Br. t im at « ire » m to cead jo La saok afelt* -© lias assists i» iiig. lit considers rnest .%. toll ox*e of ta* strongest Christian chferacters ue ever knew and a raan ri as siu. in his day ft | al s^lfare and spiritual ft ef the aitlSftM cago as any &an of hit acvu&intanae. He aants eacli ssan e lass to aava a oojr of this book. larretar? I LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN B B43324d T . H . S . A BIOGRAPHY ERNEST A. BELL 1865-1928 (^W^^SU^ FROM THE EPIC OF CHICAGO A Biography ERNEST-A-BELL i 865-1928 By HIS DAUGHTER O. B. D. Composed, Printed and Bound by GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY Menasha, Wisconsin DEDICATED TO MARY CHAUNCEY SARAH AXD EDWIN WHO SHARED HIS BURDENS FOREWORD In my judgement Ernest A. Bell did more for the City of Chicago than mayor, judge, clergy- man or any other citizen. His life still lives and will to the latest day of her history. hls mem- ory is a benediction. our only regret upon reading these pages is that we did not help CT /^~*^r££ /^^W<_ CONTENTS Chapter I Canada Boyhood 3 II Perennial Youth 9 III Oxford 18 IV India 21 V This Present Discipline 29 \T Custom House Place 34 VII The Levee 43 VIII White Slavery 49 IX The Courts 53 X Gypsy Smith 66 XI Mann Act 70 XII Segregation 75 XIII The Fall of Carthage 82 XIV Campaign's End 87 XV The Cross Confronting the Night 92 XVI Peace and War 98 XVII Courage 103 XVIII Eighty Languages 106 XIX Open Air Evangelism Ill XX India Again 117 XXI Pentecost 121 XXII Wings 124 A BIOGRAPHY ERNEST A. BELL 1865-1928 CANADA CHILDHOOD Of Ernest Bell's youth we have few pictures. He was born at Shrigley, Ontario, north of Toronto, November 3, 1865. He was named Ernest x\lbert after the new English Prince who became George the Fifth, a fact of which he told the British ruler years later. His mother, Mary Ann, was one of the eleven children of Chaun- cey Stevens, a lame tailor who came to Ontario from Philadelphia. She was quick and trim and handsome, with black hair parted in the middle, black eyebrows over large grey eyes, well-chiseled nose, the lips of a lady. His father, Jonadab Bell, was eight years older than Mary Ann. He was gentle, patient, not strong. His forehead was bold, his eyes blue and deep set, his beard long but not heavy, his speech cultured. We see these two in their farm home, a log house of six rooms, snug and ample. Outside is a varied orchard of pear and apple, plum and cherry, weaving shadows down a long slope to rail fence and maple tree by the road. Within is niceness of good housekeep- ing and pretty things — fine linen pillow shams embroidered in red thread. About them are gathered their children Ernest Albert, William John, pretty Frances Eva, baby Chauncey Frederic. "Why do they call you Jonadab?" It was John asking. "My father named me Jonadab. Ernest, find the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah." He coughed as the small boy, his face alight with eagerness, turned the leaves of the Bible, and, running his finger down the page, exclaimed, "I've found it." "Read the fifth and sixth verses." 5. And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them. Drink ye wine. 6. But they said, We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us saying Ye shall drink no wine neither ye nor your sons forever. "Now the eighth verse." 4 A BIOGRAPHY 8. Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons nor our daughters. "Very well — in England my father belonged to the temperance society of the Rechabites. The Rechabite medal is hanging about his neck now and will be till he dies." Mary Ann was singing in the kitchen — one of those hundred ballads that she knew. "And why do they call Grandpa 'Old Beverly,' " asked Frances, turning her pretty face toward her father. "From the town of Beverly in Yorkshire, England, where he used to live, when I was a little boy. 1 ' Jonadab's eyes grew dreamy. "In the shadow of the great Minster. I can see its towers now, rising high above the town till they disappear in the moonlit fog." "He was a sawyer, a carpenter. He went to Christiana to super- vise construction of gas works. I went with him." "Yes," interrupted Mary Ann, "and you learned Norwegian so well you interpreted for Lord Ellsmere when he was embassador and traveled with him and his daughter. Perhaps that's why you don't talk rough Yorkshire. They'd have given you more educa- tion, wouldn't they? Why didn't you take your chance when you had it?" "My father preferred to bring his entire family to America. He supposed that land meant wealth," answered Jonadab. "I reckon he found it didn't — setting up his house a quarter- mile from the spring in the wilderness. His womenfolk certainly walked far enough at four o'clock on a Monday morning for wash water," countered Mary Ann. "It was pioneer country twenty odd years ago. It is well settled now. Perhaps they have found their reward," he answered pa- tiently. The children's schoolmaster, David Stuart, was remarkable, a graduate of Edinburgh, a lover of the great poets, and a true edu- cator. In his little red school house beneath a great maple he taught the three R's and fed his infants on Browning, Burns, Tennyson, Keats, till William John could recite "yards" of them, and Ernest was dreaming of reading Homer in the Greek. When Ernest was ten years and one month old, David Stuart drove him, and a sixteen-year-old girl, up to Collingwood to take the state examinations for entrance to High School. Afterwards, CANADA CHILDHOOD 5 as David drove the cutter home over the starlit snow, he smiled to see little Ernest asleep with his head on the big girl's lap. He was a pretty boy, skin white and fine, cheeks ruddy, hair black, lower lip a little full, eyes dark and glowing. Soon a letter came from Collingwood. The family gathered around Jonadab in great excitement. "Be patient now," Jonadab opened it and read. Collingwood, Jan. 7" 1876 To Mr. Bell Maple Valley Dear Sir: I am happy to be able to inform you that the ad- mission of your son Ernest to the C'wood H. Sch. has been con- firmed by the H. S. Inspectors. I hope that you may be able to send him to school — am anxious to get hold of such a boy — he is the youngest who passed, the aver- age age being sixteen or seventeen — If you send him I will see that he gets no harm here if I can help it. Doubtless an education will be of greater value to him than anything you could do for him. Very truly Wm. Williams Head Master "I guess you are a pretty smart boy and will do something great for the Lord some day," exclaimed Mary Ann proudly. "Now I wonder what sort of place Mr. Williams can find you." "He's too young," said Jonadab, "I shall not send him yet." When Ernest was fourteen he and William John walked the twenty miles from Collingwood High School to Shrigley Friday after school and back on Sunday. As they walked and the stars came out they talked of astronomy, of latin and greek, of college, of religion. The Bible was the core of both family and community thought. The young folks often attended church and Sunday school at the Methodist Church in the morning and young people's and evening service at the Presbyterian Church in the evening. John favored the Calvinists, Ernest the Wesleyans. Their father had tuberculosis. Religion was his stay and heaven was drawing near. He laid his dying hand on Ernest, "My son, I am building mountains on your head." He asked for scripture and so went to inhabit the stars. This threw heavy responsibility on his sons. At sixteen Ernest wore a mustache, clerked in Berwick's store in Shelbourne, slept in an attic, and sent money home. 6 A BIOGRAPHY At sixteen also he gave his life to the Lord. At that time and place one assumed that this involved preaching in the Methodist Church. Ernest, with the Mustache, is Sixteen. His Mother is Thirty-three. The day he was eighteen he was given his first pastorate as a probationer in the church at Badgeros, as a "young man of pure morals, fine talents, and excellent spirit." CANADA CHILDHOOD 7 There were too many ministers in Ontario. They were crowding married men down into boy's places to live on thirty dollars a month. "If you have any opportunity over there in the States you had better take it," his presiding elder said; so Ernest went to Michi- gan, then Minnesota. It was terribly lonely on the Minnesota prairie. He had the wild roses for company and learned to love them. He saw an advertisement of Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and wrote. The president welcomed him warmly. He could preach his way through college. He spent four years at Allegheny, shy, diligent — a monk's life. Each Sunday he went here or there to preach. The first year he was secretary of the Ministerial Union. His mother and brothers and sister came to make a hospitable home in Meadville. In an article in the freshman paper, he quoted the wisdom of Carlyle, Emerson, Shopenhauer, Shakespeare, Daniel Webster, and Martin Luther on "How to read novels." He won the oratorical prize. He substituted all summer at Jamestown, New York, for a sick pastor. The pastor's daughter, Ellen, was preparing for Meadville. He helped her with her latin. "You must meet my dear friend, Mary Greer, from Willoughby, Ohio, who is going to Meadville, Mr. Bell," said Ellen. At Meadville Ernest introduced his brother John to Ellen and so settled John's destiny. And Ernest met Mary Greer, as we shall see. During Ernest's third year at Meadville Bishop Thoburn came back to his Alma Mater from India. Ernest knew his greatness, feared him, and adored him. Something in the Bishop's disciplin- ary manner aroused all Ernest's self-will. The Bishop's appeal for India aroused his deep devotion. He volunteered, as did John and Ellen, for the mission field. He sat with eight others on the plat- form in the old stone church at Meadville to be seen of men and angels and to be shown off by the Bishop. He went to one of the first conferences of missionary candidates ever held and reported it for the Pittsburgh Christian Advocate for which he was regularly writing. 8 A BIOGRAPHY He graduated from Allegheny in 1888. He had an offer of a place on the mission field and also of a scholarship at the Theological School of Boston University. He remembered the story of the man who decided to begin evangelizing immediately because he said, "He could get his astronomy going up and his Hebrew from Peter and his Greek from Paul." His friends urged Boston. Would that mean sinning at the tree of knowledge? He decided for the univer- sity. His idol, the Bishop, expressed irritation. This threw Ernest into despair. He had sinned after all. II PERENNIAL YOUTH Boston offered him much. It enlarged his philosophies. "Philos- ophy," he wrote, toward the end of his twenty-fourth year, "There are only about three men in the United States that are fit to teach that noble subject. Most professors have learned the terminology and just know enough to bewilder their pupils. My own senior year in Allegheny College had the all but ruinous effect of unset- tling me about everything, leaving me certain about nothing. I said Science and Philosophy have shown me that my senses have been deceiving me, how do I know that Science or Philosophy are not deceiving me. What is truth? "But if you could listen to the clear sense of Professor Bowne, whom Lotze or Tholuck and Joseph Cook have not hesitated to pronounce the greatest thinker that America has produced, you would not feel so completely in despair." Ernest rode on the train with Phillips Brooks. "Phillips Brooks is not a humanitarian in the theological sense of the word. But he is an enthusiast for humanity. He believes God made all men, that He made them for Himself and that He is to succeed better in redeeming mankind than many have been accus- tomed to think. He likes to call men "God's Children" and he hopes largely for human kind. "I do not like him for giving his influence against prohibition, nor for smoking cigars. But I love him in spite of these things be- cause he is a great good man, a saint, a prophet, the very prince of Preachers." Margaret Deland lived in the same street. Of her John Ward, Preacher, he wrote, "The Unitarians glory in it greatly. We owe a great deal to the Unitarians. They have called us back to the knowledge that Christ was man, that human nature is holy, that this world is to be used and not abused. A good part of orthodoxy was too narrow. There is peril in liberalism, but blessed are they who find the perfect medium ground." Ernest's mind was always open. There is much in his letters of 1889-90 to make us smile. 10 A BIOGRAPHY "We had a rich treat. Oliver Wendell Holmes read several of his poems before the students, from very large type because of his fail- ing sight, The Last Leaf, Dorothy Q, The Chambered Nautilus. His voice faltered and he seemed almost overcome by his feelings re- peatedly. Good old man with his warm young heart, we could not but love him. The Last Leaf was touchingly appropriate. But I must confess that I was most interested in Dorothy Q." Of course he was — because there had come to him that discovery of a new world in a maiden's eyes. He had not seen Mary Greer since his Junior year at Allegheny, but he gravely wrote and asked her for her photograph. She as sedately replied. The letters in- creased till he was afraid that "Miriam" would "conclude that Noah's flood had come again crystalized into letters and pamphlets and books." "You asked about Sunday letters. In my puritan days, at Mead- ville and before, I would neither write nor read a letter on Sunday. But now I sometimes do both." Then he began to talk of India. Of taking Miriam to India in the fall. She wrote that she must see him before she could decide her future. He went to University Place, Nebraska, where Ne- braska Wesleyan was emerging from the prairie. On his return he wrote: April 23 My Sweet Miriam, My visit to you has been the very brightness of my life. I went not knowing the things that should befall me there. I hoped and hoped strongly. But my brightest expectations were more than ful- filled. I thank you and thank you. Thank you and your mother and brothers also. I do not think that there are very many young men who are more joyously grateful than I. Most tenderly Ernest PERF.WIAL YOUTH 11 That hour, my dearest, when we pledged our love It was a great, a sacred hour, I know. Beholding bliss so deep in hearts below The angels saw approving from above. Yea, humbly I believe, God's holy dove Touched your sweet heart and turned my winters snow To summer's fragrance when the roses blow, And bade our souls thus blended onward move. I see you still, Your rich dark eyes I see Like what? (In all the universe I find Naught like them truly; I have searched it through) So perfect bathed in springing tears for me. Lips purple-red like Eshkol grapes, inclined Toward mine and kissed, made all this spirit new. II And I have loved thee, Miriam, my heart Is one deep picture-hall where-in one face, Fair face forever wreathed with richest grace Is painted everywhere. Whichever part My gaze besets the same loved dark eyes dart Their brilliance fadeless till they interlace With mine and I walk some enchanted place, Some Paradise, and Beatrice thou art. thou art radiant to my sight! These years Has light transfigured ;ill thy form to me. But God forbade me gaze; 1 must obey. But now at length His mercy dries my tears I love thee now for Him, and Him for thee, And all my soul goes singing on her way. (All the verses in the hook are by Ernest A. Bell.) April 27 I sent some Mayflowers Friday. May they make you think all that is pleasant about John Alden and Priscilla and Plymouth for the flowers came from Plymouth, by reputation at least. Prof, and Mrs. Buell assure me in unfeigned joy of their gladness at my good fortune. Mrs. Buell said to me this afternoon as I met her in the hall for the first time, "I am as happy as you are over it." and all before I had a chance to speak. Is it not wonderful that I should be blessed with such friends? Mary Greer Bell "Miriam" PERENNIAL YOUTH 13 What delightful days must be before us if this is but the begin- ning of our happiness. This rich comradeship of spirit, O what a joy it is to me. Write me, my Dearest, soon and much, and pray be under no constraint about it. May 7. My Sweet Miriam, I wish you were with me, to share my joys and so double them, to share my sorrows and so halve them. The public garden is alive with tulips, snow-white, golden, scarlet, with pansies the most vel- vety purple. The art stores are full of paintings in oil and water colors, engravings, etchings and photographs. I am not artist enough to describe them nor Vanderbilt enough to buy them. So I long for you to see them that we may talk of them together. I love you. Dearest, and I cannot cease To love you. This my heart surprises me; I gaze at wonder; all its depths to see Of proud affection. And it will increase Till death our spirits from this earth release And after death how shall it cease to be? 'Tis of the soul and lasts eternally Advanced and glorified in heavenly peace. Her commencement came and then his. June 5. Commencement is over; the students are scattering. Our eleva- tor has been running almost constantly bringing up empty trunks and boxes and taking them down full. Some of the Seniors go away too sad for words. But they nerve up and say goodbye with a smile. The dear fellows — they are noble men of whom the world is not worthy. He next writes: "I am officially informed that I am to supply the Harvard Street Church, Cambridge, while Dr. Rogers goes to Europe. It is one of the very best Methodist congregations. I shall need great help. Pray for me." June 22 he preached his first sermon in the big church. It is Monday. The ordeal of yesterday is over. The church was filled, with a perfect audience (the world has no better). I was as deliberate as an assassin through it all. The people must have thought me the owner of unlimited brass. I had had a month of 14 A BIOGRAPHY trembling, though that they knew nothing about. I was a little uneasy upon entering the pulpit but soon became as calm as Caesar. I do not feel very proud of my work, but I did the best I could and the Lord stood by me and helped me and deserves my gratitude. Ernest A. Bell 1890 I read the Lord's prayer, to save a slip in that particular. Dr. Buckley, that memory on wheels, says that for four years in his early ministry he never trusted himself to repeat the Lord's prayer without a copy before him. PERENNIAL YOUTH 15 Cambridgeport, Mass., July 4 My dear Miriam I confess to you that I am not robust, though there is not an atom of disease about me. It is beyond my skill to grow very strong while burdened with a severe course in theology or while under the strain of serving such a church as Harvard St. The work of the pulpit is very hard upon me; it takes my very life. I sometimes wonder if the 'Chief Bishop 1 would have me continue it or seek a professorship of Greek or Hebrew or Didactic Theology. But he will make the way plain and that is enough for us. But the way was far from plain yet. Plans for India remained uncertain. "Bishop Thoburn will be home from India in about six weeks and all will be settled" he wrote May 24. Two months later he wrote, July 24 I am small souled and proud hearted enough to be chafed at times because I am obliged to go to India blind-folded as to my work. Most of the men of my acquaintance who have gone out have been instrusted with a knowledge of what would be expected of them. I am sometimes quite feverish about it. Just as if anybody could have any power at all over us except it were given him from above. Dear me, I wish we sailed tomorrow; then the battle would be over. Aug. 1 I have had no word from the Bishop since the letter of his that I sent you. Nor is there any need that he should write. I cannot doubt that he thinks highly of me. But he has the military theory of the church. The missionaries are an army, and he is the general. I am satisfied that it is a useful theory for India at the present time. But it never would do for New England. The Puritan spirit would put dvnamite under it before a month. I spoke with a devout intel- ligent Congregationalist layman about it. He fairly blazed with indignation. It seems a part of my probation to submit to this yoke. Aug. 21 I have a letter from Bishop Thoburn in which he says that he will be "greatly delighted" if we provide for our own passage and sup- port. He says "Your move helps me immensely." I really expect that our support will be raised here without any struggle. I have spoken with three men who among them command millions of our Lord's wealth; and they all manifest the best sort of interest and promise to report when we return. The pioneer missionary heroes had often gone to Asia with faith that their needs would be supplied as they were made known. The pioneer method was not entirely outgrown in 1890 nor were 16 A BIOGRAPHY pioneers like Bishop Thoburn entirely tamed to the Home Boards. On this dilemma Ernest unwittingly fell as he continued his prep- aration. My Present Pride My Promised Bride — As far as I can now plan we shall do best to sail Oct. 25 by the Cephalonia from Boston. It seems to me that we should not have much freight. Calcutta is a center of European civilization and everything is obtainable there. Crawford Thoburn said to me "Take as few clothes as pos- sible and as many books as possible." I am thankful that the heat has not overcome your strength or your courage. It was kind of Mac to send you the black silk. Why wouldn't it do finely for a wedding gown? I am going to wear black! It was very thoughtful of the ladies to see to your sewing. I ordered my suit some days ago. Must I wear white gloves? Must I? I all but despise the whole glove business. America spends five times as much in kid gloves as in missions. Indeed I love you. Do banish the gloves. Aug. 30 On my return from breakfast I find the invitation to our mar- riage. I am glad, my Miriam, I do rejoice. The days grow fewer and soon all our interests will be blended forever. "And Jesus also was bidden, and His disciples to the marriage.'' Tenderly, truly Ernest. He finished his summer's pastorate and started for Nebraska. You and I, my Miriam, have succeeded fairly well at Harvard St. You ought to have heard all the kind things they said last evening when I was about to say goodbye. They presented us with an elegant, parallel old and new versions Oxford Bible with notes, bank notes, interleaved. It is already in my valise and I shall turn it over to you saying, "With all my worldly goods." Ernest was seasick on the Fall River boat, but he was light hearted. His hard summer's preaching was done. A new life in- surance policy was in his bag, two transatlantic tickets and a wedding ring were in his pocket. He had hopes of financial support on the mission field. He went up to the New York Mission rooms and met a bitter experience. The great Bishop who had roused him, exhibited him, accepted him, had somehow failed to connect with the Board con- PERENNIAL YOUTH 17 cerning him. Ernest knew nothing of the general's ways with his Board. He only knew that the Mission Secretaries turned him down; or were they only putting him off. Couldn't they see his view? Bishop Thoburn had written him, accepted him, four years now. His bride was ready to sail with him for India. The passage was engaged, and published. He was timid before the Board. His mind was in a whirl. He felt trapped. No, he would not be trapped! He was on his way to where the Lord had sent him. By faith he would go! At Pittsburg, for his roommate's wedding, he reached a decision to prepare for India by studying Sanskrit and Hindustani at Oxford. A member of the church in Pittsburg where Ernest had often preached encouraged him and gave him funds. Faith! The great missionaries went on faith! So he went to his wedding. Ill OXFORD Oxford was idyllic. They found the humblest of lodgings with a Mrs. Pusey in St. Mary's Road, a parlor and the room above. Mr. Pusey was cook in Queen's College and got them seats to see the ceremony of the boar's head at Christmas. He brought them a taste of it afterwards and told them how a student long ago, pondering Virgil in the forest, had been attacked by a boar but wittily had thrust the volume down the wild beast's throat and so saved himself. A friend introduced them at the Bodleian Library and they went often to read. Ernest read Sanskrit and Tamil at the India Institute. He was profoundly impressed by the Martyr's Memorial where Bishops Ridley and Latimer were burned at the stake in 1555 and Archbishop Cranmer in 1556. He contemplated Latimer's last words, "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." The Three Martyrs Those three were burned, in Oxford here, Near Balliol Gate. The metal cross fixed flat There in the street (the Broad) denotes the spot. The belt of iron, with its rusted chain, From Cranmer's waist, the charred part of the stake That was beneath the ground — you still may see Them in the Ashmolean Museum here. Condemned were they by grave and holy men In council seated in Saint Mary's Church. Obdurate, they held bread was bread, not flesh, That wine was wine, not blood, defying thus The sacred sentence of unerring Church. In this same English speech wherein I write, An old account book, that you now can find At Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, keeps The items of the bailiffs' charges thus: For faggots, staples, chairs, stake, workmen, all — One pound, five shillings, and two pence, "to burn Ridley and Latimer." Again you read — 18 OXFORD 19 For Cranmer's death twelve shillings was the cost — The chain and staples served a second time. Thus haloless the ugly records stand, Just as men wrote them in that lurid day When England's conscience, frenzied with false faith, Drove England's heart, reluctant to such sin. Men's minds went brutal, wild with demon hate, Or stood stock-stupid at the hellish glare — Though simple spirits shuddered at the sight. So men looked on, nor understood the scene. Unfallen seraphs watched from azure heights, Unblackened reasons passion-free and pure, As Christ re-suffered, Fourth amidst the flame, While He again in deathly strife prevailed, And crushed the hissing serpent with His heel. Light flashes far, and truth is living light. That candle, kindled amidst Oxford spires, Has searched the world and now lights all the earth. He thought of the three great religious leaders that had come out of Oxford — Wycliffe, Wesley, and Newman. He had great sympathy with Wycliffe who took the Bible to the common people, and with Wesley who evangelized both England and America. But he scorned Newman who retreated into ecclesiasticism. Newman's influence was still strong in Oxford. Walking in the streets and gardens where Newman had walked, he read the Apologia pro Vita Sua and was startled to discover himself in sympathy with Newman. He saw the placid Cowley fathers — monks of the Eng- lish church. He sat with Mary in New College Chapel while the sunset streamed through Joshua Reynolds' windows and knew that the service would be read whether any man were there to hear or not. The beauty of the liturgical language and form, the security and peace of the establishment quieted the tumult in his soul. He attended the meetings in Oxford of the english missionary societies, the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel, and the Church Missionary Society. "The C. M. S. expends annually more than a million and a quarter of dollars and had last year ten thou- sand baptisms." He did some preaching in country churches but did not seem to meet the situation. Then his money failed. His friends forgot him. 20 A BIOGRAPHY Bishop Thoburn was in London. He went up to see him. For three hours the bishop belabored him. Then ordered him back to America. The conflict scorched the pages of Ernest's little diary. I am as surely a called missionary as any man who is in India. So I testified and so you believed. I cannot repudiate at this late day a call so long acknowledged to be valid. If you could and would stand for me in the day of judgment I might in some lazy and despairing hour resign the conduct of my life to you. But for the present I am blessed with courage enough to continue moral existence on my own account. If there is room for me in the missions of the Methodist Episco- pal Church as they now exist in India, to them if it please God I much prefer to go. As much as in me is, I am ready. But if there is not room in those missions for me I will go to India any way if it please God. The covenant is with the eternal. I only await his time. Ernest told the great scholar who taught him Tamil that his own mission board had cast him off. "I was once a Wesleyan myself" his teacher replied, "but went back to the Church of England. You too will come to us. Eventu- ally all the sects will return to the Church which is the mother of us all." He gave Ernest material to read concerning "Reunion." A con- ference had been held at Lambeth in 1888 to give serious thought to the means by which the sects could be reunited to the English Church. Christian Unity became one of Ernest's ideals. Then Dr. Clark of the American Board of the Congregational Churches was in London and offered Ernest a position in Ceylon. Ernest felt that he could not become a Congregationalist. "That is of no moment," Dr. Clark replied. "We ask only service in Christ's name and believe you can give that." The reply made little impression