The churches and the wage earners

Preface

A KEENLY analytical friend of mine is fond ^ ^ of remarking that nearly all vicious reasoning is due to the attempt to answer two questions at once. This error, at least, I have tried to avoid. I have devoted my attention to a specific, clear-cut problem — ^that of the gulf between the masses of the laboring people and the churches of to-day; and I have endeavored to limit myself strictly to this question, in spite of numerous temptations to wander into neighboring fields.

I mention this in order to forestall a certain class of criticisms aimed at what, to some, may appear to be inadequacies of treatment. I am well aware, for example, that there are many people alienated from the churches besides the workingmen. Professional men, both within and without the churches, stand in a peculiar relation to them which is vastly interesting and significant; but with this I have at present nothing to do. Similarly with the economics of the "social question" and of socialism. Their discussion from a scientific point of view is of vital importance; but it is quite outside the viii PREFACE

scope of this study. I am concerned primarily with the relations of the churches to these problems; not with the problems themselves.

If it be asked why, in the chapter entitled "Facts,** I have made no use of the numerous published statistics of church membership, the answer must be simply that they are not trustworthy. The Federal Census made several attempts, between 1850 and 1890, to enumerate the population of the United States by church connection; but the results were so extremely unreliable that the effort was finally abandoned. The "censuses'* published year by year in the denominational and interdenominational journals are quite useless until we know in detail how they were compiled. Tests of church membership are so loose and so variable, and there is such a large subjective element in ministers* estimates, that the margin of error is very great indeed. Further, the motives for evasion and misrepresentation in regard to church affiliation are so strong that it is questionable whether accurate statistics on the subject can ever be compiled.

That other and perhaps more valid criticisms of this work may be urged I have no doubt. No one can be more painfully aware of its deficiencies than myself. I can only plead in

PREFACE ix

mitigation, first, that, so far as I know, it is the first venture into this particular field; and, second, it is written in the sincere desire to be helpful to the institution and the class in which I am most deeply interested — organized religion on the one hand and toiling humanity on the other. If it succeed in the slightest degree in clearing up their mutual misunderstandings, I shall feel amply repaid.

My indebtedness to other writers may be sufficiently obvious from the footnotes and the Bibliography. It remains only to acknowledge my obligations to Professor Francis G. Peabody, of Harvard University, and to my wife, for criticism and assistance at all stages of the work.

C. BERTRAND THOMPSON.

Peabody, Massachusetts, February 2, 1909.

Part I

THE ALIENATION OF THE WAGE- EARNERS FROM THE CHURCHES: ITS EXTENT AND ITS CAUSES

DEFINITIONS

In any discussion of the subject of the present relations of the workingmen to organized religion it is of the utmost importance to distinguish clearly between the Church and the churches. The Christian Church is an abstraction which stands for a certain fairly definite set of principles; the churches are collections of concrete individuals who profess allegiance to those principles. Men may be entirely out of sympathy with the churches, while believing in the principles of the Church; the principles of the Church may be entirely favorable to the aims and efforts of the workingmen, while the members of the churches are entirely opposed to them.

Failure to recognize this difference is responsible for a great deal of current misunderstanding. The laborer becomes an opponent of the Church because dissatisfied with the churches; church-members accuse the laborer of base ingratitude and callousness, in view of all that the Church has done for him in the past and its good intentions toward him in the present. This discussion will be concerned primarily with the churches. It will have to do with the Church only in so far as its principles may be considered as binding upon and reflected by individual churches and church-members.

By "wage earner," "workingman," "laborer," etc., is meant, wherever used in this work, the person who is employed by another, for wages, to work with his hands. The term thus excludes "brain-workers," "soft-handed" workers, and all salaried, professional, and "independent" business men.

Chapter I Facts

^T^HE fact of the alienation of the masses from ^ the churches has been so frequently noted of late years that it has become a commonplace. It is not, to be sufe, altogether a recent phenomenon. As far back as 1813, Rev. Rector Campbell said : " I know it is the boast of the Church of England to be the poor man's church, but I am afraid it is only our boast." The separation of the "poor man" from the churches was then apparently viewed without any great concern; but now it is the cause of considerable alarm. To-day it is frequently referred to as the churches* crisis, and it is observed, with anxiety and deep foreboding, that the alienation is increasing. The decline is felt in all denominations. Small congregations and empty churches are noted everywhere. This is the case not only throughout England and America, but on the Continent also. In France "it would be difficult to find an assembly of Republicans in which the great majority are not atheists." ^ Ger-

* Mority Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 146. 5 many, which sets the tone for most of the northern nations, is the home of materialism. The southern nations are deeply infected with the infidelity of France. Russia, encased in ecclesiastical form, is also seething with disbelief. This "eclipse of faith," as Kaufmann calls it, is "peculiar to the masses of the workingmen of Europe"; and he might have added, of the whole civilized world.

