THIS CHRISTMAS
This Christmas THIS Christmas will be a better Christmas for Americans than many that have gone before. Not because more money is being spent. Not because we will eat and drink more. But because...
...The Carlton Hotel's America was the America that the promoters and guides of Nehru's tour carefully protected him from seeing...
...As this is written, young Harrington is under fire for his forthright sermon of last Fall attacking the foes of democracy— and as for John Haynes Holmes, when has he not been under fire...
...America proved its greatness and ignored the cringing and miserly...
...Maybe it should have been performed in front of the Carlton Hotel...
...The significance is the fact that America's was the only one of 14 national capitals to take notice of the racial composition of the tour...
...The significance is not the Jim Crowism of our national capital...
...Whether the foe of independent thought and action came from the reactionary Right or the totalitarian Left, he had John Haynes Holmes to contend with, and still has, for that matter, because though technically Dr...
...It is good that we did...
...Gandhi's last act was the sign of forgiveness for those who murdered him...
...But Nehru wasn't born yesterday...
...There is nothing he can teach us Westerners about production, distribution, conquest, diplomacy, or constitutionalism...
...But merry as it is, it won't be as joyful as the Christmas of those who, like the readers of The Progressive, had the stout hearts to stand up and demand that America live up to the principles of brotherhood and open its doors...
...It means not only that war in general is unjustifiable in general, but that this English war today is unjustifiable for Englishmen, and...
...They went across the street—and we trust that you and we will do likewise—and ate at the Statler...
...That sign symbolized Gandhism...
...War is never justifiable under any circumstances...
...In 1919 the congregation abandoned all forms of sectarianism, even the liberal Unitarianism of the founders, and became the Community Church of today...
...Holmes has always been a man who could stand up straight and speak brave words which, in William James' phrase, pulled triggers in the minds of his hearers...
...Grant that the responsibilities of rule require compromise, as Nehru himself pointed out, with a touch of self-consciousness, in one of his speeches...
...Sampson could not eat with them...
...But because there are going to be at least 116.000 people who know what it means when the great heart of America beats in the tempo of the true Christmas spirit...
...Seeking truth in freedom it strives to apply it in love for the cultivation of character, the fostering of fellowship in work and worship, and the establishment of a righteous social order which shall bring abundant life to men...
...It was she who, when leaders in other lands asked how America could be both democratic and racist, took the floor to explain that the evil of racism was gradually disappearing in America and that most Americans were ashamed of it...
...When the group entered the Carlton dining room, where a table had been reserved, they were told that Mrs...
...That knowledge alone is enough to make our Christmas a merry one...
...At that time Dr...
...Knowing not sect, class, nation, or race it welcomes each to the service of all...
...Sampson had probably done more for democracy on the Town Meeting tour than all the other members of the party together...
...Pat McCarran see more than mere words in the Sermon on the Mount...
...II Dr...
...They had to come back home, after spreading good will and preaching democracy all over Europe and Asia, to be subjected to the peculiarly American atrocity (now that the Nazis are gone) of racism...
...On the eve of World War II, John Haynes Holmes re-affirmed his repudiation of all wars, and once again his congregation respected his decision and gave him its loyalty...
...Yes, this will be a different kind of Christmas—a warmer and better Christmas by 116,000 full hearts...
...Now as Emeritus Minister he will be relieved of some of his heavy ad-ministrative responsibilities and will have more time for creative writing and the book and drama reviewing for which he is so well-known...
...Holmes received on his 70th birthday was a plaque from the Indian Government honoring him for his services on behalf of Indian independence...
...John Haynes Holmes AMONG other plans for our 40th Anniversary issue which went a-gley was one to lend our voice to the grand chorus of good will that came to John Haynes Holmes on the occasion of his 70th birthday in November...
...It is to the everlasting glory of the plain men and Women in Dr...
...India and America JUST as Nehru was completing his hysterical tour of America—it was America, not Nehru, that was hysterical—two small incidents occurred, thousands of miles apart, that told Nehru more about America than he learned on his tour and told us more about India than we learned from Nehru...
...Wherever he went on his frenzied tour, hailed everywhere by businessmen, diplomats, and social whirlers who would not have sat next to him in a public restaurant if his name had not been Nehru, he spoke both feelingly and movingly of Gandhi's religious revolution as the hope of mankind...