on Ernest till a later time. He was going to India! In the summer his first child was born. Ernest took her to the tiny gem of a Norman Church at Iffley for christening in the Church of England. IV INDIA The steamship Mombassa sailed from London. Mary watched the gangplank lifted. Her face blanched. Ernest was ashore. There he was on the dock, running. He caught a rope and came up. For the rest of his life he was early for boats or trains. That which he learned by experience he knew and observed tenaciously; to that which he had not experienced he was strangely blind. On the Mediteranean he wrote his hymn Unite Thy Church, O holy Lord, Bring Christians all to one accord, In pentecostal love. There were other missionaries on board. They saw with interest the hulls of the discarded wooden navy at Gibraltar. They lost with a sense of relief the pulse of the engines as the boat crept through the Suez canal. They laughed at the perennial joke about shooting all persons who step on the grass at Perim, because there is no grass. They watched the range of Sinai. The captain told them that sometimes when the wind was with the ship he had to put about to get breath, in the Red sea heat. They celebrated Christmas in the Indian Ocean. Through the grey of evening they caught their first glimpse of India — the mountains of Travencore. In that solemn moment Ernest dedicated his life to India. At Colombo they transferred quickly to a small coast steamer that took them through the shallow water north of Ceylon to Jaffna. Missionaries were on the low, palm-fringed shore to welcome them. In a two-seated carriage drawn by five brown men they traveled to share the hospitality of different mission homes until after twenty missionaries gathered at a station conference. They approached their own broad bungalow through a border of oleanders and croton. The garden was full of English roses. Tuberoses oppressed the air with sweetness. In a tripod on the deep porch, drinking water dripped coolly from one porous jar to another. There was a tarantula on the window-sill and a dead cobra in the yard. 21 22 A BIOGRAPHY The baby's nurse, Para Purinam, delighted Mary with her poetic name and great soft eyes. The boy who whited Ernest's helmet and shoes came to him in distress. His wife had died in the night. Ernest consoled him tenderly but found the grief short lived. It was only his second and inferior wife. An old native preacher helped Ernest greatly during his first days of preaching. Mary invited him to dinner with them. The missionaries hurried to tell them that it simply wasn't done. Ernest wondered if the missionaries too were cursed with caste. He quickened the zeal of the workers. He organized a plan to reach each of the villages in turn. In one hundred days he took part in one hundred seventy meetings. He spoke in the villages, in the bazaars, under the palm and tamarind trees, in the mission bungalows, on the street corners, in the moonlight. He conducted a class for the workers. He got in touch with the native young men. He found a fine young Brahmin who wanted to cooperate with him in temperance work though not in religion. He was interested in a boy who wanted to go on with his education. From twelve till two o'clock each day and all day Monday he rested in the bun- galow but six days and nights each week he was evangelizing. The most heathen spot he found was a settlement of miserable huts on the beach at Valvettituri. He was cautioned that it would stir up trouble if he went there. He went. The men stoned him. The women scolded and were reported to have scolded in his de- fense. He went at sunrise ten times. At Oxford he found rest and uselessness hard work. At Jaffna hard work and accomplishment were rest and he seemed tireless. Then Mary was at the point of death. They must get her out of this climate if they could and into a higher altitude. The native men carried her cot on their shoulders through the shallow water to the little steamer. Mutely Ernest's eyes met the eyes of the other missionaries who went with him. "Could they get her to the hills?" It was a week's journey. v Young Dr. Scudder came down the Ghaut to meet them. When the bearers that carried her chair fell into their rythmic pace he switched their legs to break the step. He held his hypodermic in his hand and brought her safely to the help that cometh from the hills at Kodai Kanal. Mary could never return to Jaffna. INDIA 23 The native pastor wrote, "Thank you for all the kindness to me. I always remember and talk with others how you stirred us all up to work more effectively and diligently. Your earnest and stirring and also sweet address are not forgotten. We do indeed hope that you and Amma and baby will be here soon to make us warm with your warmth." The currents and cross currents of Ernest's soul had not yet found channel. That tenacity, which, for good or evil, made him hold on to any idea that really reached his soul, until that idea in some way became deed, carried him now to the Church of England. About this ecclesiastical change from the American Board to a mission board of the established Church of England, he had plenty of advice. "If this impulse is from God time will strengthen it. If not, time will cure it. Wait," one missionary advised. "I hope you will rind peace. There is no mortal so miserable as one who is unsettled in his ecclesiastical relations." sighed another. Ernest replied, "I can't expect you to understand 'instanter' what it has taken me months of pain to arrive at." His brother wrote him, Now sir, the Lord called you to no such nonsense. If he did then I'm an atheist, square toed, I mean an agnostic. Trusting that our mutual tendencies to make asses of ourselves may soon cease, I am, affectionately, Your John." Nevertheless Ernest wrote Dr. Clark asking what adjustments were usually made with the American Board when another board took one of their missionaries. Dr. Clark was grieved at the miscarriage of his plans but an- swered kindly that outfitting expenses were usually repaid by the other board. Having burned his bridges Ernest turned hopefully to the An- glicans. "To its everlasting credit be it said that the established Church of England is doing more missionary work today than any other religious organization on the globe." One of the English missionaries, named Dodson, was more like a brother to him than any other mortal in eighteen months of loneliness and upheavel. Another thought Ernest would be welcomed by the Anglicans in a great new field where recruits were sadly needed. That, of course, 24 A BIOGRAPHY depended on the Bishop. The Anglican Bishop of Madras saw him and gave him encouragement, and assigned him a temporary work as a lay worker on a pittance. Ernest taught in the boys' high school and studied. He found shelter with "Padre" Goldsmith, one of the few missionaries to millions of Mohammedans. Dear Padre Goldsmith was to instruct him in the things necessary for him to know. When Ernest's action became known, the heavens thundered. The Jaffna missionaries, hurt and disappointed, imputed many motives. A beloved Boston professor, Dr. Buell, wondered how he could find apostolic succession important on the mission field. Some suggested that he must now pay back all funds used in edu- cating him as a Methodist. That was laughable. Some sent him books to read. With each new criticism, the man who wished to shriek at petty mistakes suffered unendurably. "Don't be too hard on your critics at this time for in nothing do men feel more strongly than in this very matter" Jones of Madura said. "This isn't from God," Mary cautioned, "because it makes you so bitter." Ernest looked at the Mohammedan families who had found refuge with Padre Goldsmith. They were separated from their friends and all things because of religious change. Perhaps the meaning of this suffering was that it gave him an understanding of what it cost the heathen to change their faith. The storm of criticism died down. Wearily Ernest hoped that now he was launched on fifty years of effective service in India, and that he had found peace. After two hundred days the Anglican Bishop sent for Ernest. He was kind. They discussed Ernest's theological reading. The Bishop found Ernest eager to go into the Anglican work but not at all convinced of various churchly claims. The Bishop thought that in three months' time, however, he might be prepared for or- dination. Such ordination would be a prerequisite to missionary work. Ernest uttered a cry of agony and went out. The bishop's secretary hurried to inquire its meaning. Ernest was ordained. By the sanction of three million American Method- ists, he was an ordained minister. The Bishop himself in his own INDIA 25 handwriting had addressed him as "reverend." Thiswas not Church Unity. Ernest did not learn till later that a congress of churchmen at Grunewald at that time was discussing this very problem of or- dinations and finding it equally hopeless. The Bishop gave Ernest personal sympathy in his distress, called him 'reverend' but made it plain that he must exercise the prerogative of that ordination elsewhere. When Ernest took the news to Mary they stood as if turned to stone. A letter came from the American Board. The treasurer stated that the bill for passage and equipment was one thousand and fifty dollars. Ernest could personally have met a million about as easily. It hung over him like a nightmare. The Anglicans would not consider that bill now. "I should rather die three deaths than attempt another ecclesi- astical change," Ernest groaned, and in bitter humility again begged Bishop Thoburn to take him into the Methodist missions. There was an opening at Jubbulpore. Jubbulpore is situated at the center of India where the eight- eenth degree of longitude crosses the tropic of Cancer. It was thought the high dry climate would be good for Mary. Ernest was to be pastor of the little English-speaking church, a few mission- aries, a few government and military men, and a few Eurasians. He was a devoted pastor to them and looked eagerly for contact with the thronging needy life of India. He went with his presiding elder to the bank of the Xerbudda river where the Hindus congregated in great multitudes to wash their sins away. A living stream of humanity five miles long kept pouring out of the city for hours, young and old, men and women on ponies or bullocks, in carts or wagons, a multitude walking. A blind girl walked with her hand on a woman's shoulder. A boy was carried on a chair of spikes. Cripples, beggars, lepers, the refined and the rude, the clean and unclean, mingled in one dense orderly legion. The whole plain seemed teeming, crawling with human beings. All India was like that, swarming with three hundreds of millions. The sense of the vast innumerable awed him. Here he was with one experienced missionary and a few native helpers, singing, preaching, giving out tracts to the few who cared to listen. All the 26 A BIOGRAPHY missionaries in India could not reach those vast throngs alone. If Jesus himself had spent one day in a village of India every day in the last two thousand years, he would not yet have set foot in all the villages. Native preachers, the best men of India, must mul- tiply the work. Were the missions training native leaders? That was the crux of the matter. He went home and began to train a native boy for the ministry. The unbroken heat was oppressive. Mary adjusted well to this higher altitude and was happy with two babies, but Ernest could not sleep and his head ached constantly. One day by chance he fell into religious discussion with a man on the street. Friends provided a neat upper room and seated themselves to listen to Ernest and Rungopunt. Each Saturday for ten weeks in the flaming heat of the hot season they discussed the greatest themes which man can consider. 'The John's gospel that I gave you?" questioned Ernest. "Is lost," answered Rungopunt, "but the important contents are in me. You know, my dear friend, that I am a perfect theist and a firm believer in the Great Power. As you say, He is really our common Father, and I trust He shall soon unite all His children together." "Do the missionaries help?" Ernest asked. "Ah yes," replied Rungopunt with dignity. "It is the will of the Most High that India shall be elevated through the great, loving, and kind exertions of the disciples of that Most Exalted Jesus." When Ernest was ill it touched him that this Brahmin of the fierce Mahratta tribe, with the pride of four thousand years of priestly supremacy in his blood, should disregard the prejudice of his caste and come to Ernest's home to see him. Bishop Thoburn came to Jubbulpore while Ernest was ill. He took Mary for a drive and told her bluntly that if her husband hadn't adjusted to the climate yet he never would. He would break and eventually go insane if she did not get him home. INDIA 27 A Fear 'Tis not death that I fear nor disease Nor poverty's crushing embrace Not the loss of my friends or my ease Nor the frown of my enemy's face; But this is the woe that I fear The anguish I shudder to find A poverty lonely and drear A bankruptcy born in the mind. O hear me my God as I pray — Deny what Thou wilt; Thou art wise — Turn not from my pleading way Nor the wail of my spirit despise. His little church presented him with a grateful memorial on parchment. Rungopunt came down to see them off on the train at three o'clock in the morning. Ernest was ill on the long voyage home. He had failed. Back in America — no one seemed to have any further use for him. One of the Methodist mission board wrote him "get yourself a position as quickly as possible. We will have nothing further to do with your support." He looked in the mirror to see what the faces of the damned look like for he was surely one of them. He walked out of town a mile and lay down under a maple tree and prayed that God would take him away. Deep within his own soul came the reply "Christ died for all. It is enough. Be calm." 28 A BIOGRAPHY One came to see me whom I did not know, Nor did she welcome find. Her mantle old Clung round her form in many a dismal fold. And she was veiled persistently. And woe She carried in both haggard hands, And though I shrank and shuddering would have told Her go nor come before the stars are cold, She staid, she touched me, laid me writhing low. From many pains I rose renewed at length With spirit humbled, penitent, restored And joy dwelt with me like a living thing. Rich perfume filled the air. A strange new strength In all my being thrilled. Be blest, O Lord, Thou sendest her, veiled angel, suffering. Christ risen from the dead He lifteth up thy head Though low thou liest. Glory he gives to dust Trust God, in Jesus trust, Hope in the Highest. V THIS PRESENT DISCIPLINE Ernest brought with him from India a dream, a vision of an Oxford in India. The Hindus, the most highly intellectual and the most deeply fallen of mankind, must bring forth great leaders. Could there have been a John Knox to save Scotland without Edinburgh; a John Wesley without Oxford? Where was outstanding Christian leadership in India to be nurtured? Against the background of India's teeming ignorance he saw a cooperative group of colleges — manned by different Christian nations and by different denominations working together to create an enlightened native ministry. A native Hindu poet wrote in the Independent of New York January 1894, "We have become despondent and do not know to whom we should go for help." "You Americans are well versed in all arts, and are well known for your benevolence. Be therefore pleased to tell us the best means of removing the ocean of ignorance in which our people have been plunged." In the same issue Ernest first published his dream. "I believe that no greater work can be done in India at the present time than the founding of a distinctly Christian university in the heart of this Empire." In Jubbulpore he had given one pie, which is a sixth of a cent, the least of coins, to be a mustard seed to grow into a university. He had begun to train one boy for the ministry. Word came that the boy died. But his dream would not die. Still, he had no strength to make it come true. He went to St. Joseph, Missouri, where his brother John was practicing medicine, and preached in a small church. He told his fellow ministers, prophetically, "There are in our city Confucians, a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, Russian Jews, Italians, Syrians. The publicans and harlots ought to hear the gospel. I know that this is a difficult and delicate business, but I am convinced that it ought to be done. If I had the power, I would have the gospel preached in the worst part of the city by the ablest preachers every night in the year for ten years to come. It would transform this wicked city!" ' 29 30 A BIOGRAPHY Then he served a little Presbyterian church in Nebraska, but some of the members felt he must subscribe literally to moot points of the Westminister confession. Was it impossible for him to be honest and do the Lord's work and have bread anywhere on the globe? He wrote the American Board: Dear Bretheren: When I carried my wife out of Jaffna at the point of death, and was myself in the midst of a fierce spiritual struggle, you released me on condition that the society accepting my services pay you an indemnity of S1050. Other societies were willing to entertain my services, but would not meet your claim, which, being pressed upon me with other burdens, broke me down. I have not been able to meet your demands except about one hundred dollars which I have sent in small sums. Nor have I pros- pect of doing so unless I should cease from my ministry to Christ's poor and become successful in money making. I therefore offer to return to your work in India or anywhere. If three years would suffice, my wife and our children could remain in this country. I would collect my own passage going and receive no outfit." To which the Board replied, ''We do not want you to carry this burden which has been weighing so heavily upon your heart. You may, therefore, regard yourself as legally released." He went to the Chicago Theological Seminary, Congregational, for a year's work. One evening as he left the seminary, a young woman spoke to him. He wondered if she were in need of help. Turning, he suddenly realized what she meant. It startled him. That sin had never confronted him personally before. Now in the very shadow of the seminary buildings a harlot had tempted him. He ran home to Mary and the children. He had a student pastorate at forty dollars a month. The church was twenty-three miles from his home, though both were in the city of Chicago. These beloved parishoners called him back for the next thirty years for pastoral service, but they sometimes for- got to feed him. Then he saw to the building of the suburban community church in Maywood. This was actual church union. But Ernest was a prophet, not a preacher. He could say the same thing to many audiences. He could not say many things to the same audience. THIS PRESENT DISCIPLINE 31 India was suffering with terrible famine. Lady Curzon, who had been Mary Leiter of Chicago and was now Vicereine of India cabled to Chicago: "The government is relieving nearly five million per- sons, and the worst has not yet come." Ernest received letters from his friends in India with appalling pictures. He became secretary in 1897 and again in 1900 for the Chicago India Famine Relief Fund which raised and sent some twenty-five thousand dollars. The chairman of the Famine Fund was fine old Dr. C. C. Bon- ney, who had organized the World Congress of Religion at the Chicago World's Fair. Ernest discussed with him his dream of an Oxford in India which had lain on his soul for seven years now. Some had ridiculed him and called it madness. Was it? "No, no," Dr. Bonney said. "I have a strong conviction that you are not wasting your time and energy in this matter." Ernest published his pamphlet, "An Oxford in India," and set out to interest some one of large means. Dr. Bonney thought that an initial sum of five thousand dollars would enable them to launch the idea among rich men in the East and England. Ernest wrote letters to wealthy people: Dear Madame: Dr. Rossiter Johnson, who keeps records of such matters for Appletons Encyclopedia, tells us that the gifts of rich Ameri- cans to various public interests, chiefly educational, amount to $421,410,000 since 1893. Last year opened the century with such gifts amounting to $107,360,000. The heart of civilized mankind has been deeply moved for India in the famine. But the famine of mind and heart involves even more of India's millions, and will require greater and larger effort for its cure. We are asking the friends who helped with the famine fund to help with the fund for India's Christian education. "Dear Sir: It will take about as much to equip a first-class University in India as it takes in this country. With one million rupees in hand, say $400,000, we could ask a charter from the government, build and equip a hall for young men and another for young women, and begin the work of instruction. India's 300,000,000 people are as hungry to be taught as ever they were to be fed. I am willing to give my life, in cooperation with trustees and as- sociates who may be chosen, to carry forward this high purpose; or I am willing that others shall do it entirely, so only it be done. I invite your counsel and your cooperation." 32 A BIOGRAPHY He received no encouragement. Was it lack of faith on his part? Why did not the Lord empower him? "I have been baffled in most things thus far," he wrote, "as all dreamers are at first, and some of them at last." The struggle became for him now not only how to raise funds, but how to know that a vision was of God; how to know when God spoke; how far and in what ways God answers. The builder of the universe could build the university. Why didn't he? In agony Ernest wrestled all along that undefined border between spirit and matter, prayer and answer, the power of God and the freedom and responsibility of man. He went through much of the experience of the race in these matters. He tried to heal a sick woman by prayer. He asked for a sign in silver, and a man put a silver dollar in his hand. He asked for a sign in gold, and a man put a five-dollar gold piece in his hand. He saved the coins as of special significance. He tithed himself scrupulously. He beat his breasts. He tried all moods and methods of prayer. He wore out copies of the Bible in Greek and English, studying, under- lining them. He got books on prayer that did not agree. He wrote his own prayers in a little book. He hunted up praying people. They sympathized with his inner struggle and advised him variously. Friends at the Hebrew mission exhorted him to quit teasing God, to have faith and repose and patience, to be still and see God work. His diary of 1903 is like a restless symphony, his prayers beating now loudly on the skies, now moaning like a hurt child in its fathers arms, at last quieting to chastened resolve: Feb. 3. If it truly be thy will to build the University by my minis- try, Empower me, if not deliver me. July 22. This day is the tenth anniversary of Thy commission to me, as I have believed, to build the Christian University of India. July 28. O Lord, Will India ever be more heathenish or more ignorant, or in more desperate need of being taught? Will the native church ever be weaker or more in need of Chris- tian nuture? When will India more urgently need the University than now? What is gained by delay? THIS PRESENT DISCIPLINE 33 Defer not for thine own sake. O my God. Aug. 4. Anniversary of my father's entrance into life. Truly God has been a father to me. What severity! What tenderness! What ceaseless care. Sept. 6. At the Lord's table at the Bible Mission I desired of the Lord to give me the work He desires me to do, and means to work and grace to do it gladly and wisely and acceptably to Him. Sept. 10. Very urgent and bold on the ground of God's call and covenant with me for India. Help me, pitiful Savior. Sept. 24. In the spirit S.B.S. prayed that my present discipline may be fruitful of great good, and that the present tribulation may work out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Oct. 2. Mr. Richards prayed quietly and fervently that God will answer me beyond all my thoughts or prayers and make me a chan- nel of blessing deep and wide and abundant. He added a calm, strong and assured statement that it shall be so accomplished. His friend Harvey Reeves Calkins wrote him from India: Your going to Oxford after Boston, and last of all to Chicago Seminary, your association with the Methodist Missionary Society; your preaching in Congregational, Presbyterian, and Methodist Churches has, I think, been God's ordering that you might see the broader good which is in all the churches, and thus give you the breadth of view necessary. Your many changes have, of course, been fatal to ecclesiastical preferment. Keep on believing. The vic- tory will be in the nerve and fiber and glory of your own soul. To me sanctification is not so much the devotion of the closet as the martial fire of the field of action. The bringers to pass of God's acts in the world have swung out on an Omnipotent Christ. Thus Ernest came to the strong channel of his life. VI CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE The Oak Park Elevated train thundered and swayed toward "the Loop." It passed dull flat miles of dingy one- and two-story houses with green yards and blackened fences, monotonous flights of back stairs, frequent small factories and occasional large fac- tories, occasional parks beneath the smoke, occasional churches. Ernest kept his eyes but evidently not his mind on the small Greek testament in his hand. It was August, 1904, and destiny was riding with him. Poor, battered, known chiefly to the Christian people of the Chicago Missions whom he had sought in his spiritual struggle, shabbily but scrupulously clad in unpressed black trousers and alpaca coat, he lifted his handsome sensitive face from his testa- ment and turned his glowing eyes to the panorama of Chicago that clattered past him. Six miles, seven. The buildings were higher now. He looked into second-story windows at sordid sights. The train reached the characteristic odor of Halsted Street, that street that ran straight thirty miles north and south from city limit to city limit, past the homes and shops and smells of every race of mankind. Chicago held more Jews than Jerusalem, more Scandinavians than Christiania — more prostitutes than Babylon. God — he had dreamed about India. Something had to be done about Chicago. The buildings rose higher and blacker. At the opaque river the "L" train was delayed while the bridge remained open for a big boat to pass — Chicago was one of the great ports of the world. Chicago was the railroad center, Chicago with her unheeding roar and rush and push, Chicago with her two million souls. The bridge closed and the "L" went on. Oh God, Chicago with her infamy! In the little missions they had opened his eyes to things he never dreamed of, hells the ministers in the big churches never mentioned. Beside him rested his little black case of stereoscopic views. He was earning now S50, now S75 a month, writing explanations on their backs. He enjoyed searching the poets and the travel books in the daily quiet of the Crerar Library — if only it would pay enough to give food to Mary and their seven. 