USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Minutes of the annual meeting Congregational Churches of Massachusetts 1906 > Part 6
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In order to further the purpose of the letter, a meeting of ministers was
MA 1340 DETTEALLUICAL SOCIETY
OF UTAH 21851
52
Report on Labor Organizations [1906
called, under the auspices of this Labor Committee, to consider what action could be taken. About forty representative men were present. As the result of discussion this Committee, together with the Massachusetts representatives of the Labor Committee of the National Council, was instructed to respond to the letter from the Typographical Union, in the name of the Conference, expressing hearty sympathy and desire for co- operation; to suggest the appointment of speakers to represent the churches and the unions in each other's gatherings, to the end that a better mutual acquaintance and understanding might be promoted. And, also, as it was made known that a printers' strike was impending, this joint committee was authorized to tender its services to the Typothetæ and the Typographical Union, to see if, by any means, the strike and its conse- quent deplorable results might be averted. Effort in this latter direction was earnestly made, but without effect, as both local organizations, employer and employed, were acting under directions from their national organizations.
In furtherance of the general desire to promote a better acquaintance, this Committee has also met in conference with the Missionary Committee of the Typographical Union and discussed the general situation, certainly with profit to the members of your Committee. We also arranged that the Boston Ministers' meeting should be addressed by Mr. Henry Sterling, Secretary of the Typographical Union, and Mr. John F. Tobin, President of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, on the " Necessity and the Ethics of Trades Unions." There was a large attendance at the meeting and the feeling was strengthened that it is of great importance for the members of the churches and of the labor unions to meet in such conferences for the promotion of a better acquaintance and mutual understanding.
It is a significant fact that the labor unions of the state contain about as many members (about one hundred thousand) as the Congregational churches. In these unions are many of the so-called " better class " of working people, skilled laborers, many of whom feel that the church is not interested in them and their ambitions, and that the church as a whole does not want them in its membership! These are sober, industrious, capable, reliable people. They are the men and women who spend their leisure with their families, who keep their children off the street and in the house at night. They are intensely interested in the union. Its ideals are to them as high and inspiring as the ideals of the church are to the Christian, though not as broad nor as wide-reaching. In many respects the ideals of the two bodies are the same; the moral, mental and spiritual up- lifting of men, and the bettering of their physical and temporal conditions. Any effort to reach these men and women that would be successful must take these facts into account. The members of the unions respond to any evidence of appreciation and sympathy with their best desires. They have trials and perplexities, hopes, aspirations, justifiable and honorable ambitions. They need, as we do, the help and guidance of the gospel.
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1906] 1 Report on Temperance
It is our duty to study their point of view, concerning which most of us are profoundly ignorant. Only by understanding them and acknowledg- ing the right of whatever is right in their ideals and aspirations can we hope to work in sympathy with them and they with us for humanity and the Kingdom of God. Many of them are as ignorant of the real aims and nature of the churches as we are of the aims and nature of the unions. Let individual members of the churches, both ministers and laymen, then, cultivate the acquaintance of members of labor unions in their own neigh- borhood, endeavor to gain their point of view and understand their ideas. By such widespread individual acquaintance and understanding the mutual existing ignorance and prejudice may be overcome, the present tragic inconsistency be corrected and the people who work find their natural place under the leadership of the Son of the Carpenter and in the brother- hood of his followers.
Therefore, this Committee offers the following resolutions:
Resolved, That we urgently recommend that the members of our churches seek acquaintance with members of labor organizations, that they study the history and aims of labor unions, and endeavor to understand clearly their object and purpose, to the end that through mutual friendliness the influence of the gospel of the Kingdom of God may be increased both among the unions and in the churches, and also that they and we, with a better realization of the character and purpose of the Church of Christ, may be led to seek from it the counsel, the guidance and the assistance which is our common need and our common privilege.
