USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Extracts from the minutes of the yearly meeting of Friends held in Philadelphia, 1921 > Part 1
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EXTRACTS
FROM THE
1
1
MINUTES
OF THE
YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS
HELD IN PHILADELPHIA
By adjournments, from the twenty-eighth of the Third Month to the first of the Fourth Month, inclusive.
1921
FRIENDS FREE
PHILARFAREIY : WILLIAM H. PILE'S SONS, PRINTERS, 422 WALNUT STREET GERMANTOWN 10.21
EXTRACTS
FROM THE
MINUTES
OF THE
YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS
HELD IN PHILADELPHIA
By adjournments, from the twenty-eighth of the Third Month to the first of the Fourth Month, inclusive.
1921
FRIENDS FREE
PHILADELPHIA : WILLIAM H. PILE'S SONS, PRINTERS, 422 WALNUT STREET. ULTIMANTOWN
1921
7
FRIENDS FREE
LIBRARY
GERMANTOWN
EXTRACTS.
At a Yearly Meeting of Friends, held in Philadelphia, by adjournments, from the twenty-eighth of the Third Month to the first of the Fourth Month, inclusive, 1921.
The Meeting assembled in joint session, Second-day morning the 28th.
The Representatives, William T. Elkinton and others, from the Quarterly Meetings were called (137 in number). All but four were in attendance. One Friend had deceased since his appointment last Second Month. For the absence of the others who failed to respond satisfactory reasons were assigned.
The Minutes of the Representative Meeting were read, bringing to our notice various matters of importance that had claimed the attention of that Body during the year.
The annual reports of sub-committees, incorporated in these Minutes, evidenced a large amount of work and devotion on the part of those responsible for them.
The labors of the Representative Meeting received appreciative acknowledgment from many Friends.
It was reported that a vacancy had occurred in our representation in this Meeting, occasioned by the death on Eighth Month Ist last of our beloved Friend, William Balderston. To nominate a Friend to succeed him, the following were appointed: J. Henry Scattergood and others.
At one of the sessions of the Yearly Meeting a year ago our attention was turned to the increasing number of matters that properly claimed the care of the Yearly
4
Meeting. The subject was referred to the Representative Meeting for a solution, and that Body, having given it attention through a Committee, reported favorably upon holding the session of Second-day morning jointly in the west room and also adding an extra session on Fourth-day afternoon; these meeting with the approval as presented personally by the Yearly Meeting's Secretary to our several Quarterly Meetings were directed to be put into effect the present year, it being understood that the same plan shall be continued until Friends direct a different course.
At the Yearly Meeting of 1919 a Committee was ap- pointed to consider our responsibility toward the children who do not have a right of membership in the Society of Friends, but who have or have had one parent a member. The Committee returned a report to the Yearly Meeting a year ago; on some of the recommendations contained in said report the Meeting was unable at that time to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
The subject after weighty consideration at that time was referred to the Representative Meeting with the hope that that Body could hand down to the Yearly Meeting in 1921 a report that could be adopted, keeping in mind the concern of the Yearly Meeting as minuted in 1919.
Throughout the past year a sub-committee of the Rep- resentative Meeting has given much care to the considera- tion of this important matter, actuated by a conviction that the Yearly Meeting is under obligation to a con- siderable number among us whose marriage with non- members debars their children from privileges granted to birthright members.
The report of the Committee submitted a year ago, the broad question of membership as it concerns the interests
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of the class referred to and the more specific question of the admission to Westtown School of children who have but one parent a member, were all considered by the Committee, which held six meetings, attended each time by most of the members. Having reached a conclusion on which all could unite, a full report was submitted to the Representative Meeting, this report was considered by that body at two successive meetings, and after earnest discussion and a few slight alterations, it was approved.
