1. The Interchurch World Movement was a cooperative venture of thirty Protestant denominations campaigning to raise over two hundred million dollars in 1920 for their post-war global work. Large sums were raised, but the ambitious goals were not reached and the movement collapsed in mid–1920 deeply in debt. For a full treatment of the subject see my “The Interchurch World Movement of North America 1919–1920” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1968)Google Scholar, from which this article is drawn.

2. On the social gospel during the 1920s see Carter, Paul A., The Decline and Revival of The Social Gospel: Social and Political Liberalism in American Protestant Churches, 1920–1940 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954)Google Scholar; and Miller, Robert Moats, American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1958).Google Scholar

3. For an account of the conference in relation to the riot, including Tippy's statement, see “History of the Interchurch World Movement of North America,” IV, 107–108, a typewritten collection of documents contained in the William Adams Brown Library of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, henceforth referred to as IWM Documents. See also The Christian Advocate, 05 15, 1919, p. 615.Google Scholar

4. IWM Documents, IV, 109.

5. From a Committee of Seven Report, Cleveland Interboard Conference, May 2, 1919, in Ibid., IV, 110.

6. Ibid., IV, 112.

7. The Boston police commissioner had suspended nineteen members of the force for violating an order of the department forbidding policemen to become affiliated with any outside organization. The nineteen men were leaders of a policeman's union chartered by the A.F.L. When the commissioner refused to reinstate the offenders, two- thirds of the force (1,400 men) went on strike. When gangs began to roam the streets, Governor Calvin Coolidge placed the city under the State Guard. Special officers were sworn in, citizens armed themselves, and Boston took on the appearance of war occupation. The strike sent a chill through the country, and most of the press condemned the strikers.

8. The Industrial Relations Department presented its policy and program to the Inter- church World Movement General Committee meeting on September 24–26 in Cleveland. See IWM Documents, IV, 119–120.

9. Investigations were undertaken, for example, into the coal-mining situation, railway problems, agricultural difficulties, migratory labor, immigration and deportation activities, and the steel strike. See “Industrial Relations and the Churches,” unpublished document issued by the Interehurch World Movement, on file at the National Council Research Library in New York City.

10. See Brody, David, Labor in Crisis:The Steel Strike of 1919 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1965), pp. 13–44.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., pp. 45–60.

12. Labor and management gave different figures of the size of the strike, but 250,000 seems the best estimate. See Ibid., p. 113.

13. An account of the interrogation appeared in New York Times, 10 4, 1919, p. 1Google Scholar. See also Brody, , Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 136–142.Google Scholar

14. Quoted in Murray, Robert K., Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955), pp. 151–152.Google Scholar

15. See New York Times, 10 1, 1919, p. 2:4.Google Scholar

16. See Federal Council Bulletin, II (12, 1919), 193Google Scholar; Lewis, Henry H., “The Pacts in the Case of the Interchurch World Movement,” Industry, 2 (07 15, 1920), 2–5Google Scholar; and New York Times, 09 30, 1919, p. 14:5.Google Scholar

17. McConnell, born in Trinway, Ohio in 1871, received his A.B. from Ohio Wesleyan and in 1899 his Ph.D. from Boston University. Between 1894 and 1909 he held several pastorates in Massachusetts and one in Brooklyn, New York. In 1912, after three years as president of De Pauw University, he was elected bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1919 McConnell had written several books and risen to national prominence as a social gospel leader. For his thought see Hughley, J., Trends in Protestant Social Idealism (Morningside Heights: King's Crown Press, 1948), pp. 54–70Google Scholar. See also his autobiography, By the Way (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1952).Google Scholar

18. See the opening statement of intention in “Report of the Findings Committee, National Industrial Conference of Christian Representatives,” which is printed in full in Interchurch Newsletter, 10 2, 1919, p. 3.Google Scholar

19. Ibid.

20. “The Church and Social Reconstruction” is printed in full in Cavert, S. M., ed., The Churches Allied for Common Tasks, pp. 109–113Google Scholar. For a penetrating analysis of the document see Meyer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), pp. 19–25.Google Scholar

21. “The Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction” is printed with editorial comment in Abell, Aaron I., ed., American Catholic Thought on Social Questions (New York: Bobba-Merril Company, 1968), pp. 325–348.Google Scholar

22. In addition to clerical delegates, there was a number of manufacturers, labor leaders, economists, and social workers present at the conference.

23. Interchurch Newsletter, 10 9, 1919, p. 7.Google Scholar

24. McConnell, , By the Way, p. 214Google Scholar. The resolution passed by the conference is included in IWM Documents, IV, 125.

25. Other members of the Commission besides McConnel and Poling, were George W. Coleman, former president of the Northern Baptist Convention; Alva W. Taylor of the Disciples Bible College in Columbia, Mo.; John McDowell, chairman of the Northern Presbyterian Social Service Commission; Nicholas Van Der Pyl, chairman of the Social Service Commission of the Congregational Church; Mrs. Fred Bennett, president of the Presbyterian Women's Board of Home Missions; Bishop William M. Bell of the United Brethren; and Protestant Episcopal Bishop Chrales D. Williams.

26. Besides Blankenhorn, who acted as Secretary to the Commission, the special field investigators included the following: George Soule, editor and writer on industrial research; David J. Saposs, special investigator, U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations, and expert, Bureau of Statistics, New York State Department of Labor; Marion D. Savage, specialist in economies; Robert Littell, industrial expert; and M. K. Wisehart, member of staff of the New York Evening Sun as special investigator and Washington correspondent, and European correspondent for Leslie's Weekly.

