in number, who were his assistants and to whom he gave a tutelage and
friendship that continued long after our apprenticeship was ended. He
was an exacting teacher and beyond us, but like all others who labored
in his parish, we felt a special joy and pride in working under him. It
was a tremendous strain to keep up with him, and his own daily stint of
work often put us to shame; in the fullness of his powers he made as
many as thirty calls a week. One was never through, one could never do
enough, and when tempted to let down, there was felt, even when not
heard, that imperious voice, "Go on! Don't be easy on yourself." His own
shepherding exemplified his belief that in the ministry honor for one's
self is nothing, humanity everything. No task, even scrubbing floors,
was too menial or too hard to be beneath the position of him who is
God's servant. When the problems and the pressure of work in such a
large institution weighed upon us, and their full scope inevitably was
revealed at staff meetings, it was then as we were on our knees that his
informal, absolutely real prayers lifted and strengthened us. Yes, on
some rare occasions in his tower study we were on the Mount and gained
fleeting glimpses of the City of God.
It was difficult at times for those of lesser faith not to be appalled
by the awful waste and stupidity of human life such as any great city
unbares. But the Rector used the many instances to illustrate the
requirements of wide sympathy, and to teach us to reverence the
qualities of personality even when we could not fathom the reasons for
apparent foolishness. He would say things like this: "Never forget that
the development of our free will is what God wants. Love may make
mistakes, but they are not failures. There are times when one's own life
is of very little importance compared with the need for sacrifice." The
assistants, the deaconesses, and parish visitors had, in addition to a
training in modern social methods, the supreme advantage of religious
direction. His guidance issued from his own example and experience.
Deaconess Margaret Lloyd writes:
It seemed in those early years as though all our parish poor
lived on the top floors of tenements, and I often thought that
climbing the famous penitents' stairway in Rome would have been
an easy climb compared with the ascent of Mt. Adams! It was
climbed almost daily by some member of the staff, and very
frequently by the Rector. It was not only the climb, but the
drab, dreary houses of the period. For those were the days of
heavy, soft coal smoke, of a yellow, unpurified water supply, and
a lack of adequate housing or health laws. The consequences were
that a large parish like ours always had typhoid or T. B. folk
needing material help as well as sympathy and compassion. The
annals of such a parish always contain numberless "human interest
stories." There was a very large family which never was able to
provide shoes or to have quite enough clothing for six children.
We suspected that, despite all efforts, sufficient food was
lacking, and especially at those times when the head of the
family was on one of his happy-go-lucky sprees. Everyone on the
staff felt a sense of relief when this bibulous father died for
there was enough insurance money not only to bury him, but to
leave funds to tide the family over the next few months, and
until the mother and her two eldest children had found jobs.
Imagine our feelings when, in less than two weeks after the
funeral, the widow appeared at the parish house! She had come to
ask Christ Church for a little help until she had work. "But what
has become of your insurance money, surely you have not used it
all up so soon?" "Oh! yes we have, deaconess! You see we always
craved gold band rings for the children, and I always doted on
having a pink enamel bed." It was really true! The bed that they
had longed for stood in their shabby front room, pink enamel,
gold curlicue trimmings and all! Its enormous expanse was covered
with tawdry silk pillows and silk spread, and it stood out, the
one glorious object in the whole tenement. Also the children with
the utmost pride showed their gold band rings which according to
the custom of those days each wore on the "wedding finger"; even
the five year old displayed his golden trophy. Mr. Nelson did his
best to modify the protests of his outraged staff. Finally we did
see at least something of his point of view, that to the family
these symbols of respectability meant what a Persian rug would
have meant in a more sophisticated family. For these friends of
ours had "arrived," socially speaking, via the pink enamel bed,
and their admiring neighbors could never again refer to them as
"poor white trash." It takes a long, long time to change ideas,
but the Rector's respect for human personality (foolishness and
stupidity notwithstanding) and his method of patience, tact, and
a sense of humor did change many of us. And a controlled sense of
humor has a marvelous effect at times. There was the instance
when the Rector went to conduct a funeral service on Mt. Adams.
It was a very hot day, the little rooms were crowded, and family
and neighbors were close to the coffin. Mr. Nelson put on his
vestments in the stuffy kitchen. He had begun the majestic words
of the service when there strolled into the room the small boy of
the family nonchalantly carrying a very large slice of
watermelon! He found a spot on the floor at the foot of the
coffin, and proceeded to eat the juicy treat. The Rector
continued with the service, and the mourners gave him absorbed
attention until the last prayer. No incongruity could possibly
change the beauty and dignity of that service as conducted by our
Rector.
Frank Nelson was shepherd to all. To be sure, there were complaints that
he did not call in every home, and to some who did not have the
opportunity to experience at first-hand his sympathy and concern, he
seemed aloof. But when a need arose he met it; and as years were added
to years he won the confidence of all types of people. To the rich he
said, "Your money is the smallest gift you can offer. Yes, Christ Church
needs money, but it needs you yourself far more." He said to the poor,
"You are splendid in the way you are helping us. The parish could not
get along without such workers as you. Keep it up!" In the warm climate
of his enthusiasm and appreciation, young and old, rich and poor
discovered within themselves an undreamed-of capacity to respond to his
faith and to his demands for service. In turn he was generous in
gratitude. At the time of his twenty-fifth anniversary he wrote the
following acknowledgment to a parishioner who had written to him of all
that Christ Church and his ministry meant:
Thank you indeed, and thank you still more for these seventeen
years of most extraordinary service, and personal loyalty and
friendship. I can never tell you how much I have appreciated
them, and do appreciate them. I know I have made life harder for
you--both in the work I have put on you--and by the way I have
often left you to carry the burden unaided. But I know too that
the Spirit has carried you on and filled you with new visions and
powers of life. And that makes all the rest worth while. I am so
glad that you are coming up to us at Cranberry. I know you will
love its loveliness, and in its quiet and the sweep of sea and
sky, you will find refreshment and renewed strength. And then we
can talk not of plans and work, but what lies beneath them, faith
and God and the abundant life.
