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The Religion of College Men

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HOSE who regard religion as outward conformity to theological doctrines, customary rituals, and traditional moral codes firmly believe that there is something wrong with the religion of college men today.

Testimony is practically universal that toward a religion of conformity the great majority of college men today are indifferent. At a recent conference at Princeton of nearly threenew cu score college presidents and an almost correspondingly impressive group of deans, professors, and religious leaders this its, indifference was admitted. Dr. Ernest H. Wilkins, President hof Oberlin College, an institution with a strong religious tradition, declared that "in a typical modern college body of 1,000 men about 100 might fairly be said to be religiously minded, rather more than 800 would not ordinarily be much concerned about religion-their attitudes varying from subNr liminal acquiescence to subliminal distrust-and a residuum thewould consider themselves to have dispensed with religion." birdThis indifference to outward form is evidenced by the attitude of college men toward chapel services. Dean Willard L. Sperry, of the Harvard University Divinity School, testified to the effect of this indifference in places where chapel services are compulsory by declaring: "I have spoken in colleges on Sundays throughout the country, and there are certain ones to which I shall never return, not because I was brutally insulted, but simply because I will not be a party to procedure which is bad for the college and bad for the stude dents."

tried

One reason for this indifference of college men toward traditional forms of religion has been described by Professor F. S. C. Northrup, of Yale. In brief, it is that modern scientific evidence concerning nature and man, with which college stuidents become acquainted, has raised questions that are more fundamental than matters of outward observance. Is religion anything more than pious hope responding to exhortation? Does the universe, as science is making it known, allow any room for the claims of religion? Professor Northrup believes that out of science can come a "philosophy of life which, in its ethical and inspirational qualities and its effectiveness, will surpass anything which conventional religion now offers." But the college undergraduate has not yet reached the point at which Professor Northrup has arrived.

Another reason for the college man's indifference to traditional religious forms and practices is to be found in the tremendous stress of modern college life. As one report of the conference at Princeton summarized the opinion of those present, "the typical college undergraduate-800 out of every group of 1,000—has too much to do, both of work and amusement, to consider religion other than something that 'isn't done' in college. He spends a good part of his waking hours in study. He spends many more in athletics, dramatics, working for publications, or in fraternity affairs. He goes every week to a dance, a game, and a movie. He spends hours in talking, about everything from fraternities to college politics, college scandal, jobs, and women."

For these two reasons, one intellectual, the other practical,

the typical college man of today is not atheistic, or even agnostic, so much as indifferent.

If this is a true diagnosis, the Church will make no progress in winning the leaders of the younger generation by simply multiplying its efforts to emphasize traditional beliefs, practices, and codes, and by deploring the unresponsiveness of the younger generation to its efforts. Fortunately, that same diagnosis indicates two ways by which the Church can approach the younger generation with hope of success.

First, if it can divest itself of traditional ways of thinking," the Church can speak in the language which science has made known to those who are looking at the world with new eyes. The modern college man is not incorrigibly skeptical; he is simply accepting the words of those who seem to him to speak out of knowledge. "Science has not superseded religion among college undergraduates today," said Dean Sperry at the conference; "our modern students have simply shifted their credulity. Instead of believing everything their ministers and Sunday-school teachers tell them, as they did when children, they now believe everything their biology professors tell them." The Church has a great opportunity to restate its thought of religion in terms that those who have learned at the knees of science will understand and respect. It is because the Church has not done this, except here and there, that college undergraduates still think of religion in terms of past ages and have not acquired the faith that is characteristic of some of the greatest scientific leaders.

Second, if it can rid itself of the idea that young people must be attracted, the Church can appeal to young people by offering them a chance for the activity they crave and have a right to. They want work to do that they believe is worth while. That is why they fill their lives in colleges with what are called "extra-curricular activities." What has the Church to offer them to do that is worth while to them? When it finds the answer to that question, it will have no occasion to deplore the "indifference of the younger generation."

Casual Grievers

T

HERE is in James A. Reed, of
Missouri, more of the Scotch

character than has been in any other man on the floor of the American Senate since James Burnie Beck was taken home to Lexington, dead. It has survived the generations of American Reeds since the family came to Pennsylvania some decades before the Revolution.