Statistically, the rough statement that "the people are leaving the denominations by the millions"^ is at least partially confirmed by the investigations reported by Dr. Josiah Strong.^ After an exhaustive study of a number of selected representative fields in different parts of the United States, Strong concludes that less than 30 per cent, of the population of America are regular attendants, perhaps 20 per cent, are irregular attendants, while fully one-half never attend any church at all, Protestant or Catholic. This percentage for attendance seems to be too high. Investigations made by the writer in New England towns, and by a friend in a large part of Boston, would not warrant an estimate of even 15 per cent, of the population as regular attendants. In the United States popular in-

* Algernon S. Crapsey, "Religion and Politics," 315.

2 Strong, "New Era," 203 jf.

terest in church-going seems to be greater in the West than in the East; but Strong's figures are unduly Hberal estimates for any part of the country.

Statistics also show that church membership is steadily declining in proportion to population. Dr. Strong says : ^ "If the gain of the Church on the population during the first half of the [nineteenth] century is represented by 80, during the last half it is represented by 20, during the last twenty years it is represented by 4, and during the last ten years it is represented by I."

The attitude of the non-attendants is of all grades of opposition, from mere indifference to positive antipathy. Sometimes it is described as "indifference to theology" (this is found within the churches also); more often it takes the more serious form of indifference or even hostility to religion itself. Occasionally there appears a personal distrust of the church or the minister, and even a decided " antipathy to parsons." ^ As we shall soon have abundant occasion to see, the attitude of the majority of classconscious workingmen is, on the whole, an atti-

* Cited in Literary Digest, June 13, 1908; cf. Joseph H. Crooker, "The Church of To-day," 56. *Paul Gohre, "Three Months in a Workshop," 175.

tude of active hostility to anything and everything connected with the churches.

It is a noteworthy fact that the people who are left in the churches are either the well-to-do and wealthy, "the hereditary rich, sheltered classes," or the young people from the shops and the offices, the "soft-handed" workers. The Protestant churches, as a rule, are not made up of the common people, but rather of the employers. ^ There is an apparent exception to this rule in the Negro churches in America, which are made up mainly of workingmen.^ This is to be explained, probably, on the same ground as the other apparent exception, that of the Catholic churches in Ireland: the fact that the people as a whole are struggling together for justice and freedom. In both cases the antagonism of their environment drives them together to the consolations and hopes of religion, and in both cases, also, the usually superior education of their clergy leads all classes to look naturally to them for leadership.

* It is just this shifting of the churches "from the plain people to the rich" which "must be looked upon with discomfort and alarm," according to President Roosevelt. There is a danger of religion itself becoming a class matter, thus aggravating the already increasing tendency toward "class" alignment.

2R. R. Wright, "Social Work and Influence of the Negro Church, 30; Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," 516.

The non-church-going class consists mainly of farmers, factory-workers, and, in America, immigrants. Strong's investigations in New England, Pennsylvania, and Ohio show a very small percentage of attendance from farmers. As for the factory-workers, it has been said by a churchman * who spent part of his life among them, that so far as they are concerned the church has been an utter failure. The attitude of some of them toward the churches he describes as "indecent." The extent of the hostility of some of them is illustrated by the statement of a labor leader:^ "The American workingman hates the very shadow that the spire of the village church casts across his pathway." In England, Charles Booth, perhaps the most competent observer we could cite, says that the attitude of the workshop is " contemptuous."

In a study of the relations of immigrants to the churches considerable allowance must be made for the strong Protestant prejudices of the investigators. Josiah Strong says ^ that "a majority of immigrants believe either in a perverted or superstitious form of Christianity or

2 Cited by H. F. Perry, "The Workingman's Alienation from the Church," 4 American Journal of Sociology y 626. ^L. c. 191.

in none at all." The figures of Grose * show that 52 per cent, of the immigrants are, when they land, nominally Christian. But residence in America soon begins to tell on their nominal allegiance, and there is everywhere a falling off. The Catholics are losing the Italians, the French, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Bohemians, and the Poles. There are over 300 Bohemian freethinking societies in the country. The Irish and the recent flood of immigrants from south-eastern Europe — Slovaks, Slovenians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Bulgarians, Servians, Montenegrins, Ruthenians, and some of the Lithuanians — remain devout Catholics. Time, and the efforts of Protestant "missionaries," will probably destroy the allegiance of these peoples, with the possible exception of the Irish.