Also, Resolved, That we recommend to the members of our churches who are in favor of diminishing as far as possible the existing evils of child labor that they communicate with their national Representatives in legis- lature urging the passage of pending bills in favor of the creation of the Children's Bureau for the national investigation of conditions of child labor.
PARRIS T. FARWELL. BAYARD E. HARRISON, Secretary. CLARK CARTER. GEORGE E. KEITH. CLARENCE F. SWIFT.
REPORT OF, COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE
Previous committees have reported in regard to various phases of the cause of temperance, and for this reason we have deemed it wise, at this time, to report concerning only one aspect of this subject, namely, the legislative. We assume that the report of last year has been heeded and that the churches of our Association are training the young and
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Report on Gambling
[1906
favoring such agencies as promote temperate living. We recognize that we have a considerable body of legislation in regard to the liquor traffic, but in view of the numerous and repeated attempts to break down that legislation by the liquor interests, we therefore recommend the passage of the following resolutions:
I. That this body of Congregational churches memorialize the General Court to extend the suffrage so that women shall be allowed to vote in public elections on the question of granting licenses for the sale of intoxi- cating liquors.
II. That we also request the General Court to grant ward and district option in cities and towns which vote to grant licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor. This measure would prevent the granting of licenses to any saloons in any ward or district of a city or town in which the majority of the votes cast is found to be against the granting of licenses.
III. That this body is opposed to any changes in existing laws which shall extend the hours during which liquor may be legally sold in hotels or saloons.
IV. That this Association hereby authorizes its Committee on Temper- ance to appear before any committee or committees of the General Court and advocate the measures recommended in this report.
Respectfully submitted,
WILLIAM M. MACNAIR. WILLIAM O. CONRAD. JULIUS GARST. LUKE S. STOWE.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GAMBLING
The Committee on Gambling had no occasion for legislative work this year, since no attempt was made to weaken the laws against the play for stakes, the lottery and pool selling at races. Under our present laws, faithfully administered, it has been found possible to prevent pool selling and book making at races.
Your Committee does not suppose it needs to argue, or even to empha- . size here, the magnitude of this evil. Years ago Lord Beaconsfield charac- terized the English turf as "'a vast engine of national demoralization." This is, perhaps, no less true of the turf in our own land. Race-track gambling was outlawed in Massachusetts in. a statute passed in 1885. Several attempts have been made, but as yet without success, to break down that interdict. Under some recent executives of the Commonwealth, the law has been given increased effectiveness. But it requires unceasing determination on the part of both authorities and people to keep this interdict in effective operation.
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Report on Gambling
1906]
Against the moral interests involved in the maintenance of the law are the financial temptations to race-track gambling. For example, eight New York state racing associations, combined in a trust, reported to the state controller gross receipts of $4,014,340 in 1903, and of $3,805,125 in 1904. It is believed that from five to six eighths of this sum was profits to the management. Of course, there is a heavy financial stake, and those whose business is jeopardized will fight hard before submitting to be dis- possessed of their opportunity.
In the hope to gain by indirection what they could not hope to get directly, a company of great racing men, by some means, obtained a charter for a race track at Salem, N. H., just over the state line in the Merrimac valley. This is within convenient distance of Greater Boston and the most populous part of Massachusetts. A great racing outfit has been prepared and the Boston & Maine Railroad has laid track to accommodate the expected patronage of the races to be run the coming season with as much of the gambling feature as can be smuggled in. Too late for the best results, the moral forces of New Hampshire awoke to a sense of the iniquity which had been established under legislative action. Since the situation came to be realized the best citizenship of that state has been seeking to checkmate the nefarious attempt to fix the race-track gambling octopus upon central New England. This is legally the fight of our New Hamp- shire brethren. But morally it is our fight, likewise, because it is fully as inimical to the moral and financial interests of Massachusetts as of New Hampshire. For this reason your Committee invoke an expression of this Association upon this matter. That such action on our part would be welcomed we are assured by members of the committee in charge of the New Hampshire fight. President Tucker, of Dartmouth College, for example, says: "In any event, we shall be most glad of your aid in the General Association of Massachusetts. Any protest that you can make will give us moral help. The Salem race track, if allowed in full operation, will inflict a mighty hurt upon eastern Massachusetts as well as upon New Hampshire." We note with equal sympathy the fight against this gigantic evil now in progress in New York, Missouri and elsewhere, and we bid Godspeed to every such effort to suppress it.