The fact is important only because it goes a long way toward explaining the otherwise inexplicable in Reed. Macaulay said that, while the Scotch had the worst form of government in Christendom, they were not badly governedbecause Scotchmen would not submit to bad government. That is the proposition; here is the corollary: No man, a Scotchman in soul, submits to what he thinks is bad government.

James A. Reed, always devoted to what he conceives to be sound theory in American government, has never submitted to the actual Government which has existed in this country. Always and eternally, he is Reed of the Opposition.

And yet James A. Reed resents, almost belligerently, the imputation that he is a fighter. He believes that his natural paths are paths of peace. He thinks that all the fighting of his long life of fighting has been forced upon him.

So thought, sincerely, Reed's fellowMissourian, Jesse James. So said and doubtless thought-Napoleon Bonaparte.

Fighting is forced, in slightly varying degrees, on all men. And all men, in varying measures, fight. But Bonaparte

A Political Portrait

By DIXON MERRITT

Senator Reed's first public office was that of public prosecutor, and he has never entirely discarded the title. What kind of a President would he be? Mr. Merritt observes that the caustic critic of literature has rarely been able to create literature. He wonders whether a man who has devoted the larger part of his public life to criticism of government could produce government. This is the third of a series of political portraits.

that Reed has been always, or commonly, a destructive force.

One other common misconception must be got out of the way before James A. Reed can be looked at fairly. The man who constantly and chronically opposes the major part of what exists in government is, in common belief and usually in fact, a radical. Reed is nothing of the kind. He is a conservative, an ultra-conservative, even a reactionary. He sometimes makes common cause with the Republican radicals, but that comes about because they, swinging clear around the circle, become for the moment Democratic reactionaries.

While Reed talks like a Southerner of the old, old school, he is not Southern, not even border Southern. Born on an

Ohio farm, taken to an Iowa sheep ranch in infancy, left fatherless at eight, he grew up as a corn-belt farm boy and did not become a Missourian until he was twenty-six years old.

offensive defense beyond the measure of the race of men who find in it, as their nature is, occasional adventure or occasional ordeal. Fighting is for Reed, as it was for the other two, destiny.

Those who have written of Reed adversely have characterized his work as destructive. But justice cannot be done the man when that word is employed. Advocacy and opposition, popular belief to the contrary, stand on about equal footing as methods of advancing the welfare of society. Reed has nearly always opposed. Rarely has he advocated. But there is not in this any certain proof

Reed, upon which he must be judged?

He was Public Prosecutor of Jackson County, Missouri-elected to "clean up the town" of Kansas City. He indicted 287 men on felony charges and convicted 285 of them. That may impress some persons as too good a record. The fear is inescapable that there were more than two innocent men among the defendants.

Reed explains that he never indicted a man until he was first thoroughly convinced of that man's guilt. Even so, the record reveals an uncanny prosecuting ability, a peculiar quality of

prosecuting mentality. That quality James A. Reed undoubtedly had-and still has.

James A. Reed was elected, on a "reform" ticket, as Mayor of Kansas City and served two terms, from 1900 to 1904. The job cut out for him was to make the traction and other public utility companies "behave." He did.

After that Reed practiced law successfully and, for him, silently until 1910. when he was elected to the United States Senate. That did not terminate his practice or make it less successful.

After seventeen years of strenuous service, Reed's name is connected with no legislation. Whatever his virtues may be and whatever his vices, bursting the hopper with bills is not one of them.

Essentially, James A. Reed has been before the grand jury most of the time during his seventeen years in the Senate.

case,

Reed has played a prominent part in keeping five men from enjoying membership in the Senate. In his own esti mation, he has striven to prevent the recognition of money as an admission ticket to that august hall. He worked actively and effectively in the Stephenthe Newberry son case, the Lorimer case, the Smith case, and the Vare case. Reed has helped to push the hope of the Presidency out of the reach of three men. In the Kenyon campaign fund investigation of 1920 he got into the record the facts which destroyed the chances of Governor Frank O. Lowden and of General Leonard Wood for the Republican nomination. He supplied to the Walsh committee in 1924 the tip which led to the discovery that William G. McAdoo had received $250,000 in fees from Edward L. Doheny, and at the moment when the Democratic nomina tion seemed within McAdoo's grasp.

Reed has deprived one man of the highest law office in the United States. In the lobby investigation of the first Wilson Administration Reed was the chief instrument in uncovering the Havemeyer interest in the beet-sugar industry, which, twelve years later, was to cause the Senate to refuse confirmation of the nomination of Charles B. Warren as Attorney-General.