34 CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE 35 Today he was not thinking of that. Today he saw the forces of evil undermining Chicago. Today he saw the insidious hosts of sin. Today — he rose in his seat. Today in the name of the Lord he would declare war. "O Lord of Hosts, Amen.'' As he left the elevated platform and started down the long stairs he saw a man lying prone. Graciously Ernest spoke to him. The man whined for money. Ernest possessed forty-five cents. He hesitated a moment, then held out a quarter. The man reached for it. "Just a minute, brother," Ernest said cheerfully. "I am a preacher. Did you know money preaches?" The man looked bored. "What is the date on this coin?" "1904," the man growled. "Do you know that means 1904 years since Jesus was born?" "Do you know what these are?" "Wh! huh! stars." "Do you ever look at the stars? They declare God's glory. Can you read this?" The man evidently could but only grunted. "In God we Trust," Ernest read, "Now listen: We trust in God, who made the stars, because Jesus was born 1904 years ago. Look carefully, and remember what I said. See if you can find out more about God who made the stars and Christ who was born 1904 years ago. Trust God." The man snatched the coin. Ernest smiled. "Be good," he said cheerfully. As he picked up his black case and walked off quickly the beggar raised himself and looked after him curiously. On the corner below Ernest paused to buy five cents' worth of salted peanuts. He took from his pocket a little memorandum book. He loosened the rubber band around it and with his fountain pen entered in extremely neat tiny print his expenditures, "the poor, .25" and "lunch, .05." He replaced the rubber band, returned the book and pen to his pocket and went on. Ernest turned at 441 South Clark Street and went up the steps of Beulah Home South, the rescue home opened a year before by Mr. and Mrs. Richards. What a history the place had! In the year of the Spanish War Ernest's friend Boynton had been taken by Rev. J.G.A. Henry, 36 A BIOGRAPHY D.D., on a tour of the underworld against which the good pastor was then fighting. He had seen this building resplendent as a night club, boasting of its titled patrons from abroad and of its wealthy Chicagoans. No secret was made of the business carried on — it was under full police protection. The madame carried a key to the patrol box on the corner. In the end she shot herself and the probate court refused to allow the place to continue its immoral use. After being vacant for a time the house had been acquired for the Rescue Home. The house of sin became a house of prayer. Since last Thanksgiving a little group had been meeting there weekly. They had in common the love of God and knowledge of an appalling traffic. Here and there Lucy Hall or other deaconesses rescued a desperate girl out of the maelstrom of vice — but how many thousands were being swept into the abyss without even the protest of God's people. "How long; O Lord, How Long!! I am weary of much talk." Ernest opened the door and glanced in at the well-known group of about twenty persons, ministers, deaconesses, evangelists — a company of the saints come together to pray that God would inter- pose against the destruction of young girls and young men in the shameful resorts of Chicago. Miss Rudy was entering now, a strong, capable Christian, who hoped to go to China as a missionary. "Sister," he greeted her, "You know the Babylon in Custom House Place? Will you come back tomorrow night with a view to holding a meeting there — before the houses of shame?" She hesitated. "Miss Rudy, will you stand with me, for the Lord says where two agree he will do what they ask?" "I will," she said. "Praise God." They went into the meeting. "Shall we all sing a hymn." It was the vigorous voice of Rev. Melbourne P. Boynton — strong, young, long-chinned, impulsive. He straightened out the long legs from the rocker that was too small for him. "Number 200." Fight the good fight with all thy might Christ is thy strength and Christ thy might Lay hold on life and it shall be Thy joy and crown eternally. CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE 37 The piano, which had been donated, was a little wheezy. Ernest was no singer but he sang through the first stanza to a tune of his own. Then he fell into thought and, as they went on singing, he forgot them entirely, his black eyes fixed as on some heavenly vision. Boynton was speaking, "A business that no language can de- scribe and no clean mind can imagine, a business where vile men own young women and live upon their earnings, the wages of sin. This has burned itself into my very heart. But there are so few trying to stop this traffic. Rescue work is being done but the trade goes on. The wicked are not interfered with. The laws are weak and there are many loopholes. The workers are few and not of the earth's mighty. None of the churches and ministers are actively engaged. Here and there is a mission, now and then a rescue home opened. What can be done?" Ernest rose with his Bible in his hand. Ezekiel 3:18-19. 18. When I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand. 19. Vet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wick- edness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. He closed the book. "There has been enough talk. The time has now come to carry the word of the Lord into the street of shame. A police permit can be obtained. Miss Rudy has agreed to come with me. Will all that find it in their hearts to do so come here tomorrow night at eight for a season of prayer. At ten we will go into the street." Intense excitement followed the announcement. Deaconess Lucy Hall would be there, quiet, steady, persistent. "I'll preach the sermon, " Boynton offered, "but I don't know what my church will say. People in general don't know the situa- tion. They don't believe it when we tell them. Some of them don't think a minister ought to find out. I've been with my church six years but I don't know what they'll think. It is not according to the accepted order that a minister of a large city church should browse around the slums. It's clear enough in my own mind, a Christian minister has to do more than hold out high morals and 38 A BIOGRAPHY fine ideals. He has to rebuke evil in all its forms and especially that kind of evil near his own doors and in his own city." "I believe that the man who is set to guard the moral interests of a community must know first hand what the dangers of youth are, where the traps for boys and girls are set, what the bait used is, how the ruin is wrought. The daring youth and the toughened rascals soon detect whether a man talks from aroused conviction and a pointed purpose, or whether he is just preaching in the air. I'll be glad to preach." Ernest raised his hand beside his head in a nervous gesture that he had, with a short ejaculation, "Oh!" Then "God be praised," he said. "Let us pray." So they got on their knees before their chairs and prayed. No amateur prayers those. Men before battle, missionaries in the face of persecution pray no more deeply. In agony of soul they again laid the burden of the sins of a great city before God and it seemed that the very throne room of the universe was opened to them. Their knees shook as they set forth, a little band of fifteen pioneers that Friday night in August, 1904. They kept the police permit close at hand in case of trouble. There was very probably going to be trouble. One side of the street was dark warehouses. The other blazed with the lights of immoral resorts. The saints chose the quiet side of the street and began to sing. Windows went up in the resorts — curtains were pushed aside, men wandering along stopped and looked on curiously. The voices growing stronger with the second hymn, could be heard inside the buffets across the street. The door of one opened and out came a shirt-sleeved fellow with huge shoulders, heavy jowls. He lunged towards them. Here was trouble indeed. "You guys," — he swung his powerful arm, "you guys come on over on the light side for your meeting." A friend. He told Ernest he was a blacksmith by trade. "Go back to blacksmithing, brother, and save your soul." "I would if I could sell out." "Don't wait to sell out, smash the place and get out," Boynton added vehemently. CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE 39 "Well it is the gol-darndest business." Ernest spoke to a Deaconess. "Now you sing, sister." The lights from the white buffets cast a strange pallor onto her face as she sang in a clear soprano. Throw out the life line to danger fraught men Sinking in anguish where you've never been. Strong male voices joined in the chorus. A crowd gathered. Boynton began his sermon. "The wages of sin is death. We earn wages. We sin and we earn death. But life is a gift. Eternal life is the free gift of God if we leave our sin and come to him." In the respectful silence that followed, Ernest lifted up his voice and prayed. We have no record of that prayer, but it was the dedi- cation of the Midnight Mission. June 6, 1905 Ernest dropped a card to Boynton — "The summer is begun and will soon be ended. Are we likely to do some work for darkest Chicago?" The work had dwindled during the winter. He himself had had to work hard at his writing for support. But what of the night? One by one he got in touch with the saints. They gathered at Pacific Garden Mission, a famous place with a great history, where Billy Sunday had found a new way of life. But the men who needed it were not coming in — they were on the streets outside. If you want to catch fish, go where they are. Ernest had preached under the trees in Ceylon. Williams, founder of Y.M.C.A., had preached at midnight to the street walkers of London. Jesus him- self had set the precedent. Going out from the Pacific Garden Mission they stopped at a suggestion from Ernest before three tall resorts. Men drifting through the street, began to gather around, silent during the praying. A deaconess — in her neat black deaconess suit and bonnet, with the crisp white ties under her chin — mounted the box. She looked straight into the eyes of the men and boys now three deep around her. "Men and boys, what are you down here for? I have been a nurse in an insane asylum in New York and I know what some of 40 A BIOGRAPHY those men and boys are there for!" She amplified her subject. The street was as alive with men and boys as State Street with people at four o'clock in the afternoon. The crowd deepened. Two splendid looking boys, brought up in good homes, laid their heads on a mis- sionary's shoulder and wept for their sins. A tall, well-dressed man, coming out of a resort, seeing the deaconess garb, covered up his face with his hands. A business man took the deaconess's place and continued the exhorting. Men went down on their knees. A boy went past to one of the resorts. Ernest quietly followed, and touching him on the arm, said, "Sonny, I have three boys — come with me." And they went away from the noise of the crowd and talked for some time. Ernest walked a little way with him. "Will you go straight home now, son?" "Gosh," the boy said. "Gosh." And suddenly he darted off, running home as if the powers of evil were in pursuit. A young reporter was waiting for Ernest as he returned to the edge of the meeting. Ernest greeted him cordially. "I'm a Jew. My name's Nathan. I'll say something to these men if you want me to." "Fine, brother, fine." Ernest was glad of every new recruit. To keep up a meeting for three, four, five, occasionally six hours in one place with a shifting crowd that is held by no convention, only by interest, takes energy — the energy of many different people. Nathan climbed on the box. For forty minutes he spoke with the earnestness of a prophet. The sweat poured down his face as he reasoned of righteousness and temperance, with some inference to judgment to come. A very handsome young man stopped to listen. He looked around, and seeing Ernest with his Bible in his hand, spoke to him quietly. "I am a Christian and a church member, and I have never gone wrong, but I was just about to go into one of these houses while waiting for a train, when I saw your gospel meeting, and have been kept back from sin by your message. Most men would be ashamed to tell you, but I tell you for your encouragement." Sometimes the preaching continued from ten o'clock at night till three in the morning. Workers reached their homes after day- light, with hearts almost bursting for gladness because many sin- ners had repented. CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE 41 At first the keepers of evil resorts were respectful and to a degree friendly, but the meetings increased greatly in power, with such results that the keepers complained that the missionaries were causing a loss of two hundred fifty dollars an hour. The manager of the "Montreal" told them that he wished they had reached him when he was a boy. He said, "If you Christian people keep on coming we must go." On September 20, 1905, Ernest wrote to Mr. Victor F. Lawson of the Chicago Daily News: Dear Sir: If you cannot help me light darkest India, will you help me light darkest Chicago? All summer I have been laboring in the very fire, along with missionaries, deaconesses, pastors, and redeemed men and women, in Custom House Place — which is Hell Gate — in mid- night evangelism among those who need it most. Gamblers have knelt on the stones of the street to repent, and children of the church going astray have been recovered to the right life. While I assert no authority over my fellow-workers, con- siderable leadership devolves upon me, and the work would proba- bly not be done without my doing my part. We use the Pacific Garden Mission, informally, as a base for our street work. Very sincerely yours, Ernest A. Bell October 18, 1905 Mr. Victor F . Lawson Dear Sir: Many thanks for your check of S50.00 for the gospel work in Custom House Place. Nothing I saw in India so nauseated me as the abominations of that street. A repentant man told me that he had seen enough there to make the stones vomit. The time is now here, I think, when decent citizens can make an effectual demand for the extermination of vice from that street, on the ground that it is now in the business center and directly on the line of travel. The Erie railway for New York, and the Santa Fe for San Francisco are linked at the Dearborn Station. Residents of other states are appalled and indignant as they pass through our city — or when their sons and daughters do so. Gratefully yours, Ernest A. Bell Near the end of October, such representations were made to Chief of Police Collins that he ordered the meetings stopped at ten o'clock — when of course they were just beginning — on the 42 A BIOGRAPHY ground that they disturbed the sleep of lodgers in hotels two blocks away! Thereupon, accompanied by Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, Miss Lucy Page Gaston, Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, and others, eleven in all, Ernest called upon the Chief of Police. The group expressed very great surprise at being stopped in their work, which was en- tirely lawful, and requested the Chief to cleanse that street of resorts which were entirely unlawful. This he promised to do, on condition that they would not stir the newspapers or arouse public sentiment to compel him to do it. They accepted his word and awaited fulfillment. Two months later, Christmas 1905, he notified the resorts, and published in the newspapers that they must vacate on the first of May. During the intervening months the white slave traders, gam- blers, keepers of the most disorderly saloons, and some property owners and real estate agents who made money out of that pre- cinct, raised a slush fund, employed an attorney, and used every device in their power to gain a continuance of their traffic in the heart of Chicago. They went to Mayor Dunne with an offer of $50,000 if he would allow them to remain for four months more in Custom House Place, which he refused. Chief Collins told Ernest of this, and added, "Mr. Bell, I told them, "If you had Marshall Field's money you cannot stay here after the first of May; as I am Chief of Police, so help me God!' " And he drove them out. Most of them found refuge in the Twenty-Second Street Vice District. Because of its ill repute, the very name of Custom House Place was changed. VII IN THE LEVEE Ernest now attacked the Levee. The "Levee," the immense Twenty-Second Street Segregated District, was a place set apart, a city within a city, whose only business was to break the seventh commandment. A city wholly given over to adultery, under permission of the police, exempted from the penalties of the statutes and ordinances that prohibit the crimes and misdemeanors perpetually practiced there. The "Levee," blazing with electric signs in letters a foot high, was regarded by thousands of visitors as one of the chief sights of Chicago. Men and youths from the whole city and the whole world were drawn there if only from curiosity. Cattle men from Montana and Texas came with their loads of cattle, and having disposed of their stock and received their money, hurried to the Levee of which they had heard a thousand miles way. Its brothels were as open to the public as grocery stores. They flowed with illegal liquor. They were bold, unashamed, and un- opposed. There were a thousand prostitutes in the district. There was the Everleigh Club, elegant, glittering, sending out expensive advertising literature. Its proprietors were two sisters from Virginia, hard as steel. They had suffered at the hands of the world and vowed to get from the world all it would pay. They buttoned their modish black silk with diamond buttons and paid as high as $160.00 for their girls. They spoke in one breath of the freedom of their house from disease, and in the next of having paid for 150 cases among their girls at a nearby Christian hospital. They catered to millionaires. They fawningly helped one man grey and tottering in his cups up the steps and ushered him behind heavy curtains of concealing velvet. When he crept down again watch chain, purse, studs, were gone. It would be difficult for him to explain that robbery. There was "bed bug row," at the other end of the scale, where the dregs of humanity, flung aside and steeped in drugs and drink, sold to other humans tragedy, disease, insanity, death. 43 44 A BIOGRAPHY On the streets in front of first one resort and then another Ernest and his band preached to the passing crowd. Respectable people had no conception of the multitude of men and youths from avenues, boulevards, suburbs, slums, who swarmed those streets, especially Saturday and Sunday nights, sometimes at the rate of four thousand an hour. It was Ernest's purpose to alarm, instruct, and convert these men, for their own sakes and for the sakes of innocent wives and children. Sizing up the drift of the crowd, Ernest placed the box six feet from the curb in the street and mounted it. A theological student and one of the deaconesses began distributing a small leaflet headed "Keep Thyself Pure," which quoted the law of Illinois against keeping and patronizing an immoral resort, gave medical testimony on the consequences of vice, and pointed to a holy life through Christ. From his box he could see Dr. G. H. VanDyke, clinical lecturer in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of Illinois, speaking with another group of the Midnight Mission farther down the block, and knew the good doctor was giving straight medical facts. "Young men, where are your heads?" Ernest touched his. A man nearby guffawed. "One night I dreamed that I saw a young man stepping care- lessly on and off a railway track near a curve around which the express would come thundering and screaming at any moment. Whether on the track or off it, the young man was indifferent to danger and wanton in his movements. But as I looked I saw in my dream that there was nothing whatever above his coat collar — he had no head." Again guffaws. "That explained his recklessness. He was void of understanding." Ernest raised the Bible open in his left hand. "The word of God which says, 'Void of understanding they gather by troops at the harlots houses not knowing that the dead are there and her guests are in the depths of hell.' " "You bring your money with the burning name of God upon it (he raised his right hand from his pocket and held a silver dollar toward them) to buy the abominations of Sodom." "Yea, but, Mister," a young chap interrupted, "Them girls has got to live somehow, ain't they? Do you want 'em to starve?" IN THE LEVEE 45 "Is there no good woman who needs your dollar? One young man I knew came down here to spend money his poor mother had earned washing." "But what would happen to the good women if there were none of the other sort down here?" an intelligent man asked from the curbstone. "That is the lie in the people's minds," Ernest flashed back, "That is the devil's dogma. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, lent his name to that in a passage too well known, and Edwin Arnold put Lecky 's folly into verse. I've heard Lecky 's false statement quoted before the physicians' club of Chicago. I have heard it often from the vile men and women who create, promote, and exploit vice. The creed is assiduously preached by dive keepers and madames throughout the world. Thereby they have their wealth. By her diseases, which she sells to men who become the husbands of good women, the harlot is responsible for more than one-fourth of surgical operations on good women. She is responsible for much of the blindness of helpless babies. From the harlot through you heedless men there may go out to your wives, your children, tumors, abscesses, locomotor ataxia, blindness, insanity, death. "What about criminal assault?" from the curbstone again. Again Ernest was ready. "Good women are a thousand times safer where no such hells exist to manufacture degenerates. Men who consort with vile women lose their respect for all women. The newspapers have given you some fine examples lately of how harlots protect good women. You remember the Gentry murder? Constantine was used to associating with harlots. When a good woman who was his landlady resisted him he murdered her." "Three blocks from here where there are a thousand protectres- ses of good women, a thirteen-year-old girl was criminally as- saulted. I have that story confirmed by the police officer who ar- rested the criminal, and was roughly handled in the discharge of his duty. You can find him on the next corner and verify this if you wish. "Lecky's lie goes on because it gives consolation to the wicked. Have I answered your question?" "You very evidently know what you are talking about," the man replied and remained on the curbstone. 46 A BIOGRAPHY Again Ernest lifted up his open Bible and began quoting pas- sages with a voice of solemn power. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that ye will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perversions." "The wages of sin is death." "If thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity." "Thus saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but let the wicked turn from his evil way and live." "Turn, Turn, Turn." Slowly he spoke, with authority. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon." For God says, "Ye shall be clean." "From all your filthiness I will cleanse you." "And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye search for me with all your heart." "And a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh." "And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." "Ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." "I will also save you from all your uncleannesses." Then pointing upwards, "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our pease was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." "0, Turn, Turn, Turn." The very spirit of the prophets whose words he quoted seemed in Ernest. There was perfect silence till a man in the gay costume of a fraternal order in convention in Chicago passed them some- what intoxicated, and got the eyes of the crowd. Ernest spoke to him but he did not hear. He got down from his box and taking the man by the arm pulled him back beside him and still holding him 48 A BIOGRAPHY remounted and shaking his finger in the man's face with a voice of solemn scorn exclaimed, "You liar, you hypocrite, you sneak. You have vowed by your fraternal oath to reverence God, and obey the laws of your country. You come down here in all your regalia to blaspheme God, to defame womanhood and break the law of the land. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Neither will he hold his anger forever." Now holding him at arms length. "Be gone, get you home, repent and bring forth works meet for repentance." The man was sniveling. Ernest let him go, and someone in the crowd catching his tone added, "Get out, get out of here" and the patrolman watching pushed him a little ungently on his way and snarled "Git out." VIII WHITE SLAVERY Ernest, and the few who pioneered with him, felt very lonely in the midst of the unheeding strongholds of wickedness. Some- times they were almost crushed. Then Ernest would slip into the shadow of an alley and on his knees "tap the resources of God." Revived, he would slip back to the meeting. How could the workers, men and women, keep the slime of the pit from con- taminating them if they did not carry heaven with them and keep in heaven's atmosphere? "Report to me," Ernest cautioned the volunteers and watched closely- "Knowledge of evil is not evil, but we must keep very fine those instincts of the soul whose loss makes this inferno possible." Every meeting began with prayer. In the small hours of the morning when the work was finished his exhausted helpers won- dered why he took time to pray again. "We must put our efforts into the hands of the Lord before the work is lost," he said. Through his reading Ernest found that there were other lonely souls who had fought the evil. There was no written history of the conflict till William Burgess came to Chicago from England and wrote it years later. Ernest pieced together the facts and became familiar, little by little, with the scattered and uncoordinated literature in the field. He soon surpassed most of his contempo- raries in insight into the whole problem. He learned the history of that heroic pioneer, Mrs. Josephine Butler of England. In 1866 the so-called Contagious Diseases Act fastened onto some of the cities of England a system of state regu- lations and medical inspection of prostitutes invented by Napoleon as a supposed safeguard to the health of his armies. The system had failed as a hygienic measure, actually increasing vice diseases where employed, as statistics showed. It had added other evils, including the corruption of police officials and the spreading of traffic in women. At a time when the Victorian conspiracy of silence was still actual and women much restricted in public en- deavor, Mrs. Butler had waged her twenty-year fight until the act was repealed in 1886. 49 50 A BIOGRAPHY In 1885 Mr. Stead had been sent to prison for publishing in an English paper facts concerning a sensational traffic in women for immoral purposes. He actually bought a woman and turned her over to the Salvation Army to prove his contentions. Victor Hugo, writing to Mrs. Butler, used the striking phrase "Traite des Blanches," translated into "White Slave Traffic." In 1898 William Alexander Coote, continuing Mrs. Butler's work as secretary of the English Vigilance Association, became aroused over the conditions he discovered in tracing missing young women, sometimes in England, sometimes on the Continent. It was the old story [he wrote], the promise of a good situation, or the promise of marriage. Once in the hands of the traffickers, they were hurried away, until the highest bidders obtained the virtue, the honor, the life of the victim. For a long time I had known of the existence of this traffic. I had not dreamed of the scientific and widespread and business-like character in which it was conducted — the explanation of the dis- appearance of thousands of girls so often reported missing. The darkness of the picture obsessed me. Surely there was some way of combating this gigantic evil. It was world wide; whatever the remedy, it would have to be universal in its application. If I could go to every capital of Europe, if I could enlist the lead- ing people and governments of each country, if I could induce the governments to meet in conference and decide to deal with it from an international point of view, surely the evil would not only be checked, but to a large extent eradicated. Inspired with this thought, Mr. Coote tramped through Europe. He reached the German Emperor and Empress and enlisted them in the cause. Then he went on to country after country. In 1899 the first Congress for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic was held in London. In 1901 Maurice Gregory of London, with Dr. Janney of Balti- more had an interview on these questions with President Theodore Roosevelt. As former police commissioner of New York, as a Christian gentlemen with one standard of right and wrong for men and women, he was deeply interested. As Maurice Gregory spoke of the mistake of the law striking the woman and letting the man go free, Mr. Roosevelt set his teeth, his eyes flashed through his glasses as he pounded the open palm of one hand with the clenched fist of the other, to emphasize every word, and said, "Yes, it is mean, it is detestable!" WHITE SLAVERY 51 In Julv 1902, in response to an invitation by the French Govern- ment, sixteen countries were represented in the foreign office in Paris to consider measures to break up the traffic. The result was an international agreement which was later ratified by the United States. Article 2 showed the need of what we call traveler's aids in the railway stations, a need quickly met in Europe by women of the Catholic Church, and in America by undenominational boards. (Ernest was a charter member and until his death served on the Chicago Board.) Other articles dealt with repatriation where necessary, the abuse of employment agencies, etc. This movement had not gained wide publicity. America was quite blind, being very busy with other things. To be sure, Charles X. Crittenton founded the first Florence Crittenton home and mission about 1883 in New York. Through his work of rescue he learned facts which every policeman and every judge of the police court knew, that almost every girl in a house of sin was supporting some man from her ill-gotten earnings — either her husband, who had driven her on the street that he might live in ease, or her paramour, or some individual or organiza- tion who had promised immunity from arrest. Many had at first fought for their liberty — some had been drugged or kept under lock and key until hardened. Some had their clothes taken from them, some were cajoled by promises, or intimidation. "Many times in those early days, when I would talk to my business associates and tell them of conditions in Xew York City, although upon ordinary subjects they had the greatest respect for my truthfulness and conservativeness, they would look at me with pity for my misguided opinions. When they got behind my back they would shake their heads and say, 'Crittenton has gone crazy. Do you know he believes now that girls are held in slavery in Xew York City against their wills for immoral purposes.'" But there had been plenty of evidence. In 1893 Rev. Wiley J. Phillips in Los Angeles had fought a dis- graceful crib district, where oriental brothel slavery was evident. One of the richest of the Los Angeles vice mongers, a millionaire Italian, was put in the chain gang and the cribs demolished. In 1904 B. S. Steadwell of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, editor of The Light, had investigated vice in St. Louis where the World's Fair was in progress. In 1905 the World's Purity Federation was or- 52 A BIOGRAPHY ganized and a conference called in Chicago, October, 1906. Ernest, a veteran of two years now, cooperated eagerly. The conference met in Abraham Lincoln Center, the church of Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Ernest reported, "Among the speakers was the late Rev. Sidney Kendall, whose soul was torn and bleeding over the shame of making commerce of women. Some of his spirit remained with a few of us in Chicago, and we did not rest until some effort was made here to rid us of the shame of slavery in the twentieth century under the flag of the free." The convention brought like minded people together and gave Ernest new friends and new strength. On November 11, 1906, he wrote to Arthur Burrage Farwell of the Chicago Law and Order League, Sir Arthur, will you please lunch with Dr. John Balcom Shaw, Pastor Boynton, Secretary Gates, and a few others at the restau- rant of the Y.M.C.A. on the seventh floor at one o'clock Monday? Very respectfully, Bell" The business which had been urged by Dr. Shaw of the Second Presbyterian Church was to organize the "Midnight Mission." By the first of the year the organization was complete. President Rufus S. Simmons, Attorney Vice Presidents Rev. John Balcom Shaw, D.D. Pastor Second Presbyterian Church Rt. Rev. C. P. Anderson, D.D. Bishop Episcopal Diocese of Chicago Rev. F. H. Sheets, D.D., Assistant Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D., Pastor Chicago Avenue Church (Moody's) — Secretary Rev. M. P. Boynton, Pastor Lexington Avenue Baptist Church Treasurer Edward Browne, Wholesale Lumber Superintendent Rev. Ernest A. Bell Ernest now had an organization back of him. He needed it; for the Mission would now attack the organized traffic of "White Slavery." The iron bars on the windows in the red light district must come down. IX THE COURTS On the morning of January 30, 1907, Ernest met Richards of Buelah home. "We have an interesting case," Richards said. "I had to get the police to rescue a girl from a resort because the madame refused to surrender the girl to her own mother and stepfather. The madame said the girl owed twenty dollars for clothes." "To whom did she say that?" Ernest asked. "To all of us, the mother and father and to me." Ernest was visibly excited. "Did the girl want to leave?" he asked. "She had tried every way to escape and finally got a letter out to her parents. They went for her and were refused. They came for me. We finally had to get the police." "Richards," Ernest said eagerly, "that's a case we can take into court with three good witnesses if the parents will testify. Where are they?" "Mrs. Blank," asked Ernest gently when he met the mother, "for the sake of other girls' mothers will you take the witness stand?" The next day he took the case into Judge Newcomer's court at Harrison Street. It was an historic case, the first of many White Slave cases in Chicago. On that day, Hon. Clifford Roe, who was in the court, first had his attention called to the white slave evil on which he later wrote more than one book and against which he devoted his energies, as Secretary and General Counsel of the National Vigilance Association. In his book Panders and Their White Slaves to the writing of which Ernest lent some assistance he described the scene in court: The court room that morning was crowded. "The next case," called the Judge. A thin, frail young woman, aided by a physician, walked slowly into the court room and took her place on the witness stand, her careworn face suggesting that she had passed through some terrible crisis. She said that she lived with her parents on the north side of Chicago; that she was twenty years old and a high school graduate. 