and scattered as sheep not having a shepherd." 
 
 I am going to tell you the way that it is in the 
 Greek, the way it should be put: 
 
 "When he saw the multitude, he was filled with 
 compassion for them because they were skinned, 
 flayed alive." 
 
 It was indeed distress, but we translate it better 
 when we understand that it means skinned, and 
 that the word "skinned" means thrown to the 
 ground bleeding, with their hide off, and left to 
 shift for themselves. 
 
 Jesus did not believe in benefactions or bene- 
 factors, nor in paternalism. He did not believe 
 in a state of society in which some people would 
 accumulate so much money that they would not 
 know what to do with it. We must have no bene- 
 factors because we must be in a position to do our 
 benefactions for ourselves. And now the last 
 passage : 
 
 "Call no man your father upon earth." 
 
 If this is not a solar-plexus blow to paternalism! 
 
 ''Neither be ye called masters, for one is your 
 master" 
 
 You all see how Jesus feels about this matter. 
 But listen to what an eminent representative of 
 the churches has said in regard to paternalism: 
 
 "A fatherly interest and sympathetic relation
 
 268 DEMOCRACY IN THE IMAKING 
 
 between employer and employed would solve the 
 entire difference between labor and capital." 
 
 The Christianity of Jesus is democracy; it is 
 the kingdom of Heaven. It is the social order in 
 which human groups are organized as brothers to 
 manage their own affairs for the highest welfare 
 of all the members of the group. 
 
 Democracy is fraternalism or brotherhood, as 
 against paternalism. It is cooperation versus com- 
 petition. Democracy is going to do away with the 
 stratification of society into classes. Listen to 
 what is said by another representative of the 
 church: "The churches need to be Christianized, 
 the churches need to be democratized, the churches 
 need to be fraternalized." And I can say it with 
 all the better grace because I belong to the 
 church. 
 
 Did you read that pitiful story of the young 
 Greek, aged seventeen, who saved enough money 
 to bring his sister to this country, but who will 
 probably have to be deported.'^ He starved him- 
 self into insanity. He got one dollar and twenty- 
 five cents a day and lived on twenty-five cents 
 a day. He paid one dollar a week for a room and 
 bought no food but lived on the scraps his fellow 
 countrymen gave him. Yet out of his wages 
 he had saved twenty dollars to bring his sister 
 here! That is the sort of feeling that the people 
 of the old country have with regard to America. 
 T\Tiat a responsibility that puts upon us! 
 
 When shall we have more democracy in this
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 269 
 
 country? WTienever we want it earnestly and 
 intelligently enough. Whenever we shall be deter- 
 mined to have God's will done in the United 
 States as it is done in Heaven. God is on the 
 side of the people. \Mio can be against us? In 
 that day patriotism will be a bigger thing than 
 love of country. It will mean love of one's 
 countrymen. 
 
 The Questions 
 
 Q. Does the speaker believe that Jesus Christ 
 was a labor agitator and that the Jews crucified 
 him? 
 
 A. He was an agitator and was prosecuted by 
 the Roman Government at the instigation of the 
 Jewish authorities. 
 
 Q. Does not the speaker consider it worth 
 while to mention other religions than the doc- 
 trines of the Hebrews? 
 
 A. I spoke one hour and seven minutes and did 
 the best I could. 
 
 Q. Has the Jewish race fulfilled its mission in 
 this world? 
 
 A. It has, it is, and it is going to. 
 
 Q. What does the speaker think of the inter- 
 pretation of the word "charity"? 
 
 A. There is distinct advantage in the Revised 
 Version of 1 Corinthians, the word "love" taking 
 the place of the word "charity" in the King James 
 version. 
 
 Q. How is it that the ruling classes do not have
 
 270 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 the idea of democracy which God has, and if the 
 common people were raised up, would they not 
 have the same ideas that I he ruling classes have 
 now? 
 
 A. It is not a question of putting the "outs" 
 in and the "ins" out, taking down those above 
 and putting up those below. It is the believing 
 in brotherhood. There are plenty of the ruling 
 class who would be glad to see democracy come, 
 as individuals, and many of them are helping to 
 bring it along. We are all pretty decent on the 
 whole, and while we can speak against classes we 
 must be careful not to speak against individual 
 members of the classes. We are all human, and 
 there is good and bad in all of us. 
 
 Q. What is your personal opinion of the polit- 
 ical parties of America, and which one stands for 
 greater progress? 
 
 A. If you will promise not to tell any one, my 
 private opinion is that the party which has the 
 highest ideals and which is going to do the most 
 of all the parties that exist at the present time is 
 the Socialist party. 
 
 Q. If the Christians would interpret Jesus as a 
 great liberator of men as the Jews do Moses, 
 would not that prevent a good deal of misunder- 
 standing between them and the Jews? 
 
 A. I think it would. 
 
 Q. Give us your reason for believing in God. 
 
 A. Why simply the reason that Voltaire gave: 
 If there were not such a God, we should have to
 
 GOD AND DEMOCRACY 271 
 
 invent Him. We have got to assume God, and 
 until you can get some better hypothesis, that will 
 have to hold. 
 
 Q. What is the message of the resurrection con- 
 cerning democracy.'^ 
 
 A. The message of hope, in spite of death, hell 
 and everything. 
 
 Q. If democracy means so much, why don't 
 they teach it to children in the schools and thor- 
 oughly imbue them with it? 
 
 A. Because we are not yet democratic enough 
 to teach it in our public schools. 
 
 Q. Is preaching alone sufficient, or is it not.'' 
 
 A. Nothing alone is sufficient. We must have 
 as many different ways to get at it as we can 
 think of. 
 
 Q. Where does George Moore get his authority 
 that Jesus was not crucified but was put to death 
 in some other way.? 
 
 A. I do not know. There are a great many 
 fanciful notions regarding this. 
 
 Q. Why, then, in view of the statement of the 
 professor, is there so much prejudice against the 
 Jews to-day .f* 
 
 A. Because the Christians have abused the 
 Jews, and we are always prejudiced against people 
 that we injure. 
 
 Q. In view of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on 
 the Mount against violence and force, how can a 
 Christian-spirited government be based on force? 
 
 A. No government is thoroughly Christian, and
 
 272 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 most governments are very far from it. It is our 
 task to Christianize the government. 
 
 Q. What is your opinion of the Hebrew proph- 
 ets as relating to the Messiah .5^ 
 
 A. It cannot be summed up in a sentence; 
 there are many varieties of Messianic hope among 
 the Jews. One that He would come to establish 
 the Kingdom of God. Another that He would not 
 come until after it was established. The Mes- 
 sianic hope of the Jews in its essence was that a 
 good time is coming. 
 
 Q. Are not human beings created equal? Why, 
 then, are they not born equal mentally .f' 
 
 A. They are, practically: I think they are more 
 nearly equal than is generally believed, and that 
 differences are due to education and environment. 
 
 J
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, January 3, 1915 
 
 By Reverend George A. Gordon, D.D., of Boston, 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 INASMUCH as we have never seen one another 
 before, we must try to make a good impres- 
 sion upon one another. This Ford Hall insti- 
 tution is one of the best things that have been 
 established since I came to Boston, an institution 
 of which every citizen is proud. I don't see but 
 that you have most of the advantages and none of 
 the disadvantages of a church. You have admir- 
 able music, free pews, no collection, and no old 
 sermons. A friend of mine said to me before I 
 came on this platform, "Aren't you afraid.^*" I 
 said, "No, I am too old"; and why should I be 
 afraid, looking into the faces of friends, fellow- 
 pilgrims, sharers in all the good fortune and all 
 the bad fortune of mortal life.'^ 
 
 However, on thinking it over, I am. I am not 
 afraid of this audience, but of a nightmare I have, 
 which does scare me greatly. It takes this shape:
 
 274 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 I always begin at the Old South with a packed 
 house (that is, in my nightmare!), and I can't find 
 the end of my sermon. Before I get through, my 
 audience is reduced to about a score of veterans. 
 Now, that does make me quail. It is like a friend 
 of mine who was made pastor of Emmanuel 
 Church at twenty-four, and one day he went to 
 morning service at 9.30 instead of 10.30, and found 
 no one there but the sexton. "Oh, Lord," he said, 
 *'I feared it would come to this, but I did not ex- 
 pect it after two months!" 
 
 I am going to be very serious to-night, though I 
 would like you to believe that I can be funny on 
 occasion. I am going to pay you the highest com- 
 pliment it is in me to pay, to discuss seriously the 
 deepest of all questions. When you see a piece 
 of tapestry, you recognize at once that it is a unity, 
 something entire, a whole. When you analyze it, 
 you find that it has certain constituent, essential 
 parts. There are the warp, the woof, the design 
 and the color, making the character, beauty, spirit, 
 of the whole. Each one of these parts is just as 
 real as the other. All four are necessary to con- 
 stitute that one whole. 
 
 Now, take the all-round experience of a normally- 
 developed human being. That, too, is a whole, a 
 unity, something entire; and when you look into 1 
 it, you find certaiii essential parts without which 
 it could not be at all. And one part, as far as it 
 goes, is just as essential as the other part. In the 
 first place there is the sense of self. You can't 
 
 J
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 275 
 
 have an experience without a subject. That is 
 the warp, that runs lengthwise on the loom of 
 existence. In the second place there is the sense 
 of nature, nature as fact, as beauty, as law. We 
 call this the woof, the thread that runs crosswise 
 on the loom of existence. In the third place there 
 is the social nature of humanity. Man is a social 
 being, and this social design is interwoven with 
 the feeling of self and the feeling of nature. And 
 the fourth thing is the sense of the infinite. 
 
 Self, nature, social humanity, embosomed in the 
 infinite, and penetrated by it: those, if I am to 
 speak frankly, seem to me the constituent parts 
 of a normal human experience. We do not hunt 
 for self or for nature or for humanity or for the 
 infinite; they are all together, one just as real as 
 the other; and together they constitute one great 
 human experience. When you ask how these sev- 
 eral feelings emerge, you ask one of the pro- 
 foundest questions that the human mind can raise. 
 How does the feeling of self emerge in the baby.^^ 
 How does the sense of nature get into the con- 
 sciousness.'^ How do we become aware of a social 
 humanity .f^ How do we attain to the mighty con- 
 sciousness of life in the infinite? All great phi- 
 losophies, since philosophy began, are engaged in 
 the endeavor to answer these questions. Here is 
 the mighty task of the collective reason of man- 
 kind. At its highest and best it is endeavoring 
 to tell us how the feeling of the reality of the 
 personal soul has come into existence, how we are
 
 276 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 so sure of nature as we are, how we come to know 
 other beings as real, how we come to know God. 
 
 If I undertook to answer all these four questions 
 you would be here till next year, or you would be 
 dead, or I should be. I have to do with the fourth: 
 How does the sense of the infinite emerge and be- 
 come distinct in the consciousness of man? Let 
 me remind you that, whether wisely or foolishly, 
 this race of ours is a religious race. From the 
 dawn of history, among all peoples and tribes, over 
 the whole earth, religion has been the most impor- 
 tant, the most tremendous influence in the life of 
 mankind. Now, how do we make clear, articulate, 
 and real to ourselves the sense of the infinite and 
 eternal? 
 
 In the first place, there is the pageant of nature, 
 — beautiful, imposing, glorious, vast, — and there 
 is the pageant of humanity, — coming out of the 
 dim dusk of prehistoric times, through savagehood, 
 and barbarism, and early civilization, on to our 
 own time. These are the evanescent and the 
 dependent forms of the universe, Heraclitus said: 
 "It is impossible to bathe twice in the same 
 stream. Another stream has come before you can jj 
 bathe the second time." That admirably ex- ' 
 presses the vanishing loveliness and terror of 
 nature and of humanity. But on what does the 
 world rest? A temporary universe without an 
 eternal foundation is an impossible thought, for 
 your universe would vanish in smoke. A dependent 
 universe without an independent foundation is
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 277 
 
 iintliinkable; and science comes to our rescue 
 here, informing us that the amount of energy in the 
 universe is always the same. There is, therefore, 
 a permanent ground of all change, an independent 
 on which all the dependent is hung. 
 