The report is as follows:
Your Committee to whom was submitted the further consideration of our responsibility toward the children who do not have a right of membership in the Society of Friends, but who have or have had one parent a member, have given careful attention to the subject, bearing in mind the concern of the Yearly Meeting as recorded in 1919, and the Minute recommitting this concern to the Representative Meeting, with the expressed hope that that body might hand down next year, a report which the Yearly Meeting can adopt.
(1) We record our satisfaction with the main features of the report presented to the Yearly Meeting in 1920 concerning the extended duties of Overseers toward non- members affiliated with us, but would call attention to paragraphs of Discipline adopted in 1916, which so nearly cover the same ground that it would seem uncalled-for at the present time to issue more extended rulings on the topic,-except to direct Monthly Meetings to keep ac- curate lists of non-members married to members, of their children and of other non-members who regularly attend our Meetings for Worship, and through their Recorders to forward annually to the Committee on Records of the Representative Meeting information showing the numbers of each of these classes; and also the number of such, if any, who have been received into membership during the year; such information to be embodied in the Annual Tabulated Statement to the Yearly Meeting.
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(2) The broad question of membership in our Religious Society also received our thoughtful consideration, but as the matter was not definitely committed to the Rep- resentative Meeting by the Yearly Meeting, this Com- mittee did not feel authorized to offer any recommendations on the subject but would commend it to the considera- tion of Friends.
We feel that the question of Birthright and Associate Membership is a subject of grave importance with many of our members and merits the Yearly Meeting's best thought.
(3) As regards the admission to Westtown School of children who have but one parent a member with Friends, we would approach it from the standpoint of the obliga- tion the Yearly Meeting is under to a considerable number among us, whose marriage with non-members debars their children from birthright membership.
Statistics gathered in 1915 showed that there were among us 458 children of this class, not a few of whom have parents deeply concerned for their spiritual welfare and warmly attached to the Society of Friends; this is the point at which divergent views need to be reconciled be- fore united action of the Yearly Meeting is possible.
In 1915 there were among us 467 married couples of whom one was a member. This condition is largely due to changes which have been made in the Discipline of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting within the last few decades, as a result of which members, who in past generations might have been lost to our Society, have continued in membership and, in many cases, have proved a strength to our body.
Among our members of this class are parents concerned to uphold the principles of Friends, who yet wish that their children should choose their denominational affilia- tions as a result of their own convictions rather than as a birthright or family inheritance.
It is a question with many whether we are fully justified in denying to children of such marriages privileges which, under former rulings, it may have been right to have with- held.
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Some of us who have been jealous for the unique posi- tion of Westtown as a bulwark of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and an instrument for the leavening of other Friendly communities with the principles for which Phila- delphia Yearly Meeting has stood, have feared that the admission of others than Friends to its privileges would mean the lowering of the standards of our Religious Society. Your Committee has not been unmindful of
this danger. We recognize, however, that some features of our present arrangements have that same tendency; and many of us believe that the plan now proposed will tend to neutralize those features, and on the whole strength- en rather than weaken the standards of the School.
Your Committee, as we have conferred together, have come more and more to accept this view, and according- ly suggested that the Representative Meeting recommend the Yearly Meeting to authorize the Westtown Committee to admit to the School a limited number of children, non- members, who have or have had, one parent a member of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, in accordance with the following conditions :
(a) That such a child shall not have voluntarily joined another religious denomination.
(b) That both parents or the surviving parent, if any, shall join in the application for admission and in so doing shall agree to conform to the standards of the School.
(c) That the maximum enrollment of such pupils shall not exceed thirty.
(d) That, prior to Fifth Month Ist, of each year, only full members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting may be enrolled as new pupils for the succeeding school year.
.,(e) That the Westtown Committee or Sub-Commit- tee before the admission of a child who is a non-member, shall ascertain by interview or correspondence with the parents, or with the Overseers of the Meeting in which one parent is a member, whether the application for ad- mission is made with a sincere willingness that the child be educated in the principles for which Philadelphia Yearly Meeting stands.