53 54 A BIOGRAPHY "I was then employed in an office down town and one of the girls suggested that we attend a dance on Saturday night. I met this young man. After one of the dances he asked me if I would like some soda water to cool me off. I drank, and went to sleep. "A day or so later I became strong. ' 'Where are my father and mother? Am I in a hospital or where am I?' I asked. "The negress at my side smiled and said, T haven't seen your father nor mother, dearie.' "I asked her for my clothes; she told me that the madam had them locked up. " 'Madam,' I said, 'who is the madam?' 'Why,' answered the negress, 'She is the lady that runs this place.' ' 'Please, may I see the madam?' I cried out, for I was becoming terribly frightened. The negress came back with a short, stout, blond woman, wearing a kimona and diamonds, and many other jewels. ' T don't know how I got here, or where I am, or how long I have been away from home, but I wish to go home right away, be- cause I know that my father and mother will be awfully worried about me if they don't know where I am. I have never been away from home over night in ray life.' 'You can't go home now, you owe me a debt and until that debt is paid you cannot leave this house.' " T owe you a debt,' I cried, 'and what for?' ; 'Why don't you think that you owe me anything for taking care of you here, and for the clothes that I have bought for you and for the money that I have paid the young man who brought you here for his trouble and expenses? Of course you do.' "Then she told me to get up and dress, in a little short skirt that scarcely came to my knees." The girl seated upon the witness stand turned from me to the Judge in a most appealing manner. She seemed almost exhausted from telling her story and appeared about to faint, as she recalled the memories of those terrible days which followed. The bailiff brought her a glass of water and, thus refreshed, she continued to tell her story. "I really don't like to tell the things that happened there to me." Then the girl sat motionless for several minutes. The muscles of her face began to twitch with emotion, her lips quivered and her hands trembled. She struggled, trying to keep back the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Finally she said, "For days I pleaded with the Madam to let me go home. I could not endure the drinking and the awful life. Must I tell how she refused to allow me to write letters to my family at home, or any of my friends?" she asked. "How she refused to let me use the telephone? Oh! it is too awful." THE COURTS 55 "Were you ill-treated there?" I asked. "Yes, they knocked me about and even whipped me. They watched me for fear that I would say something or tell something which I had been forbidden to tell. "At first they sent a man to me, whom I thought that I could trust from his manner, and I told him of my trouble, and he sym- pathized with me in my plight and said that he would help me to escape and tell my family where I was. It was for this that I was whipped, for I found that he was what they call a 'ringer,' and had been sent to me purposely to see whether or not I would tell that I was being kept in that place against my will. I found out that they do that with all the new girls, so that they can find out whether or not the girls are obeying orders to keep still how they got there. "The girls are cowed into submission in this way, and are afraid of every man they meet, because they do not know whether or not he is a ringer, and they have been whipped and seen others whipped until they become overpowered and their spirits broken, because they find that they are forced into a life from which they cannot escape. "I heard other girls in the house tell of how closely they were watched until time had elapsed sufficiently to convince the keeper that they were willing to remain without compulsion. "I had finally got a letter slipped out, addressed to my father. When he received it, he and my mother must have come out im- mediately, for it was the next afternoon. They wouldn't let them see me, but I heard them talking to the madam downstairs. They demanded that I be turned over to them. "I was going to call out, but I was afraid, both for them and for me because they do such terrible things there. After awhile they went away, but were not gone long, and when they came back they had a police officer with them. When I saw the officer with them, I mustered up courage and ran downstairs to where they were all standing and my father threw his arm around my neck and said, 'Oh! My daughter! My daughter!' I could not speak for fear and shame. "The police officer asked the meaning of all this and the madam told him that I was in debt to the house and could not leave until the indebtedness was paid. She dared anyone to take me away from the house as long as I was in debt to her. "I was so weak that my knees trembled and shook. "The officer looked kind of puzzled and didn't say anything for a little while. Then he told me to go up stairs and get my clothes. "I don't know where my clothes are," I said. "Then he turned to the madam and told her to get my clothes." "Do you recognize the madam here in the court room?" she was asked. 56 A BIOGRAPHY "Yes, I do," and then Agnes pointed her finger at Pansy Wil- liams. Pansy Williams was convicted, fined, and sent up to the bureau of identification 'rogue's gallery' to leave her picture and measure- ments. This broke her pride and she came down wilted. Ernest took this occasion to try to touch her soul. He pleaded with her for some time. "God loves your soul," he said, "but hates your devilish business." She abandoned the business and two years later when midnight workers had some annoyance from dive keepers she went to ex- press her sympathy with them. The week after this trial Ernest, Boynton, and Deaconess Lucy Hall went together into every resort in the district with a small leaflet. IT IS A PENITENTIARY OFFENSE TO DETAIN ANY WOMAN IN A HOUSE OF PROSTITUTION AGAINST HER WILL The Criminal Code of Illinois makes the following provision for the punishment of this crime against American liberty: Sec. 57C. "Whoever shall unlawfully detain or confine any female, by force, false pretense or intimidation, in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for purposes of prostitution or with intent to cause such female to become a prostitute, and be guilty of fornication or concubinage therein, or shall by force, false pretense, confine- ment or intimidation attempt to prevent any female so as afore- said detained, from leaving such room, house, building or premises, and whoever aids, assists or abets by force, false pre- tense, confinement or intimidation, in keeping, confining or un- lawfully detaining any female in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for the purpose of prostitution, fornication or concubinage, shall on con- viction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years." No "white slave" need remain in slavery in this State of Abraham Lincoln who made the black slaves free. "For freedom did Christ set us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," which is the yoke of sin and evil habit. THE COURTS 57 It was about this time that Ernest hung a picture of Lincoln, the emancipator, in his office. The dive keepers were not growing more cordial as they felt increasing power against them. Ernest was assaulted three times and several who worked with him were roughly handled. Vile drugs were thrown into the meet- ings, on their clothes, assafoetida and hydrogen sulphide. Viler words were hurled in their ears. One French trader threatened to break Ernest in pieces and send him to the hospital if it cost him a mint of money- One big fellow purposely shook his hand till the bones almost cracked. A stone hurled hit the edge of his hat brim and knocked the hat from his head. His fellow-workers half expected some one to knock him down, for often he would fall into step with a man going into a resort and would say in his ear, " Vour sin will surely find you out." Once when a cabful of tipsy clubmen were piling out in front of a dive Ernest ordered them back and those watching wondered which would draw a gun on him. His board asked him to wear a Prince Albert coat and round clerical collar for protection. Mr. Dean, his boyhood pastor in Canada, wrote him, "We were glad to receive your letter, and to be assured that the heathen in Chicago have not yet made away with you. I expect to hear of your translation by the thug route, some of these days, if you still keep up the struggle against vice as you have done and are doing. Vou are braver than anybody ever thought you were. God must be holding you for a special work, in Babylon there." Mary feared, as he came home at three or four in the morning, that some dawn they would bring him home dead. The work was carried on all winter. Jehida, a resort keeper, said, "Bell, I respect you. Vou preach in the rain and you preach in the cold." During a snowstorm in March, sixty-nine men listened at one time. As the weather improved numbers increased. There were meetings every night but Monday. Ernest suggested to the Board of Directors of the Mission that a committee visit the newspapers with a view to getting publicity for the work, with the result that the Chicago Examiner asked Boynton for an expose of the Twenty-second Street district. With Ernest A. Bell 1907 THE COURTS 59 Ernest, Rev. E. L. Williams and two detectives, he set out to make a tour of the Levee. As they went Ernest prayed God for a thunderbolt to alarm the people of Chicago. At one o'clock on the morning of May 31 they entered a resort on Dearborn street. Among the half-dressed in- mates they noticed a modestly gowned girl at a small drinking table with a young man. Ernest spoke to her, asked her if she were an inmate or leading a life of that sort, and she said, "no." She gave her name and address. Then Ernest began to question the young man, who said, "Mind your own business!" "This," said Ernest, "is my business." At the trial before Judge Fake, the young man, whose name was Neil Jaeger, told brazenly how he had brought this young girl from her home in an Illinois town, her mother supposing that she was going to work in Rockford. While the girl was giving her testimony the reporters took her picture, much to Ernest's dis- tress. It was best to send her home quietly. More than half a mil- lion copies of the daily papers carried the story. As it became known, other girls, one only fifteen, wrote how Jaeger was also sending them love letters. These were given to a missionary and published: I come from one of the best families in the west, own a yacht. I will send you plenty of money and will meet you wherever you say and we can live happy ever afterward. Be a good girl and God bless you and keep you from harm. Lovingly, Neil Jaeger All hypocrisy and lies, for he was one of that most despicable of human kind, a procurer who lures the innocent to dives, for a price. As the public read the lurid story spread on the daily sheets they were still skeptical of an organized traffic. They seemed to think that those advocating the abolition of this trade were either fanatics or notoriety seekers. Ernest, hammering away at the men on the street, said, "You are the stockholders of this nefarious trade. The procurers and the divekeepers are your hired men. You are the ultimate white slavers." 60 A BIOGRAPHY In the next three months over a hundred white slave cases were tried under the Illinois law. In the midst of this depressing busi- ness an amusing incident brought the following headlines to the Chicago Daily News. ORDER OF GARTER FOR CHICAGO CITIZENS "Evil be to him who evil thinks" motto. It seems that the vice district had become excited by some liter- ature sent out by the Midnight Mission and the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene organized by the Chicago Medical Society. It consisted of small clearly written medical pamphlets on normal sex physiology together with something of vice diseases and their consequences. A police order was obtained by the district against their distribution. A dozen prominent Chicago laymen and clergy- men were thus brought before Corporation Council Brundage on the charge of promoting the circulation of improper literature. Mr. Brundage smiled when he told of the opinion he had pre- pared. "Of course this does not come under the head of improper literature. It is circulated for a moral purpose, and not an immoral one. The names of the men who are members of these organiza- tions are sufficient guaranty that their purpose is a laudable one." Ernest smiled broadly when he met Wirt Hallam of the Society of Social Hygiene — he doffed his hat, bowed low. "Sir Wirt of the Order of the Garter." "Sir Wirt," he remained for some time. It was one of Ernest's humors to nickname people in unexpected ways. The federal immigration act went into effect July 1, 1907. This made it a felony, punishable by imprisonment not exceeding five years and fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, "to import any such woman or to harbor her within three years after her arrival." November 2 Ernest spoke at the National Purity Congress at Battle Creek and heard Judge Newcomer who had tried many cases since that first one of Pansy Williams. Judge Newcomer said: If you mean by the White Slave Traffic the placing of young girls in a brothel for a price, it most undoubtedly is a real fact, based upon statements that have been made in my court during the past three months by defendants, both men and women, who have pleaded guilty to that crime, and in a sense it is both inter- state and international. THE COURTS 61 Not one, but many shipments, of which I have personal knowl- edge based upon testimony of people who have pleaded guilty, many shipments come from Paris and other European cities to New York; and from New York to Chicago and other western points; and from Chicago as a distributing point to the West and the Southwest; and on the western coast, coming in to San Fran- cisco and other ports there. No, it is a real fact; and it is something that we have got to take notice of. The national government itself has recently taken notice of it. Ernest came back eager to prepare for a meeting to discuss ways and means of suppressing the white slave traffic in Chicago and Illinois. He called a union ministers' meeting for February 10, 1908. He secured Dr. O. Edward Janney of Baltimore, chairman of the National Yigilance Committee which had been formed some months before. Bishop McDowell presided over the Baptist, Congregationalist, Christian, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers. Ernest spoke on "The White Slave Traffic in Chicago, " Clifford G. Roe on "The White Slaves and the Law," Dr. O. Edward Janney on "The International White Slave Traffic," and Mrs. Raymond Robbins on "The Lost." In the afternoon Dr. Janney presided at a second meeting which founded the Illinois Yigilance Association with Boynton as presi- dent and Ernest as secretary. Thus their work became linked with Yigilance Committees in Europe. In the name of the Illinois Vigilance Association Boynton and Ernest wrote to denominational conventions all over the country securing resolutions from them in regard to the evil. The Roman Catholic Archbishops in annual meeting in Wash- ington, D. C, unanimously agreed to lend their cooperation to the movement to suppress the traffic. As a result of Dr. Janney's visit some detective work was done in Chicago by the National Yigilance Committee. It appeared that girls imported from Europe by way of the St. Lawrence were regis- tered by the police for the Twenty-Second Street district. Thus the police set seal on federal felonies under the immigration act. Federal Attorney Edwin W. Sims, learning what the state authori- ties were doing, proceeded to investigate the international traffic, and so came into contact with Ernest and Boynton. "These men are not only specialists in the field, but they are as devoted as they are practical,'' he wrote. 62 A BIOGRAPHY The Midnight Missionaries often held their service in front of the notorious resort of Alphonse and Eva Dufour, French traf- fickers who carried on a brothel and white slave clearing house. The Midnight workers, through missionary visits to the place, knew that American, French, Belgian, Russian, and Spanish girls were in service there. Mr. Sims sent to Washington for secret service agents who un- earthed the devilment and by swearing-in twenty-five deputy United States Marshals, succeeded in capturing the chief offenders and some sixteen or twenty girls who were held in violation of the Immigration Act. At the end of July the federal grand jury voted twenty-six indictments against Alphonse and Eva Dufour and others for importing and harboring European girls. The Dufours were on bail for $26,500 which they forfeited and escaped to France. Their books were seized. Their income had been $102,700 for 1907, and for the first five months of 1908 when the govern- ment raided the place S41,000. One slave earned $723 for her mas- ters in the month of May. The directors of the mission hoped that with the rising tide of public knowledge and indignation, twenty weeks of consistent and adequate preaching would destroy the Twenty-Second Street dis- trict. They went to the churches for more money and more workers. They sought ways of reaching a wider public. So many of the white slaves were unsuspecting country girls that the country districts must be warned. Ernest pleaded with Mr. Sims to publish what his prosecutions showed. They found the editor of Woman's World courageous enough to help. This magazine went into two million average American homes, most of them outside the cities. This fact over- came the reluctance of Mr. Sims to write of the knowledge he had gained in examining two hundred "white slaves" in the district attorney's office. He gave actual cases and summarized: A word that will open the eyes of parents to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition — a system of girl hunting that is national and international in its scope, that it literally consumes thousands of girls — clean and innocent girls — every year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that gives a new meaning to the word fiend; that it is an imminent peril to every girl in the country who has a desire to get into the city and taste its excite- ments and its pleasures. THE COURTS 63 The facts I have stated are for the awakening of parents and guardians of girls. If I were to presume to say anything to the pos- sible victims of this awful scourge of white slavery it would be this: "Those who enter here leave hope behind;" the depths of debase- ment and of suffering disclosed by the investigation now in prog- ress would make the flesh of a seasoned man of the world creep with horror and shame. Many letters came to Mr. Sims from parents who read this article. One was a tragedy in a page. A father began by saying that the warning had aroused him to inquire after his "little girl." There was a pathetic pride in his admission that she was con- sidered an uncommonly pretty girl when she left her home to take a position in Chicago. Her letters were more and more infrequent, but she did occasionally write home and sometimes enclosed a little money. A glance at the address where she was to be found left no possible question as to her fate. It was in the center of the "red light" district. Mr. Sims put the case in Ernest's hands and he saw that the girl was rescued and presently returned to her family, a pitiably wasted girl, her constitution so broken that even with tender care she could not live long; but sadder still her moral fibre was shattered. Ernest asked Mr. Sims for another article and began compiling a book War on the White Slave Trade. He wrote a number of chap- ters, and obtained others from Mr. Coote, Hon. Clifford G. Roe, and Miss Lucy Hall. Mr. James Bronson Reynolds, special in- vestigator for President Roosevelt, contributed a chapter on white vice in Asia. Dr. Winfield Scott Hall and Dr. William T. Belfield of the medical schools wrote on the vice diseases. Mr. Harry S. Parkin, assistant District Attorney, made a digest of existing laws. Dr. Boynton spoke for the pastors. Ernest went with a photographer through the Red Light dis- trict, photographed windows with iron bars, school children pour- ing past the dives, pictures of gospel meetings. There were nearly five hundred pages of ammunition. The book was the authority in the field. As the reviewer in the Outlook said, "It is not pleasant reading. Neither is the Immigration Committee's report." Ernest received S400 in cash from the publisher who sent out agents to the back doors of the country, sold more than 400,000 copies and made a small fortune. Necessary and effective as this work was it was not where Ernest's heart was. 64 A BIOGRAPHY Before the American Purity Congress in Burlington, Iowa, Octo- ber 1909, he laid bare his heart and showed the underlying phi- losophy of his life. It is God who is our refuge and strength. It is the word of God that prospers and accomplishes his will. The sin of the world which we oppose, its drunkenness, its lust, its greed, its lies, its cruelty — who is sufficient for these things, unless our sufficiency is of God? The scorn which the unclean heap upon us, the reluctant support which decent people accord us, the treachery with which the mighty sometimes treat us — these are too hard for flesh and blood to bear, unless we are in fellowship with God. "Only Jesus' people do this," said a Chinese mandarin to his wife as they visited the refuge for rescued slave girls at Shanghai. Only Jesus' people can do this. The age-long prayer of the children of God is, "Our Father. . . thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The age-long answer is the coming of the Kingdom. The great high priestly prayer of the Son of God, offered the night before the crucifixion and recorded in the seven- teenth chapter of John, is being answered yet. We are here, in this unity of good will and earnest work, in answer to that petition of Christ, that we might be holy and that we might be one. Our prayers, if we really pray, will continue to be answered for hundreds of years. "Everyone that asketh receiveth." Adoniram Judson when he was dying, after so many years of testimony and torture in Burmah said, the soleminty of eternity covering his face: "This is what awes me — I never prayed earnestly and persistently for anything but it came, perhaps in the last way I could have dreamed of, but it came." Is there anything too hard for the Lord? The revolting sin which we oppose — the Lamb of God takes it away. The whole world shall yet be pure. Within two months an agitation led by Christians and expressed in mass meetings prevented the rebuilding in the heart of Osaka, Japan, of indecent resorts after the city had been swept by fire. Is Chicago's White Slave Market too hard for the Lord? Christ's work is constructive and restorative, not only for the injured individual, but for the injured city or nation. His message is that God loves the world and gave His Son to save us men. The normal work of Christ is best advanced by Christ's own methods: namely, prayer, preaching, teaching, persuad- ing, self sacrifice, just and merciful conduct. THE COURTS 65 But Jesus the Savior is also Christ, the annointed ruler. All crimes are offenses against him. The ministers of the gospel are ambassadors of the an- nointed King of the world, whose rights they must assert. God's men must be first in spiritual and moral affairs — and what is government if it is not a moral matter of the very highest moment? Let the leaders lead. Let them preach the truth and the righteousness that apply to present conditions, to men and women and boys and girls here and now. The ministers of Chicago made possible the War on the White Slave Trade. The most exalted of them have toiled with us in the night in the streets of shame in the vestibule of hell. Following the lead of the ministers, the newspapers, the federal and state prosecutors and judges heartily took up their great work. But back of this creditable and fruitful activity was a little company of praying souls. I never heard anywhere such prayer and worship as we were enabled to offer to God for the salvation of the perishing, for the enlightening of the people, for righteous government. God is answering and will be answering for a thousand years. When Ernest published in a sermonette in the Chicago Herald- Examiner this thought that God continues to answer prayers for thousands of years, Senator James Hamilton Lewis stopped him on Clark Street to say how the thought impressed him. X GYPSY SMITH Gypsy Smith, the great evangelist, was coming to Chicago. At the end of September 1909, as Ernest was going down on the "L," he picked up the Daily News for the day and looked at the cartoon. It showed civilization asleep while the ghost of Black Slavery pointed an accusing finger at a White Slaver. Ernest chuckled as he showed it to Kurtz Shields of the Anti-saloon League. They fell to talking of the Temperance and Law Enforcement Parade of the preceeding Saturday. General Frederic Dent Grant had led thousands