 The universe may be regarded as the embodi- 
 ment of thought. Bacon, in his essay on "Athe- 
 ism", says: "I would rather believe all the legends 
 in the Talmud and all the stories in the Koran 
 than believe that this universal frame came into 
 existence and remains in existence without mind." 
 I think the unsophisticated human being, untwisted, 
 unperverted by the things of the world, naturally, 
 in the presence of the universe of wonder and 
 splendor and all its tokens of arrangement and 
 design and power, feels that it is the expression 
 of mind. In this way men have articulated their 
 sense of the eternal — that God dwells in the uni- 
 verse as your mind lives in your body and frame. 
 
 A third way comes closer home. Here is a 
 young man who has a heavenly vision of justice, 
 of kindness, of warm-blooded humanity, of social 
 service and obligation, of integritj^; to be one 
 whose life shall damage no other life, but shall 
 uplift every one trodden down, lend a hand to 
 every one in need of help. And he begins the pur- 
 suit of it, that he may translate it into thought 
 and feeling and activity. He doesn't know whether 
 there is any God or not, but he says, "Oh, God, if 
 theie be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!" 
 He opens all his nature in silent supplication to
 
 278 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 the universe, vast, dumb, terrible, saying: "Oh, 
 help me to realize my vision, that my life may 
 become good and only good, a blessing and only a 
 blessing!" And he goes on at his business trying 
 to realize it, and as he succeeds, there comes into 
 his mind a sense that he has been helped. "The 
 stars in their courses are fighting for him." There 
 are tides of power that help him onward. And by 
 and by he comes to feel that the soul of the uni- 
 verse is close to his soul. Such a man comes 
 eventually to feel that God is just as real as his 
 own soul. You can't reason that man out of his 
 sense of God. 
 
 Here is a ship at sea, in a tempest, tossed from 
 wave to wave, buffeted by breaker after breaker. 
 Can that ship doubt the existence of the engines 
 at its heart.? Every bolt, every bar, every part 
 from bow to stern, from keel to deck, is thrilled 
 with a sense of the power of those engines. They 
 are known as the driving power of the steamer's 
 life; in the teeth of the gale, sinking and rising, 
 this power is driving the ship — home. Precisely 
 so, when a man is in the storm of passion, lust, 
 greed, hate, selfishness, and is making for the port 
 indicated by his heavenly vision, God is known 
 to him as the ideal strength of his life. Wild the 
 seas, and he is tossed hither and thither, anything 
 but sightly and beautiful, as he dips, and all the 
 waves and billows of social unrest go over him; 
 but he is gaining, he is forging his way into a 
 nobler manhood, he knows that if this power lasts,
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 279 
 
 he will arrive. And I say again: along this line, 
 you may talk till Doomsday to the simplest soul 
 in the world, who can't philosophize a bit; the 
 universe is with him, helping him onward toward 
 his goal. 
 
 Now, there is still another way, and that is by 
 the way of the good. What is good.^^ Satisfac- 
 tion. What is truth .-^ The satisfaction of the 
 intellect. Wlien the intellect has found truth, it 
 asks for nothing beyond; it has come to its goal. 
 What is beauty .f^ The satisfaction of the aesthetic 
 sense. When beauty in its highest form is given 
 to the aesthetic sense, there is no seeking for any- 
 thing beyond. What is right .^ The satisfaction 
 of man's conscience. And remember, when you 
 find fault with the world, you assert your own 
 conscience: when you criticise the universe you 
 lift up like a flag your own moral sense. And 
 what is love? The satisfaction of the human heart. 
 Good, then, means satisfaction. And the absolute 
 good, whether real or ideal, means complete 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Now I am going to give you two philosophical 
 and two religious examples. The first is Plato. 
 In his great dialogue, The Republic, he sets out in 
 quest of justice. To this end he takes the indi- 
 vidual and analyzes him into three parts, reason, 
 spirit, appetite. Justice in the individual is where 
 each part of the man does its own work and does 
 it well, thus producing a harmony. But, he thinks, 
 inasmuch as man is a social being, he would better
 
 280 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 look at it in the State; and so he has three classes, 
 answering to the three parts of man's soul, — the 
 wise men or rulers, the soldiers who guard the 
 State, and the artisans. These classes are not 
 fixed, the genius can ascend or the fool descend 
 in any of them. But this State never can be 
 realized unless he can see the absolute good in the 
 center of the universe; and the search for this 
 absolute good results in the vision of God. 
 
 The next example is Aristotle, — the man that 
 I call the champion intellectual athlete of the world. 
 In his Ethics he sets out in quest of the good. 
 He says good is the highest activity of the 
 highest part in a man, the reason. He was the 
 most pronounced theist outside of Hebraism and 
 Christianity, and he finds this good is God. When 
 a man finds the highest good, God and the man 
 run parallel. God is absolutely perfect, and moves 
 the whole world. The universe falls in love with 
 Him, and is moved, delighted, rested, satisfied. 
 
 (Doctor Gordon's two religious examples, which 
 he did not have time to give, were Buddhism and 
 Christianity.) 
 
 You see human beings all running hither and 
 thither. You see a man on his way to the saloon. 
 Why does he go there.f* After good, — satisfaction. 
 You see a man making money hand over fist, — 
 his own and somebody else's. What is he doing 
 that for.? He thinks it is good, — satisfaction. 
 You see a fashionable woman running herself 
 nearly to death, going from party to party. She,
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 281 
 
 too, is after something good. You see what I 
 mean. Half the world is seeking good where it 
 never can be found; it is apparent, not real, good. 
 That is the tragedy of the world, and I have looked 
 into it for more than sixty years. All right in 
 your desire for good; that is fundamental, insepa- 
 rable from human souls: but all wrong if you are 
 seeking it where it is not to be found. It is the 
 stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus all over again. 
 
 You will, in your splendid love of freedom, be- 
 cause you don't know any such thing as heresy 
 here (and I shouldn't stay here if I thought you 
 did, because there is one thing I have stood for 
 all my life, and that is freedom, — give every man 
 his chance to do his own thinking), listen to a 
 story I am very fond of, — the parable of the two 
 builders, who built upon the sand and upon the 
 rock. It is the difference between the unwise and 
 the wise search for good. All our criticisms are 
 just sparrow twitters compared with the criticism, 
 the searching power, of the infinite universe. And 
 no fool can live in this universe: the trouble is, 
 we die because we are both fool and wise man, 
 most of us. 
 
 I understand you are going to ask me questions. 
 I will tell you a story before I undergo your fire. 
 There was a meeting of the Irish Nationalists in 
 London, and the chairman was a little, withered-up 
 man with a squeaky voice. After Redmond had 
 spoken, he arose and said, "Is there any gentleman 
 in the audience who would like to ask the speaker
 
 282 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 a question?" A big, burly John Bull got up, and 
 the chairman said, "Will the gentleman kindly 
 come forward to the platform, so that his question 
 can be heard by the audience?" He did so, and 
 immediately a big Irishman hit him behind the 
 ear and he was carried out to the door. Then 
 the little chairman got up again, as if nothing 
 had happened, and squeaked, "Is there any other 
 gentleman in the audience who would like to ask 
 the speaker a question?" 
 
 If I can't answer you one way I will the 
 other! 
 
 The Questions 
 
 Q. What feeling for good has a murderer at 
 the time he commits murder? 
 
 A. Knocking the breath out of his adversary. 
 The thief, the bandit, the murderer, — each is 
 seeking good in a tragic and tragically impossible 
 manner. 
 
 Q. In view of the present situation in Europe, 
 ought we not to say, "Man is on earth, society 
 is before us: what can we do to make things 
 better?" 
 
 A. Couldn't have a better resolve to begin the 
 new year. 
 
 Q. If the human race could grasp the mys- 
 teries of nature, wouldn't there be less reverence 
 for the higher things, and wouldn't there be 
 monotony? 
 
 A. The universe is infinite, man is finite; thereJ
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 283 
 
 needn't be any apprehension of monotony. Abso- 
 lute knowledge would be absolute wonder. 
 
 Q. What is your message for the new year.? 
 
 A. Have you been asleep.? Begin the quest 
 for the good, pursue it wisely to the absolute goal. 
 
 Q. Do you think the Christian civilization of 
 Europe has been built on the sand, and what rock 
 should civilization then be built upon? 
 
 A. There are two elements in civilization — 
 that which we have brought up with us from the 
 brute, and that represented by the highest human- 
 ity. I think both of them exist in Europe, although 
 one of them seems to be in the ascendant to-day. 
 I cannot despair of a continent, even though it 
 seems temporarily to have gone mad. 
 
 Q. Is absolute truth material or ethereal.? 
 
 A. That depends upon whether one's estimate 
 of the absolute reahty is material or spiritual. 
 Science is more idealistic to-day than ever before. 
 That encourages a religious man in his faith that 
 the absolute truth is spirit. 
 
 Q, If will is the strongest part of humanity, 
 why isn't there enough in the human body to 
 keep a man from misery.? 
 
 A. There is something wrong with your major 
 premise. If it were the strongest part, it would 
 eliminate misery so far as it can be eliminated. 
 
 Q. What do you think about Socialism? 
 
 A. As a philosophy of human society, it is 
 magnificent as a spirit, unwise as a method of 
 arrangement. It cannot be wholly commended
 
 284 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 and it certainly should not be wholly condemned. 
 The same could be said of the individualistic 
 system. 
 
 Q. Isn't it a fact that people are not being or 
 doing good because of the artificial life they lead 
 and the struggle for existence in the twentieth 
 century.'* 
 
 • A. There is our problem. We have to fight 
 our battle under the conditions named, and they 
 make it a hard fight, but we can win in spite 
 of them. 
 
 Q. Is it possible for a man to search for good 
 on an empty pocket and an empty stomach.? 
 
 A. I have worked all day in Boston as a stone- 
 mason without any meals, and walked six miles 
 for the first one — and I thought it was good when 
 I got it! 
 
 I Q. Do you believe in the Darwinian theory, 
 and do you think it is good.f* 
 
 A. According to that theory, man is not only 
 descended from the ape, but he has within him 
 the whole menagerie, and sometimes the ape is 
 uppermost, and sometimes the ass. I am inclined 
 to believe in it; it explains a lot. 
 
 Q. In view of the fact that savages never 
 refuse food to any one in their tribe who is of use 
 to them, are we not hypocrites to put people in 
 our factories and make them work, and not give 
 them enough to support a real life.^^ 
 
 A. If the facts are as you stated, I should sayj 
 yes.
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 285 
 
 Q. Isn't it true that in the present distribution 
 of goods it is impossible for the average workman 
 to seek even immediate and temporary good; and 
 as other methods have failed, would it not be a 
 good thing for him to try Socialism? 
 
 A. I don't agree that an honest workman can- 
 not earn a competent livelihood. I have been 
 there myself. Man is not merely an economic 
 creature. Work for any social arrangement you 
 think will do the most good, but, for God's sake, 
 never identify good with a fat purse! 
 
 Q. What message has the church to give us to 
 solve the problem of our half-million unemployed 
 in this country and the terrible conflict of war in 
 Europe, if these are produced by Capitalism and 
 could be abolished by a new social order.f^ 
 
 A. How are you going to get a new social order 
 without manhood? The church is trying to make 
 men: making a poor job of it here and there, but 
 doing its best. 
 
 Q. If poverty makes a man good and wealth 
 makes a man bad, what are we to do with the 
 surplus property the rich man has, which is doing 
 him so much harm? 
 
 A. Go and ask him. 
 
 Q. Do you not think that man's desire for 
 pleasure far exceeds his desire for good? 
 
 A. A man's desire for pleasure represents his 
 idea of good, and if it is a wise idea, it is good. 
 
 Q. Why is it that all ministers and reformers 
 hold up the example of the poor boy who made
 
 286 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 good, and forget the boys in the reformatories 
 who are crushed down by the same system? 
 
 A. Why do we hold up the case of Abraham 
 Lincoln? In order to inspire all the boys of any 
 latent power each to do his best to rise as high as 
 he can. There is no slight to those who do not 
 rise, and it is not necessary to forget them. 
 
 Q. Are not clergymen doing wrong in not com- 
 ing out and saying that the working class is being 
 robbed, when it supports our whole civilization? 
 
 A. I like to have a man stand up for his own 
 set and claim that they do the whole job. But 
 the leaders are necessary also. 
 