We further recommend that the School Committee
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report to the Yearly Meeting within three years their judgment as to the fairness and practical working out of this rule.
We make these recommendations because we feel that the Meeting is under an obligation to its members, be they married to members or non-members; and that this obligation can in part be met by the plan herein proposed.
We trust that the establishment of the Monthly Meeting at Westtown and the association of most of the teachers in the interests of this meeting may be a means of fostering a growing attachment to Friends, and that children who enter Westtown as non-members may find it to be a natural and a right thing for them to accept membership while pupils at the School.
In closing, we would emphasize the need of increased effort on the part of those responsible for the management of the School, whether we regard conditions as they now exist or as affected by the proposed change, to teach and to uphold the Christian principles we profess.
The report comprised three recommendations. The first now being considered by the Yearly Meeting was ap- proved. The Secretary of the Yearly Meeting is directed to bring to the attention of all the Recorders of the Month- ly Meetings the new ruling contained in it.
Concerning the second item of the report, the question of membership in our Society, the matter called forth sufficient interest to warrant the hope that through some of the Quarterly Meetings or all of them may come up a suggestive treatment of the subject to our Yearly Meeting next year.
The third subject, that of admission to Westtown School of a limited number of children, one of whose parents is a member, having been published and widely distributed among our members a fortnight previous to the convening of the Yearly Meeting, now received a very intelligent and prayerful consideration.
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While the Meeting was not in entire unity that the recommendations should be endorsed, the sentiment pre- vailed so largely and with such force that it seemed right to adopt the report, referring the practical working out of it to the Westtown Committee under the conditions contained therein.
The following were appointed to audit the accounts of William T. Elkinton, Treasurer; to examine the securities in his custody belonging to the Yearly Meeting; to con- sider the appropriations to be granted to the Yearly Meet- ing and its various committees and to propose a sum to be raised for the Meeting the coming year. George S. Hutton and others.
The Meeting was reminded that the Social Order Com- mittee has now served the full period of its appointment. To nominate a new committee to serve for the coming three years the Meeting now appointed Rayner W. Kelsey and others.
Verbal report was made by George M. Warner, on be- half of the Representative Meeting of an interview by appointment with President Harding at the White House on the 23rd, when seven members of that body in company with two members of the Race Street Meeting presented the following address and a brief opportunity was offered for conference with the President:
To PRESIDENT WARREN G. HARDING :-
The Society of Friends in Philadelphia sends cordial greeting. We are thankful for any steps the Administra- tion may take towards Disarmament; the time is ripe for the United States to take the lead in this direction and we hold that the continuance of military preparations is nothing less than a challenge to our neighbors everywhere, and helps to create the very danger which it seeks to guard against. The history of Europe during the last fifty years
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confirms us in this belief. It will take courage to lead the way, but it will be the venture of faith to which our nation must rise if we are to be secure against the military spirit in our own borders and to help restore and heal the sick and wounded peoples of the world.
We deplore the tendency in certain quarters to build up material for war, military equipment, battleships, submarines, factories for making poisonous gases, etc., all of which foster and encourage the very spirit which has made Prussian militarism a by-word and a shaking of the head among the nations.
We all want peace, but for that we need to get rid of the war mind-of the mind which relies on force rather than on good-will, on the mailed fist rather than the shield of a Christian faith.
Therefore we ask our President and his Cabinet to lead us all towards the goal of these ideals. We love our coun- try, we wish to help in building it up and in making it a power for Righteousness. The door is open-let us enter in and work.
Be assured of our cordial sympathy, of our earnest de- sire to be useful and loyal citizens. In all this we ask help from God. "Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it-except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain."
It was also decided that the following letter duly signed by the Clerks be mailed as directed and placed upon our Minutes as a matter of record:
At Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends (Fourth and Arch Streets), embracing membership mainly in Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, and including parts of Delaware and Maryland, held from Third Month (March) 28th to Fourth Month (April) Ist, inclusive, 1921.