It must not be forgotten, however, that this evil of gambling has wide ramifications and various forms of expression. It is found not only among professional gamblers and disreputable people; it has also invaded our social circles and even church circles, at least in some branches of the Christian church, where the raffle is a stated means of raising funds for church purposes. Not content with this, certain churches, not closely affiliated with our order, have introduced into their fairs a method of play for stakes in which a money fee is staked on the turn of a wheel for a cash prize, and this even on the Lord's day, and within church buildings, all features of the fair running at full blast with the wheels a star attraction, as the patronage has indicated.
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Report on Gambling [1906
One of the grave evils of the time is the rage for bridge whist among society women. One of them says of her own experience: "Every spare hour is filled with bridge, it seems to me. One cannot get away from it. There is scarcely a mail which does not bring to me an invitation to play at the house of some one of my friends - of a morning, or following a luncheon, or from three to five or six o'clock, or after a dinner. Some day bridge may pall on society. Just now we live and breathe bridge." And the testimony is that the play is almost always for stakes, sometimes high, and at the very least for a prize. "I do not play for money," one woman remarks, " and I find I am cut off from playing with the women I know best." Not to speak of the domestic and social waste in such excessive devotion to pleasure, this particular form of amusement as frequently, if not customarily, played, encourages and stimulates the vice of gambling, a vice which the prime minister of New Zealand has recently said to be the greatest evil of the colony, " sapping the life of the people." This social custom not only sanctions gambling, it is gambling, as we have once and again been told from the bench. " The special and insidious danger of bridge," says the Springfield Republican, " lies in its tendency, under the sanction of social custom, to force gambling upon those who would otherwise never be tempted to play for money." The play for stakes in a gambling den, for the purpose of fleecing the unwary, cannot be condemned on any principle that does not also condemn the social game for stakes, where the unskillful are doomed to lose, and often to lose so much that young men are compelled to cut themselves off from response to social opportunity because they cannot stand the pecuniary drain. This in itself is a grave evil in more than one aspect of the case. The argument for pool selling in the races is very often the same as that advanced for stakes in a game of bridge; viz., that it adds zest to the sport. The argu- ment is as warrantable in the one case as in the other, but it justifies the stake in neither case. There can be little hope of making headway against this tremendous evil so long as it is allowed to thrive in high social life. Such social sanction of the custom tends seriously to paralyze official oppo- sition to the unlawful play for stakes, wherever manifested.
In view of the facts thus briefly set forth, and of the urgency of the case, your Committee recommends:
First. That the Committee on Gambling be continued, with the enlarge- ment of its membership to five.
Second. That the Association declare anew its utter condemnation of playing for stakes, in every form, not excluding the raffle at church fairs.
Third. That the Association express its deepest sympathy with our New Hampshire brethren in their fight against the Salem race track. Recognizing in the location of this track, on the borders of a populous section of our state, an attempt to invade our territory for patronage, without exposing the proprietors to the jurisdiction of our authorities,
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Report of Executive Committee
1906]
we regard the fight against this track as, in part, our own morally, and tender to our brethren across the border such aid as we can render.
Fourth. That we instruct our Committee on Gambling to join with similar committees of other bodies in watching race tracks within our own state, and to notify local authorities, having jurisdiction, of our determi- nation to appeal to the governor of the Commonwealth, unless they themselves enforce the laws against pool selling and book making on race tracks.
PAYSON W. LYMAN, WILLIAM SHAW, FRANK E. BUTLER, Committee on Gambling.
