History – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

The Bread Problem, Part 2

An excerpt from “The Bread Problem,” an editorial in the February 17, 1921, issue of The Christian Century, written anonymously by Lloyd C. Douglas.

[The following is from an uncredited editorial that Lloyd Douglas wrote for The Christian Century under the heading, “The Bread Problem,” which appeared in the February 17, 1921, issue. He has just finished talking about world hunger following the aftermath of the First World War. He writes:]

“In this penitential period of 1921, we turn naturally to the story of our Lord’s temptation which provides a reason and a setting for this Lenten season. And we find, to our surprise, that the ancient narrative is vital, vascular, directly apropos of our present anxiety.

“The temptation followed the baptism immediately. Rising from the water, bearing in his soul heaven’s confirmation of his messiahship, Jesus went into the wilderness. Apparently he felt that he was not ready to face the crowd whom John had astonished with the announcement that the Messiah was among them, or any crowd, until he had struggled further through the problems vexing the world he had come to save.

“The first question thrust into the active consciousness of the young Galilean, after his voluntary exile into the wilderness, was essentially this: ‘What do men live by?’ At the moment, he was able to answer the question promptly, decisively. So far as he was concerned, the greatest thing in the world was bread! Because he happened to be hungry, the world’s problem seemed to be a clear case of economics! The cry of his people and the call of his own appetite united to tempt him to command the very stones at his feet to be transformed into bread!

“We need not debate whether this narrative is wholly, or in part, allegorical. Of course, we are fully conscious of our power to turn stones into bread – at least so long as the saltpeter beds of Chili continue to provide our wheat fields with the nourishment that makes them productive. [Douglas is referring to fertilizer.] If we are minded to let the Master have the power to do the same, by processes unknown to any but himself, there is no reason why he should be deterred from it by our lack of faith. If anyone sees it simply as an allegory, the lesson still stands inviolate. Those who cannot help viewing it this way rightly resent the charge that they fail to catch the point of the story.

“The point at issue was this: Is humanity’s problem a question in economics? Jesus thought it through and decided in the negative. Man does not live by bread alone. Man lives through his discovery and acceptance of the will of God.

“From that scene in the Jeshimon Wilderness, Anno Domini 30, let us return and take another glance at what we have before us in the early spring of 1921.”

[Douglas will continue his editorial in my next post…]

The Bread Problem, Part 1

by Ronald R Johnson

In recent months I’ve been sharing with you the essays Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century from the summer of 1920 to the early months of 1921. In the February 17, 1921, issue, there is an uncredited editorial that was clearly written by Douglas. It not only has his style and vocabulary, but he later emphasized its thesis in a number of his books, both fiction and non-fiction.

He begins by talking about world conditions in the aftermath of the Great War (which they, poor souls, did not yet realize was merely the First World War of the twentieth century). He writes:

“If we are to believe the cries that proceed now from all quarters, the problem of this world is hunger – actual, physical, death-bent hunger! There are some complications to the problem – but at root it is a simple demand for bread. We stand aghast at the figures which announce the state of wretchedness in China where ten thousand daily die of starvation. We read with horror of living conditions in Russia where even those long inured to such poverty as we Americans could not possibly understand, much less endure, cry out that they can go no further. We are appalled at cablegrams from the war-devastated countries of Europe where fully thirty million little children are barely kept alive through the generosity of strangers in foreign lands. And always a large block of India is in a state of slow starvation: the only reason we do not observe her plight at this moment is because these European dead, closer to us by common ties and miles and racial stock, emit a phosphorescent glow that obscures India’s suffering. How to find bread to eat – this is the problem.

“Little good can come of spending our time in an attempted analysis of this condition to determine its exact causes. Some of them are patent. It is beyond thought that the greater nations of the world could spend four years firing off high explosives, all of which contained the potentiality of food, and could take out of the normal walks of life millions of men habitually productive of such supplies, without inviting the disaster now so pitifully paraded before the eyes of all the world. This cause is obvious enough.

“Neither need any mystery be made of the fact that organized greed has capitalized this emergency of war for all that the traffic would bear. Not one government on earth has had the facilities to deal with this menace, so strongly entrenched was it, and so skillfully operated. Our own nation, very much better situated to handle the problem than any of the others, has registered the most spectacular failure of them all. So rampant and inclusive has greed become, and so triumphant, that those who have been going through the motions of checking it feel ridiculous and ineffective when they lay hands upon any single individual and say, ‘You are guilty.’

