Figure of a Bishop
FIGURE OF A BISHOP OPEAKING at Atlanta, Georgia, on October 7, *^ 1928, Bishop James Cannon, jr., declared that if the Methodist conference which appointed him chairman of the temperence board...
...To this evidence, some of it exceedingly interesting, there is appended a speculative essay written to show that Methodist beliefs and history both insist upon the harmfulness of the "political prelate...
...Well educated, tireless and cognizant of the nature of political maneuvering, his accession to innumerable offices cannot be attributed to chance...
...As a consequence his reputation has suffered from not a few tactical blunders, attributable far more to shortsightedness than to anything akin to dishonesty...
...Surely these things, which belong to the spiritual treasury of the race, are more important than the cheap politics and the extravagant hullabaloo which have characterized the past decade...
...Here also the origins of his Latin-American policy seem to lie...
...Supported as a campaigner, he is denounced as a gambler...
...He is less interested in the religion of Hispania than in the machinery for morals now operating in Hispania...
...Dedicated to two major causes—the evangelization of Latin America and the triumph of prohibition—he has crusaded straight ahead without glancing to the right or to the left...
...Possibly he is not so much antiCatholic as anti-Latin—and anti-Irish...
...Jameson's report on curious methods of handling campaign expenditures...
...The growing reluctance of various Protestant circles to endorse either his doctrine or his practice in toto has been without the slightest effect upon his ambition...
...With this point of view we find ourselves in hearty sympathy...
...Grant him the foundations of his faith and he will live tranquilly enough with you in the upper stories...
...He had made his mark at congresses and conferences, leaving the impression of a strange blend of recruiting sergeant with astute major domo...
...Individually he might be expected to vote for a Catholic who was straight-laced and dry...
...Though the contention that the religious ministry must be completely divorced from politics is not defensible (for when the vital interests of the Church are at stake the ministry cannot remain inactive) the Cannon idea of "preaching the Gospel" is wrong and dangerous from other than Catholic points of view...
...Having made himself ridiculous as a bucket-shop sucker, he proceeded through the miasmas of an exceedingly unwise campaign in Virginia to getting himself involved in Mr...
...No Catholic would ignore either the good evangelical work done by Methodist spokesman in the early days of the Republic, or the many ties which asociate Wesley's labors with the modern Catholic revival in England...
...All these matters reveal the vast limitations of the Bishop's mind...
...One remembers a minister lecturing a village drunkard with these words: "If I could put you in jail for thirty days, you would save your soul...
...As is usual in movements of this character, a great deal of enthusiastic energy was unleashed while poise suffered...
...From several points of view he is as naive as a country postmaster and as narrow as a cowpath...
...Some day, when the diverse hierarchical descendants of Carrie Nation have grown less noisy, there will be time to consider the real history and achievements of the temperance movement in the United States...
...How irritating all this is to proponents of a cultured spirituality may be seen from the attack launched by the Reverend Rembert Gilman Smith, the Georgia Methodist minister who has lately been a thorn in the Cannon side...
...Smith, whose clerical ancestry goes back to Asbury's time, to the Dallas conference are summarized in his book, Politics in a Protestant Church...
...Bishop Cannon is a fanatic, but in several respects a highly gifted one...
...we are merely convinced that it has been lamed, to the advantage of the nation generally and of the Methodists in particular...
...Bishop Cannon honestly believes that even capital punishment would be a blessing if used to help make tipsters sober...
...He was brought up on the wave of "social Christianity," by which was understood using politico-social means to inoculate the citizenry with righteousness...
...FIGURE OF A BISHOP OPEAKING at Atlanta, Georgia, on October 7, *^ 1928, Bishop James Cannon, jr., declared that if the Methodist conference which appointed him chairman of the temperence board did not approve of his conduct, it could have his resignation at the next conference in 1930...
...This has now been in session at Dallas, Texas: and while the outcome is not clear as we write, it is certain that the Bishop confronts a larger array of enemies inside his communion than he bargained for...
...The proponents of this doctrine started with the perfectly sound assumption that moral preparation is needed for spiritual advancement and then proceeded to legislate the preparation into being...
...The charges forwarded by the Reverend Mr...
...The prohibition issue is, of course, the kind of thing which naturally tears the soap box to tatters...
...There four southern Methodist bishops—Cannon, Moore, Mouzon and DuBose—are termed "the four horsemen of the political apocalypse of 1928," and it is definitively proved that all (with the possible exception of the last, who contented himself with inability to "see how any Christian man or woman could vote for Al Smith") opposed the Democratic candidate not only because he was a wet but also because he belonged to the Catholic Church...
...For this reason it is conceivable enough that the Bishop does not consider himself illiberal...
...Despite all sorts of barriers, there are ties between Catholics and Methodists which far transcend any hard-earned allegiance to the tolerant spirit of the Constitution...
...Personally we do not feel that Cannonism will be overthrown...
Vol. 12 • May 1930 • No. 4