...Twice in the course of this man's life he has had to make a decision involving all that he stood for...
...Holmes' congregation that, while many of them did not see eye to eye with him on the matter of our entering World War I, they refused to accept his preferred resignation...
...As Walter White observed, Mrs...
...Is War Ever Justifiable...
...It means, in the last analysis, for me—and for myself only can I speak—that never will I take up arms against a foe...
...Perhaps now, when there is holiday talk of "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men," is as good a time as any to do honor to two Americans, John Haynes Holmes and Don Harrington, who have devoted their lives to peace, the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man...
...This is the first Christmas the Displaced Persons will spend in America...
...Nehru the Prime Minister is not Nehru the revolutionary...
...this German war is unjustifiable for Germans...
...He spoke those words in 1915...
...In Washington, the representatives of 26 national organizations representing 30 million Americans gathered for a farewell dinner after touring the world for Town Meeting of the Air...
...And just as he was leaving America, word was received from New Delhi that executive clemency—Nehru is Prime Minister—had been denied the two assassins of Gandhi and that they would be hanged in a week...
...Holmes has retired, he can never be alive and inactive...
...It means that this war which may in the folly of men come to America tomorrow, is unjustifiable for Americans...
...The only thing he can teach us is the way of personal and political life which will enable us, with all our Western achievements, to save ourselves from suicide...
...Unanimously elected chairman of the Group, Mrs...
...Through years to come, we hope that erect figure will loom in the vanguard of the progressive forces building a new world of peace and freedom...
...One of the incidents was in Washington, D. C, the other in New Delhi, India...
...Edith Sampson of the National Council of Negro Women was one of two Negroes to make the tour...
...Of course it wasn't Nehru who convicted and sentenced the assassins, but the courts...
...But we can do more if we can make men like Sen...
...There were those Americans a few years ago who went fearfully about, wringing their hands and crying that the DPs would take our jobs and share our wealth...
...men is my answer to the question...
...He carries on today in the spirit of the men who most influenced his thinking—Henry David Thoreau, Eugene Victor Debs, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi...
...Among the gifts which Dr...
...he surrendered to it, and he surrendered in his own country and in his own government...
...Non-violence—including the abolition of capital punishment—is India's greatest lesson to the West and Nehru's greatest, if not, indeed, his only mission...
...AH in all, the "retirement" of John Haynes Holmes after 43 years of active ministry is more a matter of the letter than of the spirit...
...But even while he was telling us to go and do likewise, he himself was going and doing otherwise...
...But it wasn't held there...
...His services in behalf of American independence have been fully as great...
...The fact remains that in the hanging of Gandhi's assassins, he did not compromise with the way of violence...
...In the dark days of our national hysteria before World War I, John Haynes Holmes went up in the pulpit of what was then the Unitarian Church of the Messiah to say: "Here...
...The New India is an India of pivotal position in the world struggle between quasi-democratic capitalism and despotic communism...
...There was no international necessity, or alibi, for his act...
...And this means what, in practical terms today...
...He is 70 years old, and he bears the honorable scars of many a battle fought for the underdog against seemingly hopeless odds...
...Holmes retired as minister of the Community Church of New York to become Minister Emeritus of the famous institution over which he has presided with such flaming courage since 1907, and we planned to greet Donald Harrington, the new minister, with heartiest wishes for years of active service...
...He was, however, born 60 years ago, and he is old enough to know that the very heart of the Gandhism which freed India and which he inherited is non-violence...
...Still, he had the power of clemency...
...These thousands have come from the horror camps, the poverty, hunger, disease, and fear of the war-gutted continent to find hope, promise, useful work, and a sense of security such as they have not known in recent years...
...The hanging of Gandhi's assassins was a free act of the Indian Government...
...I say, No...
...The India of Gandhi now spends a quarter of its budget on armaments, a requirement, let us concede, outside its control...
...This is very much to the good of readers of The Progressive...
...The other was Walter White, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
...Their Christmas will be a merry one, we hope...
...The dinner was scheduled for the Carlton Hotel...
Vol. 14 • January 1950 • No. 1