“There have been other causes, but these two will suffice to explain the world’s present predicament. The world is hungry! The problem of the moment is bread! This is an economic consideration. Everybody is thinking, talking, writing economics! We must produce more food; plough more deeply; sow more grain; develop a larger arable acreage through fertilization, irrigation, and other reclamation activities; increase the merchant marine, build more gondola-cars; and entice young men into the open country. Food! Bread! That is our need!”

[Douglas will continue his editorial in my next post…]

Lloyd Douglas on Church Music, Part 7

by Ronald R Johnson

From “The Music of the Church,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, in the 1/13/1921 issue of The Christian Century.

The following is from “The Music of the Church,” an article Lloyd Douglas published in The Christian Century on January 13, 1921. He has been saying that it is the pastor’s responsibility to make sure the church’s music is good. He continues:

“If the minister will give some attention to this matter in his study and in conference with good musicians, he will discover, perhaps to his surprise, that a great deal of the strictly high class music of Christianity is not difficult of execution. He should find out what these anthems and solos are, if his choir is composed of persons who lack the talent and training to adventure with more complicated scores. It may be with the best intent in the world that he proposes to the choir that it attempt the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’ which is, as he says, a very wonderful thing. But unless his chorus is made up of trained vocalists, he has placed his friends in a position from which it will be quite difficult to escape with credit to themselves and the cause they would like to serve. He should know exactly what grade of music his choir can successfully negotiate, and see to it that the musical library of his church is supplied with the best there is of that grade. He should have a complete list of the titles of these numbers in his study. When he plans a service, he should inform the choir director what special music is demanded by his sermon theme.

“How little coordination there is in most of our churches, of the sermon and the music! Sometimes the choir director doesn’t have the faintest idea what the sermon is about, and preacher doesn’t know (or care) what the choir is going to sing. He picks his hymns at random, without regard to their fitness or tunefulness. Occasionally he does this at the last minute. The choir has no notion what hymns are to be sung. No rehearsal of them has been had. And then this fellow will get up and babble about a wicked world that will not come out to church! Why should it? What is he doing to make the church more attractive? Complains about the size of his salary. In what other business could he earn more, if he went at it in the same way that he prepares for Sunday?”

Douglas has more advice for pastors on this subject, and he’ll share it my next post.

Lloyd Douglas on Church Music, Part 6

by Ronald R Johnson

“If the preacher is careless whether or not his church ever commands any attention and respect, let him put up with what he has had vouchsafed unto him. But if he hopes to make something of his church, he must deal with his music problem firmly. He must boldly announce that his church will have good music, or none! Far better to have no music at all than what passes for the same in far too many of our Protestant churches. And where does the responsibility rest, at last? With the choir? Not at all! With the music committee? Not a bit of it! It resides with the manager of the whole institution – the preacher. When the music is bad, the congregation is depleted; when that happens, who gets the blame? The choir? The music committee? Not for a minute.

“No; it is the preacher’s business, after all. He may pretend to wash his hands of it and lay the responsibility elsewhere; but verily he has his reward (which, likely as not, involves a move to some other locality where he stands a good chance of swapping the worst chorus-choir on the face of the earth for the awfullest quartet that ever jangled discords). Here shows up the importance of the preacher’s knowing something about music himself. He should be in a position to speak to his choir in a tone of authority. It is not enough that he should be vaguely conscious that the noise behind him on Sunday is raucous and infuriating; he should know exactly what the trouble is, and spare no pains to mend it.

“This demands of the preacher that he should have acquired some musical training. It is not very important that he should be a ‘practical musician.’ Indeed, it has happened that a preacher’s ability to sit down on the organ bench and demonstrate precisely how he would like to have a certain passage rendered has earned him an enemy guaranteed to hate him and his to the third and fourth generation. If the preacher is a good organist, he can well afford to keep this one candle of his under a bushel. And if he has a trained voice, he had better use it to talk with. The preacher-soloist who steps from the pulpit to the choir and back again had better take a day off and decide which of these two very excellent callings is his – and put all of his time on the vocation he decides to retain.

