One of the things that is as true of a society as it is of an individual is its scale of values, and perhaps as far as society is concerned this is nowhere reflected better than in the compensation it gives for various kinds of services rendered to the community. A rather unusual (I hope) instance of this comes in an item from Springfield, New Jersey, where it is pointed out that while school teaching may have its own rewards, garbage collecting there is more profitable financially. Garbage truck drives, under a new contract with the city, are paid $114 for a 40-hour work week, while teachers, with a big investment of time and money to obtain qualifying college degrees, start teaching at an annual salary of $3,300. This spread over a 52-week year, for teachers must eat during the summer too, means a weekly income of $64.44. After a lifetime career of teaching, they can earn a maximum of $5,500 annually, or $105.76 per week, about eight dollars less per week than garbage truck drivers now receive. Of course this reporter will admit to some partiality in the matter, but looking at it objectively, and giving garbage collectors all the credit which they so richly deserve in helping keep the community clean and healthful, it seems more than incongruous that a community will value services connected with garbage more highly than they do services devoted to helping develop the minds and abilities of children.
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We hear a great deal these days pro and con about the influence of comic books and strips upon the behavior of juveniles. The fact is that nobody knows just what the over all effect of reading these materials is. Moreover, to use the term “comic books” in an evaluative sense, indicating they are bad, is greatly to oversimplify a complex problem. There are comic books and comic books. Some of them deal with high ideals, integrity, deeds of heroism; while others are what most of us would call trash.
However, there is something relatively new in David Crane’s comic strip, though he follows in something of the soapy footsteps of other vocational do-gooders. David Crane is a minister and it is understandable that the contents of the strip are largely of a religious flavor. He deals in a serious way to promote religious tolerance among all faiths, particularly the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant ones. Incidentally, the idea for the strip was considered and rejected by syndicates other than the one who now runs it, Hall, as too controversial. The creator of this strip is one Winslow Mortimer, a Canadian-born artist living at Carmel, New York. Winslow goes to a Methodist church, collects guns, and is aided by Hartzell Spence, son of a Methodist minister who wrote One Foot in Heaven. Between these two creators they have a problem as old as literature itself, namely, how to make the good as interesting as the bad.
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It is true that we live in dangerous times and have some reason to be reoccupied with “security.” But in an equally dangerous time Benjamin Franklin, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year, wrote, “They that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln spoke of “a new birth of freedom.” And Washington’s farewell addresses stresses not the guarding of state secrets but the enlightenment of public opinion. Many citizens today believe that national security measures should be directed against overt acts such as treason, espionage, and sabotage. A phrase like “conspiracy to teach and advocate” is meaningless. And as for the oft-used word these days, “subversion, ” it is too slippery a word for the law, too vague, too fraught with emotion to serve as a proper legal or ethical standard. When the late Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson was U.S. attorney general, he warned that there are no “definite standards to determine what constitutes a ‘subversive activity,’ such as we have for larceny and other legal terms. “Activities,” he goes on, “which seem benevolent and helpful to wage earners, persons on relief, or those who are disadvantaged in the struggle for existence may be regarded as ‘subversive’ by those whose property interests might be burdened or affected thereby. Those who are in office are apt to regard as ‘subversive’ the activities of any of those who would bring about a change of administration.”
And Judge Learned Hand also criticized the increasingly common resort to the term as a question-begging word. He said, its “imprecision comforts us by enabling us to suppress arguments that disturb our complacency and yet congratulate ourselves on keeping the faith as we received it from the Founding Fathers.… All discussion, all debate, all dissidence, tends to question and in consequence to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and justification. He is, indeed, a ‘subversive’ who disputes these precepts and seeks to persuade me to substitute his own.” Hence, any sort of challenging or probing thought, any intelligent effort at social change, may be construed as ‘subversive.’ Veritably, we seem to have arrived at the position of the character in Alice in Wonderland, where to some people, whenever they use a word it means whatever they wish it to mean.
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A report recently by an army psychiatrist alleged that American prisoners of war neglected their own sick in prisoner camps and were not equipped to resist communist propaganda. Editorial comment on this report laments that the home, school, and church had not given these boys the support of religion and a knowledge of Americanism.
Without being cynical one may well consider that typically American Protestantism teaches no primarily human solidarity, but a salvation of everyone for himself. Those who behaved, as Dr. Mayer is alleged to have said they did, reacted perhaps in accordance with the religious thought in most of their churches.
As for the schools teaching Americanism, unfortunately today, in some, perhaps many, communities, teachers avoid such controversial essentials of real Americanism as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights for fear of arousing the ire of some pressure group. One need read only the “Houston Story,” what has been taking place the last few years in Los Angeles schools, in some in New Jersey, and elsewhere to realized that perhaps some of the shortcomings with respect to teaching an understanding of Americanism may be due to the community climate in which teachers operate.
All of us would agree that home, school, church – all should coordinate their activities to the end of producing the best possible, all-round citizens. Neither will do its jobs perfectly, under the best of circumstances, but most shortcomings in homes, churches, and schools have their causes, and it might be well for us all to examine closely those causes before jumping to an assessment of blame.