As representing a religious Society which for 250 years has consistently upheld peace principles, and believing that World Disarmament is the most pressing problem now before our Government and all Governments:
We respectfully urge that the President of the United
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States should call in the immediate future an International Conference on Disarmament.
We also further urge that all action leading to any increase in Naval or Military appropriations, shall not even be considered, until after holding of such conference.
A drastic curtailment of the proposed appropriations, we believe to be a first and essential step toward a spirit of understanding between the nations.
It is ordered that copies of this Minute be sent to the President of the United States, to the Chairman of the Committees on Naval Affairs, on Military Affairs and on Appropriations of the House of Representatives; to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States Senate, and to members of the Federal Congress for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.
The Meeting having continued for a considerable time beyond the usual period of adjournment, the suggestion was made that the Friends who served the Meeting last year as Clerks and Assistant Clerks be appointed in open meeting to serve the current week. This was fully united with and the Friends continued in office as proposed.
The Meeting then adjourned to meet in separate session to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock.
Third-day, Third Month 29th.
The Meeting opened at the appointed hour.
During the past year letters have been received from ยท Friends 'Meetings and isolated groups of Friends in distant lands. These were submitted to a small committee of men and women Friends yesterday, who now reported that eight of the communications they felt should be responded to-the others being more directly addressed to the Rep- resentative Meeting, were not presented. Those read in
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the Meeting included a cablegram from Alfred G. Scatter- good, now in Germany in active service under the Friends' Service Committee, a letter from Dublin Yearly Meeting, one from the General Meeting of Friends held at Hobart, Australia, one from Friends at Chengtu, in West China, one from Friends at Mt. Lebanon, Syria, one from a new Yearly Meeting of Friends in Germany written from Stuttgart, and embracing small companies of Friends in Cannstatt, Stuttgart, Esslingen, Pfullingen and Kempten. one from Tokio, Japan, and one from small groups of Friends in South Africa and one from New Zealand. The reading of these called forth expressions of warm interest in those from whom they came, and brought very close home to us the favored surroundings under which we live, as contrasted with the sad conditions which many of our faith have to meet.
The sentiment prevailed that we had a duty of loving service in replying to these messages, and it was directed that the following named Friends draft the letters to the various Meetings and bodies of Friends just enumerated and that also a letter be addressed to London Yearly Meet- ing, and a general letter to be sent to each of our members now engaged in the child-feeding service or allied labor in Europe and the near East, the same to be a simple and brief message of love and warm interest to those who are generously giving their time and strength to this cause. It is further directed that this same letter, with alterations to meet individual cases in addresses, etc., be mailed to . others now abroad under the American Friends' Service Committee. David G. Alsop, Henry J. Cadbury, Alfred C. Garrett, and George M. Warner.
At our session yesterday we were not able, for lack of time to consider the fourth item in the Report of the Rep-
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resentative Meeting offered for action to the Yearly Meeting. This was now considered.
At the session of the Representative Meeting, held Third Month 18th, there was introduced a judgment reach- ed by the Book Committee and passed upon favorably by the Repesentative Meeting that the time called loudly and with no uncertain note for a wide service from the Yearly Meeting if we can in unity enter upon it.
The report presented by the Representative Meeting is as follows :-
The Committee to whom was referred the suggestions that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting make a widely extended effort to bring before millions of our fellow-citizens a clearer knowledge of the religious views we uphold, have given serious consideration to the subject.
If we have a contribution to make to the twentieth cen- tury in the interpretation of spiritual religion, must we not recognize it as a five-talent commitment for us to increase by use, remembering that marvelous results can be produced through persons of consecration, prayer and faith.
We do not appoint representatives to proclaim the Gos- pel Message, as we believe that the ministry of Jesus Christ is a calling and not a profession. Is this not an added reason for our being more alert to watch for every right call to spread a fuller knowledge of our Christian in- heritance?
The founders of our Society in the seventeenth century were known as "Publishers of Truth," "Children of Light," "Friends," "Quakers."