27. The Executive Committee voted its approval of the investigation on October 14, 1919, as recorded in IWM Documents, IV, 125.

28. An article in The Nation, 111 (07 31, 1920), 120Google Scholar, stated that “The report continues the line of important American studies of great corporations—the lines begun by Henry Demarest Lloyd, Ida M. Tarbell, and Paul U. Kellogg.” See also Meyer, , The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941, p. 60.Google Scholar

29. Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, Inc., 1920), p. 21.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 31.

31. Public Opinion and the Steel Strike (New York. Harcourt, Brace and Howe, Inc., 1920), p. 87.Google Scholar

32. Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, p. 21.

33. The avoidance of publicity, strongly advised by the Interchurch Executive Committee (even insisted upon), had been the Commission's policy from the start. See IWM Documents, IV, 124, 130.

34. McConnell, , By the Way, p. 215Google Scholar, described the feelings of the steel leaders as “at first somewhat of amusement, changing to surprise that the Commission should think itself qualified to ask any questions, and at last pain at being questioned.” The Commission fared no better than did organized labor in trying to discuss workers' grievances with management. From November 27 to December 5 the Commission, upon request of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, made an unpublicized, abortive attempt to mediate a strike settlement. U. S. Steel president Gary refused to confer with the Commission on behalf of the strikers. For the full account see Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, pp. 331–341.

35. New York Times, 10 4, 1919, p. 2:7Google Scholar. See also Fisher's report to the Interchurch Cabinet on October 9, 1919, in IWM Documents, IV, 123–124.

36. See Brody, , Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 174–175.Google Scholar

37. Miller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939, pp. 255–261Google Scholar, shows that on the whole, and with great hostility, the American churches opposed labor and played into the hands of management during the steel strike.

38. See Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, pp. iii-iv.

39. Although concrete evidence is lacking, it is reasonable to conclude, on the basis of the Executive Committee's desire to shroud the investigation in secrecy lest its premature publicity hinder the Interchurch World Movement's public support, that the Interchurch leaders preferred to complete the financial campaign without chancing the public introduction of a potentially controversial steel strike report under the Interchurch name. After the campaign they would have plenty of time for a careful review of the report, unhindered by the pressures of securing pledges of financial support.

40. See McConnell, , By the Way, p. 219.Google Scholar

41. The above statements are taken from a summary of conclusions in Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 11–16. The later volume, Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, contains supporting reports of the field investigators dealing mainly with the activities of management and governmental agencies in dealing with workers, with the reaction of churches and the press, and with general public reaction to the strike.

42. See Executive Committee minutes, in IWM Documents, IV 134–135.

43. For denials of suppression see New York Times, 07 2, 1920, p. 16:4Google Scholar; and July 3, 1920, p. 14:8. There is absolutely no evidence in the Executive Committee minutes that the Interchurch leaders opposed publication of the report or even that they “wavered,” as was suggested by Benjamin, Walter W., “Bishop Francis J. McConnell and the Great Steel Strike of 1919–1920,” in Henry, Stuart C., ed., A Miscellany of American Christianity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1963), p. 29.Google Scholar

44. The special committee's report is included in IWM Documents, IV, 138.

45. Ibid., IV, 137, 146.

46. For a brief summary of newspaper usage of the report see Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, pp. 306–307.

47. Ibid., p. 308. The Commission of Inquiry was used to charges of Red infiltration in its program. The same industrial spy system used against strikers and organized labor had been used against the Interchurch “intruders,” resulting in anonymous reports (some published) allegedly uncovering Bolshevik sympathies among the investigators. For an account see Ibid., pp. 71–85. See also Meyer, D. B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941, p. 420Google Scholar (n. 5), for a survey of literature on public reaction.

48. See Brody, , Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 177–178.Google Scholar

49. Meyer, D. B., The Protestant Search for Political Realsim, 1919–1941, pp. 60–62Google Scholar, considers the report “a document of considerable interest for American industrial history,” but a deflection from the basic issue of collective bargaining in industry “to the essentially peripheral scandal of the twelve-hour shift and the stubbornness of one man's will” (Gary). The report offered nothing beyond revelation of “the intransigence of one company and its leaders.” It must be said in defense of the report, however, that Meyer has failed to note that one of the primary findings of the report, as well as a basic plank in the Industrial Relations Department's platform, was the need for workers freely to organize for collective bargaining. Moreover, the recommendations of the report were definitely directed toward the future improvement in labor-management relations.

50. Ward had already made his mark as a leading, social gospel spokesman by the time of his appointment in 1919 as professor of Christian ethics in Union Theological Seminary in New York. Always one of the more radical critics of laissez-faire capitalism, Ward became a Marxist during the depression of the 1930s. He came under fire when the January-February, 1919, issue of the Social Service Bulletin of the Methodist Federation for Social Service (of which he was Executive Secretary) was devoted to Russia and suggested that the Bolshevik Revolution was founded on commendable aims, despite unworthy methods. Later in the year Ward's book, The New Social Order (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919)Google Scholar, also analyzed the Soviet program with calm objectivity. But in 1919 Americans had little tolerance for objectivity toward Bolshevism. On Ward's thought see Hughley, , Trends in Protestant Social Idealism, pp. 89–104Google Scholar; and Meyer, D. B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1941, pp. 145–153.Google Scholar

51. The Tippy-Ward dispute is preserved in a lengthy memorandum sent on February 7, 1920, by Tippy to S. Earl Taylor, General Secretary of the Interchurch World Movement, and John R. Mott, chairman of the Interchurch Executive Committee.