When the Democrats were in power, Reed, as a Democrat, voted for the run

of-mine measures including much of the war legislation-but was out of harmony with the party and the President on many of the measures that came out in big lumps. He demanded-and secured-hearings on the Federal Reserve Bill when the President had asked for When he was later

immediate passage. read out of the party, Reed was able to show a letter from President Wilson commending him for this.

Wilson was frequently unfortunate when he felt called upon to write thankyou letters. They usually bobbed up like the devil at prayers. When one of the severest newspaper critics of Wilson's course at Versailles was called on the carpet by his publisher, he produced a letter from Wilson commending him for his fairness and stayed on to pester the President. But to write him a nice letter was not the most serious mistake that the President made with regard to Reed. Politically speaking, Wilson ought to have got rid of Reed by making him Attorney-General. But that was not his way, and perhaps he could not foresee how troublesome Reed would be.

Reed opposed Wilson on Panama Canal tolls and on various purely civil

he

hibition. A great deal of contradictory testimony was gathered as to the efficacy

of the Volstead Law, and Reed had a magnificent opportunity of displaying his ability as a cross-examiner. Post hoc, but possibly not propter hoc, "Major" Roy A. Haynes and General Lincoln C. Andrews returned to oblivion and Nineteenth Street, respectively.

The slush fund investigation still goes on, and is at this moment concerned with perfecting a water-tight case against William S. Vare, Senator-elect from Pennsylvania. It already has sent Frank L. Smith back to Illinois to accept an appointment in lieu of his election. "All that man has gained in his long struggle toward the sunlit plains of liberty," said Reed in his stately phrase, "is the right to cast a little ballot." And that lone right is menaced by money, he holds. Money from dubious sources has been revealed, particularly in the Illinois case. Other influences of a sinister aspect have been uncovered-in Indiana, for instance.

Destructive work? I think not. Other men an impressive minority, at least-hold a different opinion.

Thus runs the record of James A. Reed, contender for the Democratic nomination for President. A record of opposition, it is destructive or constructive according to the way in which men look at it and perhaps no man sees all of it in the same light.

stone. Not yet has he ceased to denounce Herbert Hoover for that foodcontrol business.

The war ended and the fight came on for ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, with the League of Nations in it. If the failure of the Senate to ratify that instrument was a great thing for America, the halo is on Reed's head. If that failure was a bad thing for the peace of the world, the blood of men unborn is on Reed's head. Lodge, without Reed, could not have defeated the Treaty of Versailles.

Destructive? I think so. Other men -a vast majority, they say think otherwise.

Reed has been, both before and since the advent of General Dawes, a leader in the successful effort to prevent amendment of the Senate rules.

In very recent times Reed's activities have been mainly two-the wet and dry hearings and the slush fund investigation.

Reed brought about and conducted the hearings on the bills bearing on pro

HE man who has made this record

white-haired man of ruddy face, dignified and, in a sense, distant. There is in him nothing of the quality ordinarily associated with popularity in politics. Reed is not popular in the accepted

sense.

Men succeed in politics because they are able or affable or both. Reed is able; exceptionally and superbly able in one particular line-controversy. As a framer of legislation, as an administrator, as a manager of men-in those lines he has never had or has never availed himself of the opportunity to prove his ability. But as a master in the use of words Reed has been equaled by few men of recent times in American public affairs. There is a Reed cult in Washington, and those who are of it say that he has been equaled in that respect only by the man whom he so bitterly antagonized. But here again must be written the qualifying clause. We are familiar with Reed's mastery of words only in the running debate and in the set (Please turn to continuation, page 468)

S

HE was twenty-odd years of age, a robust and handsome, athletic girl,

who had left college to earn her living as a secretary. She had worked her way to a well-paid and responsible position-being ambitious and soberminded and discreet-but then she had suddenly developed a sort of despair that brought on unaccountable fits of weeping even while she was at work. Her doctor found her suffering with a nervous tension and a high blood-pressure so alarming that he made her take a holiday, and, after months of idleness and no improvement in her health, he sent her to a psychiatrist to discover the origin of the disorder.