of the Grand Army of the Republic, Ministers, Catholic Temperance Organizations, W.C.T.U., Boys' Brigades, Sunday Schools, Missions along Michigan Avenue. "I saw your float," Shields said — "Tallyho with the sign 'End black traffic in white girls.' You know," he added, "no preacher's life has counted more for Chicago than yours." Ernest went on to the shabby two-story frame house in the midst of the vice district that the mission had recently rented as headquarters for their street work. The workers had needed a place to gather, to warm themselves on cold nights, to eat a little between the long meetings of Sunday afternoon and Sunday night — a place to put their songbooks and tracts. The Friendly Aid Society was to have the lower floor. Two deaconesses were se- cured for regular work with the Mission, Miss Manley, tall, pink- cheeked and wholesome, with a large matronly figure that made the poor souls that came to her comforting arms call her "Mother," and Mrs. Kuppinger, vivid, energetic, an excellent speaker who could always get and hold attention. These two good women were a host and volumes could be written about their devoted work. They called the little mission house "Shabby Shack." In October, Gypsy Smith, came. He attracted great crowds and publicity and emphasized civic righteousness. Crowds gathered even before the doors were open. Ernest, seeing them, took the opportunity to speak to them. The Chicago American published "Gypsy" Smith's daily Sermon to Chicago: 66 GYPSY SMITH 67 Real Christianity is active, aggressive, militant. It fights for the right and faces ridicule. If ever a city needed active working Christians Chicago is that city. Let those who want vice driven from Chicago attend these meetings instead of sitting at home while their daughters and sons are damned to all eternity in that maelstrom of iniquity you whisper about — the Levee. Who is to blame for the existence of such a damnable blot on the map of Chicago? Why you! You!! You!!! If there be grafting, if vice be systematized, if protection be given the wicked for cash by those sworn to protect your sons and daughters from the harpies and thieves of the under- world, whose fault is that? It is Your fault, and why? Because I tell you that if five thousand women of Chicago were to march to the places where vice is rampant demanding that they be closed, insisting upon it, Those Places Would Be Closed. Wipe out the places that the System fattens on, and that will settle the system. Band yourselves together, forgetful of denomination or creed and fight, fight, fight!! When your organization is so large as to be irresistible, advance, and you must win. Pray as you go and fight for the right with a prayer on your lips. For that is Christianity. Following the Gypsy's suggestion about marching against Vice, Police permission was obtained for a parade. It was only three weeks since the Temperance forces had paraded on Michigan Avenue. Now it was proposed to invade the Twenty-Second Street Red Light District. There was most serious opposition. All the staid respectable church people were by taste opposed. It seemed useless sensationalism. Many were opposed by conviction, feeling that it would advertise and aid the evil. Dr. Gunsaulus, Prof. Graham Taylor, Dean Sumner were quoted as against it. But Gypsy Smith with shining eyes showed a letter from Cleve- land: "If any of your Chicago ministerial brethren object to the parade as spectacular and sensational, just tell them that one of the most conservative Scotch Presbyterians in the country was drawn into the thing wholly against his own personal judgment and has been thanking God for it ever since. Nothing but the sneering and ridicule of our city officials could have forced me into that parade. That did it, and I want to say to you now in all candor, that of all the meetings held during your mission here, that midnight meet- 68 A BIOGRAPHY ing in the Cleveland theater after our march through the down- town section is the most memorable and there were results that night that abide to this day." Chief Steward of the Police personally didn't approve at all, but sent policemen to see that no one entered or left the resorts during the parade. To Ernest it was a great day. For five years he had been trying to overcome the inertia of the churches. He had seen the change that always came in the attitude of respectable and protected Christians when they really came into "the abyss." He had suffered from the misunderstanding of Christian people almost as much as from the active opposition of the vicious. The resort keepers had said to him "We don't care how much you come down here but don't stir up public opinion." Praise God if the Gypsy could stir up public opinion. The night of the parade came. The deaconesses went early into the resorts with invitations to the Gypsy's meeting in the theatre. Their knees trembled. They didn't know what might happen. They found the inmates no less fearsome, for a great host of opposing citizens was a fearful experience to them. Within their own terri- tory there had been only the small Christian forces before. There were undoubtedly crowds attracted to the area. Making the most of the opportunity before the Gypsy with his thousands of paraders arrived, Ernest preached to the largest number he had ever ad- dressed at one time and felt the power of God in him. The opposition continued after the parade was over. They had a case, as undoubtedly there were large numbers of the curious brought to the district. Battles are seldom fought without casual- ties on both sides. The newspapers made much of the fact that a very few children had followed the parade — against the specific instructions of the Evangelist. It was an old alibi. Ernest blazed forth in the Chicago Record Herald, October 30, 1909: Woe unto you, Pharisees! For you reproach an evangelist of absolute sanity and sincerity with the deadly offense of leading 10,000 Christian people through the lake of fire at Twenty-second street, seeking to save the lost — and you make no outcry when twice 10,000 young men throng our city's infernos every Saturday night all summer long, to the destruction of themselves and of countless innocent wives and children. GYPSY SMITH 69 Woe unto you, Pharisees! For you complain because a very few children, against the specific instructions of the evangelist, fol- lowed him in the parade, as the children of Jerusalem followed his Master, who replied to the murmuring chief priests, "If these hold their peace the stones will cry out" — and you say not a word in behalf of the hundreds of children who must live all the time in that hellish region, or who cannot go to school and Sunday school without passing through it. The sob of the children curses deeper Then the strong man in his wrath. I have seen with my own eyes a girl under seventeen running like a frightened gazelle to her home near Twenty-first street, to avoid insult from the thousands of young men whom you encourage to make Sodom and Gomorrah of that district. Her mother told me afterward that the girl had run to and from her home from the time she was thirteen. I remove my hat in reverence for that noble girl, but I blush for my city that puts virtue to such tests. Woe unto you Pharisees! For you think by putting your heads in the sand to give the impression that you would not advertise our districts for protecting and promoting commerce in girls, for distributing blindness, insanity, locomotor ataxia, abscesses, tumors, and death — as if the whole world did not already know about our flaunting vice districts. "Clean up, not cover up." Woe unto you, Pharisees! For practically you come to terms with abominable Frenchmen, driven out of Paris, perhaps, and with filthy Judases, whom decent Jews abhor, and you give them segregated districts for aggregated crimes, with an auction block for girls in every den. You blind leaders of the blind — giving your benediction to those precincts of perdition, the vice districts, and repeating in the public prints the malodorous reasonings of the wild beasts who devour girls. Even Balaam would not bless what God cursed, nor curse what God blessed. When white slave traders, property owners who collect big rents wrung from ruined youth, and crim- inal politicians get what is coming to them, what will you get? And now, dear grumblers, do you not see that you are Pharisees? You cry because a mighty evangelist goes to those who need him most — except you — and you make no cry when the pesthouses are kept open every night in the year, in violation of statute and ordinance, and tens of thousands of young Chicagoans are cor- rupted and thousands of homes blasted. Having myself strained out gnats and swallowed camels, I un- derstand you and I love you tenderly. God save you, Pharisees! God save Chicago! God bless Gipsy Smith! XI MANN ACT To return to August, 1908. Ernest went up to the offices of Simmons, Mitchell, and Irving, Attorneys at Law, 108 La Salle Street, to see the president of his mission board. "Mr. Janney wants something practical." He laid the letter on the broad mahogany table. Mr. Simmons bent his handsome white head over it judiciously. He read, "The general conference of the Society of Friends will be held at Winona Lake, Indiana, from August 27-September 3. Now we would be glad if you would be willing to give an address of thirty minutes there, on the subject of the white slave traffic. We look for a gathering of perhaps a thousand people." The attorney said in his kindly Kentucky voice. "Why not make a plea for the national law we have discussed. I believe it can be done under the commerce clause of the constitution." He brought a volume from the shelves and went over points with Ernest, who put in small neat markers and put the book under his arm. "Would a letter to President Roosevelt have effect?" asked Ernest. "The President smites hard when he smites. You write him, Mr. Simmons." He started off. "Before you go, Mr. Bell, I want to say your address Saturday night was the most powerful and terrific and scriptural presentation of God's word and answer to maudlin sentiment about God's love that I ever heard or expect to hear. Meant to tell you at the time. May God bless you." When he had gone Rufus S. Simmons drafted in great black un- readable scratches two paragraphs for the letter he sent to Presi- dent Roosevelt, August 28, 1908. In them lay the germ of the "Mann Act." The power of Congress under the commerce clause of the con- stitution to regulate and control intercourse between the states, and its application to men as well as property, is firmly established 70 MANN ACT 71 by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. The right to prohibit interstate traffic in women is equal to the right to prohibit the foreign traffic, and could not now be successfully challenged. We urgently and confidently request you and the Congress to extend the national power to give American girls the protection already given all alien women and make it a felony to export or transport or permit any woman or girl to travel between the several states for immoral purposes. At Winona Lake Ernest told something of recent events in Chicago. Dr. Janney asked me to be practical, point out what those who were present might do. Oppose segregation! Oppose it. Warn prop- erty owners whose property is used for vile purposes. Encourage proper publicity. One of these scoundrels said "We don't care what your missionaries come here and say in the red lights; we do care what you say elsewhere, creating public sentiment." Ask med- ical men to tell you the truth. Denounce the lowbred politicians who encourage these things. Denounce them and fight against them but encourage faithful rulers. Secure better laws and the enforcement of them. Here I wish to point out that the federal government, which is doing so well against the international traffic, has equal power (when we can persuade it to use it) over the interstate traffic. A lawyer who pleads in the Supreme Court lent me this copy of Wheaton's Reports of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. He tells me that it is the accepted doctrine of the Supreme Court since Chief Justice Marshall's days, that Congress, under the commerce clause of the constitution, has control of transporta- tion between the states of persons as well as goods. Thus with suitable federal laws we can punish in the federal courts interstate traffickers and harborers as severely as importers, and protect American girls by penalty against their enslavement, as effectually as we protect European and Asiatic girls. I wish that that cry might go out from this conference. If there is one thing I ask of you to-night it is this: ask our national govern- ment to act. The national government has the power. Ask that it shall give American girls protection. The speech was published tenth month 10, 1908 in the Friends Intelligencer. With the Intelligencer in hand and a copy of the letter to President Roosevelt, Mr. Simmons and Ernest went to confer with the United States District Attorney, Mr. Sims, in the matter, leaving the copies with him. Mr. Sims conferred with his friend Congressman James R. Mann, who had served for twelve years as a member of the interstate and foreign commerce committee 72 A BIOGRAPHY of the House and was now its chairman. After thought in the mat- ter, Mr. Mann decided it practicable to pass a constitutional law against transportation of women from one state to another for immoral purposes. In the fall of 1909, Mr. Sims drafted the bill and sent it on to Mr. Mann who had the reputation for being sure of his ground. He redrafted it with very great care as to both its effectiveness and constitutionality and sent a copy to Mr. Sims saying it would be reported to the House December 6, 1909. On Dec. 6 Mr. Sims wrote Ernest. Personally I feel that, having drafted the bill, the matter of securing its passage devolves upon workers like yourself and or- ganizations with which you are familiar. I suppose that Congress- man Mann will want information on the subject. There undoubt- edly will be some public hearings. I firmly believe that if the associations and individuals inter- ested in the suppression of the White Slave Traffic organize some sort of effective campaign, they can speedily secure the passage of the proposed law. Eagerly Ernest called the directors together. They sent a resolu- tion and an offer of any assistance they might offer to Mr. Mann. The measure passed the House but remained quiet for a time in a Senate Committee. Ernest grew more and more anxious for fear it might not pass the Senate before the close of the session. The Directors voted to send Ernest and Boynton to Washington. The Chicago Law and Order League and the Vigilance Association joined with them. On May 20, as they came out of Congressman Mann's office in the capitol, Boynton was much incensed. "Small courtesy that. Plenty of time for Mr. Blowhard in there. Why, Mann's fathering one of the greatest laws in two thousand years and he doesn't know it. He doesn't know a big thing when he sees it." Ernest left further credentials with the Secretary. "I hope his secretary heard what I said," Boynton blazed. "That bill means nothing to Mann except as a legislative me- chanic. I'm through with Mann." In the morning Ernest got up and felt of his underwear on the radiator. It was still steaming in spots. He had washed it late. "You can't wear that, Ernest." "It's all I brought," Ernest turned it for better drying. "Napoleon conquered Italy with a pocket comb. I've added a toothbrush." MANX ACT 73 "What in times in your suitcase?" "Books." "Where are you bound for today, Ernest?" "We'll make an appointment with the President and then we'll go back to Congressman Mann." "I tell you," said Boynton sitting up in bed emphatically, "I'm through with him. I'm not going." "Boynton, you've told me 'must' a good many times. Today I say it to you. You're coming with me." As they entered the Congressman's office the secretary ex- claimed, "Where have you gentlemen been? Mr. Mann wanted to see you and I've telephoned every hotel in town. Where were you?" "At the Y.M.C.A." "Why I never thought of that. I thought you must be at a pri- vate house. I'll tell him you're here." Today Mr. Mann was very cordial. There was much to say of great interest. They wanted to get the weapon of the law into the hands of men like Sims as soon as possible. "Mr. Sims is a great man and a great lawyer, one of the noblest and ablest men I have ever met," said the Congressman. The discussion fell on the Keller case which had come up to the Supreme Court from Sims' judicial district, and Mann's congres- sional district, in which the Supreme Court had decreed a clause in the immigration act unconstitutional and let out of prison a good many white slave traders. "There has been some apprehension about your bill's being re- ported out of Committee, Mr. Mann," said Ernest. "We are here to see what we can do to assist in procuring the passage of the bill in the Senate this session." Bells rang. "You must excuse me. I have to preside at a Committee of the Whole." Ernest and Boynton went into the gallery of the Senate and watched him take the gavel. A few moments of formality and he turned it over to another, motioned with his lips with the words — 'go out.' He met them outside and took them back into his office. For an hour and a half the discussion continued. Boynton didn't miss his chance to try to arouse Mann to the greatness of the thing he was doing. Laws were many on property rights. This was a law of human rights. 74 A BIOGRAPHY As they went down the steps of the capitol Boynton said, "What do you suppose changed the Congressman's point of view?" "Ask the King," said Ernest. "Ask the King." They went to New York and saw John D. Rockerfeller, Jr. who was foreman of the grand jury that was making a vice investiga- tion in that city. En route they saw Dr. Janney in Baltimore and Ernest's seminary friend, Oliver Huckel, famous now as an author. "Write me a poem, old fellow," said Huckel. "You choose the subject and we will compete." "The Dome of the Capitol, then." They scribbled diligently and exchanged, "You win," said Huckel. "Mine's too long. You have the genius of condensation. Now if you'll change this and this. There that's better." THE DOME OF THE CAPITOL A Soul is in that Dome — the mighty soul Of a majestic people, bold and free. The soul is there of Washington; and there Great Lincoln's spirit, with his eyes of fire That saw men's selves, and saw not white or black. The country's conscience utters there its voice, Commanding that the strong shall spare the weak, The shrewd shall use their wits to help, not crush The simple, nor take the poor man's cloak, or bread, Or, house, or field, or child, in pawn to Greed. There Freedom armed stands sunlit over all, The watchful statue, scanning the wide sea. Beneath, the Judges, strong as iron fate, Sign the decrees that none on earth can void. My nation's soul is in that glorious dome, And with it soars from holy ground, up through The vaulted blue, to meet, great God, with thee. Beneath that Dome, in the president's room on the last day of the Session, President Taft signed the "White Slave Traffic Act." Congressman Mann asked him "Have you signed my bill, Mr. President?" and President Taft replied "Yes, I've just signed it. Now let's hope they put some of the scoundrels in prison." XII SEGREGATION For more than five years now Ernest had prophesied and fought on the street and in the press, at first nearly alone, and then shoulder to shoulder with other men and other associations. There was Farwell of the Chicago Law and Order League, who was also on the Board of the Midnight Mission. There was William Burgess of the Illinois Vigilance Association. Ernest was on the Boards of both of these organizations. There was Rufus Simmons, who spoke, as president of the Midnight Mission, in many churches; and there were the many ministers of the city called together by Ernest to discuss their common enemy, the vice evil. There is nothing like a common task to unite forces. Following the union meetings of 1908 and 1909, the Church Federation de- veloped, representing six hundred churches. This was the real answer to Ernest's great cry of 1892 for church unity, Unite Thy church, O holy Lord, Bring Christians all to one accord In Pentecostal love. The solution was not unity of belief nor unity of organization but unity of service. Ernest committed himself to the Church Federation of Chicago in large souled devotion all his days. September 27, 1909 My dear Mary: There was a union meeting of ministers this morning in the First Methodist Church. The vice question came up and I put it squarely before the ministers whether they want vice districts or not. Apparently some of them did — "Deluded Divines" as Boynton called them hotly in the religious press — "Those who will not in- vestigate the facts — or are fearful of conventions — or notoriety, or the opposition of influential church members." The movement in the churches was gaining great power. Like a flag bearer far ahead of the lines, who looks for the ranks to follow him, so Ernest looked for the ranks of the church and good citizen- ship. 75 76 A BIOGRAPHY "Delenda est Carthago." The vice districts must go. But he found his allies divided. For five years the police department had given Ernest protection and courtesy, for which he had carefully thanked them personally and by official action of the Board of Directors. Incidents had arisen, it is true, with new patrolmen, etc., but the difficulties had been corrected when the matter was properly presented to captain or chief. Nevertheless he had a fundamental quarrel with the police de- partment. In express violation of laws, city, state, and federal, the police system was protecting the "Levee," setting its seal on the ruin there wrought. Above one resort he saw a large eagle in red, white, and blue electric lights. It illustrated the parody. He spoke to Chief Steward about it and the national colors were removed but the eagle remained. Then Chief Steward issued a new order for stricter regulation. Graham Taylor applauded: Nothing as practical as Chief Steward's recent order has even been attempted before and it seems to be as much as can be accom- plished at present. If he can make it impossible for men to make a business of vice or to maintain any existence off the wages of its women victims, the most dangerous element of the situation will be eliminated. If he can prevent the sale of liquor in the places where this vice is practiced it will lessen the numbers and bring under better control both the men and women who practice it. If the lights are put out, the signs removed, the music hushed, solici- tation on the street and in print is prevented and the young are turned away, it will lessen the allurement, dim the glamour and protect the unwary, at least, from what has attracted them. If he can, I say. Ernest knew "He can only do that by destroying the district." In a speech at prohibition headquarters he praised Chief Steward "for having cut an inch off the tail of the mad dog but insisted that the head of the dog be severed. The red-light districts must be wiped out of existence. The city government is now apologetic about vice conditions. We have legislation enough if it were en- forced for most of the work — our pandering law is a model but we allow the divekeeper — the biggest pander of them all — to escape with fines of from $1 — $200. We should adopt the Iowa Cosson law in Illinois. By it any official who protects a red-light district can be complained against by any citizen and removed from office. Iowa has abolished all its red-light districts. "Public officials who countenance the white slave traffic are traitors." SEGREGATION 77 ''You're crazy, Bell, you're crazy!" Graham Taylor said to Ernest's face, and in his column wrote: While official corruption can be eradicated by the ballot, vice cannot. Since all who are addicted to the social vice neither can be reformed all at once nor killed, their existence must be accepted as fact. They are with us by the thousands and they must be somewhere. The police are in a dilemma. The plain intent of the law is to exterminate the vice, but the law apparently cannot ex- terminate it. Whenever in large cities the attempt has been made to abolish this vice, the effort has scattered it everywhere. If no attempt is made to restrict its habitual victims to certain limits the disease, demoralization and death they spread will grow be- yond limits. Ernest groaned aloud when he read it, and replied, Nothing is said by our officials or by the high priests of segrega- tion, about corraling immoral men into segregation districts. It is therefore not segregation of Vice but only an attempted cornering of depraved women to encourage and augment the trade. Cases of smallpox are isolated, but the community is not asked with police sanction, to pour through the hospital wards by the thousand. Taylor's voice would carry far and have weight. Many would be deluded. Segregation does not segregate! "Lord send him light — he's wrong." At the union ministers' meeting January 31, 1910, Ernest found the segregationists in control and openly opposing him as impracti- cal and fanatic. Dean Walter T. Sumner of the Episcopal Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul was asked to read a paper at the meeting. At its close he presented a petition to the mayor of the city asking that "a com- mission made up of men and women who command the respect and confidence of the public at large be appointed to investigate thoroughly conditions as they exist and map out a course of action. The press will be back of any sane movement to improve present conditions. The Church certainly is. Social settlements have been agitating and endeavoring to reach some decision. "The general public is in a mood to listen to such conclusions as such a commission would reach." The mayor replied indicating that Chicago did not differ in her problem from other cities and that all cities would welcome those "who can help us in finding a slow and partial solution for the 78 A BIOGRAPHY treatment of these questions pending perfection in the men and women who make up society." The mayor published a list of thirty able and representative citizens. As Ernest read the list his heart sank. Segregationists all! "Only evil can come from this," Ernest groaned in his bitterness. Dean Sumner was made Chairman. His cathedral was near the West side Vice District. He had opposed Vice but he did not yet know that opposition meant war to the death. Ernest was long on his knees. "Now Lord, make that commis- sion work. Fill Dean Sumner full of facts till he vomits!" In June the city council voted $5000 for the work of the Vice Commission which now hired Mr. George J. Kneeland to take charge of a force of investigators. Ernest kept on with his fighting. The apparent sanction of Segregation gave new hope to the district, a sort of senile rejuvenescence. The Midnight Missionaries saw new houses opened with only the formality of new linoleum and chairs and beds. Following the election of Carter Harrison as mayor there was large increase. "But, Mr. Bell, I feel the end. It's the courage of despair," Miss Manley said with feminine intuition. With enemies in his own camp Ernest believed the victory far away. Then trouble flared up on the West side. On October 7, 1910 the Daily News published a petition to the mayor signed by a score of large West Side business concerns who foresaw "the next great development in real estate will be largely confined to that accessible district immediately west of the new Northwestern station. Manufacturers and jobbers could easily be induced to remove to this area if the moral environments were more inviting. At present there is hardly a street which is free from the demoralizing influences of some form of commercialized vice. "If the manifest destiny of this section is to be realized steps should be taken at once by the authorities to confine the undesira- ble elements within a given zone and thereby enable reconstructive forces to work along intelligent lines which will guarantee perma- nence of character to the development which will rapidly follow." Their attorney added, "We recall that six years ago a mayor of Chicago added to his fame by eliminating a downtown vice district (Custom House SEGREGATION 79 Place), driving it into the already segregated Twenty-Second Street levee. Since that time the business interests that have located there have invested twenty million in improvements." Business didn't like vice. Well and good. But they thought noth- ing of driving it among the poor of a given area defined by the police thus to create another segregated and protected area. The segregated districts must be wiped out, not new ones created! Ernest hurried to Farwell and Burgess, knowing he would find them also aroused. They secured a large number of copies of the paper, called in others interested and issued a joint letter. IMPORTANT AND URGENT Dear Friend: We enclose herewith a clipping from the Chicago Daily News of October 7 containing the full text of a petition addressed to the Mayor. It is feared that in the absence of a very strong protest to the contrary the result may be to recognize a segregated vice district on the West Side. We suggest that this is of paramount, urgent, and immediate importance. Can you not take prompt measures to secure a resolu- tion of any Ministers' Meeting, Laymen's Conference, Business or Social Clubs, with which you are identified? We would point out that the enclosed petition to the Mayor is directed mainly to the laudable purpose of cleaning out the vice traffic from an important centre and that the creation of a distinct zone for a "red-light" district is regarded by them as incidental. But as you will see the danger is that the incident may become the main action. To select any defined section where the traffic in Vice may be recognized, permitted, and exploited is to give it apparent sanction of authority and the protection of the Law although such license and sanction is expressly prohibited by the Laws of Illinois. (Chap. 24 sec. 245 Revised Statutes.) Law has the same relation to prostitution as to any other crime and the attitude of our police towards it should always be sup- pression and never permission. Resolutions should be adopted at once and copies sent to the Mayor, the Chief of Police and the Vice Commission of which Dean Summer is the Chairman, and also to the press. A little later Ernest wrote My dear Professor Taylor: Of course you have considered the cursing of Curtis Street, which is now like Armour Avenue. Let us have done with author- ized abomination. 