 Q. Which is the best course to pursue — have 
 the working people own all things for their own 
 good or have the capitalists own all for their 
 profit? 
 
 A. Neither is good for both. You have got 
 away from my New Year message. 
 
 Q. Isn't it necessary in the very beginning to 
 give a man the proper environment in order that 
 he may want to be good? 
 
 A. It is a very difficult thing to say what the 
 proper environment is. Abstractly, you would not 
 say this was a very comfortable environmont for 
 me, but I have no doubt it is good. 
 
 Q. Do you believe that the soul is immortal 
 substance, even in the case of those who do 
 evil? 
 
 A. I say with Abraham Lincoln, "All or none." 
 
 Q. Wouldn't it be the best remedy for the
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 287 
 
 present time to arbitrate the differences between 
 Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, instead 
 of each looking upon the others as infidels? 
 
 A. I don't think you can arbitrate: let each 
 man do his own thinking to the end of the world. 
 By and by, if we think long and honestly enough 
 we shall come to a pretty unanimous state of mind 
 at the last. 
 
 Q. Don't you think we are all on the road to 
 hell, with the rest of the people.'^ 
 
 A. No, I don't believe anybody is going to hell 
 ultimately. We trust the illumination of experi- 
 ence, which will lead to the re-ordering of human 
 society and the deliverance of man from essential 
 evil. 
 
 Q. Do you believe in Herbert Spencer's reli- 
 gion of first principles? 
 
 A. I don't think Herbert Spencer's forte was 
 religion. He did a great deal for his time. 
 
 Q. Is nature more destructive than creative? 
 
 A. If she creates it all and finally destroys it 
 all, I should say it was about equal. 
 
 Q. Do you expect us to find absolute good in 
 the infinite while we still do not understand it in 
 the finite? 
 
 A. We must find out at one and the same time 
 in the finite and in the infinite what good is attain- 
 able for us men. 
 
 Q, How do you regard the science of psychics? 
 
 A. With great sympathy. 
 
 Q. Could you advise the man with the empty
 
 288 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 pocket and stomach the wisest way to seek the 
 good? 
 
 A. To get a job, work at it well, live frugally, 
 and save a little money day by day. 
 
 Q. If nothing can come from nothing, how 
 could the world be created by a creator who came 
 from nothing? 
 
 A. I never said so. 
 
 Q. Are the capitalists pursuing real good when 
 they are living on the backs of the masses? 
 
 A. I have earned my living since I was eleven. 
 I have met tough specimens both among capitalists 
 and as fellow-toilers, and I am not going to inveigh 
 against either class. 
 
 Q. Will good ever be attained? Can anybody 
 ever be satisfied? 
 
 A. I can't say. I haven't yet got there, but 
 I am forging ahead. We gain in satisfaction as 
 we know more truth, see more beauty, get a clearer 
 sense of right, and are met by a profounder con- 
 sciousness of love. 
 
 Q. If economic conditions are the cause of evil, 
 isn't it better to fight the cause than the result? 
 
 A. Economic conditions only aggravate the 
 suffering of the world. I am not sure that a rich 
 man is not more in danger of moral damnation 
 than a poor man. 
 
 Q. Since the human conception of truth has 
 only a relative significance, where does this truth 
 and good exist? 
 
 A. The questioner and the speaker are in rela- 
 
 J
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER GOD 
 
 tion; the relation does not destroy the reality of 
 either. 
 
 Q. Considering the unsatisfactory results from 
 our churches, what agency would you recommend 
 for the training of our children in this idealistic 
 good? 
 
 A. Some of you idealists here come and help 
 us in the Old South Church. 
 
 Q. Does not discord begin and end in the mind 
 of man, and not in that of God, and is it not use- 
 less to take our imperfections to God, whose mind 
 is perfect? 
 
 A. I believe that a progressive escape may be 
 had from the discord of mortal life, and that 
 therefore we should go to the infinite for help.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROM ABSOLUTE MONARCHY TO PURE 
 DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 
 
 An Address Delivered at the Ford Hall 
 Meeting, January 17, 1915 
 
 By Reverend John Haynes Holmes, of New York 
 
 I ASSURE you it is a great satisfaction for 
 anybody to have the privilege of standing on 
 this platform and addressing you; and I 
 speak for every man who comes here, that he 
 would gladly make dmy kind of sacrifice to look 
 into your faces and give his message. I count it 
 one of the red-letter nights of my year when I 
 come here. 
 
 I come to-night to the discussion of the domi- 
 nant question of the war. I suppose this problem 
 has been more or less obscured since the outbreak 
 of the war, but when the echoes have long since 
 rolled away, I believe the minds of men will still 
 be grappling with this problem and working out 
 the solution, — democracy. I believe no problem 
 can be understood except from the standpoint of 
 democracy. It is the one goal, the one aim, in 
 business as in politics. Not until we understand
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 291 
 
 that can we understand the problem. Here in 
 America we have some understanding of the mean- 
 ing of the word "democracy" in poHtics; and if 
 we can only understand that we have to do to-day 
 in the world of industry the same thing we have 
 done and are doing better and better in the world 
 of politics, opposition to the changes we advocate 
 will melt away. People will understand that we 
 are trying, not to destroy society, but to remold 
 society after the one divine design to which all 
 the relations between men and women in this great 
 world have come. 
 
 Therefore I propose to-night to trace out what 
 I believe must be the step-by-step progress in the 
 field of industry, from where we stand to-day to 
 where we must stand to-morrow, before the march 
 of progress ceases. And I propose to interpret 
 these steps exactly in the terms of democracy, as 
 understood in politics. I believe as the very basis 
 of my industrial and economic faith, that the same 
 thing that men are doing, the world around, politi- 
 cally speaking, we must do, sooner or later, indus- 
 trially speaking. If we once get that parallel 
 clearly into our minds, the whole case will be 
 won. 
 
 In tracing the development of mankind in the 
 political field, I must do the thing in the crudest 
 way imaginable. I know that all these steps have 
 not been taken in the same order all over the 
 world; but while development has been more 
 rapid in one place than another, when we come to
 
 292 DEMOCRACY IN THE M^VKING 
 
 sum up the whole thing from the standpoint of 
 the race rather than of the particular nation, we 
 shall find that on the whole there has been a cer- 
 tain line of progress, and a certain succession of 
 perfectly definite and beneficent steps. It is these 
 steps I propose to mark out, in order to indicate 
 exactly the thing we must do, consciously or un- 
 consciously, in the field of industry. 
 
 In the early ages of human history, political 
 organization began with absolute monarchy. When 
 the original tribe, or city, or state, went out to 
 fight their enemies, some one man proved to be 
 the best fighter, and the next time that man was 
 chosen to lead the band. And little by little, by 
 his prowess in war and his wisdom in council, this 
 man justified his leadership and was finally recog- 
 nized as the king, and into his hands were com- 
 mitted the absolute political authority and power 
 of that organization. When he died, his authority 
 was naturally passed on to his son, and thus, little 
 by little, the institution of absolute monarchy came 
 to be established. This institution has justified 
 itself in the past, and still does to-day in certain 
 portions of the world, on the basis of the great 
 doctrine of the divine right of kings, by which the 
 king comes to believe that he bears in his sacred 
 person the seal of the rule of Almighty God. And 
 therefore, even though his son be a fool or insane 
 or immoral or a coward, still he would be recog- 
 nized as the divine king, and his decisions would 
 be accepted as the very decrees of God Himself. 
 
 A
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 293 
 
 We don't have to look very far over the world to 
 discover that this idea has not wholly disappeared. 
 There are still men walking this earth who are 
 fooling themselves and thinking that they are 
 ruling by divine right: but that is a survival from 
 the ages of barbarism, and the modern world, 
 largely speaking, has long since passed out into 
 the better and higher eras of political development. 
 Now the interesting circumstance, industrially 
 speaking, is that even in this great democracy of 
 America we still have the divine monarch with us. 
 We don't have to look very far or search our 
 minds very deeply to find examples of this type 
 of organization: This fact came to be recognized 
 in the time of the great coal strike in Pennsylvania, 
 when IVIr. Baer, president of the Reading Railroad, 
 declared that those mines had been committed to 
 his keeping by the decree of God, and therefore 
 the output of those mines and the conditions of 
 labor there were his to determine by divine right. 
 He was the man who was honest enough to con- 
 fess to society that he knew he ruled by divine 
 right: but all his associates in the world of business 
 believe that all the time, though they have not 
 the honesty to say so. Only a few months ago there 
 was a great strike in Colorado, and there we dis- 
 covered that inside the political States of Colorado 
 and the United States of America was another free 
 and independent State, which did not recognize 
 the political authority of the Republic; that within 
 the area of this State the will of one man was
 
 294 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVIAKING 
 
 absolute. Let me illustrate exactly what that 
 meant in the Colorado coal-field. There came a 
 time when the conditions were so serious that 
 President Wilson, the chosen representative of 
 ninety million people in America, decided that he 
 must interfere and try to bring peace. And what 
 did he have to do.'^ He had to send his personal 
 representative or ambassador to the royal court of 
 the monarch of Colorado, at 26 Broadway. In 
 other words in order to have dealings with that 
 industrial corporation, he had to do exactly as 
 when he wanted to have dealings with Great 
 Britain. And then note the remarkable thing that 
 happened. Whereas Great Britain always receives 
 the personal ambassador of the President of the 
 United States, and hears what he has to say upon 
 any subject, the king of industrial Colorado did 
 not choose to receive and hear the ambassador of 
 the President; and you and I were treated to the 
 delightful spectacle of an industrial monarch who 
 could dictate terms to the Democratic President 
 of the country. This is an example of the will of 
 one man supreme in one industrial area, in which 
 labor and live thousands upon thousands of men, 
 women, and children. And, as the era of absolute 
 monarchy in politics has long since passed away, 
 or is in process of disintegration, so the era of 
 absolute monarchy in the field of industry has got 
 to go. There can't be any compromise upon this 
 point. There is no such thing as divine right in 
 the world of common men. Therefore, while we
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 295 
 
 laugh at emperors and czars, we are looking more 
 and more suspiciously at the emperors and czars 
 in the field of industry, and we are searching out 
 the way of getting rid of them exactly as we got 
 rid of them politically. 
 
 Now, the next step in the political state was 
 that the absolute monarch was succeeded by the 
 benevolent despot. By some chance or accident 
 there came to the throne of the absolute monarch 
 a man at once enlightened and benevolent, who 
 looked out upon his subjects and recognized his 
 moral responsibility, and therefore consecrated 
 himself to the task of doing what he could for the 
 uplift and benefit of his people. I suppose some 
 of the most beneficent and beautiful periods that 
 the human race has ever known were those under 
 the rule of the benevolent despot. Carlyle thought 
 this the ideal type of government, under the man 
 at once strong and enlightened, who could do for 
 the people what they could not do for themselves. 
 This he thought the point where political develop- 
 ment must stop. 
 
 The same development is beginning to appear 
 in the world of industry. The monarch of industry 
 is realizing his responsibilities to the working peo- 
 ple, and from his knowledge and generosity is re- 
 solving to use his power for the happiness and 
 welfare of the people working in his factories or 
 mines. And we can declare of him also that up 
 to the present time there is nothing in the world 
 of industry to compare with what some of these
 
 296 de:mocracy in the making 
 
 great men have accomplished. When I speak of 
 some of the great industrial magnates of our time 
 as benevolent despots, I am not making any in- 
 vidious comparisons. While I don't believe for a 
 moment that we are to stop there, I do believe, 
 as a man who tries to love justice and generosity, 
 that you and I ought to recognize what an en- 
 lightened and benevolent man tries to do when he 
 comes to some recognition of his responsibility to 
 his employees. It has been my happy lot to visit 
 the "kingdoms" of some of these men — Port 
 Sunlight, near Liverpool; Bourneville, near Bir- 
 mingham; the National Cash Register plant in Day- 
 ton; the Ford factory in Detroit. I would like 
 to-night to pay tribute to the things these men are 
 doing. The National Cash Register plant seemed 
 to me more a university than a factory; and in 
 the Ford factory nearly every man gets five dollars 
 a day at least, and every woman at least sixteen 
 dollars a week. Neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Patter- 
 son talk much about divine right, but they love to 
 talk about human right, and I believe to the best 
 of their ability they have established the best kind 
 of organization the world has seen up to the present 
 time. 
 