This tendency toward defection is not by any means limited to the Christian immigrants. In America and in England the Jews are leaving their ancestral synagogues in great and increasing numbers.

Women have always preponderated in church congregations, and they are now relied upon as the main support of the average church; but

^ N. B. Grose, "Aliens or Americans?"; the most elaborate investigation of this subject I have seen.

THE WAGE EARNERS ii

there is a falling off even in their attendance now becoming noticeable. "Women are beginning to stay away as they take their place in economic life," says Campbell.^ The churches* disregard of their economic and social needs is driving many of them, especially in cities, into other movements. Unions and lodges have reached the women with their appeal; and to it the women are responding, to the manifest disadvantage of the churches.

This movement away from the churches is more accentuated in cities than in their suburbs, as might be expected from the usual difference in the nature of their populations, as well as for other reasons. In the cities, the centres of manufacture and of commerce, "the overwhelming proportion of workingmen is out of touch with the churches." ^ Their indifference and hostility in London, New York, and Chicago, is particularly noticeable. In London only 6 per cent, of the people attend church, while in the suburbs the percentage is 29. In other large cities and their environs the percentages are similar.

One who is actively engaged in evangelistic

* Campbell, "Christianity and the Social Order," 2; of. Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order," 201.

2 J. W. Cochran, "The Church and the Working Man," 30 Ann. Am. Ac, 451.

work may sometimes be led to think that popular attendance is increasing rather than decreasing, because he finds his own congregations full. A famous preacher will observe that he meets large congregations wherever he goes. But he is apt to overlook the fact that the large congregation his reputation has drawn means smaller congregations somewhere else; that he is only taking members out of other churches, and is leaving the mass of the people untouched. J When a briUiant preacher settles in a parish and "builds it up," he has usually, in the picturesque language of Judson,^ "only given the ecclesiastical kaleidoscope a turn, and produced a new arrangement of the same old bits of colored glass. "^ This method is worked frequently and in all places. It may be an advantage to the individual who finds thereby a more congenial church home; but obviously it does not in the least alter the proportions of those "in" and those "out" of the churches.

^Edward Judson, "The Church in Its Social Aspect," 30 Ann. Am. Ac, 430.

Chapter II Causes

TX rHEN we turn to seek the causes for this ^ * widespread movement we shall find them to be numerous and complex. Some of them seem to be rooted in the very constitution of human nature; some are the results of recent developments in social life. Some causes may be called the "fault" of the workingmen or of the churches; others are no one's fault, but are simply inevitable conditions of development. Fairbairn's statement * that the causes of alienation are involved in the whole process which has evolved the present social order is in a sense true; but the process referred to is an exceedingly complex one, and we shall find it more profitable to seek for more specific reasons.

What is needed at present is a comprehensive and detailed study of the reasons, whether ultimately valid or not, which are currently assigned for the popular indifference to churches. Especially do we need such a study from the point of

* Fairbairn, "Religion in History and in Modern Life," 19. 13 view of one who believes that the churches alone are or should be the generators and conservators of that religious spirit without which the highest civilization cannot persist; and who believes, therefore, that the problem now under discussion is the most important problem that could possibly engage our attention. In view of the facts as they are, the best friend of the churches is not the man who, ostrich-like, compliments himself and his little congregation on "the flourishing state of religion," but is rather the man who, in the spirit of the physician intent upon effecting a cure, ascertains and describes the truth, at whatever risk of misunderstanding and personal inconvenience to himself.

I. Ascrihahle to the Wage-Earners

The wage- workers' indifference to the churches is at least partly for the same reason as that of any one else — indifference and resistance to the call of the higher life. They have no consciousness of guilt or sin, or of special need, and they assume that the churches are only for those who have. Moral flabbiness, weakness, viciousness — whether in the cities, where they are the results of overcrowding and bad influences, or in the country, where isolation has brought about degeneration and demoralization — are largely responsible for the present straits of the churches. The people have no longer any feeling of duty toward organized religion. The churches have no charm for them, and they use their Sundays for rest and recreation. This "total depravity" theory, however, applies to the "classes" as well as to the "masses"; to the professional and business man as well as to the laboring man; and it therefore does not entirely account for the movement under investigation, which is so distinctively a working-class movement.