A great deal of what the psychiatrist discovered had nothing to do with her religion, but in the course of his diagnosis she brought him a dream of the previous night, which she had written down for him, and it was a religious dream. She imagined that she was standing in a crowd of people who had gathered, as if to see an eclipse of the sun, in an immense open space, where they were all looking up, with awe, at a luminous sphere as big as a second moon hung in the heavens over them. She felt the same awe as they, a religious awe, deeply reverential and impressed by this supernatural appearance of a bright planet that was somehow worshipful in its glory. It seemed to be coming nearer. As it approached, she saw that it was really a kind of gigantic balloon, very beautiful and impressive, but, after all, only a man-made contrivance, and nothing superhuman and celestial. She lost her awe of it. So did many of those around her, who began to whisper to one another with a hissing sound that seemed derisive. The balloon descended nearer and nearer, its radiance fading till she could look at it without being dazzled; and now she could distinguish on it a name in enormous letters, "Jahva." This name did not seem to her to be a form of the word "Jehovah," but a misspelling of "Java"-meaning Java coffee and she perceived that the balloon was made of sacking. It was nothing but a giant coffee sack. At that she burst into laughter, along with everybody else, and the roar of their mighty guffaws woke her up.

"This," said the psychiatrist, "is a very interesting dream," and he began

There is surely nothing new in the idea that the child's first god is the parent; but it takes on a new significance when the psychiatrist discovers that the mature image of divinity is often merely a picture of the parents printed on the infantile and impressionable mind. Mr. O'Higgins is a novelist, a playwright, and one of the first men to apply the discoveries of psychoanalysis to creative writing.

idolized him as a child, but as she grew to adolescence she saw flaws in him. He did not protect her and her mother. He was drinking and gambling and failing in his duties to his wife and his family. Her mother began to complain of him, and to set the girl against him. When the daughter went out to work for her living, she saw herself driven to take her father's place as the protector of the mother, and she despised him. "All this," said the psychiatrist, "is typical."

NEVITABLY, to any child its first god is the parent. In the eyes of the child, the mother and the father are allto question her about her religion. At powerful and omniscient. There is not first she seemed to be firm in her faith. an attribute of divinity which these Apparently, she had never questioned it. sublime beings do not possess-to the She had been going to church devoutly dawning intelligence of the helplessly desince her earliest childhood with her pendent infant whom they have created. mother, who was fanatical in her re- There is scarcely a phrase in the Bible ligious beliefs; and she had never to describe the relations of man to God doubted any of the tenets of her creed. which could not be used by the small At one time she had taught Sunday✔child to its parents if it were capable of school, and, though she had given that up when she began to earn her living because she was tired out by Sundaystill she had continued to take her part in all the church entertainments and festivities and "socials" and such. She smiled when she spoke of the socials. It had been her special duty to make the coffee at these affairs, and it had seemed to her that there was more eating and drinking around the church than there was religion. "More Java, in fact,” the doctor suggested, "than Jehovah."

Yes, she agreed, that was it.

As he talked with her, it became clear that her dream represented the true history of her religious emotions. Without being aware of it, she had passed from awe to skepticism, and from doubt to derision, but this had all happened in some lower level of her mind, below her conscious intelligence, and she had never allowed herself to realize that it was going on. Now, as the result of a revolt against her mother, she rarely attended church at all, but she did not know that her faith had really vanished. She believed that she was as religious as ever and she saw herself as merely too busy to give much time to church activities.

Under the doctor's examination, it developed, too, that her unconscious loss of religious faith had been paralleled by a loss of faith in her father. She had

expressing its state of mind towards them. And here is the significant thing: its earliest relations with its par ents establish in the basic levels of its mind a set of responses that make a pattern for all its later relations with divinity; and these responses are what you might call its "natural religion."

"The most truly religious person that I know," says the psychiatrist, "is a patient of mine who had a peculiar training given her by her father. He was a missionary, a really holy man, with an absolute trust in God. He used to make his small daughter shut her eyes and jump into his arms from a height-from a wall-top, from the roof of a shed-and when he caught her he would say: 'Brave girl. Never be afraid. Your father would never let you fall. And remember: God is like that.' Now, though she has been unfortunate in many ways, she is always serene and unworried in her conviction that Providence is watching over her and that everything that happens to her happens for the best. No conceivable calamity could change that conviction. It has nothing to do with proof or reason. It is beyond argu ment. It is at the bottom of her consciousness where no merely intelligent operation of the mind can reach it.

"Contrast with her," he says, "another woman who is also the daughter of