 But when you go away and think the whole 
 thing over, you come to the very definite conclu- 
 sion that, wonderful as this work is, it offers no 
 permanent solution of the present industrial prob- 
 lem. In the first place, these men are fortunate 
 in that they are (all of them that I know) working 

 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 297 
 
 in an industry where they have a monopoly, with- 
 out competition. When you consider the profits 
 that come from such a business, you begin to 
 understand the possibiHty of doing such things. 
 But in lower Fifth Avenue, in New York, in the 
 garment trade, the employers are in a business of 
 cut-throat competition; and profits are so low and 
 so hard to get that the problem is to keep the 
 business open and the people employed at all. On 
 the simple basis of bookkeeping, they haven't the 
 money to hand out. In the second place, these 
 accomplishments are those of single men, who have 
 built their lives into them. When they die, their 
 businesses will eventually have to go over to a 
 corporation. Now, corporations have immortal 
 bodies, but no soul. They inevitably display the 
 great evil of absentee landlordship, which has no 
 sense of individual responsibility. When the ele- 
 ment of getting all the profit possible on the money 
 invested enters in, this benevolent despotism is 
 considered as merely trimming and folderol, not 
 essential to the real question of making the stock 
 pay dividends. 
 
 The next step in political development is to 
 limited monarchy. In other words, there always 
 comes a time when people begin to wonder as to 
 the wisdom of the king, and get a kind of itch 
 that they want to have something to do with his 
 government; and you get the same thing that 
 happened at Runnymede, when the lords and 
 barons in England insisted on sharing the king's
 
 298 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 power with him. In a Hmited monarchy, the 
 king meets with the representatives of the people, 
 and they reach decisions together. This is illus- 
 trated in all the great monarchies of the world 
 to-day. 
 
 We are having exactly this development at the 
 present time in the field of industry. Many men 
 believe this is the real solution of the problem. I 
 refer to the trades union movement, which is 
 nothing more or less than limitation of the power 
 of the industrial monarch. In a trade where the 
 trades union is powerful, we find that when a 
 question arises as to hours of labor or what not, 
 it is settled by the employer and the representa- 
 tives of the employees together. The giving, the 
 taking, the collective bargaining, the passing and 
 amending of measures, is the same both in the 
 political and industrial world. The people who 
 believe that this is the solution feel that the time 
 is coming when the employer will be a convenient 
 kind of decoration, like the king of England to- 
 day, who is kept to review troops and open public 
 libraries. I suppose that sort of thing has taken 
 place more or less in some of the great organized 
 industries, where the real power is centered in the 
 trades union, and not in the man or men who own 
 the business. 
 
 But somehow or other, in industry as in politics, 
 no sooner do you get this development than people 
 begin to wonder as to why they should have a 
 king loafing around the throne anyhow. In Eng-
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 299 
 
 land, before the war, I found people actually de- 
 bating the question as to why the people of Great 
 Britain should support King George the Fifth and 
 Queen Mary the Four Fifths. In the field of in- 
 dustry that thing is decidedly true, and the same 
 thing is happening that took place here when the 
 American people got tired of King George III. 
 The people are beginning to feel that they can 
 dispense with the king, and you have the next 
 progressive step — representative democracy, as we 
 have it in the United States of America. All the 
 problems of the State are brought before the 
 chosen representatives of the people, and there 
 decided. I believe that is the next step in industry 
 after the trades union movement. It is already 
 happening, under the form of what you and I 
 know as State Socialism. That, as I understand 
 it, is the identification of the work of industry and 
 of politics, the discovery that the machinery of 
 government can do the industrial as well as the 
 political business of the people. It is perfectly 
 amazing how easily the transition is made. This 
 is what took place in England in the first week 
 in August.^ In the period of a single week State 
 Socialism was established root and branch in a 
 kingdom which would have nothing of it a week 
 previous. England proceeded to do in a night 
 what she said could not be done in a thousand 
 years. The railroads were operated by the gov- 
 ernment and to all intents and purposes owned 
 
 1 August 1914, — at the outbreak of the European War.
 
 300 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 by it. The products were taken over by the 
 government, and their prices determined in the 
 Prime Minister's house in Downing Street. All 
 sugar in England is now purchased, owned, sold, 
 and distributed by the government, because it is 
 necessary to the people and cannot be trusted to 
 private distributors. 
 
 Now I say to you, my friends, that what can be 
 done under the exigencies of a war situation ought 
 very easily to be done under the ordinary exigen- 
 cies of peace. England may possibly do this thing 
 to protect her people from the private exploiters 
 of the people instead of from the Germans. In 
 other words, the introduction of State Socialism is 
 easy when you have got to do it. That is the 
 step that must be taken, — representative democ- 
 racy in industry. The only objection to that 
 transition is that it can't be done; and that 
 objection was answered five months ago. 
 
 Now, do you think that that is the solution.'^ 
 Have we reached our goal.? The average man will 
 say there is nothing better than the representative 
 democracy of America, that there we have the 
 Kingdom of God on earth. But earnest students 
 are not so very much impressed. They wonder 
 what has become of the democracy; it is all 
 representation. There are certain people in Amer- 
 ica who are resolved that there shall be a restora- 
 tion of democracy, and that that restoration shall 
 take the form of the elimination of representation. 
 Our representatives are as unnecessary to-day as
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 301 
 
 our kings were yesterday. Representative democ- 
 racy began because of the physical Hmitations of 
 the country one hundred and fifty years ago. It 
 was impossible to communicate quickly or to 
 bring the people together, and so the people were 
 forced to resort to the expedient of representation. 
 Now, in our time the necessities of that situation 
 are very rapidly disappearing, and it is mechan- 
 ically possible to establish a pure democracy upon 
 a universal scale. By that we mean the thing 
 that was realized in the New England town meeting 
 which stands as the crowning representative of 
 democracy; the thing you have in the Ford Hall 
 Meetings; the people coming together in a single 
 room, talking over their affairs together, and de- 
 ciding, every man having as much to say as any 
 other man. To-day we have the telegraph, the 
 telephone, the printing press, the newspaper, trains 
 that travel sixty miles or more in an hour, the 
 aeroplane; and while we can't bring the bodies of 
 the people together in a single place it is the 
 simplest thing in the world to bring their minds 
 together: and then you have the essence of pure 
 democracy. That is the whole substance of the 
 progressive movement in all political parties, in 
 which Socialism has had its share : — to make over 
 the machinery of our democracy. The referendum, 
 the initiative, the recall, and all other such devices 
 are the machinery being prepared for the univer- 
 salization of the New England town meeting. 
 When that takes place, our elaborate system of
 
 302 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 representatives and checks and balances will little 
 by little be done away with, and we shall have the 
 crowning achievement of the political development 
 of the centuries, — pure democracy. 
 
 We shall be forced to come to just that, sooner 
 or later, in the field of industry. State Socialism 
 is not the ultimate solution, though we have got 
 to go through that period of development. But 
 when the experiences of representative democracy 
 in the field of industry have been learned and the 
 mechanism outgrown, we shall be ready for a 
 thing so great, so beautiful, and yet so far distant 
 in the future, that it is almost impossible for us 
 to describe the thing it will really be: — the people 
 owning and controlling directly the machines at 
 which they work and the products which they 
 produce; not even the organization of their own 
 government interfering in the relation between 
 themselves and the things they do. It is the 
 tearing down of the walls of the single home and the 
 making over our cities and states and nations at 
 large after the pattern and design of the single 
 home, where all work together, each for all and 
 all for each. 
 
 That means, sooner or later, the elimination of 
 the king, absolute, beneficent, limited, or repre- 
 sentative: it is the thing pure and unadulterated, 
 — pure food in .the field of labor! People will say 
 the thing can't be done; but the answer in the 
 field of industry is simply the experience we have 
 had in the field of politics; and I wonder again
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 303 
 
 and again that people who see and justify the 
 thing pohtically cannot see and justify it indus- 
 trially. For what has happened politically? Sup- 
 pose some crazy prophet had asked Cedric the 
 Saxon, in Scott's Ivanhoe, to go into the pigpen 
 where Gurth, the swineherd, was sleeping, and had 
 told him that the day was coming when his political 
 authority would not only be shared with this hu- 
 man animal but would be taken over by him, and 
 all the destiny of England repose in the hands of 
 that wretched man. What would have happened 
 to that prophet I dare not say. And yet that is 
 the thing that has taken place. The authority of 
 government in England to-day is in the hands of 
 the coal miners and cotton spinners and swineherds 
 and farmers, and the Prime Minister himself can 
 do nothing until he has received authority from 
 the children of Gurth. 
 
 That same thing is going to take place indus- 
 trially. We see the begrimed coal miners, the 
 wretched men and women in the factories; and 
 some of us dare to prophesy the coming of the 
 time when these men and women shall be the 
 monarchs in the field of industry, and no one shall 
 exercise sway over them. We are answered that the 
 thing can't be done; and we answer in turn that 
 the thing which has been done in one field of hu- 
 man endeavor can and shall be done in another; 
 and the same happiness we have achieved in the 
 political field will in the name of God and His 
 people sooner or later be achieved by the same
 
 304 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 method in the industrial field. From absolute 
 monarchy to pure democracy: this is the road that 
 must be traveled. We have traveled it far in the 
 State; we have started in the field of labor: and 
 sooner or later we shall reach, side by side the 
 same great goal. 
 
 The Questions 
 
 Q. Would it not be a good thing if the foreign 
 nations should change their rules and instead of 
 having a king, have a president .f^ 
 
 A. I tried to indicate in my speech that there 
 was a line of evolution in that direction. At this 
 very moment some kings are going and some presi- 
 dents coming. 
 
 Q. If democracy goes to its extremity, would 
 not the Socialists want representatives to go to 
 God before they believe in Him.'^ 
 
 A. I think most of us believe in democracy 
 without having to go to God in that way. 
 
 Q. Would it be possible under the system you 
 recommend to value the full product of the man 
 in industry and also of the minister in the church .^^ 
 
 A. It seems to be one of the foundation stones 
 of the democratic system to give a standard for 
 the measurement of the individual. It does not 
 mean that all persons are equal. 
 
 Q. You say you think the employees ought to 
 get together and demand their rights; what would 
 they do when they got the answer they got from 
 Rockefeller?
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 305 
 
 A. I do not believe I advocated exactly that. 
 I think this business of demanding rights is tre- 
 mendously overworked. Rockefeller's power is rap- 
 idly diminishing at the present time. I should be 
 a pessimist if I believed a revolution were neces- 
 sary; I think Rockefeller will vanish in the natural 
 working out of the democratic principle, 
 
 Q. How can we progress at all, when the news- 
 papers, which are backed by the advertisers, won't 
 write what we want them to.'^ 
 
 A. There are newspapers to-day that open their 
 columns to a remarkable degree to the word of 
 protest if there is anything in that word really 
 worth printing. 
 
 Q. Isn't the ignorance of the people responsible 
 for the misery we have around us, when we already 
 possess the machinery to get our full rights.'^ 
 
 A. I certainly think so. 
 
 Q. Have we political democracy, when the 
 President sent the troops to Colorado and the 
 State voted money to support them.'* 
 
 A. I think the conditions in Colorado are de- 
 plorable enough without casting that criticism 
 against the President for a necessary act. The 
 Federal troops protected the miners as well as the 
 mine owners. 
 
 Q. Can we justify the anarchists who think we 
 ought to skip one or two phases in the march 
 toward democracy? 
 
 A. I don't believe so. I believe in the step-by- 
 step method. We learn only by experience.
 
 306 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Q. When you amalgamate the power of the 
 State with that of the industrial despot, won't the 
 people be in a worse condition than ever? 
 
 A. Yes, but I don't remember having advocated 
 that. I don't want amalgamation until the gov- 
 ernment is amalgamated with the people. 
 
 Q. Do you consider the Social Revolution a 
 necessary step in the evolution from monarchy to 
 democracy.'^ 
 
 A. If you mean a method of overthrowing a 
 sj^stem by violence, I do not believe in it. If 
 you mean the consequence that follows from 
 the process of evolution, I beUeve in it abso- 
 lutely. 
 
