Memoirs of a Fighting Minister
ROY, RALPH LORD
Memoirs of a Fighting Minister I Speak for Myself. By John Haynes Holmes. Harper. 308 pp. $4.50. I Speak for Myself is the autobiography of the minister and social pioneer, Dr. John Haynes...
...Holmes is at his finest when reminiscing about such old friends as Eugene V. Debs, Jane Addams, Stephen Wise, Clarence Darrow, Felix Adler, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger and many others...
...Only occasionally is he sharply critical of anyone, as when he describes H. L. Mencken, who attacked one of his poems, as one "who knew as little about poetry, religion and fair play as any one of the giant turtles on the Galapagos Islands...
...He himself had at various times been a member of the Socialist party, a LaFollette enthusiast and an active partisan of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's reform movement...
...In his efforts to propagate pacifism, he witnessed little long-term success in contemporary America...
...Of them he writes, "they could and would block action, paralyze effort and dictate policies and principles utterly alien to decency and honor...
...It is a moving volume by a man who, whether speaking or writing, instills poetic beauty into a clcar, precise and simple presentation...
...He lists as his greatest reward the modern Community Church standing on 35th Street near Park Avenue...
...Most readers will be struck by his personal references as he brings his autobiography to a close...
...He complains that we don't believe in right or wrong anymore...
...I Speak for Myself parades dozens of characters before the reader...
...Later, he became absorbed in three unpopular causes and contributed enormously to each...
...He writes...
...The final step in this descent into Avernus," writes Holmes, "is to agree that anything is right that is expedient or that we can get away with...
...He was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and served on its Board of Directors for 40 years...
...Holmes' third major social interest was in the protection of unorthodox groups and opinions...
...There is a brief closing chapter in which this liberal religionist debates with himself the question of life after death...
...My life has been a happy one," he says...
...1) "I am appalled by what I do not hesitate to describe as my neglect of my children...
...He discusses why the art of homiletics has declined so rapidly...
...He was a founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, in 1916 wrote New Wars for Old (the most successful of his 21 books) and risked his ministry in a wealthy New York Unitarian parish to denounce American belligerency the following year...
...It is a warm soliloquy, revealing a deep and sensitive faith...
...My birth and parentage," he writes in his opening sentence, "were humble, even obscure...
...Holmes launches into his personal saga on a misleading note...
...Indeed, his Boston home was a beehive of intellectual and cultural activity...
...In earlier years he professed some appreciation of the Soviet Union, which he visited in 1922 and 1931...
...His conviction was tersely stated and restated in his sermons: "War is never justifiable at any time or under any circumstances...
...He writes: "If I have made any enduring reputation, it is as a preacher...
...The reverse was true in the matter of race...
...He mentions two regrets...
...First, among churchmen Holmes is best known as an outstanding pacifist...
...With time, however, he became convinced that Stalin had betrayed the revolution and that barbaric tyranny had triumphed...
...The conviction and eloquence of preachers is undermined by the relativistic approach to moral issues in modern times...
...Holmes has been a great preacher and quite frankly acknowledges it...
...Of several reasons suggested, one is most revealing...
...Unfortunately, we are told very little about his World War II experiences, when he again opposed American participation...
...His second pressing concern was the color question...
...One of the disappointments of this volume is that it accounts for little of Holmes' life during the last 20 years...
...In it, he recounts a half-century of involvement in causes that captured his brilliant and orderly mind...
...It is for the Communist movement that Holmes expresses his bitterest distaste...
...An entire ohapter is devoted to an absorbing account of his visit with Kaiser Wilhelm in exile in Doom, Holland, and his later acquaintance with Mahatma Gandhi...
...Once he was arrested in Mount Vernon, N. Y., for reading the Constitution without proper authorization...
...In this autobiography, Holmes describes in detail his difficulties during World War I. Had the Armistice come some months later, he might have been indicted by a government angered by his recalcitrance and aroused by the fact that the Kaiser's army was using Holmes' statements in their propaganda campaign at the front...
...He also learned the lesson taught by cooperating with American Communists...
...This, he warns, is threatening the whole structure of civilization...
...2) "I would give more time and attention to my church and less (if necessary) to the outer world...
...Holmes was one of the original founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 and worked closely with W. E. B. Du- Bois, James Weldon Johnson and others in building the organization to its present strength...
...He does not account for his rebellious inclination which, as a youth, already identified him with the minority wherever he was...
...The book reveals a different picture...
...Nothing gives me more satisfaction as the sight of a Negro traffic officer at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street controlling with peremptory command the crowds who go when told to go, and stop when told to stop...
Vol. 42 • March 1959 • No. 13