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Kent School by the Rev. Frederick H. Sills, priest of the Episcopal Church and member of the Order of the Holy Cross. To mark the event, the entire family of Kent will attend a morning service of prayer, Holy Communion, and sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The entire student body, the faculty, and the Kent School Glee Club and Choir will attend, along with a large body of Kent School alumni. The preacher will be the Right Rev. Horace W.B. Donegan, bishop of New York.
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New York: Nine Protestant churchmen are on their way by plane to Moscow for an 11-day good will visit to the Soviet Union. The trip is sponsored by the National Council of Churches. Spokesman for the group is the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, president of the National Council. Before taking off, he said there will be inter-ecclesiastical conversations to increase mutual understanding and good will between Russian and American Christians. He said the delegation will meet with Soviet government leaders if they are invited.
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A demonstration of Christian integration in churches will be held in New York City a week from today. At the morning service a group of 100 white members of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church will attend the Church of the Master of Harlem. And 100 Negro members of the Harlem church will attend services at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. The integration demonstration is intended to show – as one minister put it, “that we are not Christians at arms length,… and that true brotherhood draws no color line.” The idea for the exchange of the two groups was proposed by Dr. John Paul Jones, minister of the Union Church of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
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New Bedford, Massachusetts: The executive board of the Greater New Bedford Inter-church Council has recommended that its 48 member churches hold a joint mass prayer meeting in sympathy with the Negro bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The prayer service will be held on the evening of March 28 at the Union Baptist Church in New Bedford. A resolution passed by the council says the colored segment of the American population is being denied rights declared by the U.S. Constitution.
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New York: A film with a religious theme, “A Man Called Peter,” was the biggest money-maker of 1955 for the studio that made it. Geoffrey Shurlock, director of the motion picture industry code administration says the picture grossed more than Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch” and Clark Gable and Jane Russell in “The Tall Men.” The film, “A Man Called Peter,” is based on the life of a Protestant minister. The screenplay was worked out by three people – a Roman Catholic, a Jew, and the widow of the central character, Mrs. Peter Marshall, a Presbyterian. Shurlock says another religious film, “The Robe,” ranks second only to “Gone with the Wind” as the biggest money-maker of all time.
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Los Angeles: The 400th anniversary of the death of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the religious teaching order of the Catholic Church will be observed today. Taking part in honoring Loyola will be some 600,000 alumni from 28 Jesuit colleges and universities, and 45 high schools in the U.S. Festivities are scheduled in 150 major cities. A Mass will be said at Loyola University in Los Angeles, and similar functions in other cities will be either televised or broadcast by radio.
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New York: The National Council of Churches has taken a stand against the sale of radio and/or television time for religious programs. The council contends stations and networks should give the time free as a public service. It is difficult to see the logic in this, but that is what is reported.
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The president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews wants a hard-hitting presidential campaign based on the issues and unclouded by racial or religious bias. The group’s head, Dr. Everett Clinchy of New York, has warned that bigoted appeals for votes are contrary to several things: He names these as American principles, the American spirit of fair play, and God’s moral imperative for brotherhood. Dr. Clinchy declares, “Our people want the facts and what each candidate thinks about the issues.” He adds, “They don’t want this information clouded by racial and religious bias.” He says, “Let us reject all racial and religious bigotry from the 1956 campaign. Let us immunize Americans against this evil.”
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This year’s Jewish Youth Week will be held for teenagers beginning next Friday. Mrs. Sue Strassman of Scranton, Pennsylvania, says the aim is to focus attention on the role, achievements, and potential of Jewish youth in the growth and development of a creative American Jewish community. Mrs. Strassman is chairman of the National Jewish Youth Conference. This year’s theme is “Building a Bridge of Friendship between Jewish Youth of the U.S. and Israel.” The period will be marked by Jewish youth sabbaths, interfaith programs, cultural festivals, field days, forums, institutes, and rallies.
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Today is the day of response to Roman Catholic and Protestant appeals for charity for homeless and hungry persons in other lands. Catholic churches will gather offerings for “The Bishops Relief Fund,” which has a $5 million goal. Last year the Bishop’s Fund gave relief and services valued at almost $133 million to more than 32 million destitute men, women, and children. Relief supplies were distributed in 51 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, without regard to race, color, or creed.
In the “One Great Hour of Sharing,” most of the nation’s Protestant churches aim for $11 million in funds for overseas relief. The Church World Service of the National Council of Churches also expects Protestants to send much food, clothing, and medicines to distressed persons abroad.
The annual “Passover Appeal” of the United Jewish Appeal is scheduled for Passover week, March 27 to April 3. This drive is for $8 million, also for programs of relief and constructive development overseas.
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A four-day ceremony starting today will mark the dedication of the most magnificent of the 12 Mormon temples. More than 50,000 Mormons are expected at the opening services of the temple in Los Angeles. Features of the $6 million structure include a huge steel baptismal font mounted on 12 life-sized oxen and a series of murals portraying the creation and history of the earth.