 Q. Do you refer to communism and anarchism 
 in the State which will follow State Socialism? 
 
 A. I don't identify those terms. They are as 
 far apart as the poles. 
 
 Q. Then will communism follow State Socialism? 
 
 A. Yes, not as it has been worked in isolated 
 communities, but as the common life, lived by all 
 for the benefit of all. 
 
 Q. Don't these benevolent despots like Patter- 
 son and Ford have as their real motive, not the 
 welfare of their employees, but the prevention of 
 coalition among them to get control? 
 
 A. Absolutely no. The crucial point is whether 
 the employees have the right to organize their 
 trade; and in both of these enterprises more than 
 fifty per cent, of the men are unionized, without 
 any protest from the employer.
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 307 
 
 Q. Can we have democracy in industry while 
 we have absolutism in religion? 
 
 A. No, that is another of the parallel lines of 
 development, which I did not have time to eluci- 
 date to-night. There are churches to-day, such as 
 the Universalist and the Baptist, which are pure 
 democracies in their government. 
 
 Q. Which destroys the home more, the Social- 
 ists or the monarchs in Colorado? 
 
 A. The old yarn that Socialism destroys the 
 home is so ridiculous that it isn't worth answer- 
 ing. 
 
 Q. If the government owned the industries, and 
 had as hard a time to make them pay as some 
 employers have to-day would the people benefit 
 any more than now? 
 
 A. Under Socialism you won't have to make 
 any business pay. 
 
 Q. Isn't it true that the preaching of democracy 
 may become a dogma, just like any other, unless 
 one works at it to produce results? 
 
 A. That is unquestionably true, but I would 
 rather demur from the implication that the only 
 way to work for democracy is to be a party 
 Socialist. 
 
 Q. If we could get all the people together in a 
 pure democracy, would they not vote to give the 
 Philippine Islands back to Spain? 
 
 A. You must remember that the Filipinos 
 originally belonged to themselves before they be- 
 longed to Spain.
 
 308 DEMOCRACY IN THE IVLiKING 
 
 Q. Admitting that corporations will not in 
 themselves solve the industrial problem, are they 
 not, nevertheless, a passage toward Socialism? 
 
 A. Certainly. One thing that always makes me 
 laugh is the way the typical Socialist raves about 
 corporations, when they are the nearest thing to 
 SociaHsm we have in industry to-day. 
 
 Q. In view of the fact that there is so much 
 democracy in the warring countries, how is it they 
 are all following one man, instead of not fighting 
 with their brethren in other nations? 
 
 A. How can that be answered except to say 
 that in the European war we have a tragedy so 
 stupendous that it baffles explanation? Socialists 
 and Christians and all the rest had hopes, but 
 on the first of August the whole thing tumbled to 
 the ground, and we discovered that we are more 
 the slaves of our own inherited ideas than of all the 
 kings, bishops, and employers in the world. 
 
 Q. Would it not be better to call State Socialism 
 State Capitalism? 
 
 A. That is rather a new idea to me. Perhaps 
 we don't mean the same thing. 
 
 Q. Doesn't the present danger to society from 
 unemployment warrant an immediate transition 
 from industrial autocracy to democracy? 
 
 A. Nothing could justify it more truly than the 
 present hideous conditions of unemployment. I 
 believe it would solve that problem. But mean- 
 while it can't be made this winter, and that being 
 the case, with people starving and freezing, the
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 309 
 
 thing to do is to make the city and State and na- 
 tional governments get busy and do something to 
 tide us over. 
 
 Q. Why in a neutral country do we hear so 
 much good of England and so little of Germany? 
 
 A. I spoke of England only because I know 
 England, and do not know Germany at all. From 
 the industrial point of view Germany is at least 
 twenty-five years in advance of England. 
 
 Q. Is the speeding up of the workers at the 
 Ford plant injuring them physically, as an offset 
 to their extra pay.'^ 
 
 A. I made inquiries, and could see no such 
 indication. The speed is absolutely regulated, and 
 the man who can't keep up is eliminated. 
 
 Q. When Socialism has become an established 
 fact, who is going to perform the drudgery .'^ 
 
 A. That is one of the stock questions in regard 
 to Socialism, and one of the baffling ones. The 
 answer I like best is that by a system of national 
 or international conscription every man and woman, 
 in the period of early youth, shall be set apart for 
 one or two or three years to do the dirty work of 
 the community. 
 
 Q. In view of the fact that the propaganda for 
 Socialism is being carried on by people of all 
 religions or none, do you think that it is advisable 
 to prefix the word "Christian" as an attribute to 
 Socialism.'* 
 
 A. I don't believe it is wise or really means 
 anything, because I believe Socialism is "the eco- 
 
 I
 
 310 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 nomic expression of Christianity", and that the 
 adjective is unnecessary. 
 
 Q. What right has the church to justify her 
 existence since she dares not issue a decree against 
 capitaHsm, which causes conditions Hke that in 
 Colorado? 
 
 A. The attitude of the church on the industrial 
 situation calls for all sorts of explanation. Those 
 of us in the church are in it because we believe 
 in the everlasting reality of religion, and that no 
 human problem is understood until it is understood 
 from the ultimate spiritual point of view. But we 
 bear witness, meanwhile, against the abominations 
 of the industrial world. 
 
 Q. How would Socialism deal with ineflSciency 
 and laziness on the part of working people.'' 
 
 A. "If a man will not work, neither shall he 
 eat." And in the Socialistic State every man and 
 woman will be made efficient, by intelligent 
 education. 
 
 Q. What about the investigation by the British 
 government of the awful conditions in Port 
 Sunlight.^ 
 
 A. I know absolutely nothing about it. I have 
 been there myself and made a thorough inspection, 
 and I know that bad conditions do not exist. 
 
 Q. Did you question the men in the Ford 
 factory who were getting less than five dollars a 
 day, yet have the extra work put upon them? 
 
 A. Fifteen per cent, of the men in the Ford 
 works are not getting five dollars a day. They
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 311 
 
 work the same number of hours as the other men. 
 They get a lower wage because "they are not 
 worthy", which means that it is discovered they 
 spend their money on gambhng, saloons, and 
 prostitution instead of on their families. 
 
 Q: Do you think the world half realizes the 
 necessity of woman's exercising her responsibility.? 
 
 A. No. I don't thiiilc the world has waked up 
 to that fact at all. We all know that the problems 
 of politics, industry, and war are never going to 
 be solved until women have their share. I believe 
 in woman suffrage, not so much because it is the 
 right of the woman, as because it will force her to 
 recognize her responsibility, 
 
 Q. Don't the people of England owe the Kaiser 
 a debt of gratitude for giving them some measures 
 of Socialism.'^ And can these things be kept from 
 going back into the hands of the capitalists after 
 the war.? 
 
 A. That is like thanking God for the San 
 Francisco earthquake because they could rebuild 
 the city on better lines. It is possible that these 
 things will go back to the capitalists, but I pray 
 to God they won't. 
 
 Q. If Socialism is the result of evolution in 
 industrial democracy, what is the value of the 
 present Socialist propaganda.? 
 
 A. The unique distinction of man is that he 
 can control the direction and speed of this process 
 of evolution. Socialistic propaganda directs and 
 hastens.
 
 312 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Q. Can a pure democracy be established on 
 this earth until a majority of mankind gets into 
 harmony with the great, unchangeable laws of 
 God? 
 
 A. I believe that just such a change as I advo- 
 cate will bring men into a proper relationship with 
 God. 
 
 Q. If the majority is to rule, would it not mean 
 suffocation for those individuals who are superior 
 to the majority? 
 
 A. That is entirely possible. The tyranny of 
 many men is as awful as the tyranny of one. But 
 it is necessary to deal with one problem at a 
 time; ours to-day is the Socialistic problem, and 
 then we can turn back and deal with the individual. 
 
 Q. Under the present capitalistic system can 
 one State practise Socialism? 
 
 A. Yes, more or less effectively, just as one 
 individual can practise non-resistance. But the 
 application must necessarily be defective. 
 
 Q. If Socialism is applied Christianity, what 
 method do you suggest for bringing together So- 
 cialism and the church of to-day? 
 
 A. An increase of intelligence and common, 
 everyday human sympathy on both sides of the 
 fence. 
 
 Q. Do you believe that the average citizen is 
 capable of passing intelligent judgment on all 
 matters which now come before our representatives 
 in Washington? 
 
 A. I believe our representatives in Washington,
 
 I 
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 313 
 
 if they fail to represent the people, fail because 
 they are of a lower rather than of a higher grade 
 than the average man, and that the average man 
 is free of those betraying influences brought to 
 play upon the man isolated in the legislative 
 chamber in Washington. When we have pure 
 democracy, technicalities and details will be set- 
 tled and handled by the trained expert. 
 
 Q. Isn't the American Federation of Labor be- 
 coming an outgrown tool.^^ 
 
 A. The American people owe more to the 
 trades union movement than to any other indus- 
 trial movement, but the American Federation of 
 Labor has long since gone to seed. 
 
 Q. What do you think of ex-President Taft, who 
 recently denounced the initiative and referen- 
 dum.^ 
 
 A. I have the same opinion of him as all the 
 rest of the people in America registered two years 
 ago. 
 
 Q. Even under Socialism, when the people elect 
 a few men to represent them, doesn't the minority 
 rule, as illustrated in Germany before the war? 
 
 A. Quite so. That is the reason I don't believe 
 State Socialism furnishes any solution of this 
 question. 
 
 Q. Is not the pure democracy that is to follow 
 State Socialism exactly the same thing the Indus- 
 trial Workers of the World is working for in 
 the One Big Union? 
 
 A. Certainly. The one indication of pure de-
 
 314 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 mocracy we have in industry to-day is seen in 
 syndicalism. But the trouble is, syndicalism is 
 mixed with so many extraneous things that the 
 real beauty of it is obscured. 
 
 Q. What are you doing in New York to solve 
 the unemployment question .f* 
 
 A. What you are doing here, — sitting around 
 and talking about it. We realize there is a situa- 
 tion, but as to what to do, I can't find anybody 
 in any seat of authority has anything to offer. 
 
 Q. Would there not be a conflict of religions 
 under pure democracy, and if there were a universal 
 religion what would it he? 
 
 A. A conflict of free opinion is an excellent 
 thing. I hope I shall never see a time when one 
 religion shall absorb all others, but let all the 
 religions join in spirit. 
 
 Q. Would not the strikers have gained more in 
 Lawrence if the trades union had not mixed in? 
 
 A. The record of the American Federation of 
 Labor in Lawrence was one of the most regrettable 
 incidents of the strike, and proof that, as I said, 
 it has no vision and has gone to seed. 
 
 Q. How do you regard Judge Gary, of the steel 
 trust, on the commiittee to solve the problem of 
 the unemployed in New York.^* 
 
 A. I know nothing about him personally, but 
 a man of his type is not the man to solve that 
 problem. 
 
 Q. Was Mr. Baer any more of a monstrosity 
 than a whole lot of us who teach our children to
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 315 
 
 respect authority and the divine right of the 
 powers that be? 
 
 A. One of the failures of education is that we 
 do not teach our children the critical habit of 
 mind; not until we teach them to accept nothing 
 on the word of any one, shall we get wise and 
 unbiased judgment on all questions. 
 
 Q. If it is a fact that fifteen thousand men are 
 being employed by the Bethlehem Steel Co. to 
 manufacture war materials, would it not be well 
 to pass a law preventing the sending abroad of 
 such materials? 
 
 A. Every instinct of my being is outraged by 
 the spectacle of manufacturers in a neutral country 
 shipping ammunition abroad for the destruction of 
 human life; but it is a part of international law 
 that a combatant in war shall go to a neutral 
 country for ammunition, and for the United States 
 to refuse to ship ammunition after the outbreak 
 of the war would be doing exactly what Ger- 
 many did when she violated the neutrality of 
 Belgium. 
 
 Q. Do you believe in social revolution or social 
 reform in reaching the ideal depicted to us to-night? 
 
 A. I suppose you mean political reform as con- 
 trasted with violence. I have no use for violence 
 anywhere, under any circumstances. I am an 
 absolute non-resistant. 
 