Another reason, and one of great importance, is the growth of materialism among the masses. "Men have grown hard," said a workingman,* " under bitter conditions, and think of God as unjust and unkind, if there be any God." The belief in Providence has disappeared. If there is any purpose in the universe, it is felt to be evil rather than worshipful. Further, the dealings of the average artisan with the forces of nature are such as to drive from his mind any thought of the supernatural. "Force" and "matter" are all that the mechanic needs to answer all the questions he is wise enough to ask; he has no place for the hypothesis of a God. In Germany this tendency has been greatly fostered by the anti-Christian nature of the literature created

* Perry, ^ Am. Jour. Soc, 625.

within the last forty years to satisfy the popular demand for an education. This literature is saturated with the materialism of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. It has spread through all nations. The workman has taken a materialistic, negative attitude toward the soul, toward all things of the spirit, all ideals; consequently religion has no content for him. But this factor, again, is not peculiar to the working people; hence is not a sufficient answer to our particular problem.

Another reason, and one of such vast potency as to demand special study, is the spread of socialism. "Among the more radical social reformers the attitude toward religion is hostile." ^ Says Mr. Charles Stelzle, Secretary of the Presbyterian Department of Labor: "Socialism has become for thousands of men a substitute for the church." The organized opposition to Christianity which is represented by socialism has been too long overlooked and neglected; but the detailed discussion of it must be reserved for another part of this book.^

Short of socialism, however, there is the whole "labor movement," including trade un-

» Francis G. Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question,"

15- a See below. Part III.

ionism and all the numerous movements for the alleviation of the laborers' lot, which do not go the length of social revolution. With the advance of economic and social science, ways and means for the betterment of the position of the working people are becoming more and more clear; " social work " has become practicable and effective, and its urgent appeal is drawing thousands of the best natures into its service. As will appear later, the churches have allowed this work to develop independently of them, and now absorption in it is working deleteriously to the churches' interests. The churches also are or may be centres of social service and agents of social reform; but differences in aim and in method have engendered a certain distrust and hostility between them and the later "secular" forms of service. Thus, the insistence of the churches on the upholding of law and order is distasteful to the more ardent reformers. And for those whose chief aim is the destruction of the existing order of things, which is certainly the aim of the most radical, a negative religion, or the negation of religion, has, as might be expected, superior attractions.

Connected in a way with some of these reform movements are numerous misunderstandings of the object and meaning of religion which are partly responsible for the hostile attitude of the people. Christianity is charged with failure to eliminate poverty — religion, it is said, may have been of some use once, but is of none now.* The church is looked upon as the bulwark and tool of capitalism, and may be referred to thus: "The church and the brothel, police powers and peace powers; in fact, all those things which we look upon as necessary for capitalistic stability.'* ^ The workingmen's contact with their employers in competitive and selfish dickerings gives them the impression that the church stands for the principles they there see exemplified. Further, they are inclined to identify religion with " belief in the Bible," and when they have outgrown the antiquated view of the Bible which is taught in most Sunday-schools, parochial schools, and in many common schools (as, for example, in Germany), they discard religion at the same time that they are forced to give up their old view of scriptural authority. Then follows a period, common to all half-educated people, when "legal proof" of religion is demanded. The fallacies involved in all these misunderstandings can be easily pointed out; but the fact in which we

^ Chicago Convention Industrial Workmen of the World (a labor organization of Socialistic tendencies), 1905.

are now interested is that the workmen do have them, and that they are contributory to their indifference and hostility to the churches.

Somewhat analogous to these is the peculiar misinterpretation of religious observances for which Veblen is responsible.* Ritual, he says, is an exhibition of "vicarious leisure," attesting the greatness of a lord in whose service time and effort may be recklessly wasted. "Conspicuous waste" is shown in gorgeous vestments, churches, and other "devout consumption." "The consumption of ceremonial paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of shrines, temples, churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments, holiday attire, etc., serves no immediate material end. It may be broadly characterized as items of conspicuous waste." Exceptional devoutness — i.e., any at all — is "in all cases an atavistic trait," allying one with criminals and "sports" and the classes of low intelligence and superstition. "So far as concerns the industrial efficiency of the modern community, the characteristic traits of the devout temperament are a hindrance rather than a help." These are not, however, explanations of the obsolescence of religion in industrial communities, for the masses of the people have never been capable of the

» Thorstein Veblen, "The Theory of the Leisure Class."

degree of sophistication evidenced by these ideas.

Another misunderstanding on the part of many of the working people — that rehgion is nothing but a lucrative profession ^ — ^has had a shadow of foundation in the undue emphasis which has frequently been laid upon the financial needs and successes of the church. Methods of public and private appeal have often savored of commercialism in a high degree. The popular jest about sending for the pastor instead of the doctor when the small boy had swallowed the penny, on the ground that "the pastor could get money out anybody," has an element of bitterness in it. The crowds which follow "Billy" Sunday do so largely as a tribute to his wonderful money-making capacity; and the popular admiration for enormous "Missionary Funds," etc., is well known. But the fact is overlooked that every triumph of this sort brings to religion an ever increasing portion of popular disrespect.