“But it will never be against him, in the opinion of the choir, if he reveals the fact that he knows good music from trash. How many preachers like to draw a chuckle from the choir by deprecating their complete ignorance of the devotional and inspirational music of the church – as if it were something to grin about! Just about as funny as if the doctor should remark that he had never taken any interest in clinical thermometers! And all this foolishness of asepsis in surgery! Of course, the preacher intends this pleasantly as a pretty little compliment to the choir for knowing so very much about something concerning which even he knows nothing; but it’s a poor joke, any way you take it.”

But Douglas’s comments weren’t all negative. In my next post, I’ll share his encouragement to ministers on this subject.

Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade, Part 5

by Ronald R Johnson

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century, 11/25/1920.

[The following is a continuation of Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]

“Every year, in most of our great universities, the student is asked to state his religious convictions at the time of his registration. He is requested to name the denomination to which he belongs, or the denomination he prefers, if not a member. After the cards had been handed to me, this year, which belonged to my denomination, it occurred to me that some interest might attach to a comparison of these registration cards with those of last year. I would see how many students who registered last year as of the faith of which I am an adherent were registered this year as ‘without religious convictions.’ The investigation showed no case of the kind. To the contrary, there were sixty-nine students who stated last year that they were without religious convictions who announced, this fall, that they were adherents of our faith. It is not true that the freshman inevitably comes to the university to surrender his faith. But it is true that many a chap is obliged to come into a university community to find his faith!

“Mr. Bryan does not know this. Nobody ever told him. He never inquired. He would not believe it if he were told. He doesn’t want to believe it. It would dampen his enthusiasm about the awful effects of modern science upon Christian faith. Then he would lose heart for the monkey jokes. And the monkey jokes must be told. And the red cow – the same old red cow – must she not still eat green grass and give white milk to yield yellow butter?”

[Douglas will conclude his essay in my next post…]

Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade, Part 4

by Ronald R Johnson

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on 11/25/1920.

[The following is a continuation from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]

“The total result of the Bryan address to his university audience was disgust on the part of religious people – both faculty and students – disgust over the speaker’s intellectual immorality, to say nothing of the crass impudence displayed by such an exhibition of ignorance before an audience of that character. But the really serious fact about the performance resided in the effect produced upon the students who never go to church, manifest no interest in religion, and who think of Christian faith with as little knowledge of its present-day claims as Mr. Bryan has of biology – which is next to nothing. This type of student understands that Mr. Bryan is a widely known and generally recognized religious leader in the country – frequent spokesman before ecclesiastical conclaves, and a general defender of the faith. The student is informed, from this respected quarter, that, to be a Christian, he must repudiate that which his own eyes have seen in the laboratory and believe certain ancient dogmas which he cannot hold without the sacrifice of his intellectual self-regard. It is extremely doubtful if Mr. Bryan will ever be invited to speak before this group again. But the damage is done!

“While we are on the subject – how much truth is there, after all, about the deplorable loss of religious faith which Mr. Bryan notices in academic circles? Let us see. Many people who do not know the facts are persuaded to believe that the typical freshman comes to the university firm in the faith of his fathers, fresh from Sunday School, convinced that the Bible is to be accepted as a textbook on geology, anthropology, astronomy, and all the rest of the natural sciences. After he has been here for a year or two, he loses his faith, becomes a cynic and a scoffer, flaunts his atheism or his infidelity, and repudiates religion as of no further use to him. What are the facts about this matter?”

[Douglas, having spent the past decade on major Midwestern college campuses, will give his answer in my next post.]

Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade, Part 3

by Ronald R Johnson

A page from Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.

[The following is from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. He writes:]

“A few days ago, Mr. Bryan lectured, on a Saturday night, in the auditorium of a great Midwestern university [probably the University of Michigan, where Douglas was the Congregational minister]. No monkeys appeared in the lecture. Indeed, it was a good address – old, commonplace, but acceptable. There was a large crowd. The students were enthusiastic. The Students’ Christian Association pressed the speaker to stay over and talk, in the same place, on Sunday noon. He consented. The word was quickly passed about the campus. There were five thousand persons present, next day. Fully three-fourths of them were students. The faculties were largely represented. It was understood that Mr. Bryan was to speak about the claims of religion upon the life of youth. It was a brilliant opportunity for a really great contribution to be made to the lives of many hundreds of young men and women. As I look back over many similar opportunities afforded celebrated speakers to set the cause of religion squarely before the face of the college man, I do not remember ever having seen such a crowd, in such a receptive mood! One envied this rare spirit his chance to do valiant service for Christianity that day. What came of it? The monkey talk!