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Your Committee have met at various times during the year and here- with report business transacted as follows: A sub-committee consisting of Revs. Charles F. Carter, A. J. Dyer and Francis J. Marsh were chosen a Finance Committee. The bond of the Treasurer of the Association was fixed at three thousand dollars, and such bond secured. Sufficient copies of the papers of Rev. C. M. Clark and Rev. J. G. Taylor were printed and sent to the various conferences of the state.
The Secretary was ordered to destroy all copies of " Minutes " of pre- vious years over and above twelve copies of each year and " to take such inexpensive measures as he thinks best to secure a complete set of " Min- utes," and also to continue the same plan of distribution of the " Minutes " of this year as adopted the past year.
The resignations of Rev. L. W. Bacon, of Assonet, and also of Rev. A. B. Bassett, of Ware, from the Committee on the Work of the Churches were accepted and Rev. Charles F. Weeden, of Lynn, and Rev. George A. Hall, of Peabody, were chosen to fill the vacancies thus made.
Mr. Frederick Fosdick, of Fitchburg, having resigned from the Executive Committee, Mr. George P. Morris, of Boston, was chosen to this vacancy.
Your Committee voted to appropriate for the Committee on Missionary Work a sum not to exceed thirty-five dollars; for the Committee on Labor Organizations a sum not exceeding five dollars; and for the Committee on the Readjustment of our Polity a sum not exceeding fifteen dollars.
Your Committee also requested the Committee on the Work of the Churches in their report to speak briefly of the development of Men's Clubs and their work among men in our churches; and the Provisional Committee to arrange, if possible, some time during this session of the Association for the consideration of the proposed union of the United Brethren, Methodist Protestant and Congregational churches.
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Report of Committee on Federation of Churches [1906
We recommend that the Association determine how many members shall constitute a quorum of the Executive Committee. It is often diffi- cult to secure the attendance of a majority of the Committee.
EDWARD W. NOYES, Chairman. FRANCIS J. MARSH, Secretary.
REPORT OF THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
The Publication Committee reports that it met at Worcester, March 14, 1906, and awarded the printing for the Association to the Fort Hill Press, Boston. We continue the arrangement of using the plates of the Year- Book for the statistical reports of our churches. By this arrangement the General Association secures a rebate of one dollar and seventy-five cents per page, and the Year-Book a like rebate. Respectfully submitted,
COLLINS G. BURNHAM. FRANCIS J. MARSH. JOHN L. KILBON. FRANK S. BLANCHARD. E. W. LAMSON.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERATION OF CHURCHES
The subject of Church Federation has occupied the attention of men of different denominations in the state since December 1, 1901, when the Rev. F. Tallmadge Root was invited to confer with brethren of several denominations called together for the purpose of conference upon the possibilities of practical work along federated lines. Before that, Dr. Sanford, of New York, had visited the state and had private conversation with several clergymen known to be interested in the subject.
It was anticipated that Massachusetts would be prepared to cooperate with such states as had already begun to recognize that the day had dawned for a more intelligent and catholic interpretation of practical Christianity. But I think that, without lihelling her, I may say that Massachusetts was already so preempted by other interests that she had
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1906] Report of Committee on Federation of Churches
no ear for any new voice, however urgent and eloquent it might be. Her response to this new appeal was disappointing. The Congregationalists who had a right to leadership in this state, if anywhere, were laggard in the extreme. Their plea that they were so overburdened already that no. new interest had any chance to be heard was made with a sincerity that was more genuine than intelligence was acute.