80 A BIOGRAPHY There are five cities of over two million people. Of these London, New York and Berlin have ceased to proclaim official toleration to brothel-keepers. The other two great cities still protect the slaugh- ter-house for boys and girls — Chicago and Paris. It is time to get into better company. The brothel is doomed. Politicians, police, priests, professors, and all ought to see it and not attempt to cause a stay of execution. Civilization, led by christ, must destroy the destroyer of youth, the moral pest house which does not quarantine but disseminates the pestilence. Though the Midnight Mission, with other reform organizations, had been called on for evidence, and they knew the work of in- vestigation was progressing, no word had yet come from the Vice Commission. Ernest met Wirt Hallam's vest preceding his tall form down the street. "Well, Sir Wirt, still for segregation?" "No. You knew more than we did, that's all. Of course I was wrong. There's one of Kneeland's investigators looks like the worst levee hound who surely gets all the information he wants from those fellows. I couldn't be an investigator — they have to lie so. Besides, they always think I'm a fly cop — I look just like one." He smiled slowly. "But this chap has all but rented houses, paid his graft, bought his girls, and gone into the business. I haven't minded some of the evidence — I've been in the social hygiene work too long, but — well — I was so sick" — he moved uneasily and his face worked, — "I was so sick, I was in for two days." "And the Dean?" Hallam's face was wreathed in reassuring smiles. "He'll have something to report soon, I think. He has surely worked hard." So the wind was changing! The Vice Commission was carrying on. Month after month the men who had once believed in segregation listened to the sickening evidence brought in by the investigators. They no longer believed in segregation. They agreed with Ernest that "Segregation stinks to the pleiades." What positive recommendation could they make? The city council furnished them a second sum of five thousand dollars. It was not until April, 1911 that the report of nearly four hundred pages was ready for publication. Dean Sumner and Mr. Sims submitted the report to the city council. SEGREGATION 81 When they carried it to Carter Harrison, who had succeeded Busse as mayor, it is reported that he dropped the volume into the waste basket in their presence. But the deaconesses grabbed each other and jumped up and down for joy till more plaster fell in old Shabby Shack, because on the first page of the report, in large bold black type that no one could fail to read, the Vice Commission had written: Constant and persistent repression of prostitution the imme- diate method : Absolute annihilation the ultimate ideal. Such is the recommendation of this commission. That it may be put in force effectually and unremittingly we further recommend: First: The appointment of a morals commission. Second : The establishment of a morals court. As Ernest glanced down the paragraphs of the introduction he found confession of their change of heart. This commission has been greatly impressed in its studies with these two facts; first, the citizens' wilful ignorance of the immoral conditions within the city, and second, his off-hand advice as to the proper methods of handling the vice problem, given with ab- solute confidence and finality. The commission has met this latter fault with real sympathy. Its members entered upon the initial deliberations and investigations with a similar certainty. As time went on and facts were presented this certainty disappeared. A period of revulsion and of doubt followed. Then began the con- structive period, months filled with progressive studies based upon incontrovertible facts, with never a backward step, illuminating conferences, wide-spread investigations in other cities as well as Chicago, the fullest possible debate among its members in fre- quent meetings oftentimes from four to twelve hours in duration, with the result that new uncertainty was changed to a final cer- tainty and thirty minds were absolutely unanimous in their own conclusions. We believe such harmonious unanimity on the part of men and women representing so many diversified callings in life, and so many groups of society must be a fair indication of the public mind and conscience of the citizens of Chicago. Again this unanimity gives to the decision a weight which it could not have possessed had there been a decided difference of opinion among its members with the possible presentation of a minority report." The Vice Commission had learned the truth. So Ernest found the deaconesses and together they sang the Doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." XIII THE FALL OF CARTHAGE The Vice Commission report was a decisive victory, but the city government was not making use of it. In fact the general super- intendent of police issued a new set of "rules governing the regula- tion of vice." The Vice Commission had demanded Repression not Regulation. The new rules lessened certain evils in regard to minors, liquor, etc. but stated: 10. Restricted Districts. No house of ill-fame shall be permitted outside of certain restricted districts. Farwell photographed the regulations and added the laws of the city and state prohibiting disorderly houses. "The rules substituted by the Chief of Police for the laws are sufficient grounds to justify his removal from office. It is his duty to enforce the law, not to make rules for its violation." Ernest asked for a committee of his board to call on Mayor Harrison who received them courteously. Dr. Beattie, Pastor of the Austin Presbyterian Church, who was now president of the mis- sion, spoke very sympathetically and offered help to the admin- istration. Ernest said, "We have come to ask your honor to withdraw, henceforth forever, the protecting hand of the executive from the murderous business of commercialized vice." The mayor replied, "That is a large order. This evil is very diffi- cult to manage. I have my own ideas about it. I have talked with the vice committee. I am determined to do everything in my power that is for the welfare of the whole city, not simply from the re- ligious viewpoint." Ernest left with him his own book, Mr. Roe's Horrors of the White Slave Trade and an article by Judge Gemmill whose closing sentence Ernest pointed out to the Mayor: "I am sure that the first mayor who inaugurates such a reform will be applauded by 90 percent of the voting population of Chicago." Sometimes the years of warfare seemed long. Then Miss Manley, the comforter, told him, "Mr. Bell, I see something so clearly. This is an anvil and as we smite it the sparks fall. You smite and 82 THE FALL OF CARTHAGE 83 Custom House Place is cleared. You smite and the churches wake up. You smite and the Vigilance Association is formed. You smite again and Clifford Roe joins the crusade and U. S. Attorney Sims and Congressman Mann. You smite and your book sells by the half million. You smite and the Vice Commission catches fire and the Committee of Fifteen. Chicago is an anvil, and as you strike here sparks fall all over the country. The Minneapolis Vice Commission followed Chicago, then Portland, San Francisco, Kansas City, Cleveland. Perhaps the Lord wants us to keep at it here till the whole country is clear. Can't you see the sparks fall?" On the evening of February 22, 1912, Ernest went to Farwell's office for a meeting of the Chicago Law and Order League of which he was a director. "Any new dog stories, Farwell?" he asked. Farwell's round face twinkled. He was famous for his dog stories. "No dog stories, but good news, the Supreme Court has just said that a disorderly saloon can be closed by injunction at the instance of a property owner specially damaged. Let's see if we can use the injunction method to close a disorderly house. If they hadn't killed our Iowa Abatement and Injunction law in the state legis- lature we'd have them, but maybe we have anyway." "Perhaps this is a dog we can make bite" said Ernest. "The Midnight Mission is next door to a hell annex and quite a bit of brimstone and sulphur blows over." ''How far away are you." "About six feet — just a walk between." "Who owns it?" "Philo Otis, he's all right, refused to rent for immoral purposes. Was glad to get honest renters though he lets the roof leak." Ernest added. Farwell called Mr. Otis on the phone. "Will you let the Chicago Law and Order League and the Illinois Vigilance Association bring suit against the owner of the premises and the keeper of the resort next door to your property on Armour Avenue occupied by the Midnight Mission?" "Yes, we'll assume liability for all expenses involved." The bill of complaint was made and filed and the injunction suit brought under the common law in the chancery division of the circuit court of Cook County. 84 A BIOGRAPHY With the bill was filed an affidavit of Dr. W. A. Evans former commissioner of health, declaring that houses of prostitution are such sources of the contagious vice diseases that they can be and ought to be suppressed in the interest of public health. When the temporary injunction was given, Ernest said "I guess the dog bites, Farwell, the citizens know now they can go over the heads of the mayor and states attorney." Hon. Harry Olson, Judge of the Municipal Court, said in March 1913, before the Bankers club at the hotel LaSalle, The existence of segregated vice will be impossible in the future, for on April 1 the morals court will be in operation and hold a club over property owners. To the decision of the circuit court which granted to Philo Otis an injunction restraining Shevely L. Brierly and Cira Abbott from using property in the "levee" for immoral purposes I attribute the sudden change in the attitude of county and city officials toward segregated vice. It served notice on them that any citizen by evoking the aid of the courts, could restrain vice if officials were unable or unwilling to do so. This order of the chancery court was the Appomattox of toler- ated vice in Chicago. The newspapers published considerably more about the Vice War than the Balkan War. Mr. Wayman, States Attorney of Cook County, was publicly denounced as refusing to prosecute the vice lords. The committee of fifteen seconded the motion. The Chicago Church Federation Council, representing six hundred churches, sent its attorney, McKenzie Cleland, into court to ask for a special grand jury and a special states attorney to deal with the vice situation. Suddenly the States Attorney announced that the public was at last desirous that the laws be enforced against the vice districts. October 5, 1913 without warning the blow fell on the district. Pandemonium reigned. Patrol wagons filled with keepers and inmates ran all night. The police station was glutted. The streets were filled with a massed crowd that scarcely let them through. Terror and bewilderment was written on all faces. Trem- bling, one of Colosimos henchmen, a little swarthy keeper of a resort, came up to Ernest. "Brother Bell, your prayers are being answered." He excitedly pushed Mrs. Kuppinger through the crowd to get her away, fear- ing violence. But there was only fear. Mrs. Kuppinger tells the story. THE FALL OF CARTHAGE 85 Some of the houses got the tip and chased their girls through the back entrances, penniless, half clothed, to wander up and down all night or till the rush was over. They were instructed to come back about three in the morning, sneak through back doors, and be ready for business next day, when there would be a rush of callers incidental to the final closing. They were warned to have nothing to do with reformers who had made provision for all girls who would be thrust out. The poor gullible girls in terror obeyed. They were cold, hungry, and sick of the thing but sneaked back. They went to bed, slept till noon and prepared to do as ordered, get busy and rush things. Charge any price, 'lay low' for anything in sight, — anything to bring in the coin. They had to work on the sly. Night came and again the raid, again they wandered. The dive keepers thought the closing temporary, that the wave of reform would soon die. The Everleigh Club, the gibraltar of the district, had been closed a year before by order of the mayor. Now orders came for the closing of the entire district. It trembled and tottered. The fatal blow had been struck. Ernest wrote: Dens which one hundred days ago were occupied by a score of women and girls are shut up. The music is still, the electric lamps are dark, the liquor has ceased to flow. The thousands of young men who were lured to ruinous resorts are now saved from this extreme and officially authorized temptation. No, Chicago has not suddenly become the new Jerusalem. Vice has more than nine lives, and bad government, the sum of all villainies, has ninety-nine; and sin in the hearts of the unregenerate has nine hundred and ninety-nine. There is no discharge in that war against wickedness; and their thoughts would be very shallow who thought the battle over and the millennium arrived in Chicago. But a great campaign in the long, long war has been fought and won. Public, commercialized, politicalized exploitation of young men and young girls has received a staggering blow, from which it can never wholly recover in this city. Ernest stood one night with Boynton on the street corner where he had fought for ten intense heroic years in glare and noise and crowds. Now around him was the dark silence of closed windows and padlocked doors. It was as if the fires of "the abyss" were quenched leaving a blackened ruin. Ernest spread his arms and in a voice of solemn awe exclaimed "Blasted by the breath of God!" 86 A BIOGRAPHY A PRAYER FOR CHICAGO Lord, on our city pour Thy grace, And make Chicago Thine — Each morning less enslaved to wrong, Each evening more divine. Give wisdom to our rulers, Lord, And righteous manhood's might. Those who in darkness guard us all. Guard them, O God of light. Let all who teach be taught by Thee, To guide immortal youth In paths of everlasting right, Aglow with living truth. Give those who at Thine altars serve, Pure flame, a holy fire, To kindle goodness everywhere And banish base desire. Restrain the violent and vile. Reward well-doers well. Let mothers with their little ones In peace and safety dwell. Give comfort to the weak and poor, Bring greed and cunning low. Let equity and brotherhood Through all our borders flow. Lord, flood our city with Thy grace, And make Chicago Thine — Each morning less enslaved to wrong, Each evening more divine. XIV CAMPAIGN'S END Three weeks after Wayman's raids, Mayor Harrison appointed a Vice Committee of nine aldermen, with a chairman favorable to segregation. The committee announced that it would listen to all persons desiring to be heard on the issue of the reestablishment or permanent destruction of the vice districts, just as if the Vice- Commission had not rendered an exhaustive report which cost ten thousand dollars and a year's work. Graham Taylor wrote in the Survey, "The large council chamber in the new City Hall was thronged by remarkably representative groups. The battle royal was on in deadly earnest from the opening of the first session to the dramatic close of the last one, but from start to finish it was overwhelmingly one-sided. One of the sessions was in charge of Clifford G. Roe, attorney for the American Vigi- lance Association. Another was managed by Jane Addams for the Woman's City Club and was notable both for those who partici- pated and for the profound effect they produced." Ernest reported, "The argument was practically all against segregation. Dr. W. A. Evans and Professor Graham Taylor said that they had been in favor of segregation formerly, but their experience as members of the Vice Commission had made them un- alterably opposed to segregation or other authorization of the evil. "Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, with a scorn of evil that seemed to reach back to Mount Sinai and forward to the day of judgment, said, 'Away with segregation'! Father O'Callaghan and several Roman Catholic ladies were equally uncompromising. I have lived in Chicago more than sixteen years, and I have never seen Chi- cago's decent people so stirred and so united. The Chicago Church Federation Council commissioned Attorney Rufus S. Simmons to speak in behalf of six hundred Protestant churches, and for about half an hour this counsellor of the Supreme Court of the United States preached righteousness before the committee of nine aldermen in the council chamber in the city hall." Graham Taylor wrote further ''The arguments for segregation were extremely weak. Even those that were put forward by 87 88 A BIOGRAPHY physicians were such as might have been urged with more plausi- bility twenty-five or fifty years ago, before the diseases of vice and the dangers of infection were known as they are now." Ernest scratched his head and wondered if it had been more than twenty-five months since his good friend had published some arguments himself. They were all coming around to the truth. Mayor Harrison would arrive at it yet. History records that he did. In 1914 Carter Harrison said, "I have reached the conclusion finally that my views of the vice question have been wrong. You can't have protected vice without running the big risk of seeing your law enforcing officials cor- rupted." In his final official word to the people of Chicago he added "Segregation does not segregate." Ernest wrote a rhyme for Graham Taylor: Graham ben Adhem, man of affairs, Means more to Chicago than twenty pairs Of tiresome, lecturesome doctrinaires Or visionless, conscienceless millionaires — Graham ben Adhem who lives his prayers. Graham ben Adhem, pilot of youth, When they soar to the stars to find the truth, Volplanes to earth and says, "In sooth, The truth is manhood, labor, ruth!" Graham ben Adhem who does the truth. Graham ben Adhem, when you were wrong, I fought you hard and I fought you long; But I found you in combat as clean as strong, And zealous, — convinced, to smash that wrong — For that I sing for you this song. In due time this reply came back from Chicago Commons. That song you sang at me sings on still soaring overhead of all I was, or am or may be — except your fighting me hard and fighting me strong — when I was wrong — and that friendly criticism ex- presses the truest friendship. The result of the public hearings before the council was the organization of all the agencies, educational, rescue, prosecuting, medical, and religious to carry on the war. Notice was thus served on the city government of an organized public opinion, and as- surance was given of an enlightened public policy for carrying out CAMPAIGN'S END 89 the Vice Commission's demands, for repression of prostitution, the appointment of a morals commission, and the establishment of a morals court. Ernest wrote, "Eternal vigilance and eternal evangelism are the manifest duty of the churches. All betterment agencies must be strengthened, and the work of redemption pressed forward more than ever, or the lust of men and the lust of money in profits from vice and graft will quickly undo most of what has been gained. "We do take courage and we do give glory to God." The country as a whole was thoroughly aroused. The excite- ment had harnessed itself and when Ernest went with Steadwell and a group of experts to Canadian cities, New England, and South he found that what was wanted was conference on practical methods. The Illinois state senate appointed a vice commission in 1913 with the Lieutenant governor, Mr. Barratt O'Hara as chairman. He moved his inquiry to the La Salle Hotel in Chicago. Of course he came into touch with Ernest. No vice investigation could fail to know Ernest now. Though men constantly forgot or ignored him, his work was known the world around. Barratt O'Hara met Ernest and the glowing black eyes of the younger man looked into the glowing black eyes of Ernest and saw the soul on fire. The directors of the Midnight Mission appointed a committee to offer Mr. O'Hara any help which their experience might furnish, and the Lieut. Governor spoke in glowing terms of the Mission's work. The Commission inquired for the causes which led girls into vice and found that for most of them wages for honest work were so small that they had responded to the friendly offer of some nice young man to help them and found themselves unscrupulously used. The commission gave itself to the question of the minimum wage, subpoenaed books of large concerns in Chicago employing thousands of women and girls, told the truth, and made powerful enemies. Careful investigation showed that in 1913 the lowest wage on which a girl could live independently in Chicago was S8.00 a week. Very large numbers were receiving no more than $4.50 a week. One of these testified. Her employer, a leading citizen of Chicago known for his wealth and benevolence, a member of the vice com- mission, sat next to her. Ernest watched Barratt O'Hara extend his brown forefinger. 90 A BIOGRAPHY "Mr. Blank," O'Hara said, "How can you deny personal re- sponsibility in this matter? Your firm employs thousands of girls like that." "It is not a personal matter, it is the law of business competition. A firm would go under which based its methods on philanthropy." Barratt O'Hara's black eyes pierced him steadily. "Mr. Blank, your books show a profit to your concern of seven million dollars last year. They show a personal profit to you of four million dollars. If you raised every employee to a minimum wage of eight dollars it would cost you one half a million dollars a year and your personal profits would be three and one half million dollars a year. You were on the Vice Commission which decried the dance halls. I decry the wages which you pay." Wages were raised. The motion picture was still young. It occurred to Barratt O'Hara that the results of the Illinois Senate Commission on Vice and Wages might become buried in a legal document but the public would "read" a movie. He went to "A and C" Chicago pro- ducers; who were not interested, but finally consented, reluctantly, to make a film. The stories of witnesses before the commission were woven together, hearings before the commission shown. The "scenario" grew like Topsy. Ernest was asked to help with scenes in the vice district and appear in his true capacity as a preacher and reformer. Finally, the closed resorts, padlocked as all such should be, were shown. It cost some fifteen thousand dollars to produce. The film was named The Little Girl Next Door. It was shown at the La Salle Theater. From eight in the morning until eleven at night one had to cross the street to pass the crowd that waited at its doors. It made a record for attendance that stood for many years. The truth in The Little Girl Next Door had great influence. Twelve states passed minimum wage laws and two million girls and women had an average of two dollars a week added to their weekly wages. During the ten years' fight, Ernest could forget the nausea and repulsion the Inferno caused in him, though he often felt that people must turn and look at him and blanch as did the ladies of Ravenna when Dante passed, whispering; There is the man who has been in hell. CAMPAIGN'S END 91 As the character of his work changed, the old nausea came back on him. He put away his books and pamphlets and avoided men- tion of the field in which he was famous. Steadwell of LaCrosse, still strong in the purity fight was in Chicago one day and Ernest went to see him. "Why don't you get back into the work?" Steadwell asked. "I can't" Ernest said, "I can't. It was never my choice. I was drafted and I fought well while the war was on." Across his diary he wrote the lines from the fourth act of Shakespeare's King John: Away, with me, all you whose souls abhor The uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house; For I am stifled with the'smell of sin. XV THE CROSS CONFRONTING THE NIGHT The orgy of New Year's Eve, on the streets and in the hotels of "The Loop," was a scandal in Chicago. No attempt was made to enforce the laws in operation during other nights of the year. In December 1912, a large group of ministers, headed by two patriarchs of over seventy years, climbed the ten half flights of stairs to Mayor Harrison's office. They came to offer their support to him in strongly enforcing the ordinances on New Year's Eve. A worried subordinate came out and said that the mayor refused to see them. The papers reported that "he bet three red apples that there weren't a dozen ministers there." The reply published the names of sixty-five divines, about half of those who had been present. As they went away, Boynton boiled, "The mayor rules a city with a greater population than any one of thirty-five states. Now, when gun men are prowling, murder is frequent and the coroner is ringing the alarms, I should think he would seek the favor of the organized moral forces." An editor wrote it was "a failure in political sagacity." Ernest quoted, "Jesus spent no time in Caesar's ante-chambers," and obtained permission to hold a service inside the "Loop" on New Year's Eve. There was an ideal spot just off of State on Quincy street. State street is one of the busiest human streams of the world both day and night. Quincy street is a quiet eddy off of it, only one block long, ending at the Federal building. For this New Year Service the Commonwealth Edison Company built an electric cross about thirteen feet high. They made con- nections into the manhole in the street and placed sandbags to hold the base. Ernest's Board of Directors helped with the preparations. Ernest approached ministers and editors. No announcement was made because it was not purposed to attract more people to the scene of revelry. As the sight-seers and the revellers thronged back and forth, there it stood, — The Cross confronting the night. Around it from 92 THE CROSS CONFRONTING THE NIGHT 93 nine o'clock till one o'clock a dignified service was held. Eleven directors of the Mission were there. President Ozora Davis of the Chicago Theological Seminary spoke, as did Dean James M. Gray of Moody Bible Institute, and Dr. Robert H. Beattie, president of the Midnight Mission. There was church music. A young woman passing the lighted cross exclaimed, "Gosh, I can't stand that, I'm going home." The feet of those conducting the service grew cold. They beat them silently against the sand bags and continued. The program was like that of the churches from which the speakers came, but it is a different matter to talk to a shifting crowd. One preacher left the pulpit mopping his brow and whispered, "I don't see how you do it, Bell, I never did anything so hard in my life." Dr. John Timothy Stone was announced near midnight. He was in the midst of one of his fine sermons when a thousand whistles began to blow. The crowd wavered and started to leave. Ernest, sympathizing with his friend's plight, motioned Mrs. Kuppinger. She had always been equal to such emergencies. It was not so much what she said as the way she said it that compelled attention. In spite of whistles, she rallied the crowd and the services went on. The editor of the Northwestern Christian Advocate wrote, "More Churches than ever before held watch-night services for their own people; a downtown theater was open for religious services; the Art Institute entertained thousands for the first time free of charge, on New Year's Eve, while the most daring and beautiful of them all was the company of men and women of The Midnight Mission who took their stand in the very midst of the human stream and until far after midnight sang, prayed, and ex- horted to all who would stop and listen for ever so short a time. A striking feature of their meeting was an electric cross thirteen feet high capped with "By this sign conquer." As one contemplated the picture, he was inclined to invert the Scripture: There was a night when the sons of Satan came to present themselves before Beelzebub, and God came also among them. We can characterize this brave stand of these few workers under the light of the cross as something akin to heroic. Who will dare estimate the good they set in motion by that evening's effort?" The New Year's Cross became an institution. Lighted crosses followed it on Dr. Boynton's Church and then others. Finally one was placed five hundred sixty feet above the street on Chicago Temple. 