“How this good man could ever have gained the consent of his own mind to commit the almost incredible impertinence of reading the old misquotations, spinning the old yarns, and assailing ‘Darwinism’ in the presence of hundreds of youngsters who understood enough about evolution to know that the speaker knew nothing about it whatsoever – yes; and in the presence of scientists who had made a life job of research in this field – how he could have done it, I do not understand; but he did it. He went further. He deplored the subversive effects of science on Christian faith; explained to the students that science was the enemy of faith; excoriated scientific men, advanced scholarship, modern learning, and generally anathematized higher education. All this was by way of preface to a statement of his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Adam was the first man. He was made of the dust of the ground. The Bible said so. Apparently nobody has ever gone to the bother of asking Mr. Bryan how he accounts for the fact that wherever explorers have gone they have found men boasting an ancestry easily traceable to remote periods whole millenniums before navigation was discovered or effected.

“A considerable volume of water has passed under the bridge, in the realm of science, since Mr. Bryan first came out as a biologist. Practically the whole theory of evolution has been rephrased during that time. Perhaps the genial ex-secretary of state is unaware of that fact. Surely he must be unaware of it, for his lectures still carry opportunities for the introduction of the same old stories, the same old misquotations, and the same old attacks against ‘Darwinism.’ His references to evolution have not grown an inch or gained a pound for twenty years. Meanwhile, let it be repeated, science has been busy. Mr. Bryan may have wished to inform himself upon this subject, or he may not; but science has been assiduously devoting itself to a sincere and honest investigation of the known facts.

“One of the interesting features of modern scholarship in this field – which may come as a shock to Mr. Bryan, should he ever have this matter brought to his attention – is the fact that the present-day scientist has long since left off talking of evolution in terms of ‘Darwinism.’ Mr. Bryan rarely speaks of evolution: his designation for it is ‘Darwinism.’ Ah – how he does put Darwin on the grille! Cannot some friend inform him, for his own sake, that Charles Robert Darwin is related to evolution, in the thought of the scholar, exactly as Robert Fulton is related to steam navigation, and as Langley is related to aeronautics, and as Dr. Harvey is related to present-day surgery? Of course, it used to make very little difference to the typical lecture audience whether Mr. Bryan was sure of his facts or not. But increasingly the American people have had opportunities to inform themselves about matters of a scientific nature, and the good man seriously underrates the intelligence of his audiences.”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]

Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade, Part 2

by Ronald R Johnson

[This is a continuation of the essay, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, published in The Christian Century on November 25, 1920. Douglas mentions that three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan had long ago started making fun of Darwin’s theory of evolution in his public addresses. Douglas continues:]

“So fully guaranteed to excite merriment in any crowd was this playfulness that the lecturer apparently could not resist the temptation of presenting it despite its irrelevancy to the subject under discussion. How weary he must have become reciting over and over, day after day, year by year, the same old monkey jokes! But the public would have them. How it must have rasped his sensibilities to repeat, again and again, the jaded pleasantry to the effect that if others wished to claim a chimpanzee for their grandfather, it was none of his affair – but as for him, etc., etc. And the cow – do you not remember? – the red cow that ate green grass and gave white milk from which they churned yellow butter? All of which disproved Darwinism.

“Now, Mr. Bryan is not a clown. At heart, he is serious, earnest, and self-respecting, as is sufficiently proved by the fact that he has consistently championed the things that make for better and nobler living. He really couldn’t go on telling and retelling these jokes about evolution indefinitely and retain his own self-esteem. So, he grew serious about the matter. But nobody can speak seriously on this profound subject without study. Only a skillfully trained biologist could trust himself to talk about evolution before an intellectual audience. Mr. Bryan, however, not having gone into this subject quite far enough to discover just how extensive was this field of science, and not being required to check his data because of the unexacting nature of the typical audience, talked of this theory with a degree of self-assurance utterly inexplicable on any other ground than that nobody had ever done him the kindness to take him aside and whisper a friendly admonition in his ear. He was to be forgiven, for it was a clear case that he knew not what he did.”