 Q. Did you forget, in speaking of the death of 
 absolute monarchy in England, that the functions of 
 absolute monarchy were never so projected into
 
 316 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 English politics as in George V's actions in the 
 Home Rule crisis? 
 
 A. The evidence is not all in yet, but I am 
 inclined to believe that the stories about King 
 George were the inventions of Sir Edward Carson 
 and his crew. 
 
 Q. Can you cite any case in history where the 
 rulers have got off the backs of the ruled by the 
 process of evolution? 
 
 A. Yes; 1832, the English Reform Bill; 1867, 
 the Gladstone Bill. 
 
 Q. Do you believe the capitalists control not 
 only the newspapers but the pulpits in the churches? 
 
 A. Oh, I suppose so — yes. 
 
 Q. How could the policy of non-resistance be 
 applied in the warfare between capital and labor? 
 
 A. I am engaged now in preaching ten sermons 
 on that very subject. If we understand the non- 
 resistant principle, we will understand that the 
 sheer act of martyrdom, the willingness to die for 
 a cause can accomplish more than any amount of 
 outrage upon others. 
 
 Q. If ninety per cent, of business men fail, do 
 we not owe something to those ten per cent, who 
 have succeeded and produced a product which we 
 all enjoy? 
 
 A. ■ That depends upon the circumstances of 
 the man's success. But any business man of any 
 kind that we find making a reasonable success and 
 animated by the right kind of spirit should have 
 decent recognition.
 
 FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 317 
 
 Q. How are you going to allow children to 
 work out the problems of their relation to the 
 universe when they have not parents able to 
 develop them? 
 
 A. That is the pitiful problem illustrated in 
 the immigrant household. It will not be settled 
 until we work with the new generation of en- 
 lightened parents who can train their children 
 properly. 
 
 Q. Can you give us an adequate reason for the 
 attitude of the Catholic Church toward Socialism .f* 
 
 A. There are many reasons, ranging all the 
 way from the alleged fact that Socialism disrupts 
 the family, to the fact that the Catholic religion 
 is based upon the principle of authority, and 
 Socialism upon the principle of democracy, and 
 the two can't keep house together.
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 FORD HALL MEETINGS 
 
 SPEAKERS AND TOPICS 
 
 First Season (1908) 
 
 February 23. Opening Night. (No topic.), Henry Abra- 
 hams, Edwin D. Mead, C. C. Barry, Robert A. 
 Woods. 
 
 March 1. The Brotherhood of Man, Prof. Charles 
 Sprague Smith. 
 
 March 8. What the Jew has done for the World and 
 What the World Has Done to the Jew, Rabbi 
 Samuel Schulman, D.D. 
 
 March 15. The Democratic Gospel, Rev. Leigh ton 
 Williams, D.D. 
 
 March 22. Three Ways of Doing Good, Rev. Thomas 
 R. Sheer, D.D. 
 
 March 29. The Relation of Modern Christian Life to 
 the Social Problem, Prof. Thomas C. Hall, D.D. 
 
 Second Season (1908-1909) 
 
 November 1. A Man and His Vote, Prof. Thomas 
 
 Nixon Carver, LL.D. 
 November 8. The People and Problems of India, Miss 
 
 Ehzabeth S. Colton.
 
 822 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 November 15. Tolstoi's Story of "A Soul's Besurrec- 
 
 tion," Prof. William Salter. 
 November 22. Symposium: "Socialism as I See It," 
 
 Rev. O. P. Gifford, D.D. (Baptist), Rev. Philo W. 
 
 Sprague {Episcopalian), Rev. George Willis Cooke 
 
 (Unitarian), Rev. Daniel Evans, D.D. (Congrega- 
 
 tionalist) . 
 November 29. Are Our National Standards Ethical? 
 
 Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D. 
 December 6. Life — And a Good Life, Prof. Borden 
 
 Parker Bowne. 
 December 13. The Tyranny of Majorities, Rabbi 
 
 Stephen S. Wise, Ph.D. 
 December 20. The Ethics of Saving Bank Insurance, 
 
 Louis D. Brandeis. 
 December 27. Christmas as a Social Institution, Rev. 
 
 Albert Parker Fitch, D.D. 
 January 3. Other People's Graft, Lincoln Steffens. 
 January 10. The State and Morality, Prof. Charles 
 
 Zueblin. 
 January 17. Reforms Accomplished by the British Labor 
 
 Party, Keir Hardie, M.P. 
 January 24. Why the Church Cannot Accept SociaUsm, 
 
 Rev. Charles Stelzle. 
 January 31. The Man, the Accident, and the Railroad, 
 
 James O. Pagan. 
 February 7. The Awakening of the Orient and What It 
 
 Means to the Occident, Prof. S. L. Joshi. 
 February 14. The Life of Daniel Sharp Ford, W. N. 
 
 Hartshorn. Lincoln, the Man and the Statesman, 
 
 Col. Edward Anderson. 
 February 21. New England's Lost Leadership in Child 
 
 Labor Legislation, Mrs. Florence Kelley.
 
 APPENDIX 323 
 
 February 28, Things that Separate Men and Things 
 that Unite Them, Rabbi Samuel Schulman, D.D. 
 
 March 7. Working with the People, Prof. Charles 
 Sprague Smith. 
 
 March 14. Feeding for EflBciency, Horace Fletcher. 
 
 March 21. Unemployment: Its Cause and Cure, John 
 Z. White. 
 
 March 28. The Boy and the Gang, J. Adams Puffer. 
 
 April 4. The Woman's Portion, Franklin H. Went- 
 worth. "Votes for Women," Mrs. Marion Craig 
 Went worth. 
 
 April 11. The Religion of the Crowd, George W. Cole- 
 man. 
 
 TmBD Season (1909-1910) 
 
 November 7. Religion and Business, Frederick van 
 
 Eeden, M.D. 
 November 14. The Fellowship of the Common Life, 
 
 Prof. Charles Zueblin. 
 November 21. The Moral Unrest of Our Time, Rev. 
 
 John Haynes Holmes. 
 November 28. The Church and the Workingman, 
 
 Alexander F. Irvine. 
 December 5. Bernard Shaw as a Social Critic, Prof. 
 
 William Salter. , 
 
 December 12. When is Marriage a Success? Rev. John 
 ' Hopkins Denison. 
 December 19. Religion of the Common Life, Prof. 
 
 Charles Zueblin. 
 December 26. Holidays and Holy Days, Rev. O. P. 
 
 Gifford, D.D. 
 January 2. Commercialism, Prof. Edward A. Ross, LL.D. 
 January 9. Has the Church Failed? Rt. Rev. William 
 
 Lawrence, S.T.D., LL.D.
 
 324 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 January 16. The Case for the Workingman, Henry 
 
 Sterling. 
 January 23. Reforms and Reformers, Rabbi Stephen S. 
 
 Wise, Ph.D. 
 January 30. The Transition from the Present to a Co- 
 operative Order of Society, Prof. Walter Rauschen- 
 
 busch, D.D. 
 February 6. Can the Modern Man be Religious? Dean 
 
 Shailer Mathews, D.D. 
 February 13. The Case for the Employer, Jonathan 
 
 Thayer Lincoln. 
 February 20. The English Budget and What it Means, 
 
 Joseph Eels. 
 February 27. The Hebrew Prophets: The Creators of 
 
 Modern Religion, Rabbi Samuel Schulman, D.D. 
 March 6. The Search for Brotherhood, Prof. Edward A. 
 
 Steiner. 
 March 13. The Life and Work of Karl Marx, John 
 
 Spargo. 
 
 Fourth Season (1910-1911) 
 
 October 16. Has the Single Tax Got Anywhere? Henry 
 
 George, Jr. 
 October 23. The Church and the Democratic Ideal, 
 
 Alexander F. Irvine. 
 October 30. The Modern Drama as a Social Force, 
 
 Alfred H. Brown. 
 November 6. When East Meets West, Rev. Arthur H. 
 
 Smith, D.D. 
 November 13. What Happened in Schenectady, Rev. 
 
 George R. Lunn, D.D. 
 November 20. The Church and the Social Awakening, 
 
 Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D.
 
 APPENDIX 325 
 
 November 27. The Spiritual Significance of Secular 
 
 Vocations, Rev. Alfred W. Wishart. 
 December 4. The Social Movement in Germany, Albert 
 
 Sudekum, Ph.D. 
 December 11. Why I Believe in Immortality, Rev. 
 
 Lyman Abbott, D.D. 
 December 18. Man and Woman, Prof. Charles Zueblin. 
 December 25. The Birth of the Social Idea, Rev. O, P. 
 
 Gifford, D.D. 
 January' 1. The Man at the Bottom, Rev. Samuel Zane 
 
 Batten, D.D. 
 January 8. "\Miat Religion Can Do for a Man, Rt. Rev. 
 
 William LawTence, S.T.D., LL.D. 
 January 15. Wealth — Productive, Predatorvv and 
 
 Parasitic, Rt. Rev. Charles D. Williams, D.D., 
 
 LL.D. 
 January- 22. Education Without Srliools, Pres. William 
 
 H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D. 
 Januan,' 29. Stealing as a Fine Art, Rev. Her}>ert S. 
 
 Bigelow. 
 Februarv' 5. The Dangers of Socialism, Rev. Thomas 
 
 I. Gasson, S.J. 
 February 12. The World Problem of the Color Line, 
 
 W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D. 
 Februarv' 19. Health, Hygiene, and Happiness, DeWitt 
 
 G. Wilcox, M.D. 
 February 26. Symposium: TMiat These Meetings Have 
 
 Done for Boston, Meyer Bloomfield, Mrs. Richard 
 
 Y. FitzGerald, Edwin D. Mead, James P. Mum-oe, 
 
 Morrison I. Swift. 
 March 5. The Get-Together Basis in Religion, Rev. 
 
 James A. Francis, D.D. 
 March 12. The Sacredness of Property, J. W. Bengough.
 
 326 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 March 19. Does the Increased Cost of Living Mark a 
 
 Social Advance? Mrs. Ellen H. Richards. 
 March 26. What Women Have Done in Colorado with 
 
 the Vote, Mrs. Helen L. Grenfell. 
 April 2. The Bible as Literature, Rabbi Maurice H. 
 
 Harris, Ph.D. 
 April 9. The Social Function of the Press, Norman 
 
 Hapgood. 
 
 Fifth Season (1911-1912) 
 
 October 15. What is the Matter with the Church? Dean 
 George Hodges, D.D., LL.D. What is the Matter 
 with the People Outside the Church? Morrison I.. 
 Swift. 
 
 October 22. Woman the World Around, Mrs. Maud 
 Wood Park. 
 
 October 29. Eliminating the Hoodlum Element Among 
 Boys, Albert E. Winship, Litt.D., LL.D. 
 
 November 5. How to Make Boston EflBcient, Comfort- 
 able and Beautiful, Frederic C. Howe, Ph.D. 
 
 November 12. The United States as a World Power, 
 Edwin D. Mead. 
 
 November 19. Social and Economic Conditions in Eng- 
 land, Rev. R. J. Campbell, D.D. 
 
 November 26. The Case Against War, Pres. David 
 Starr Jordan, LL.D. 
 
 December 3. Racial Adjustment, Pres. Samuel C. 
 Mitchell, LL.D. 
 
 December 10. The Church and Social Justice, Rt. Rev. 
 Charles D. Williams, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 December 17. The Man and the Machine, Pres. Wil- 
 liam H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D.
 
 APPENDIX 327 
 
 December 24. The Nation's Human Resources, Prof. 
 Charles Zueblin. 
 
 December 31. Wanted: A Moral Renaissance, Rabbi 
 Stephen S. Wise, Ph.D. 
 
 Jan. 7. The Significance of Insurgency, Norman Hap- 
 good. 
 
 January 14. The Working Woman and the State, Mrs. 
 Glendower Evans, Miss Leonora O'Reilly. 
 
 January 21. America's Influence Upon the Older Na- 
 tions, William T. Ellis, LL.D. 
 
 January 28. Science and Immortality, Prof. James Her- 
 vey Hyslop, LL.D. 
 
 February 4. The Living Wage, Prof. John A. Ryan, D.D. 
 
 February 11. The Outlook for Temperance, Harry 
 Phillips. 
 
 February 18. The Progressive Spirit in Politics, Ray 
 Stannard Baker. 
 