One of the chief causes of unfriendliness working in the case of the immigrants is the fact that emigration is frequently due to religious persecution or oppression at home. They do not

* "The English Established Church will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1-39 of its income." Karl Marx, " Capital," preface to First Edition.

move, as did some of the early emigrants to America, in order to establish their own worship where they would be unmolested, but rather to escape altogether from a religion which they identify with State churches. Freedom in America includes freedom from the domination of church and priesthood, and this is as eagerly sought as is political freedom. When America is reached, the first reaction is into atheism, complete alienation not only from the churches but from religion itself; later generations may begin to swing back, as is sometimes observed, but they rarely reenter the churches. The vast importance of this fact will be appreciated when it is remembered that nearly one-half of the population of the United States is foreign by birth or parentage, and over three-quarters of the population in the large cities.^ The consequences of this are far-reaching. This permeation of American life by an anti-church influence has destroyed the power of old American and English habits. By the introduction of Continental ideas of the Sabbath it has helped to reduce church attendance. And especially it has set the example, the fashion, against church-going. It has started the "endless chain" of

* Strong, Z. c, 190; William Z. Ripley, "Races in the United States," Atl. Mo., vol. CII, p. 745.

imitation; and in this case imitation has been particularly easy, and therefore popular.

For, to return from immigrants to natives, fashion operates in the matter of church-going as in everything else. Notice, for example, the effect on the Italian v^aiters of Soho, in London, of the worldliness of the society they are thrown in contact with, as reported by Booth. This "high" society does not go to church; the waiters must be fashionable. In America "society" does go to church, and the waiters would like to follow; but here another cause intervenes, viz., the fact that "society" makes church-going expensive. There is no doubt that the costliness of "holiday attire" keeps out many workingmen and their families. "Working clothes" are not, by general consent, "Sunday clothes." To equip oneself and a family of children in the latter is often a financial impossibility. And the further necessity of keeping up with the better situated members of the church in pewrents, subscriptions, donations to charity, to bazaars, etc., also militates strongly against the workingman with small wages. This process of exclusion is cumulative; for with each decrease in membership the demands on those who are left become greater — with the final result that none but the well-to-do can afford the luxury of religion.

The causes of separation thus far adduced — depravity, indifference, self-interest, misunderstanding, imitation — may fairly be charged to the workingmen. Before leaving this part of the subject to consider the charges which are levelled against the churches with more or less justification, it is only fair to add another cause, which is somewhat in extenuation of the workingmen's faults and mistakes: the influence of their economic position upon the possibility of their responses to religious appeal.

Living on the verge of poverty, with irregularity and uncertainty of employment, must be admitted to be not conducive to the best soul life. Grinding anxiety about the mere means of subsistence shuts out concern for spiritual welfare. The spirit must wait until the body is fed and clothed. Modern factory conditions are unfavorable to religious life. Long and exhausting hours of labor leave no time nor energy for such a nicely balanced view of the whole situation as the preacher would like to see; and the lassitude of the one rest-day out of seven is not promotive of church-going. A tired body means a tired mind; and the average service and sermon are, to say the least, not exactly recreative. The inability to benefit by the churches* ministrations may become chronic.

Women and children whose lives are na^owed and stunted by factory and sweat-shop work are hardly to be blamed if they finally become unable to see clearly the worth of the church and the value of a religious life, and the beauty of ideals. It is psychologically impossible that they should. And it is not their fault. Dr. ^Crooker says : " It is a serious question whether our great captains of industry and leaders of society are not the worst desecrators of the Sabbath that the world has ever seen, though they themselves may regularly occupy a richly cushioned pew!" ^ (^It is not the Sabbath only which is desecrated: it is the divinity of human souls. "^

2. Workingmens Complaints against the Churches

In the following discussion of those causes of alienation which may be properly charged to the churches there is no intention to offer judgment on the sincerity of the churches' work, nor on its theological or theoretical correctness. It may be that many of the charges against the churches are false generalizations from too few particulars, though many of them are admitted by ecclesiastical writers; in regard to others the churches may admit the facts but insist that

* Crooker, /. c, 31.

their position is nevertheless the right one. It would, of course, be much more to the taste of all churchmen, including myself, to suppress or repel these allegations. The immense range and importance of the churches' benefits to humanity are incontestable, but their consideration belongs elsewhere. The justification for enumerating the following charges against the churches is simply that there is at least an element of truth in all of them, or, at any rate, the belief that they are true is a large contributing factor to the present condition. The churches' answer to these will be considered later in this study.*