[I will continue Douglas’s essay in my next post…]

Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade, Part 1

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page of Lloyd C. Douglas’s article, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade,” in the November 25, 1920 issue of The Christian Century.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” as it appeared over five installments in The Christian Century during the summer of 1920. Now that he had made a name for himself at the Century, he continued to be a frequent contributor throughout the first half of that decade. His next article, which appeared in the November 25, 1920, issue, was about three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. It was entitled, “Mr. Bryan’s New Crusade.”

It was prompted by Bryan’s recent public appearance at the University of Michigan, where he (apparently) ridiculed the theory of evolution. It made Douglas so mad, he wrote the following essay.

“Monkeys are funny animals. A joke about a monkey is good for a hearty laugh anywhere. The very word ‘monkey’ will provide a smile, even if nothing should be predicated of the subject. Vaudeville actors understand that when all other tricks fail to provide suitable entertainment, is there not the time-tried monkey joke? Certain popular lecturers have always known that no Chautauqua crowd on a hot afternoon in July is too dull, stupid, or sleepy to react promptly under a few carefully chosen words relative to this little animal which seems to symbolize humor – though so inexpressibly sad of countenance.

“Elderly readers will recall that a long time ago, the Hon. William J. Bryan began employing this interesting this interesting and amusing device to entertain his vast audiences from the lecture platform. His own use of the monkey was made in connection with satire and ridicule hurled at the Darwinian theory of evolution. Anybody who had seriously read Charles Robert Darwin’s theory of ‘the descent of man’ was in a position to know that Mr. Bryan was taking great liberties with this celebrated scientist’s hypothesis but saw no reason why the lovable and good-natured lecturer shouldn’t be permitted license to distort, misquote, and otherwise incorrectly present the Darwin belief, if it was understood that he was doing it only in play and for the sole purpose of raising a laugh.”

Does it sound like Douglas approved of that? Just wait. His essay will continue in my next post.

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5a: Making Worship Worshipful

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation; Fifth Phase – Making Worship Worshipful,” in the 9/9/1920 issue of The Christian Century.

[During the summer of 1920, Lloyd Douglas published a series of articles in the Christian Century under the heading, “Wanted – A Congregation.” The following is from the last installment of this series, which was published on September 9, 1920.]

“One of our recently rich was touring what remains of France with his overdressed family, two maids, a Pekinese pup, and a valet whom he addressed as ‘Jim’ and by whom he was fond of being addressed as ‘Bill.’ This man understood that it was the proper thing to visit historic shrines, to view celebrated paintings, and to make appreciative noises before notable sculptured figures of the great; and all this he did because it was the proper thing. Lacking a background of historical information and the lore of the arts, however, he was experiencing considerable disappointment. Unable to look through a stone figure and quite on past it for a distance of five hundred years to the causes and conditions which had had more to do with its production than the genius of the artist, to his untutored mind it was merely a huge chunk of rock which somebody with an unfamiliar and unpronounceable name had once hacked at with a chisel.

“One day he pulled loose from his party and went alone into one of the most widely known of the picture galleries. He did not provide himself with a catalog, nor did he seek the advice of attendants relative to the masterpieces on view. He rushed about the place like a stranger hunting for the proper ticket window in a metropolitan railroad station, pausing occasionally, for an instant, to lean over a railing and dart a hurried, hummingbird glance at some priceless work of art before scurrying away to peck at another. Within twenty minutes, he had his fill of the place and was quite ready to take leave of it. On his way out, he spied the elderly verger sitting by a window, reading. Prompted by that raw insolence which sudden wealth seems usually to bestow upon the proletarian mind, it occurred to this man that he might ease his annoyance somewhat by baiting the old gentleman; so he approached him, and assuming a posture as nearly simulating hauteur as an ex-blacksmith’s imagination could devise, he snarled, ‘I’ve been hearing all my life about these famous masterpieces. Masterpieces – bah! Daubs, I call ’em! Old trash! May have pleased, once upon a time – but not today! I want you to know that I have been disappointed!’ Whereupon the verger put down his book, polished his glasses, and, having regarded the noisy tourist for some moments in silence, replied quietly, ‘Sir, these pictures are not on trial; the spectators are!‘”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]