94 A BIOGRAPHY "My Cross" Ernest said reverently, "has graduated and gone up there." A soaring Church in a roaring Loop; A shrine in a swirling mart; A pulse-beat of Almighty God In a giant nation's heart; Our Father's house; a home for souls, Pure hearts and busy hands; A citadel of truth and right — Chicago Temple stands! For thirty years Ernest was a member of the church which built this great temple in the "Loop" the Parish whose night Ernest strove to serve. He hoped ardently that this church would ade- quately perpetuate that service. His love and aspirations and prayers were built so strongly into the cross now lighted high above it that those who knew him feel his presence in it still. The city's crown, the Cross above, Proclaims God's holiness and love. Lord, we are zealous for Thy sign, We lift Thy Cross so high; The fairest spire in all the land Glows in Chicago's sky. Lord, count us not too vain and bold, At Thy white throne we bow; Thine emblem like a crown we set Upon our city's brow. O God! that we who view it may More Christ-like live from day to day. "Whatever else the Cross means," Ernest said, "it means that when the first man committed the first sin and until the last prodigal comes home, the heart of God bleeds. The Cross shows what sin costs God. "Jesus wept over the city, the crude, the sinful, but beloved city. He had compassion on the shepherdless multitudes who throng the city. "The neglected world of the night, a sort of darkest continent, cries bitterly for the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, beam- THE CROSS COXFROXTIXG THE NIGHT 95 ing in the face of Jesus Christ. Christ's witnesses and watchmen must chart, invade and conquer this world of the night. The drunk- enness and drug addiction, the hunger and homelessness, the beg- "Mv Cross has Graduated axd Gone up There" gary and rags, the disease and despair, the vice, the violence, the infidelity and blasphemy, the robberies, the murders and suicides, the indecent theaters, the immoral cafes, cabarets and hotels, the 96 A BIOGRAPHY moral slaughter and exploitation of girlhood and youth, connected with the evil night life of cities, shriek out a terrible challenge." Like the glowing midnight sun, Light the night, O radiant One. Shine amidst the city's gloom; All its murky sins consume. Cheer men wrestling with despair. Grant the desperate woman's prayer. Youths and maidens lured astray, Lead them to Thy holy way. Jesus, born 'neath Bethlehem's star, Led by night to judgment bar, In the night betrayed, denied — Now enthroned and glorified, Help Thy witnesses uphold Thy dear Cross in heat and cold; Light the night, radiant One, Like the glowing midnight sun. Ernest stood one night by Charing Cross in London. He had been taken by Wm. Alexander Coote to see with what success England dealt with vice. Vice in London was not obtrusive, but the ceaseless roar of life flowed through the night, down the Strand and around Trafalgar Square. He watched the flow. He saw tram cars filled with weary workers. He wondered how many men stayed up all night to keep the trams and busses going and the trains running in the underground beneath his feet. He saw a "Bobby" directing traffic, and a scrubwoman going to work. There was borne in on him a picture of all the cities of the world filled with toilers who work on while others sleep in safety. He exclaimed, "I greet in the name of God who never sleeps, neither is weary, those who are honorably occupied in the world's work at night." From that time, he tried to carry on a ministry of appreciation and encouragement for those who were not vicious but only weary and heavy burdened; physicians, nurses, newspaper men, telegraph operators, milkmen. At Minneapolis in November 1913 he said, "it is not enough to establish missions in the night, though may God speed the day THE CROSS CONFRONTING THE NIGHT 97 or the night when this shall be done in all cities. Night churches should be established, for the worship of God, for the preaching of the Gospel on the Church plane by the ablest preachers and with music of a high order, for bringing to bear upon the problems of the night the best thought and effort of the great ecclesiastical bodies. These great problems and tasks must not be left to a few pioneers, however gifted or devoted these may or may not be. The foundations of society and of the churches are involved." Ozora Davis, writing in the Advance November 27, 1913, said, "The Church has not yet seen the vision of her duty to minister to the night life of the city. Yet there are those who see it. The work of the Midnight Mission is really the combined ministry of the Churches to the forgotten needs of Chicago. It is, according to its legend, The Cross Confronting the Night. And those who are en- gaged in this service have seen the vision of an adequate ministry which shall stand with the message of the gospel and with every agency of human helpfulness, all night long." XVI PEACE AND WAR In London, at Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle, on Dec. 4, 1911 Ernest made a statement which became interesting three years later. "In a brief visit to Germany, just concluded, I was greatly im- pressed with the racial unity of the American, English and German peoples. War between any two of these mighty teutonic nations would be an incalculable offense against our teutonic ordered freedom of liberty under law, against our teutonic Christianity of the open Bible, against the commercial, industrial, educational, moral, political and spiritual leadership which these nations now enjoy. Such strife would be as fratricidal as a war of Pennsylvania against Ohio. The only just war is a war to enforce peace upon peace-breakers. 'Give to us peace in our time, O Lord." ' Again in 1911, in a sermon at the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago he said: "When, a few years ago a treaty of peace was made between Chile and Argentina, a wise Scotchman resident in South America suggested that the peace be made perpetual by erecting a statue of Christ, the Prince of Peace — and there it stands, on the bound- ary line between the two republics, the christ of the andes. It was not placed facing Chile nor facing Argentina, for then the back would be turned upon one or the other. So it was placed facing toward the North. The Christ of the Andes is looking this way and speaking peace to us. "Next year will be the centennial of the War of 1812, or rather the centenary of one hundred years of unbroken peace between America and Britain. Let us commemorate it by erecting at Niagara Falls a peace monument to be called the Christ of Niagara, with the face towards the three capitals, Ottawa, Washington and Lon- don, and with the inscription PEACE FOR EVER MORE." In 1912, while wandering over the battle field of Chicamauga, be- tween his own battles of the purity crusade in Canada and the East, he wrote verses "For Peace." Now war was fallen on the world. On August 21, 1914 the Chi- cago Examiner, which had initiated a peace movement and re- PEACE AND WAR 99 ceived telegrams from leaders everywhere endorsing its efforts, made use of Ernest's verses, and said; "The determination of Chicago's leading men to organize a great mass meeting on the lake front preceded by a parade of all organizations and representatives of all nationalities to urge medi- ation by all neutral nations to end the war is approved." "Dr. Bell is the author of a poem "For Peace" which is printed with a reproduction of the painting by Debat-Ponson of 'The Prince of Peace' looking down on the bodies of famous characters in history slain by war. This poem has been mailed to every min- ister in Chicago with a call to an interdenominational non-sectarian meeting." FOR PEACE Our Father, King of Nations, In this our time give peace. End war's black desolations And bid its carnage cease, Its rifles' vengeful rattle, Its cannons' murderous roar. Stanch the red tide of battle And let it rage no more. Wars, hateful to the mothers Of sons in conflict slain. Where brothers kill their brothers While widows weep in vain, While orphans' tears are falling — God, end this reign of hate, This shrewd, financed, appalling, False glory of the State. Teach Thou our heroes, Father, To use their strength and skill And leadership the rather To save, and not to kill. Lest through war's devastations Good human harvests cease. Destroy the scourge of nations, Enthrone the Prince of Peace. Ernest's brother John volunteered as a physician with the Ca- nadian forces and served throughout the war, — the Somme, Gal- lipolli, Egypt. The Midnight Mission now rented space on the second floor of 100 A BIOGRAPHY Number 11 East Congress Street, just outside the 'Loop' of down- town Chicago. The fall and winter of 1914 saw very great distress. Thousands of men were out of work. The regular relief organizations were overwhelmed. Fourteen hundred men slept on the floor of the mis- sion at different times. Suicides were increasing. One man on his way to the lake to drown himself passed the corner of Congress Street and heard from the room above a voice that sounded like his mother's. It was Miss Manley singing "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear." He found the stairs and came up. The next night he came again and told his story, which was verified. He had been the principal of a school. His mother was a Christian but he had read Ingersol and lost his faith. One needed faith in a time like this. He was ready to come back. He spread his newspaper on the floor with the rest to sleep. It took twenty dollars of Ernest's little fund before the man was on his feet but he wrote gratefully when he was established and happy again. Ernest threw himself into the cause of Syrian relief. His war li- brary contained many books on the sufferings of weak nations. He wrote too bitter verses: "His oath's a scrap to Kaiser Cain. To law and freedom blind, Ambition-struck, he runs amuck To subjugate mankind. Christ make short work with Kaiser Cain. End his insane desire, Who, belching flame in God's dear name, Sets earth and sea on fire." The literature developed through the years of the vice campaign helped to equip the army camps. Then the government published quantities of it. "It is very good of Uncle Sam to furnish me leaflets just when printing bills in Chicago have become intolerable." Then Russia was prostrate, and America was in the war. "Of course all our plans now must be held in subjection to the nation's need." Ernest presided at the rather hastened weddings of three of his children. Two sons and the husbands of two daughters were in uni- PEACE AND WAR 101 form. His youngest son was seventeen and at college. Word came that he had enlisted in the tanks. "But you had to lie about your age, Son." "Well what can you do when you know what you've got to do," the boy replied and was sent quickly overseas and to the front, but was not injured. Mary said, "I feel I am sacrificing my sons as truly as ever Abra- ham did Isaac and I trust God may show a better way." Ernest looked for "war work" himself. His co-worker went to be "Y" man for eight thousand boys. "For heaven's sake stay where you are" Ernest was told, and held his corner. "I'll go where you want me to go" needs for counter-weight "I'll stay put" he wrote. Dr. Jean Zimmerman spoke in his meeting one Saturday eve- ning. After she had left with Mrs. Kuppinger, Ernest found a threat printed on wrapping paper on his mission stairs. "You are making trouble in your talk. Dr. Zimmerman and Mrs. Kuppinger, Bell to. Get out. Speak once more we kill you there or in ally. Think you got friends. We show you to hell. Last time warn. Keep away or get killed. This is no bluff. Get out or go to morg. This means U ." He was responsible for the safety of his helpers. He continued in prayer about it till he had an inner consciousness that apprehension was no longer necessary. The mystic may be unable to convince others of the validity of such experience, but he recorded on the back of the threat; "3:30 p.m. Sunday, solicitude about this ceased." Ernest spoke often under the auspices of the State Council of Defense. He sent a letter to Wilson, "Your pen outweighs a thousand swords, Interpreter of liberty Decisive battles are your words Write on, prophet of the free." In September 1918 he remarked, "Peace has started on her way, though it may be only the milky way and it may take her some time to arrive." 102 A BIOGRAPHY In October he added, "Peace is near — and with it countless new and imperative tasks. The churches adjusted themselves promptly to war conditions and must quickly readjust themselves to the re- turn of the troops and the immeasurable work that lies before us in our own country and all the world. Evangelism, education, in- dustry, economics, government must all be adapted, guided, ener- gized. "Whether we will or not, some form of world organization is be- ing forced upon us. Kant's vision of Eternal Peace, La Fontaine's Magnissima Charta — effective internationalism in some form in- evitably impends. Will America lead?" XVII COURAGE The Association of Commerce created a subscription committee to investigate philanthropic organizations that were appealing to the public for funds. It issued a report showing the organizations whose work and methods it approved and giving damaging absent treatment to those which it did not approve. Ernest took the small printed copy of the treasurer's report and annual subscription list in his hand and went over to the Associa- tion of Commerce. He laid his hat down, brim up, the report in the crown. It was his habit to place anything he carried in his hat. The smart young man in the office asked him a list of questions which somehow did not fit. Ernest tried to explain the nature of his work but the smart young man did all the talking. "We must of course have something concrete in the way of statistics," he said. "How many conversions has this 'er Mid- night Mission had." "Perhaps hundreds have repented, thousands have been taught, millions have heard something of our testimony." "Statistics," glared the young man tapping with his pencil. "Where is the record?" Ernest made a large gesture upward. "The Angels have the record," he said and walked out with his hat. At his desk, he sat some time thinking of the long procession of men and women of all kinds whose faces had lighted with a new thought or a new courage because he had spoken to them. As John Thompson said later of him "He was no Billy Sunday with power to hold vast multitudes in thrall; his art was at once more selective and more difficult. For he dealt with the human heart at its hardest and most difficult. By the time men and wo- men became part of his constituency they had shed all conventional moralities, all readiness of response to conventional hot gospeling, but they listened and respected him." He wondered how many times he had written to some pastor about some promising young man, "Please take an especial interest in Dick," without mentioning the special sin or danger that had brought him to the corner. 103 104 A BIOGRAPHY On his desk now was a letter on pink paper in a fine bitter hand. "I am sick and tired of this life, crippled in both soul and body. I shall be glad indeed when death comes. Down here life is Hell indeed, maladjusted for most of us. I suppose it behooves me to make the most of it. What I need is steady work and less starving. "You are the only clergyman I have any confidence in, also you are the only one that I know of that practices what you preach." He couldn't put human souls into statistics. He asked Miss Manley to tell the Association of Commerce stories of lives she had helped, and sent with her minutes of the Directors' meetings. Miss Manley listened to another soliloquy by the young man but the minutes came back with a note from an official of the Association. "These are the most significant minutes it has been my privilege to read." It enclosed the desired credential. In 1914 Jenkin Lloyd Jones in Unity spoke of "the clear vision of this good, self-denying man who is carrying on a work obscure and pathetically thankless so far as public sentiment is concerned." He was much neglected and often rejected and despised. An honor which came from his Alma Mater, Allegheny College in 1915 touched him very deeply. At the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the college he was given an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity as "a man of high ideals and lofty purpose who is giving his best to others' worst. Not only Chicago but other cities are rising up to call him blessed." Mary watched him in the colorful academic ceremonies and lived over college days. In 1918 Boynton wrote the Directors, "Dr. Bell will add to his present lines of work that of visitation in the courts and jails in cooperation with the Federation. We are responsible for our own work and budget. Our open-air services will be moved to Quincy Street where we have celebrated the New Year's Eve. "It was voted at the last meeting of our Board to make an effort to clear up the old obligations that amount to about S2,500, all of which is in back salary to Dr. Bell. This appeal is made by the Directors and not in any way at the instance of Dr. Bell who does not press the matter. The salary of Dr. Bell is S2,500 per year. For the last two years he has received but half this amount. Therefore each Director is requested to raise at least S100.00 to apply on this back account. Will vou trv to do this." COURAGE 105 There had been good support at the height of the Vice Campaign but that was past. His youngest brother Chauncey F. Bell had, year after year, made many things possible for him. Now Ernest wrote, "Efforts to put this Society on an adequate and secure financial foundation have not been successful. God has not failed and He has sent us, by His people, enough to be honest — for which we give Him praise and thank His people. "But we are straitened to a degree that hurts morale, weakens efficiency, and keeps me perplexed about the right or wrong of sweltering on. "I am not old, but I am no longer young, — the afflictions that befell us in Asia and the long strain of the hazardous struggle in Chicago leave me considerably depleted in physical and nervous force and somewhat spent in spirit." He edited the Church Federation Bulletin and gave other service with his writing. He would have been glad to supplement his earnings with his pen but he found no market. Curious, isn't it? Wonderful queer My no good verses, last year, this year, So fooled the Editor man so sage That he printed them on the Editor's page Now what in the world would the scribbler say If some time the Editor man should pay? "The vile Chicago stoned us. Will the good Chicago starve us?" he asked and struggled on. XVIII EIGHTY LANGUAGES Ernest went to London, Paris and Berlin in 1911; and again in 1913 he went to a conference in London. He wrote from the St. Lawrence River: My Dear Mary: We are waiting about seventy-five miles above Quebec, for the tide. The ship is neat and homelike. Opposite me at table is Mon- sieur Merceau, who parleys Francaise. He will give me some les- sons. In the room opposite mine is a German aus Saxony, who reached Montreal after a stormy voyage yesterday morning, and started back last night. His uncle had told him good things about Canada, but seeing was not believing. He has no company, but me, as no one else can sprechen Deutch. There is a Greek with whom I have conversed very little. My ancient and his modern Greek do not match perfectly." In Paris he found signs "English spoken," but stepping into a shop with this legend, he could not make himself understood. Stepping out again, he watched the fiacres streaming by, the street cars whose labels meant nothing to him, the human crowds with whom he could not speak, and he knew that the loneliest man in the world is the one who stands languageless in a throng. He wrote Mary: Ma cher Marie: J'ecris dans Paris. There is a French rhyme, original — and astonishing proof of my progress in French! I can get about Paris without any fatal mistakes, — can take an omnibus or the underground, inquire my way of a policeman or other habitant, order a meal, buy a guide book. But I could not persuade them to cook some oysters that I ordered my first hours in Paris, and I would not eat them raw. But that was twenty-seven hours ago! Think of the Pratique I have had since then." In Paris he secured some pamphlets in French written by the great syphilographer Professor Alfred Furnier. When he reached Chicago he was anxious to have them translated at once, but the translator found the technical medical terms impossible, and ad- vised Ernest to do it himself, so Ernest took a few lessons at the 106 EIGHTY LANGUAGES 107 Berlitz School, and spent three days translating For Our Sons, and The Social Danger of Syphilis. He took the translations to Dr. Winfield Scott Hall who was on the Midnight Mission Board, and had spoken to thousands of boys and men on social hygiene, He exclaimed, "Good for you, Dr. Bell. That's good English and excellent medicine." Languages always made a great appeal to him. By the time he left Oxford he had studied Latin, Greek, German, Hebrew, Cuneiform, Sanskrit, "a little Tamil and less Bengali." He started preaching in Tamil the third month in India. At Jubbulpore he made progress in Hindustani. In Chicago he usually carried his Greek testament and spoke to the Greek fruit dealers in the few words of modern Greek he knew. He had many grateful gifts of fruit. For several years he added a new language each year to his list, getting a pocket dictionary and testament and subscribing to a paper in the language. A college friend came home with one of the children, and saw the little bulletin board he kept outside of his bedroom door posted with items that he wanted to pass on to the family. She looked it over and laughed. "There are notices in five languages here, Mr. Bell. Do you expect your children to read them all?" "Well," he answered, between them they have Latin, German, French, and Spanish. None has arrived yet at Greek." 'T wish you would teach me the Greek alphabet, Mr. Bell." He whipped his Greek testament out of his pocket. "There are three Greek alphabets," he said. "This one you see, and this one used on the monuments, and this, — now the Russian alphabet, is derived from the Greek." He whipped out of the same pocket a Russian testament. "See here." The friend chuckled, "I can't learn four alphabets at once, Mr. Bell. I'm no language shark. How many languages do you know?" "Only one, only one. To know a language you must know it with your eyes, your ears, your fingers, your tongue, and dream in it. I know something of a dozen with my eyes, but I can only dream in English." He used each language that he learned in his nightly work. "Chicago," he said, "is the largest foreign missionary field in the world; unless it be New York or London. I meet men in my night church from every country on the globe." 108 A BIOGRAPHY The American Bible Society and the Chicago Bible Society, on whose Board Ernest was, donated large quantities of testaments and scripture portions, chiefly the Gospel of John, for free distribu- tion. In London he had been in to see the Scripture Gift Mission which publishes scriptures in ninety languages, and illustrates them beautifully with colored photographs of the Holy Land. Dr. Brad- ing of the Scripture Gift Mission told him, "We shall always be delighted to let you have as many scriptures as you can use." While a meeting was in progress on the street corner, Ernest and the two deaconesses were busy quietly greeting individuals and learning their needs, giving them leaflets that touched their inter- ests. A Japanese passed without stopping. Ernest went quickly to his box of Scriptures, took out a Japanese John's Gospel and walking with the short steps he always took when he hurried, went after him, spoke graciously and presented it with a bow. The oriental stopped surprised, observed the dignified, scholarly looking gentleman, put his hand in his pocket and asked the price. "A gift," said Ernest, "of good news. Read it. Are you a stranger in America?" "Since a few months." "You will find much that is bad in America, and much that is good. Make it your business to find the best that is in America." The Japanese was in a hurry. Ernest did not detain him. He saw a Persian rug dealer going by with colorful rugs over his shoulder. He took him an illustrated Arabic gospel. The man's eyes looked dreamy and forlorn. He took the little book half- heartedly. Looking at it, his back suddenly straightened, he be- came alert, he started in to read the first print of his own language that he had seen in four years. Entirely oblivious of the stream of people jostling north, east, south, west, past him, he stood for half an hour on the corner of State Street and read. When he went on, he touched Ernest under the chin with the gesture of another land. Ernest gave a Mohammedan a St. John in Urdu (Hindustani) his native tongue, and he stood three-quarters of an hour reading it, and acknowledged that Jesus character was superior to Mohamet's. Sometimes they wrote him letters: "I beg to ask you pardon me for not come to see you such long time, but still my heart was imbedded of your kindness which you so kindly helped me for this year past. Of course you have the long EIGHTY LANGUAGES 109 working experience in your personality as long as the heavenly father remain your reward you have no fear of discourage. I pray for vou to enjoy in good healthy so everything in your part are satisfactory." There was a letter from a German Jew educated at Berlin, who had thought him crazy at first, preaching on the street, but had written him: I was glad and I was pleased to see you work there. — The only decent influence in the whole district. I know you to be poor, I mean materially, and therefore I enclose my mite "to be used for your own personal benefit." so that you may be able to keep up the battle and be able to give some of the riches you are so largely endowed with to some of those poor deluded fools who live, in, and those who live on, and those who frequent the plague spot. — I may differ with your theology, I do not doubt your sincerity, I envy your courage, I admire your work, I ask the honor, the pleasure, which I consider a privilege, to assist you in continuing it. . . . GengoSuzuki,a postgraduate Japanese student, wrote to a friend: I was very poor in speaking and hearing the English language, for it was only ten or nine days after my arrival at San Francisco. I was lonely sitting in the train, and then a grey hair gentleman came to the next of my seat. He was Dr. Bell. He had hard time to let me know what he talked, for I had to repeat, "I beg your pardon," but he was very kind, so that he always talked slowly and repeated two or three times. In this way I have a very pleas- ant trip. He brought me to the City Y.M.C.A. If I did not meet Dr. Bell, nay if Dr. Bell did not come to talk to me on that train, I should have difficulty in locating myself. When I said "goodbye" to Dr. Bell at the city Y, I felt very much depressed, as if I had lost my guardian. Since then he often wrote to me, and also sent me many useful papers. Although I met him only once, he looks an intimate friend of many years. Ernest came to have an uncanny ability at spotting a man's native land and language. He could say the equivalent of "How do you do" in a great many of them, and saw men's faces suddenly light up with the familiar greeting. Sometimes they gave him a flood of greeting in reply, and he could only offer them their gospel in return. Each language that he met, he jotted down in his pocket diary. The days when he had given out gospels in a dozen or more tongues were red letter days. He gave out hundreds of scriptures in as many as forty-three languages in one year. All told he gave them out in eighty languages. 110 A BIOGRAPHY In 1927 he could say: We have fed the souls of men from nearly all parts of the world with the printed word of the Lord in eighty different languages, na mely : Albanian Danish Irish Roumanian Arabic Dutch Italian Russian Arapahoe English Japanese Ruthenian Armenian Esthonian Kabyle Serbian Assamese Finnish Korean Siamese Azerbaijani Flemish Latin Singhalese Bengali French Lettish Slavonic Moslem Gaelic Lithuanian Slovak Bicol Georgian Malay Slovenian Bohemian German Malayalan Spanish Braid Scots Greek Maltese Swedish Breton Greenland Marathi Syriac Bulgarian Cujerati Maya Tagolog Cantonese Hawaiian Xavaho Tamil Cherokee Hebrew Norwegian Turkish Chinese Hindi Pampanga Urdu Cree Hungarian Persian Yisava Croatian Ibanag Polish Welsh Dakhani Icelandic Portuguese Winnebago Dakota Ilocano Punjabi Yiddish We minister to people attached to, or detached from, all the churches of Christendom, to many Jews, some Buddhists, Con- fucianists, Hindus, Moslems. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? W T ith all eighty languages he had no separate John's Gospel in American. He urged the making of one on scholars, but was ad- vised to undertake it himself. He wanted to show its arrangement as an argument or proof. He translated from the Greek and did a beautiful piece of work. He made a cover for the man on the street. CAN WE KNOW GOD? Jesus Answers, Yes. See the Proofs He found his translation useful. A professor in Japan wrote him that the Japanese High School boys could manage this modern English as they couldn't the older versions. XIX OPEX AIR EVANGELISM As Ernest turned from the stream of humanity on State Street and entered Quincy street toward the Federal building, he raised his hat. He raised his hat whenever he passed a church, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or the Y.M.C.A. This corner was his cathedral, the Xight Church. So he lifted his hat always here. For the Temple of God is holy And holy His people shall be For He dwells with us and He works with us Through time and eternity. The sky was his roof. He looked up. The roof was not leaking to- day, but a patent medicine man was talking to his parishioners. He sighed. That corner ought to be held for God. He put on his hat and glanced up at the bay window on the second floor where his prayer room was — he crossed the alley, turned into 12 Quincy, edged his parcel into the elevator with a word to the elevator man. A big fellow cursed. "Brother," Earnest said cheerfully, "don't swear, pray. I have tried both and I find it very much better to pray.'' He got off at the second floor. It was a somewhat dingy building with a central inclosed court and balconies of the era of the nineties. His room was 204. He unlocked it and went in. The floor was bare white boards, a greyish white with much washing. There was a roll-top desk and table and book shelves. There were the "pulpits," two special stepladders, painted black with a platform for standing on the middle step. There was a neat black standard with a little sign "The Xight Church" printed on it, then boxes of pamphlets, piles of printed matter wrapped in paper, a bare table, the bay window with a rocking chair where he could sit and watch his corner if a meeting was in progress. Then more printed matter — a hat rack, a bowl with running water, and his case of scriptures portions in nearly eighty languages. This was a long black case divided within into small pigeon holes with the languages in alphabetical order so he could find Arabic, Bengali, Chinese at an instant's notice. Above, on the frosted glass of the partition into the court and around to the windows were mottoes and pictures. Ill 112 A BIOGRAPHY Abraham Lincoln who had freed the black slaves, the Christ of the Andes symbol of international peace, Bishop Fallows, Everybody's Bishop, preaching from the step-ladder pulpit. Over all was sifted the soft black soot that is an inevitable part of Chicago. He laid his parcel on the table., unwrapped it, folded the wrap- ping paper into a drawer, and looked with interest at the picture he had brought. It was a colored print of St. Augustine preaching in the year 597 a.d. to King Aethelberht of Kent and his queen who was Bertha of Paris, Aethelberht had refused to go into the queen's little private chapel but had consented to listen beneath an oak to the pope's emmissary. So the great Church of England had been born in the open air. He hung the print high on the wall. He thought a picture of John Wesley preaching to thousands of Welsh miners in the pit at Gwennap would look well beside it. Our religious era dates from the field preaching of Wesley and White- field. One could have a gallery of such pictures. Jesus on the Mount; Paul on the Areopagus; Wycliffe's Lollards in the hedges; Martin Luther before twenty thousand in the market place of Zwickau; Whitefield in Connecticut with a cloud of dust rising from every road as farmers rushed in thundering streams to hear him; Moody in the Botanical Gardens; the Bishop of London preaching in Wall street. Strange how shy people were of outdoor preaching when they had such good examples and so many examples. The missionaries objected to Ernest's preaching to the heathen that stoned him on the beach at Vallvettaturi. Well, he had been at it nearly thirty years since then and hundreds of Chicago's best had stood with him on the street, business men, ministers, lawyers, doctors, a list would sound like an honor roll of Chicago. His meetings be- came a sort of training school in evangelism. Some were interested in social reform, some found the strain of outdoor preaching beyond their endurance or their taste, some caught the vision of the need and the possibility of open-air evangelism. Simon Peter Long did. One night in Edinburgh he set down a too heavy suit case and listened to an atheist speaking from a soap box. The atheist challenged answer. Simon Peter Long answered with power. He refuted argument after argument. The crowd cheered. Then Long challenged answer. The atheist opened his mouth but literally could not speak. OPEN AIR EVANGELISM 113 Ernest and Simon Peter became joint chairmen of the committee on Evangelism of the Church Federation. People may not listen to what you have to say but they'll listen to themselves saying it for you. Persistently Ernest sowed his thought in one after another. He brought together annually a con- ference on Open-Air Evangelism. In April, 1920, they met in the Y.M.C.A. auditorium with one hundred twenty persons coming from nearly sixty local churches, theological seminaries, missions, and missionary societies, Bible institutes, and business men's evangelistic teams and clubs, the Salvation Army, and the Vol- unteers of America. Foremost among the speakers were Judge Newcomer and Dr. E. Robb Zaring. The judge urged the churches to persevere in evangel- ism to counteract the propaganda of anarchists, and to stop the leaks by which so many young people are lost to the churches. Dr. Zaring spoke with the spirit of a prophet, and followed his speech by a leading editorial in the Northwestern Christian Advocate of April 21 in which he said: The deep interest and enthusiasm on the part of the representa- tives present was quite beyond expectation. It was Jesus' method of evangelizing. "Go out into the highways and byways and compel them to come in." If we are to lead the world to Christ, we must go out upon the street corner, for there the masses are and they are not flocking to the churches. The Chicago Church Federation has never projected a more serious or important line of work. It should have the unqualified co-operation of every church in the city. The open air sermon, the direct personal appeal, is what the world demands and what the church must give to save itself as well as society. The president of the Church Federation, Dr. Herbert S. Willett, presided at the conference, and in an editorial in the Christian Century of April 22, he said: Open-air preaching is one of the needs of the present time. There are few people who can be induced to enter a church as compared with the throngs who are willing to stop, even from curiosity, to hear what a preacher on the street corner or in the park will say. To a large extent the men who have been willing to adventure this more informal type of evangelism have been unrecognized by the church as a necessary part of the Ministerial force. At this unique and vital gathering, it was freely confessed that what had been an occasional practice should be a regular function of the church. o OPEX AIR EVANGELISM 115 The Literary Digest of May 22 devoted half a page to the report of this conference. Ernest's crop was growing. Evangelism in the open air is no more important than evangelism anywhere, but evangelism must be wherever people are. In 1921 his crop had grown to include the Central Y.M.C.A. Jointly with the Church Federation meetings were arranged for the noon hour in Arcade Court beside the Y.M.C.A. His steplad- der with its comfortable wide middle step was the pulpit. The court was shady and cool. The meetings continued all summer. Attendance ranged from three hundred to a thousand. Ernest went to Bishop Fallows' home to enlist him for the cause and the good bishop spoke for him, "We are going to tell the old story in sane and simple fashion where listening people are, out of doors." The first meeting of 1922 in Arcade Court had Rev. Howard Agnew Johnston, president of the Church Federation, Bishop Nicholson, and Ernest as speakers, and about 1,200 listeners. The audience gave eager, at times reverent attention. The newspapers published photographs of the meetings. The people are in the parks as much as they are in the streets in summer. The famous parks of Chicago are managed by several different park boards. Ernest had to see each board in turn for permission to hold meetings under its jurisdiction. Sometimes it was granted gladly, sometimes he had to persist till his point was won. July 26. 1921 Dear Sir: As I said to your commissioners a year ago, you ought to repeal your oppressive ordinance against peaceable assemblage in the people's parks. Political liberty, intellectual liberty, religious liberty, are the things for which America exists, and when these are destroyed only the shucks of America are left. Very respectfully yours, Ernest A. Bell Later he could write, "The streets and parks have been opened to the gospel beyond all precedent. The West Park board, control- ling twenty parks, is eager to cooperate with us." The Christian Science Monitor May 25, 1926, reported an inter- view with him, and stated that "sixty clergymen have agreed to 116 A BIOGRAPHY serve and will be divided without relation to denomination into twelve groups of five each for the open air services," throughout the summer. Ernest had made street preaching respectable in Chicago. WHEN UNA SINGS When Una sings in Quincy Street, How magical the sound! Constrained by music's mystic power, The crowd soon gathers round. She sings of Christ, who shed His blood On Calvary's painful tree, To show the Cross in God's own heart — Our lives from sin to free. So men bow down their heads and hearts, And there the Christ they meet — When Una leans on Henry's arm, And sings in Quincy Street. SANS DIEU Seven times ten billion cycles, End this afternoon at five, Since the star-dust that we came from Moved to show itself alive. Souls aflame and hearts a-burning, Maidens loved and babies kissed, Plato's thoughts and Shakespere's measures All emerged from mud and mist. Worlds in trillions keep their orbits Better than a clock keeps time: What achievement for the star-dust! Wonderful for muck and slime! Earth of beauty that we dwell in, Safely here our feet have trod; Oh, how credulous are critics Who can not believe in God! XX INDIA AGAIN India was on Ernest's heart again. It had never entirely left it. In 1919 he wrote; "Now that my mother is gone, and our chil- dren are grown up, I feel constrained to resume efforts for India's illumination and redemption." "If I can be sustained to urge this idea of a Christian University upon the British and Indian governments, upon the missionary and educational boards upon the powerful American and British Universities, I believe I can by God's blessing make a worthy im- pact upon India in the next twenty years. I am fifty four." "In order to bring myself and my appeal up to date in things Indian, I desire to revisit India with Mrs. Bell. I might finance myself by writing for a generous publisher." But no way opened. He sat beside Dr. Gore at a banquet and plied him with questions about India. "Perhaps you have forgiven me for questioning you till your ears ached, Please do," Ernest said to him, "For twenty-seven years the thought of a Christian University for India has con- cerned me profoundly, at times the thought has been quiescent, at times as irrepressible as a volcano." In 1920 he published his third edition of "An Oxford in India." He went to New York to consult the Methodist Bishops for India. There was considerable discussion. The bishops said, "Under the proclamation of King George sometime this fall the new regime of self-government is to be in- augurated in India. Under it education becomes subject to the vote of the legislative councils in which Indian vote is supreme. An Indian will be placed in charge. It is of course impossible for us to tell what will be the attitude of this new regime towards Christian education, or what we will be able to do under it." To which Ernest answered, "It is the duty of the ambassadors of the world's supreme Educator to guide the governments, teach all nations. If the university were undertaken now with a large and Christlike prospectus, that would convince all concerned that the gift is too valuable to be rejected." 117 118 A BIOGRAPHY He wondered if he could go to India as a social worker. In 1925 Ernest went to the Fourth Presbyterian Church to see Dr. John Timothy Stone. "You are going to India, Dr. Stone. I want you to ascertain for me the present status of efforts against that social and religious enormity temple prostitution. Imagine good respectable native families devoting their daughters to lives of impurity in the temples in the name of religion. Sin is deified in India. Bishop Fisher can help you in Calcutta. I'll write him." "Thank you, why don't you go too," asked Dr. Stone. "If I had means I would," answered Ernest. "I could initiate something worth while towards the abolition of the evil. I'm some- thing of a specialist. The missionaries haven't time and are rather hopeless about deified vice." "Twenty years ago some Chicago ministers were rather hopeless about commercialized vice were they not? It might take some time in India," ventured Dr. Stone. "It might take a thousand years, but I could begin what need never cease till it is done!" was the reply. From India Dr. Stone wrote, "Alas I fear it is all too true. Re- ligion has a black name in India. Jesus Christ is more beautiful than ever and his church is pure. When I get back I want to see you." Then news came from Jubbulpore. The India Methodist Theo- logical College had been founded with an endowment of one hun- dred thousand dollars. It was the first college of higher theological education on a national scale and speaking the English interna- tional language. It was educating teachers who would go to ver- nacular seminaries, the Urdu, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Burmese and so touch all the divisions of India. With the Thoburn Biblical Institute and Johnson Girls' School, also at Jubbulpore, it might grow into a great center of Christian learning and so fulfil his dream of an Oxford in India. Ernest looked at the pictured faces of the first graduating class. He went up to his room and pulled out from under his bed the little yellow metal steamer trunk, labeled Ernest A. Bell, Jubbul- pore, in which he kept his special papers. He took out his pamphlet of "An Oxford in India." Across the front he had pasted a clipping. "It takes patience, akin to the infinite, to await the fruition of an ideal." INDIA AGAIN 119 He touched the one pie, which is a sixth of a cent, the mustard seed with which he had begun his fund. He fingered the silver coin and the five dollar gold piece, his prayer tokens that he had saved these twenty-three years. He remembered his divinity school of one, when quite unofficially but prophetically he had begun to train a youth in Jubbulpore. He took out the big account book that was to have recorded the large sums of the Christian University Fund for India. It listed on its first thin pages S400. He lived over the long years. "How consumed I have been about it, as though a volcano were scorching my very soul. And how ut- terly thwarted and nearly in despair about it, till I would rather die than live thus baffled in an enterprise that seemed by so many evidences to be from God." He bowed long in prayer. Then wrote a check for S400 and closed the account. After it he wrote three times underlined NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE With joy we walk Thy way. Thy path with wisdom bright. Out from our hard and blind self-will We come to love Thy light. We yield our thwarted plans; Thy plans we now fulfill. Our souls exult to yoke themselves With Thy majestic will. Thy will, which is our peace, Which makes our weakness strong, That blends itself with holiness And rights the blackest wrong, Thy will suffused with love — The love that moves the sun. That guides the wings of seraphim — Thy glorious will be done! He sent the check to the mission board, giving its history but without restrictions. The Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Church placed the four hundred dollars in a permanent fund to be known as the "Christian University Fund for India" and sent the little sums it 120 A BIOGRAPHY earned to India Methodist Theological College at Jubbulpore, Central Provinces, India. Ernest wrote the principal of the College, "I feel that my vision, prayer, anguish, effort are all being worked into the college — which may in God's time and way become a Christian University to help to light India and make it glorious." His grain of mustard had been planted. Those who were near him felt a deeper mellowness and sweet- ness in his life. Dr. John Timothy Stone was busy one afternoon with the thou- sand and one undone duties of a big parish, and with three ser- mons facing him for Sunday. A quiet knock came at the door. In stole Ernest; his face was anxious but aglow. "I know how busy you are," he said, "but I must unburden my heart." "You look wearied and hungry," Dr. Stone said. "Have you had lunch?" "No, nor do I want it. I want to pray with you about our work. Somehow we must reach more of these suffering, lost, people who don't know their state and don't care." They prayed together. He was away as quickly as he came, but Dr. Stone's work had caught his glow, and was no more irksome. "So he goes through life," said Dr. Stone to himself, "more like one of the apostles than any minister I have known since the days of A. J. Gordon of Boston, or Drummond of Edinburgh. He is unalloyed gold, a guileless soul." XXI PEXTECOST "It is Christ or chaos for America" Ernest wrote. "As Judge Cavanaugh said to the ministers, America's present crime wave is due to the fact that the nation has lost touch with God. Ultimately everything really worthwhile rests upon spiritual foundations. The long fight against vice is a spiritual battle, for chastity is primarily and principally an attitude of the spirit. He who sins physically sins first in his thoughts and his imaginations." "The thing I want to do, the thing I am trying to do is to bring deeper spirituality to the churches. The tremendous need of our time is the flood tide of God's power in the churches. Great divine interventions, sublime transforming shocks from the Spirit, have been granted in former times in response to penitence and prayer. These almighty energies are still available and are needed now for the transfiguration of the churches and the reconstruction of the world." Patiently, tactfully month after month, Ernest carried on a campaign for this purpose. It seemed to him that a fitting obser- vance of the day of Pentecost, on which this floodtide of power first burst upon the earliest Christian believers and made them conquerors in their time, would help the present to share that power. There is a spurious counterfeit pentecostalism which can be overcome by a true emphasis of the spirit. One day in 1927, he took the elevator in Chicago Temple to the fourteenth floor and went into room 1401, the office of Dr. John Thompson, pastor of the church. The secretary opened the door into the inner office where Ernest had fought many a battle. He slipped into his familiar chair facing across the desk the capable doctor's grey head. "Now Saint John," said Ernest "You must cooperate with me in this matter. Our Catholic brothers make Pentecost of equal rank with Easter. Our Episcopal brothers bury it under the name of Witsunday. The rest of us have largely forgotten it. The churches called the Disciples of Christ are remembering that it is nineteen 121 122 A BIOGRAPHY hundred years in 1930 since the first birthday of the Christian church. I think Chicago Temple should celebrate that birthday." "Well Saint Ernest," said John Thompson dropping the vowels of the playful saint and rolling the Ernest with his English burr. "Let's see." Out of Ernest's hat came calendars, letters, pamphlets. They studied the situation. "America is sick with spiritual illiteracy. Let us put her to school with this day. Chicago Temple could get this into the thought of Chicago churches in from one to five years" urged Ernest. "And I'm to cooperate by a service on June fifth?" asked Thomp- son. "Yes, and next year Pentecost bisects General Assembly. Could you bring up the matter there? I've written Robert E. Speer as moderator for the Presbyterian General Assembly. I've seen Ozora Davis who is Moderator for the Congregationalists. Boynton will write Dr. Massee whose address at the Baptist Northern Conven- tion comes on Pentecost. Simon Peter Long of the Lutherans has an article coming in the Church Federation Bulletin. I'm going up now to see the Bishop." He took the elevator up two floors but Bishop Hughes was not in his office. He left a note: "My errand was to inquire how we may get a responsive reading on Pentecost into our order of worship, and to point out that the Psalter, however excellent, is all pre- christian." "Pentecost should unquestionably rank with Christmas and Easter in the thought and observance of all the Churches. Can we utilize the general conference to urge its restoration throughout the Methodist Episcopal Church?" Bishop Hughes told him later, "The bishops will place in their episcopal address a good statement concerning the matter of the Pentecost Sunday. I am sure that this will give it as strong an em- phasis as we could possibly desire." Would this emphasis have in it spiritual power? Words can be soulless. Ernest went down to the wide grey parlors of the church and found his chair in the righthand corner at the window. He sat meditating for an hour, then went up to the offices of the Church Federation, said "Bon jour" to the secretaries as he passed, and, at one of the back desks, wrote out his thoughts. It was a very brief, matter of fact explanation, to be sent to the religious press, PENTECOST 123 the newspapers, the conferences. "The first Christian Pentecost was marked by the greatest turning to Christ ever recorded — three thousand in one church in one day — and the completest consecra- tion of property. Calvin observes that the Church of Pentecost was more like a society of angels than of men. It was a colony of heaven." When he had finished the few pages, he had to wait for their typing. The next day he took the manuscript to his office. Muir was there. John Muir had been a missionary in China but was now helping him. "Is it all right?" Ernest asked. "I want it to say so much." Muir was Scotch and rugged, but he had a spiritual understand- ing of this gracious and gentle man with the faith that was both naive and sublime. He had a sort of fierce sense of protection for this hero who claimed nothing for himself until they almost let him starve. He literally could not speak to people whom he thought mean or small-souled or short-visioned concerning him. "Come with me," Ernest said. Muir got his hat and they walked together over to Chicago Temple and into the dark auditorium of the Church. They turned on a few lights that revealed the soft greyness of the place. The subdued tapestries at the sides seemed at peace, the stone angels on the rafters held their trumpetings. The painted leaves of the tree of life made no sound above the severely simple altar. Ernest took the common paper of his manuscript and laid it on the altar. The two men kneeled and petitioned that "Chicago Temple and other churches may celebrate with satisfaction and delight the momentous day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of God to humanity. Since the Holy Spirit came to abide with Christ's people always, and does so abide, we plead for an ex- tension and intensification of the work of the spirit in all hearts and all institutions till the Kingdom of God may come in fulness and finalitv, and his will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." XXII WINGS In April, 1928, Ernest wrote in his pocket diary, "I believe my work in Chicago is finished." But for a time he seemed to have new strength. Muir's help gave him enthusiasm. He felt some of his old fire. The street meetings flourished. One Sunday evening seven ministers came to speak from his pulpit. He gave ninety-two hours to street work in the first half of 1928. In May, he wrote one of the supporters of the Night Church: Our dear friend: By God's mercy we persist in this work of His. The work itself is spreading in the streets, in the parks, in the night, in the churches, and its good results seem likely to last through time and into eternity. One night he had been broadcasting over WMBI. As he came home late on the "L" he overheard two boys discussing radio. The mechanics of their 'set up' was quite unintelligible to him. "Are you boys making a radio?" he asked. "I've just been broadcasting. I'm a Christian minister and I was broadcasting a sermon. Did you know that God is always broadcasting? Keep tuned in on God!" As he left the car he "fainted." The conductor helped him up and took notes, but Ernest was 'all right' and went home to an empty house, "a house crowded with absentees whose presence I do not enjoy." Mary had been called away by the illness of a daughter. Then he had "a touch of flu and was rather hard hit." Two of his children came. He was up and cheerful but there was evidently damage of which he did not speak. In all the years of his Chicago Ministry, except for weariness or occasional "grippe," he had never been ill. He had worked in all weathers; eaten at all hours. They wondered if he would object to a doctor. He greeted the doctor gratefully. "I have wanted diagnosis for a week" he said. The report of the diagnosis was serious. He lay quietly for some time thinking. He sensed it might be the end of this life nearing. "Now" he said "Don't make much of this." 124 WINGS 125 He tried to write a check for all the money he possessed. He had no debts, no property, no insurance, no funds except fifty-seven dollars in the account of the night church. He tried again and again but his right arm had failed. He explained that there was a five dollar gold piece in a pamphlet in his trunk that could be used. It was his golden token for India. He chatted with the ambulance men. "Your names, boys?" He could often get a life story in a moment. At the hospital the barber came in to shave him. He caught an accent in his voice. "Are you German?" he asked. "I'm Jewish," the barber replied. "That's fine, brother, fine; I am a minister of Christ, but we all have one God and one Father. Haben Sie Kinder?" "Eine Tochter," the barber answered. "I have seven children and eight grandchildren," Ernest said. The little tailor wept when they went for the trousers Ernest had left to mend and clean. "Dr. Bell is my best friend," he said. When they told Ernest that they had talked with Mary by telephone in Los Angeles, and that she was coming, the tears came to his eyes. "That calls for the Doxology." A Catholic friend came to the hospital and put a crucifix about his neck. Hooligan came with a dollar bill. For years Ernest had loaned Hooligan a dollar now and then. He always entered these loans on the books as 'to the poor.' When Hooligan brought back a dollar Ernest entered it 'donated by Hooligan.' He looked mischievous when he took the dollar. Many came to the hospital to see him. Deaconness Lucy Hall who had gone with them that first night in 1904 came from another city. His Board of Directors came, his relatives, pastors of Chicago's greatest churches, presidents of seminaries, humble workers who had served him, father's whose babies he had baptized, couples whom he had married, foreigners who had found him friendly in a strange land. For a long time his speech was gone. When it returned he preached whole sermons. Sensing something of his delirium he said to the nurses who were very gentle with him, "This must be dread- ful if the mind is not filled with good thoughts." 126 A BIOGRAPHY He asked Mary always for the evening prayers he had used for family worship. "Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, through Jesus Christ our Lord." A sick man in the same room said, "That is a good man," and fell to thinking and decided to deepen the meaning of his own life. "See," Ernest said, "Even now God gives me souls." Of another's passing Ernest had written "He was anxious at the last to be away to the shining land and graduated with honor. I am sure we ought not to be afraid of wings. It is very far better to be with Christ where so many are who love us forever." His funeral was his triumph. Mary sitting among her sons and daughters saw, above the banks of tribute flowers, the notable men come to honor him; and heard, through the echoes of her own memories, their voices telling of the Dreamer who became Prophet and the Prophet made Saint. Our Father's children greet us In every land we roam. Our Father and His children — These constitute our home. So we are never lonely, And we are never sad; For we are at our Father's, And He is always glad. We seek a better country, A brighter Fatherland — Our comrades there the angels, And that immortal band Redeemed from all the ages, From every clime and strand, Exultant there forever — Eternal Fatherland! UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA B.B43324D C001 FROM THE EPIC OF CHICAGO MENASHA 3 0112 025404986