By whatever name we are called, let us herald the truth that Christianity is the hope of mankind. That nothing can save the world but the Saviour of the world. That nothing short of the religion revealed by Jesus Christ can permanently stabilize it.
Everywhere, people are wanting to be shown the way
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back to the Father. How can we help them? How can we prepare ourselves to lead them?
Possible lines of service might include :-
1. That of encouraging and aiding in the better train- ing of our children in fundamental religion.
2. That of urging our members to deepen their religious life and to prepare themselves to present our views in- telligently.
3. That of inciting our meetings to greater diligence in circulating religious literature not only among their own members and attenders, but to those residing in their communities who are interested or who may become in- terested in spiritual thought.
4. That of stimulating greater activity in the produc- tion of religious literature suited to various needs.
5. Perhaps arrangements could be made with The Friend of Philadelphia to occasionally issue a large edition for popular distribution.
6. The wider circulation of articles now in print such as :-
"Worship and Ministry," by Alfred C. Garrett; "The Inward Light," by Mary Ward; "The More Excellent Way," by Wm. Littleboy; "A Word to All Who Seek Truth," issued by London Yearly Meeting, 1920; "Friends and War," a new statement issued by the All Friends' Conference.
We feel operations should not be confined to this coun- try only. An open door awaits us in Japan, China and India as well as in Europe.
Friends have given liberally toward the work in France and Germany. As these tasks draw toward completion are we ready to give to and work for "Spiritual Recon- struction" and to become again as at the beginning "Publishers of Truth."
The Book Committee has made a small beginning along some lines, but no definite program has been prepared, as any large service is dependent upon the approval and backing of the Yearly Meeting. . Five thousand dollars or even five times that amount could be very profitably spent, for we believe that the time is now ripe for such
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educational and publicity work on a larger scale than has been heretofore possible.
But more than labor, more than money, will be required to bring the desired results; we must consecrate our lives, our talents to Him who alone can bless our efforts.
The work is lying before us, it should lie on our hearts as we ask, is our Heavenly Father calling our Yearly Meeting to enter this door of opportunity?
The Yearly Meeting treated the subject sympathetically and upon deliberation felt that it would be right for us. to appoint a Committee to act with a like body of Women Friends, should their meeting so direct, in carrying forward the concern along the lines indicated in the report, looking to our Heavenly Father for His guidance, that all that may be attempted, may be under His prompting and govern- ment and not in our own strength.
The service as contemplated will call for the expenditure of funds; it was the decision of the Meeting, that for the coming year, at least, these had best be collected as voluntary contributions.
Friends are urged to keep the matter uppermost on their hearts and to enter so far as they can into the spirit and plan of the work.
To nominate the Committee to co-operate with the Book Committee the following were appointed, William T. Elkinton and others.
The Committee appointed two years ago under a con- cern of our Friend Esther Morton Smith to protest against the iniquitous practice of lynching now submitted the following report :-
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LYNCHINGS.
During the spring and early summer of the past year, the Committee appointed by our Yearly Meeting "to protest against the iniquitous practice of lynching and
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the spirit which prompts it" continued its work through short talks given to a few schools, and to the students of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges at their morning col- lections. Personal visits were also made to the Governors of Nebraska, Illinois and Pennsylvania, to whom the same message was given as that carried to the Southern governors, reported last year.
Communications bearing on the subject were also sent to Congressman Butler of Pennsylvania and to various officials in the South, to voice a protest against some out- rage or to express approval of efforts to uphold justice and law.
The Committee feels that the special concern for which it was appointed has been carried out, and that the time has come for its release.
The request of the Committee was granted and it was released.
Esther Morton Smith, with the encouragement of Women's Meeting, laid before us a concern, which she hoped could be shared by the Meeting-namely, to encour- age all right methods tending to a better understanding between the white and the colored races. She also sub- mitted a Minute of Women's Meeting which was read.
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