There is at Annandale, New York, an Episcopal church institution called St. Stephen’s College, having as its president the Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell, who was dean of the cathedral at Fond-du-lac, Wisconsin, for five years, and chaplain of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station during the war. President Bell is a former Socialist, who resigned from the Church Socialist Fellowship at the outbreak of the war, but has not abandoned his belief that the way to confute error is to understand it and tell the truth about it, instead of to lie about it and repress it by force.
Immediately after the war the National Civic Federation invited Bishop Burch of the Episcopal diocese of New York to send delegates to a conference on labor conditions, and President Bell was asked to become one of the delegates; he declined, and wrote Bishop Burch advising him not to send any delegates, “since to do soso would be to tie up the church officially with an organization which is suspect among most social workers of responsibility and reliability.” As a result of this advice, Bishop Burch sent no delegates.
Shortly afterwards word of this came to Mr. Ralph M. Easley, and he was furiously incensed against President Bell. He met President MacCracken of Vassar College at a dinner-party, and “in a most violent and unrestrained manner” announced that he was going to “get this man Bell”; St. Stephen’s College was “full of Bolshevism,” etc. From various other people word came to President Bell that Mr. Easley was attacking St. Stephen’s, “in the same violent and unrestrained manner, selecting especially those persons who were liable to make financial contributions to the college.” President Bell thereupon wrote Mr. Easley a very courteous letter, explaining that he was under an entire misapprehension concerning St. Stephen’s, and inviting him to come there and make an investigation of the place, and incidentally to explain the Civic Federation’s work to the students. Mr. Easley replied that he could not come at once, but would take up the matter later. He never did take it up, nor did he ever accept the invitation several times repeated by President Bell during the controversy which followed.
What Mr. Easley did was to publish in the “National Civic Federation Review” for January, 1920, what President Bell described as “a vituperative article, based on false information and illegitimate deductions.” These words were used by President Bell in a letter to Judge Alton B. Parker, president of the Civic Federation. Said President Bell: “I do not believe that the Civic Federation stands by this kind of thing, and I think it is high time that someone takes your publication in hand and teaches it the principles of honest journalism.” President Bell went on to express his confidence in Judge Parker’s belief in honesty and fair play; but apparently his confidence was misplaced, for Judge Parker never answered this letter, nor any other letter on the subject of the misdeeds of Mr. Easley. What Judge Parker did was to show President Bell’s letter, “with violent indignation,” to the general counsel of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, in the Metropolitan Club of New York, known as the “Millionaires.” He was surprised to learn that this gentleman was a trustee of St. Stephen’s, and that he stood by President Bell. The trustee undertook to obtain from President Bell a detailed statement of the falsehoods in Mr. Easley’s article. So President Bell wrote to his trustee, pointing out a series of ten false statements and inferences in Mr. Easley’s attack upon the college. I don’t suppose the reader will wish to go into these details; suffice it to say that the clergyman proved his case thoroughly, and that his bill of complaint traveled by way of the trustee and Judge Parker to Mr. Easley, who wrote to President Bell, stating that he was turning the whole correspondence over “to a committee composed of members of the Protestant Episcopal Church who are interesting themselves in the subject of the extent to which the revolutionary forces have permeated that church.”
This committee consisted of an obscure lawyer by the name of Townsend, an Episcopal clergyman by the name of Carstensen, and Mr. Everett P. Wheeler, a New York lawyer, whose excuse is that he is eighty-two years of age. Dr. Carstensen was courteous enough to advise President Bell that he was serving on this committee, and asked that an anti-Bolshevist army officer should be permitted to address the students of St. Stephen’s College—which request President Bell cheerfully granted.
About this time happened one of the those mysterious things which may always be counted upon to happen when you are dealing with the Helen Ghouls and the Shepard’s Crooks. Somehow or other the news of the affair gets to the capitalist press; somehow the capitalist press comes into possession of the complete documents—of one side of the case! This time it was the New York “World” which learned that a committee of the National Civic Federation was preparing a report on Bolshevism at St. Stephen’s, and the “World” published this report upon its front page. Dr. Carstensen, who in the meantime had visited St. Stephen’s, wrote to President Bell that he had refused to sign the report. He added that the report was about to be issued officially by the National Civic Federation; to which President Bell replied, expressing doubt that the report would be officially issued. The publication in the New York “World” had raised a storm among the supporters of St. Stephen’s; and, said President Bell, “Easley is not fond of making charges the responsibility for which he cannot easily disavow, when he discovers that he has done something unpopular.”
Sure enough, when one of the trustees of the National Civic Federation came out in the “World” supporting President Bell, Mr. Easley suddenly stepped from under! He publicly denied that he had anything to do with the attack on St. Stephen’s, and declared that the committee had no connection with the National Civic Federation, but that the members of the committee alone were responsible for what they had done! Imagine, if you can, the chagrin of poor Mr. Eighty-two-year-old Everett P. Wheeler! Mr. Wheeler wrote to President Bell to explain that he had nothing to do with the publication, that he had protested against it to the New York “World,” and that he considered it “a shameful abuse by a great newspaper.” The purpose of the committee, said Mr. Wheeler, had been to act toward President Bell “as Christian brethren, and to give you every opportunity to explain your position. We are not without hope that we may convince you that you have erred.”
So you can see what has happened; poor Mr. Wheeler blames the New York “World,” but his aged mind does not go back to the question of who supplied the “World” with the data of which it made use. Who was it, do you think? Was it the Shepard’s Crook, employing the name and reputation of an aged dotard, once a vigorous reformer, as a means to assail a liberal teacher and clergyman? Telling Mr. Wheeler that he is serving on a committee of the National Civic Federation, and that the purpose of this committee is to prepare an appeal to President Bell, in the hope of convincing him that he has erred; and then secretly permitting this confidential material to reach the New York “World”; and finally when he sees that his charges have overshot the mark, disavowing his aged tool, and leaving him exposed to public contempt!
I conclude with President Bell’s summary of what this story shows about Mr. Ralph M. Easley:
1. His willingness to attack an institution and a person because of personal bias, and to involve the National Civic Federation in the task of pulling his personal chestnuts out of the fire.
2. The absurdity of his contention that his society has never attacked individuals.
3. His absolute lack of courtesy in correspondence.
4. His willingness to circulate sub rosa information about people whom he does not like, and when caught at it to deny responsibility in the name of himself and of his Federation.
5. His using of other people for his purposes, telling them only what he wishes of the controversies in which he seeks to engage their aid. This is especially plain in his refusal to tell the committee headed by Mr. Wheeler that this college was welcoming investigation and that it had invited him to investigate for himself or send others to investigate. If Mr. Wheeler had known all this it would have thrown an entirely different emphasis upon the whole situation.