However, a state council was organized, as completely representative as could be of several ecclesiastical denominations. Meetings of this Council have been occasionally held. Work has been done of a preliminary kind, principally in the way of investigation, necessarily a slow process. But the state needs educating. Except the secretaries of home mission- ary associations, no one has knowledge sufficient to be a basis of intelligent action. That everywhere there is waste of men and waste of money in maintaining in scanty populations churches representative of different types of ecclesiastical polity, is not a discovery. This much has been known and deplored for a long time past. The question, What can be done? has been upon the lips of scores of earnest men who felt that a blind and intense denominationalism was hindering the work of Christ in two directions, - it was training up a generation of small-minded Christians in the churches, incapable of taking a broad and unselfish view of the situation, and it was giving just occasion to the enemies of the Lord out- side the churches to hold aloof from men calling themselves Christians, who illustrated, by their jealousy of each other and their zeal for the pecca- dillos of ecclesiastical life above the great things of the soul, that "all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." Types of Chris- tians are being produced altogether other than those we find in the New Testament.
Meanwhile, the state is becoming more and more a home missionary field, and, in the presence of this fact, the churches are becoming less and less capable of sustaining home missionary work. Into inany country towns the foreign population is pouring, and the American people proper, on whom our churches depend for home missionary support, are becoming, relatively to the mass, fewer and fewer. There is nothing hopeful in the future unless honie missionary societies can federate. Dr. Eaton, of the Baptist denomination, has written, " We shall soon be prepared for the radical step of refusing aid to any church not indorsed by the Federation." If that step could be taken a great and fruitful advance would be made in the right direction.
We need a federal council sufficiently large and · representative to formulate a judgment which, on action that is divisive, and merely secta- rian, shall be final, because there can be very little doubt that most Massachusetts towns and villages are over-churched. - Every denomina- tion undertakes to represent the whole of Christianity, with the result that all the churches are in a state of schism, and the prayer we offer, oftentimes with a despairing earnestness, for an outpouring of the energies
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[1906
Report of Committee on Federation of Churches
and influences of the Holy Spirit, remains unanswered and unanswer- able.
For what do we pray? That we may perpetuate the present order of things? Our Lord's prayer for his disciples was " That they all may be one even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thec, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me." We may be sure of one thing - that the Holy Spirit of God will never be given for purposes out of harmony with the prayer of the Master. The most subtle and vigorous efforts have been made to interpret that passage in a way which would leave us frec to do as we like in what we call ecclesiasti- cal matters. I cannot conceive of any honest man hoping to be guided from above, who is willing to put into the words a meaning which, on any fair exegesis, they cannot convey.
There is another aspect of this theme which we must not allow to escape us. If we are successfully to resist the forces in this state which are arrayed against evangelical religion, the domination of that imperialistic ecclesiasticism which we know as the Church of Rome, the most astute political influence in the country, ubiquitous, untiring, unconquerable, - and the secularism which molds the life and conduct of all unchurched people, - the cooperative union of all evangelical denominations is abso- lutely essential. Never can we make our voice heard effectively as we are. The case is hopeless. Our legislators in the State House do not listen to us. These straggling faithful few who go there to resist measures for degrading the people produce next to no impression. We ought to be there in such numbers as to be a representative power, dangerous to resist. Romanism rules Boston, the old Puritan city. It inspires and controls some of the most widely circulated organs in the cheap press. It even makes it all but inipossible for Protestant mien to get work on the streets or elsewhere. These are facts known and read of all men, and the people who arrogate to themselves the word " respectable " are as apa- thetic as if they were incapable of humiliation. The only powerless bodies are the evangelical denominations, and they are powerless because almost hopelessly divided in all practical cooperative movement.
I know that to mend matters requires an enormous amount of self- sacrifice, patient plodding, perseverance, the creation of a new and diviner atmosphere in which our souls can breathe the breath of a new life. But a new reformation is necessary. The trouble is that every denomination is afraid of losing something. There are some things we might lose and be none the poorer. A man one day gave it as his reason for being a Congregationalist, that he could not step into any other denomination without having to become less open-minded and more bigoted. The man was right. But leadership in this state is our historical prerogative, and if we are not to vacate our rightful place, we must awake to the imperious necessity that is upon us and learn how to lead that cooperative-move- ment to which I believe God is now calling this land. "But if thou hold
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