 February 26. Getting to be Human, Dr. Charles 
 Fleischer. 
 
 March 3. The Message of Christianity to Socialists, 
 Rev. James H. Franklin, D.D. 
 
 March 10. The Claim of the Decalogue on the Modern 
 Man, Rabbi Samuel Schulman, D.D. 
 
 March 17. The Ethics of a Newspaper Man, James 
 Schermerhorn. 
 
 March 24. Scenes from the Senate, Mrs. Emily Mon- 
 tague Bishop. 
 
 March 31. Am I My Brother's Keeper? Stanton Coit, 
 Ph.D. 
 
 April 7. The New Schism in Socialism, John Graham 
 Brooks. 
 
 April 14. Evolution and Religion, Dean Shailer 
 Mathews, D.D.
 
 328 DEMOCRACY IN THE MAKING 
 
 Sixth Season (1912-1913) 
 
 October 13. The Morals of Anarchy and SociaHsm, Prof. 
 
 Thomas C. Hall, D.D. 
 October 20. The Function of the Jew in the World's 
 
 Economy, Rabbi IMaurice H. Harris, Ph.D. 
 October 27. Christianity and Socialism: Their Larger 
 
 Parallels, Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D. 
 November 3. How Shall the People Get Pure Food? 
 
 Alfred W. McCann. 
 November 10. Concerning Law and Order, Prof. Henry 
 
 C. Vedder, D.D. 
 November 17. The ?7w-Social Evil, Clifford G. Roe. 
 November 24. Giving the Boy a Square Deal, Judge 
 
 Ben B. Lindsey. 
 December 1. International Friendship Instead of War, 
 
 Baroness von Suttner. 
 December 8. The Moral Significance of the New Politics, 
 
 Rev. John Haynes Holmes. 
 December 15. The Warfare Against Poverty, Rabbi 
 
 Stephen S. Wise, Ph. D. 
 December 22. How Much of the New Order is in the 
 
 Present.'' Prof. Charles Zueblin. 
 December 29. God and Democracy, Prof. Charles 
 
 Prospero Fagnani, D.D. 
 January 5. Are the Public Schools Democratic? Mrs. 
 
 Anna Garlin Spencer. The Local Situation, Miss 
 
 Frances G. Curtis, Isaac Harris. 
 January 12. The Moral Asset of the Class Struggle, 
 
 Prof. Vida D. Scudder. 
 January 19. The Awakening of China, Dr. Yamei Kin, 
 January 26. Just Taxation the Hope of the World, 
 
 Joseph Fels.
 
 APPENDIX 329 
 
 February 2. The Right and Wrong of the Labor Union, 
 
 Prof. John A. Ryan, D.D. 
 February 9. The Growing Pains of Democracy, Edward 
 
 A. Filene. 
 February 16. As an Immigrant Sees It, Stewart Ander- 
 son. 
 February 23. Birthday Night. (No address.) 
 March 2. War and the Human Breed, Dr. J. A. Mac- 
 
 donald. 
 March 9. A Successful Failure: A Study of Robert 
 
 Owen, Prof. Earl Barnes. 
 March 16. Some Suggestions from Germany as to 
 
 Necessary Steps in Social Legislation, Rev. Levi M. 
 
 Powers, D.D. 
 March 23. Lessons from Recent Industrial Outbreaks, 
 
 Rev. Nicholas Van der Pyl. 
 March 30. The Social Message of Modern English 
 
 Writers, John Cowper Po^ys. 
 April 6. Training for Leadership, Prof. Colin A. Scott, 
 
 Ph.D., Miss Mary Mulry, Miss Lotta C. Clark. 
 April 13. The Social Value of Free Speech, Rev. O. P. 
 
 Gifford, D.D. 
 
 Seventh Season (1913-1914) 
 
 October 19. Before Socialism — What? John Graham 
 
 Brooks. 
 October 26. The Family of the Future, Prof. Earl 
 
 Barnes. 
 November 2. The American Gospel Day by Day, Mary 
 
 Antin. 
 November 9. Advertising and Economics, George W. 
 
 Hopkins. Advertising and Democracy, George B.
 
 830 DEMOCRACY IN THE IMAKING 
 
 Gallup. Advertising and Religion, William Shaw, 
 LL.D. 
 
 November 16. What's Wrong with the Jew? Rabbi 
 Stephen S. Wise, Ph. D. 
 
 November 23. How to Socialize a Competitive World, 
 Rev. Paul Moore Strayer. 
 
 November 30. The Courage to Attack, Peter Clark 
 Macfarlane. 
 
 December 7. The Modern Drama as a Social Force, 
 Norman Hapgood. 
 
 December 14. The Social Center and the Democratic 
 Ideal, Miss Mary P. Follett. The Social Center and 
 Direct Action, John Lovejoy Elliott, Ph.D. 
 
 December 21. Walt Whitman: Prophet and Democrat, 
 Prof. Charles Zueblin. 
 
 December 28. Can Religion Be Made Scientific? Rev. 
 AUyn K. Foster. 
 
 January 4. Is It Fair? Bishop John W. Hamilton, D.D. 
 
 January 11. A Forward Step Which Has Been Success- 
 fully Taken in Fitchburg, Miss Margaret Slattery. 
 A Fundamental Difficulty in the Way of Improving 
 Boston's Schools, Mrs. Richard Y. FitzGerald. 
 
 January 18. Why I work for the Single Tax, Rt. Rev. 
 Charles D. Williams, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 January 25. The Strength and Weakness of Socialism, 
 Prof. Albion W. Small, LL.D. 
 
 February 1. The Gospel of Ellen Key, Horace Bridges. 
 
 February 8. The International Mind and the Inter- 
 racial Heart, Prof. Edward A. Steiner. 
 
 February 15. The Problems of Sex Education, Hugh 
 Cabot, M.D. The Scourge of Venereal Disease, 
 DeWitt G. Wilcox, M.D. The Responsibilities of 
 Parenthood, Rev. Edward Cummings.
 
 APPENDIX 331 
 
 February 22. The Case for the Prisoner, Charles Bran- 
 don Booth. 
 March 1. Tolstoi the Man, Rev. Leslie Willis Sprague. 
 March 8. Uncle Sam and the Sons of Ham, Mrs. Mary 
 
 Church Terrell. 
 March 15. The Challenge of Socialism to Christianity, 
 
 Prof. Harry F. Ward. 
 Feb. 22. The Moral Law, Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D. 
 March 29. The Economic Aspects of Woman Suffrage, 
 
 John Cow^Dcr Powys. 
 April 5. The Press and Society, A. J. Philpott. Some 
 
 Ethical Aspects of Editorial Work, George Perry 
 
 Morris. 
 April 12. Religion and Social Revolution, Prof. Thomas 
 
 C. HaU, D.D. 
 April 19. Is the Woman Movement Going to Save 
 
 Society.'* Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D. 
 
 Eighth Season (1914-1915) 
 
 October 18. The Message of Syndicalism, William Eng- 
 lish Walhng. 
 
 October 25. God and His World, Mary Antin. 
 
 November 1. WTiat Work Should Give us Besides 
 Bread, Prof. Earl Barnes. 
 
 November 8. Energy — Undirected and Misdirected, 
 Miss Margaret Slattery. 
 
 November 15. The Child and the City, John Lovejoy 
 Elliott, Ph.D. 
 
 November 22. Will Democracy Endure? Rev. Leslie 
 Willis Sprague. 
 
 November 29. After Prison — What.? Mrs. Maud Bal- 
 lington Booth.
 
 332 DEMOCRACY IN THE ^LVKING 
 
 December 6. Is Civilization a Disease? Stanton Coit, 
 
 Ph.D. 
 December 13. The Mihtary Ideal, Norman Hapgood. 
 December 20. If Christ Were to Come on Christmas 
 
 Day, Rev. Bouck White. 
 December 27. Militancy and Morals, Prof. Charles 
 
 Zueblin, 
 January 3. A Message for the New Year, Rev. George 
 
 A. Gordon, D.D. 
 January 10. The New Morality, Rabbi Harry Levi. 
 January 17. From Absolute Monarchy to Pure Democ- 
 racy in Industry, Rev. John Haynes Holmes. 
 January 24. The Credit Side, Rev. John W. Ross. 
 January 31. The Economic Basis of Democracy, Prof. 
 
 Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D. 
 February 7. Minimum Wage Laws and Their Operation 
 
 in America, Prof. John A. Ryan, D.D. 
 November 14. The Newer Issues in Democracy, Louis 
 
 Wallis. 
 February 21. Classes and Masses in the England of 
 
 To-day, S. K. Ratcliffe. 
 February 28. A City Finding Itself, Peter Witt. 
 March 7. Wliat Constitutes a Good Jew? Rabbi Samuel 
 
 Schulman, D.D. 
 March 14. Socialism and the War, John Spargo. 
 March 21. Woman and War, Frau Rosika Schwimmer. 
 March 28. What Irish Immigration Has Done for 
 
 America, Prof. Frank O'Hara. 
 April 4. The War, the World, and the Kingdom of God, 
 
 Prof. Charles Prospero Fagnani, D.D. 
 April 11. What Constitutes a Good American? Prof. 
 
 Harry F, Ward.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 87, 325. 
 Abrahams, Henry, 321. 
 Addams, Jane, 229, 230. 
 Allen, John K., 71. 
 Anderson, Col. Edward, 322. 
 Anderson, Stewart, 329. 
 Antin, Mary, 39, 40, 88, 161, 
 
 192, 329, 331. 
 Aristotle, 280. 
 Attleboro, Mass., 69. 
 Atwood, Mrs. Nellie McLean, 
 
 182, 183, 184. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 277. 
 Baer, George F., 293, 314. 
 Baker, Ray Stannard, 219, 327. 
 Barnes, Prof. Earl, 329, 331. 
 Barrie, J. M., 250. 
 Barry, C. C, 321. 
 Bates, Katharine Lee, 99. 
 Batten, Dr. Samuel Z., 325. 
 Bellamy, Edward, 163. 
 Bengough, J. W., 325. 
 Bennett, Richard, 90, 248. 
 Bigelow, Rev. Herbert S., 325. 
 Bishop, Mrs. Emily M., 327. 
 Blanchard, Mrs. L. E., 170, 
 
 171, 172. 
 Bloomfield, Meyer, 325. 
 Booth, Charles Brandon, 331. 
 
 Booth, Maud Ballington, 40, 
 
 331. 
 Bottom, W. v., 71. 
 Bowne, Prof. Borden Parker, 
 
 322. 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, 180. 
 Brandeis, Louis D., 38, 322. 
 Bridges, Horace, 330. 
 Brieux, Eugene, 91. 
 Brockton, Mass., 70. 
 Brooks, John Graham, 327, 
 
 329. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 215. 
 Brown, Alfred H., 324. 
 Brown, John, 198. 
 Browne, Willis Q., 195. 
 Buckle, Thomas, 164. 
 Bunyan, John, 135. 
 
 Cabot, Dr. Hugh, 330, 
 Cabot, Dr. Richard C, 71. 
 Campbell, Dr. Reginald J., 
 
 326. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 295. 
 Carson, Sir Edward, 316. 
 Carty, D. W., 185, 186, 187. 
 Carver, Prof. Thomas Nixon, 
 
 321. 
 Chandler, Louis A., 71. 
 Chapman, Rev, J. Wilbur, 215.
 
 336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chesterton, Gilbert K., 99. 
 
 Chicago Sunday Evening 
 Club, 132. 
 
 Chipman, Miner, 194. 
 
 Clark, Dr. Francis E., 231. 
 
 Clark, Lotta C, 329. 
 
 Cobleigh, Rolfe, 6, 79. 
 
 Coit, Dr. Stanton, 108, 134, 
 327, 332. 
 
 Coleman, George W., xv, 18, 
 26, 29, 30, 43, 45, 47, 51, 
 56, 64, 68, 71, 72, 78, 89, 
 95, 114, 115, 120, 125, 137, 
 144, 154, 176, 179, 180, 184, 
 202, 203, 205, 214, 249, 323. 
 
 Collier, Miriam deFord, 4, 43. 
 
 Colton, Elizabeth S., 321. 
 
 Cooke, Rev. George Willis, 322. 
 
