Cities of Tomorrow
I42 THE COMMONWEAL June I2, 1929 has been laboriously builded. But though one can easily sense this fact, action with reference to it is puzzling. Religion must serve those now living, where...
...The restoration of the Catholic art tradition owes more than a little to this point of view...
...But we still await the definitive report which will tell us precisely where we stand in an endeavor to which our souls are bound...
...Religion must serve those now living, where they live...
...In a phrase well understood this side of the water, it was a case of "bunching hits...
...For as politics go, he is less unenviable than either Mr...
...Baldwin, whose pres- ent status needs no elucidation...
...The status of "social action" therefore demands what the other aspects of religion we have named call for--a careful and search- ing survey of the city from the point of view of the Church...
...Masses need to be said, children await edu- cation, institutions are called for, in hundreds of new- built neighborhoods where grass grew twenty years ago...
...And yet we have long since been aware that, as in the days of early Christianity, the works of mercy must now accompany the work of faith...
...One architect has already suggested that churches be erected skyscraper fashion...
...The fact remains, however, that none of these workers is content with the situation, or unaware of how much need there is for co6rdination and exten- sion...
...Whole portions of the field are, in fact, untilled...
...Concerning domestic affairs, there was the general disappointment over Mr...
...Indeed, Mr...
...others are only partly under cultivation...
...MacDonald, who must gamble his party's future on a minority government in a time of depression, or Mr...
...Of course the Liberals have won only fifty-six seats, and at a cost of $750,000 have increased their repre- sentation in the last Parliament by no more than ten...
...Again, it is advocated that all building be relatively temporary and inexpensive, so as to reckon with a period of tran- sition...
...The sad autumn of 1924 is for- gotten, and Mr...
...So obvious is this modern concession to the Church from without that not a few have seen here the best begin- ning of apologetic effort...
...Lloyd George is in a position he must have coveted...
...MacDonald's nine months in office had not endan-gered the realm...
...So much has been accomplished, from this point of view, that it is hard to do anything but praise earnest and intelligent workers...
...A saint, they hold, is very like an artistma man apart, whose stature has not been curtailed by sordid actuality...
...It must be that the spirit socialistic has been on the growth in England these last four years, a development which may have been prompted by a good deal of economic distress, and encouraged by the discovery that Mr...
...Thus another story could be added, with a new nave and chapel, if the congregation increased rapidly in numbers...
...But all this does not seem to be enough to explain the fact that Labor has gained 137 seats more than in 1924, most of them from the party in power, and even a handful from ministers of His Majesty's government...
...Churchill's final budget, and in no analysis can this be discounted...
...I42 THE COMMONWEAL June I2, 1929 has been laboriously builded...
...Lloyd George may be thankful that the miraculous did not...
...ALL talk of Great Britain returning to a two-party system may as well be forgotten for a decade or so...
...Without these "crime would increase" and all sorts of "destructive social theories" enter the land...
...Here one returns to those subtler realities of the spirit with which, it is widely believed, Christianity retains a definite affiliation...
...Finally, what is the relation between religion and "social action" in the modern city...
...And then, of course, there was Mr...
...WEEK BY WEEK I T IS easy to lay hands on three factors in the British general elections accountable for Labor's moral victory, unexpected in its proportions...
...This, and the fact that fifty-six seats are enough to give Liberalism the balance of power in the new government, retains for the party a reasonable amount of dignity...
...Both these suggestions, however, involve an attitude toward ecclesiastical art--that handmaiden expression of man's reverence for God which is pro- foundly distasteful to modern feeling and, perhaps, indifferent to distinct modern needs...
...The final results have been received with much applause by the more progressive elements in France, Germany and the United States...
...But their effect is likely to be greatest in Italy, where a certain prestige may be given to ideas not in the best repute upon the Capitoline...
...Ramsay MacDonald's luck, which enabled his party to win thirty-six more seats than the Conservatives, with about three hundred thousand fewer votes...
...Many persons for whom dependence upon dogma or confidence in Revelation are unfamiliar habits of mind still think of faith as among the "finer" things of life...
...First was the popularity of a foreign policy The Luck of program which yields in every letter Ramsay to the propaganda of peace...
...And yet we need very much to find out if all this is really worth while, and if it can be sponsored effectively...
...Much preliminary work has already been done...
...In an MacDonald election greatly influenced by women voters, the appeal of proposals to cooperate in every way with the United States for the freedom of the seas, the reduction of armaments, and the repeal of reservations to the anti-war pact, was certain to be effective...
...Modern cities have need of both so that life may not become all utilitarian or materialistic, but wear the graces upon its head as Athens wore Plato and the Acropolis...
...It is certainly one thing to see in the Church "a storehouse of beauty," and another thing entirely to conceive of it as that light and vitality by which all creation is sublimated unto God...
...But the party polled some five million votes, or about one-fourth of the total cast, which ought to indicate that the Liberal temper is active enough in Britain to be in the running for some time to come: to be threat or promise for the future, depending upon your view-point...
Vol. 10 • June 1929 • No. 6