 Co-operative Forum Bureau, 
 71, 72. 
 
 Cooper, Peter, 68. 
 
 Cosgrove, Joseph, 189, 190, 
 191. 
 
 Crawford, Mary Caroline, 
 xii, 6, 7, 41, 72, 84, 151, 152. 
 
 Cummings, Rev. Edward, 
 330. 
 
 Curley, James M. 159. 
 
 Curtis, Miss Frances G., 328. 
 
 Davis, Philip, 201, 203. 
 Denison, Rev. John Hopkins, 
 
 323. 
 Dreier, Thomas, 4, 26, 71, 203. 
 DuBois, Dr. W. E. B., 27, 35, 
 
 325. 
 
 EcHEGARAY, JoSE, 250. 
 
 Edison, Thomas A., 216. 
 Eliot, Dr. Charles W., 228. 
 Eliot, George, 134, 135. 
 Elliott, Ebenezer, 99. 
 Elliott, Dr. John Lovejoy, 87, 
 
 88, 330, 331. 
 Ellis, Dr. William T., 92, 327. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 74, 
 
 125, 188. 
 Engels, Friedrich, 236, 244. 
 Evans, Dr. Daniel, 322. 
 Evans, Mrs. Glendower, 327. 
 Ewing, William C, 71. 
 
 Fagan, James O. 322. 
 Fagnani, Prof. Charles Pros- 
 
 pero, 20, 212, 259, 328, 332. 
 Faunce, Pres. W. H. P., 35, 
 
 110, 141, 175, 176, 325, 326. 
 Pels, Joseph, 38, 324, 328. 
 Filene, Edward A., 38, 329. 
 Fisk, Everett O., 71. 
 Fiske, John, 164. 
 Fitch, Dr. Albert Parker, 
 
 322. 
 FitzGerald, Mrs. R. Y., 325, 
 
 330. 
 Fleischer, Dr. Charles, 90, 327. 
 Fletcher, Horace, 323. 
 Follett, Mary P., 330. 
 Forbes, Elmer S., 72. 
 Ford, Daniel Sharp, xii, 3, 
 
 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 
 
 43, 48, 56, 113, 230, 231, 
 
 232, 323.
 
 INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 Ford Hall Folks, 4, 43, 44, 53, 
 
 55, 120, 122, 123, 151, 167, 
 
 199, 202. 
 Ford Hall Foundation, xii, 
 
 xiii, xiv, 71. 
 Ford, Henry, 296, 306. 
 Foro Italiano, 64, 65, 70. 
 Foster, Rev, Allyn K., 330. 
 Foster, William Horton, 5, 
 
 45, 50, 71, 179. 
 Francis, Dr. James A., 101, 
 
 325. 
 Franklin, Dr. James H., 327. 
 
 Gallup, George Brewster, 
 
 4, 17, 71, 203, 204, 205, 
 
 206, 330. 
 Galsworthy, John, 250. 
 Garfield, Pres. James A., 142. 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, 163, 
 
 196. 
 Gary, Elbert H., 314. 
 Gasson, Father Thomas I., 
 
 91, 211, 235, 325. 
 George, Henry, Jr., 324. 
 George, WiUiam R., 201, 203. 
 Gifford, Dr. O. P., 322, 323, 
 
 325, 329. 
 Goldstein, David, 244. 
 Gordon, Dr. A. J., 175. 
 Gordon, Dr. George A., 39, 
 
 213, 273, 332. 
 Graetz, Heinrich, 169. 
 Grenfell, Mrs. Helen L., 326. 
 Grout, Louise Adams, 70. 
 Gutterson, John Harris, 99. 
 
 Hall, Dr. Frank O., 331. 
 Hall, Prof. Thomas C., 92, 
 
 93, 201, 227, 321, 328, 
 
 331. 
 Hamilton, Bishop John W., 
 
 330. 
 Hapgood, Norman, 91, 92, 
 
 248, 326, 327, 330, 332. 
 Harbour, J. L., 3, 9. 
 Hardie, Keir, 171, 180, 322. 
 Harrigan, Edward, 162. 
 Harris, Isaac, 328. 
 Harris, Dr. Maurice H., 326, 
 
 328. 
 Hartshorn, W. N., 322. 
 Hartshorn, Mrs. William N., 
 
 11. 
 Hauptmann, Gerhard, 250. 
 Heraelitus, 276. 
 Heme, James A., 257. 
 Hirsch, Dr. Emil G., 220. 
 Hodges, Dean George, 326. 
 Hoffman, Mrs. Eva, 153, 154, 
 
 155, 156, 160. 
 Holmes, Rev. John Haynes, 
 
 212, 290, 323, 328, 332. 
 Hopkins, George W., 329. 
 Hopkins, Mark, 142. 
 Houston, Texas, 132. 
 Howe, Dr. Frederic C, 41, 
 
 326. 
 Hyslop, Prof. James H., 327. 
 
 Ibsen, Henrik, 250, 254, 255. 
 Irvine, Alexander F., 323, 
 324.
 
 338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jordan, Pres. David Starr, 
 
 326. 
 Jordan, Martin, 173, 174. 
 Joshi, Prof. S. L., 35, 322. 
 
 Kelley, Mrs. Florence, 40. 
 Kennedy, Charles Rann, 34, 
 
 252. 
 Key, Ellen, 330. 
 Kin, Dr. Yamei, 35, 328. 
 
 Lawrence, Bishop William, 
 
 323, 325. 
 Lawrence, Mass., 70. 
 Levi, Rabbi Harry, 332. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 228, 286, 
 
 322. 
 Lincoln, Jonathan Thayer, 38, 
 
 324. 
 Lindsey, Judge Ben B., 328. 
 Lipkin, Edward, 45. 
 London, Jacob, 199, 200, 201, 
 
 202, 203. 
 Lunn, Dr. George R., 324. 
 Luther, Martin, 244. 
 
 Macdonald, Dr. J. A., 329. 
 Macfarlane, Peter Clark, 330. 
 McCann, Alfred W., 328. 
 Manchester, N. H., 69. 
 Marple, Clarence W. 175, 176, 
 
 177. 
 Marshall, Rev. Harold, 5, 66, 
 
 71, 72. 
 Marx, Karl, 236, 244, 246, 
 
 324. 
 
 Mathews, Dr. Shailer, 39, 
 
 324, 327. 
 Mead, Edwin D., 321, 325, 
 
 326. 
 Melrose, Mass., 5, 69, 70. 
 Mitchell, Pres. Samuel C, 
 
 326. 
 Moliere, 251. 
 Moore, George, 271. 
 Morgan, Angela, 248. 
 Morris, George Perr3% 330. 
 Mulry, Mary, 329. 
 Munroe, James P., 94, 325. 
 Munsterberg, Prof. Hugo, 87. 
 
 O'Hara, Prof. Franic 332. 
 O'Reilly, Leonora, 327. 
 Owen, Robert, 329. 
 
 Park, Mrs. Maud Wood, 
 
 326. 
 Patterson, John H., 298, 306. 
 Peabody, Elizabeth, 193. 
 Plato, 279. 
 Phillips, Harry, 327. 
 Philpott, A. J., 6, 74, 331. 
 Pope Leo XIH, 241. 
 Powers, Dr. Levi M., 329. 
 Powys, John CowT)er,329, 310, 
 Puffer, J. Adams, 323. 
 
 Ratcliffe, S. K., 332. 
 Rauschenbusch, Prof. Walter, 
 
 38, 62, 66, 109, 112, 322, 
 
 324, 328, 331, 332. 
 Raymond, N. H., 69.
 
 INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Redmond, John Edward, 281. 
 Richards, Mrs. Ellen H, 86, 
 
 326. 
 Roberts, James P., 4, 35, 
 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 304, 
 
 305. 
 Roe, Clifford G., 90, 323. 
 Rogolsky, Freda, 81, 88, 89, 
 
 192, 193, 194, 201. 
 Ross, Prof. Ed-.vard A. 323. 
 Ross, Rev. John W., xiv, 69, 
 
 332. 
 Rush, Michael, 179, 180, 181. 
 Ryan, Prof. John A., 110, 111, 
 
 118, 327, 329, 332. 
 
 Sackmaky, Samuel, 88, 161, 
 
 162, 163. 
 Sage, Philip Everett, 1G7, 
 
 168, 169. 
 Sagamore Sociological Confer- 
 ence, 121. 
 Salter, Prof. William, 90, 229, 
 
 322, 332. 
 Schermerhorn, James, 327. 
 Schiff, Jacob, 158. 
 Schulman, Dr. Samuel, 38, 
 
 84, 85, 216, 321, 323, 324, 
 
 327, 332. 
 Schwimmer, Rosika, 35, 40, 
 
 332. 
 Scott, Dr. Colin A., 329. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 303. 
 Scudder, Prof. Vida D., 328. 
 Seymour, Dr. Robert G., 233. 
 Shakespeare, 193, 251, 253. 
 
 Shaw, Bernard, 250, 253. 
 Shaw, Dr. William, 330. 
 Slattery, Margaret, 61, 330, 
 
 331. 
 Sheer, Dr. Thomas R., 321. 
 Small, Prof. Albion W., 330. 
 Smith, Dr. Arthur H., 324. 
 Smith, Charles Sprague, 20, 
 
 165, 321, 323. 
 Solomon, Hyman, 86. 
 Spargo, John, 158, 180, 324, 
 
 332. 
 Spencer, IVIrs. Anna Garlin, 
 
 328. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 287. 
 Sprague, Rev. Leslie Willis, 
 
 62, 331. 
 Sprague, Rev. Philo W., 322. 
 Steffens, Lincoln, 322. 
 Steiner, Prof. Edward A., 109. 
 
 138, 324, 330. 
 Stelzle, Rev. Charles, 322. 
 Sterling, Henry, 324. 
 Strayer, Rev. Paul Moore, 69, 
 
 330. 
 Sudekum, Dr. Albert, 325. 
 Sudermann, Hermann, 250, 
 
 252. 
 Sullivan, Mr. and Mrs. John J., 
 
 164, 165. 
 Sumner, Charles, 193. 
 Swift, Morrison I., 325, 326. 
 
 Taft, William Howard, 313. 
 Terrell, Mary Church, 331. 
 Tolstoi, Leo, 90, 229, 252, 331.
 
 340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Urbanski, Frank, 101, 102. 
 Ury, Mabel B., 72. 
 
 Van der Pyl, Rev. Nicholas, 
 
 329. 
 van Eeden, Dr. Frederick, 
 
 35, 323. 
 Von Suttner, Baroness Bertha, 
 
 35, 40, 328. 
 Vedder, Prof. Henry C, 328. 
 Voltaire, 270. 
 Vorenberg, Felix, 71. 
 
 Wallace, Alfred Russell, 
 Walling, William English, 331. 
 Wallis, Louis, 332. 
 Ward, Prof. Harry F., 331, 
 
 332. 
 Washington, George, 262. 
 Wayland, Francis, 143. 
 Weils, H. G., 132. 
 Wentworth, Franklin H., 323. 
 Wentworth, Marion Craig, 
 
 323. 
 WejTnouth, Mass., 69. 
 Wliite, Rev. Bouck, 123, 332. 
 White, Eva Whiting, 71. 
 
 White, John Z., 323. 
 Whitman, Walt, 330. 
 Wiers, Rev. Edgar S., 121. 
 Wilcox, Dr. De Witt G., 325, 
 
 330. 
 Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 99. 
 Wilhams, Alfred, 157, 158, 
 
 159, 160. 
 Williams, Bishop Charles, 325, 
 
 326, 330. 
 
 Williams, Dr. Leigh ton, 321. 
 Wilson, Butler R., 195, 196, 
 
 197, 198. 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 294, -305. 
 Winship, Dr. Albert E., 326. 
 Winter, William, 252. 
 Wise, Dr. Stephen S., 38, 
 
 108, 124, 161, 215, 322, 324, 
 
 327, 328, 330. 
 
 Wishart, Rev. Alfred W., 325. 
 Witt, Peter, 332. 
 Woods, Robert A. 321, 
 
 Zangwill, Israel, 79. 
 Zuebhn, Prof. Charles, 38, 
 
 72, 109, 129, 322, 323, 325, 
 
 327, 328, 330, 332.
 
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