As his forty years' ministry came to a close, there was throughout the
entire city a growing crescendo of acclaim, which found fervent
expression in words like these: "He was our best friend for years."
Deeper than the affection which drew forth such recognition was his
profound faith in the Father-God of all mankind. It was Frank Nelson's
limitless trust in his Heavenly Father that gave him his strength and
influence. Many an evening on his way home he went into his church or
chapel to pray, and lay before God the problems and griefs of his people
which he carried in his great heart.
"Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of the day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand."[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] _Rugby Chapel_ by Matthew Arnold. Macmillan Co. Used by permission.
_The Spokesman
of the City's
Conscience_
"_He so stirred the very soul of our responsibility
for social living that we felt he had
come to break the old city's sleep of habit or
despair._"
--_Miss Edith Campbell_
4
Frank Nelson loved the city, and was moved by its swift, tumultuous
life; hence, he was able to stir it. No mere reformer or "up-lifter" who
sees only ugliness and sordidness can effect very far-reaching changes,
and retain his faith. Mr. Nelson succeeded in both. He came to
Cincinnati under the high compulsion of a mission, and relinquished his
work on the same high plane of faith and vision. To have retained such
conviction over a period of forty years in the sort of work which was
his testifies to a quality of realism that is at once impressive and
authoritative. He knew the vice and corruption that lurked the streets,
and yet he reiterated to the end that "there is a glory in the city seen
in the faces of men and women, boys and girls, which is the immortal
soul growing clean, and entering into paradise." Something of that glory
he created. Christ Church is located in Ward Six, formerly Ward Eight,
and there also Mr. Nelson had his residence at 311 Pike Street. One of
the boys who grew up in the district and is now a successful business
man declares that this ward would be entirely different today if it had
not been for Frank Nelson and the work carried on in Christ Church. But
this clergyman's work and influence spread far outside his parish and
beyond his ward.
By many Catholics, Jews, and Protestants Frank Nelson was acknowledged
as "the flaming sword of the Charter Movement"; the man who so
interpreted the Community Chest that "he made it a platform upon which
every man could stand"; and in the minds of some of them he so
o'er-leaped sectarian differences that they considered him their
minister. His was a position as unique as it was remarkable considering
the fact that he held no title or high-ranking office such as Bishop.
This minister quickened the conscience of Cincinnati, and brought into
full bloom vague, half-formed ideals. Many looked upon him as the
spokesman of the city's conscience.
Mr. Nelson did not grow up in an age of radical and revolutionary
economic and social programs. He was not a student of such
philosophies, yet he had in his heart that particular treasure, namely
an affection for people, for the fortunate and no less for the poor and
the dispossessed. Without this love for the common man, these
philosophies are never translated into the natural order of things nor
ever become more than intellectual pronouncements. He was neither a
mystic nor a reformer, but a citizen who was deeply cognizant of
religious faith as laying upon him and upon everyone a compulsive
service. This mighty conviction he expressed in varying ways as we shall
see, but never in more arresting words than in a sermon which he
preached on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of
The Covenant from the text, "Ye shall not see my face except your
brother be with you." Though delivered in 1916, this sermon was recalled
twenty-three years later on the occasion of Mr. Nelson's retirement as a
consummate expression of his faith and convictions, namely that we are
not isolated individuals each to be saved by means of self-centered
piety, but only through practicing religion in fellowship with one
another.
A study of his annual reports indicates that from his St. George's days
he was dominated by the vision of the Church as having a mission to the
city. As early as 1903 he outlined the conditions that confront
Christian people, and the relation of the Church to them:
The city of today is the point of concentration of the forces
that are making the character, and determining the standards of
our time. So complex is our modern civilization that it is not
possible to separate the individual in our estimation of his
standards and character from the conditions by which he is
surrounded, and in which he lives. For they vitally influence his
point of view, his ideals, his efforts to attain them. A boy who
grows up in an atmosphere of openly accepted corruption will
inevitably lack sensitiveness of moral perception. Our young men
and women, our boys and girls are subjected to a moral pressure
that is extremely difficult to resist. What is the duty of the
Church? The moral welfare of these young people is its intimate
concern. It may, and it must, bring to bear a counter pressure of
high individual moral standards and ideals. It may, and it must,
hold up before them faith in purity and honesty, and persuade
them to receive it. But that is not enough. It must utter its
word of protest against the rule of the Boss, not because it
wishes to enter the arena of politics, not because it differs
from him on political questions, not even because he is the
denial of democracy, but because he maintains his power of
corrupting manhood and womanhood by protecting and fostering vice
in order that they may be his allies. It must utter its protest
against the dictum, "Whatever pays is right," not because it
wishes to dictate business methods, or to set itself up as an
authority on economics, but because it finds this corruption in
business demoralizing to standards and character. It must utter
its protest against overcrowded and unsanitary tenement houses,
not because it considers its function to be the censorship of
buildings, but because such conditions breed immorality among the
boys and girls. The individual message alone is made ineffective
by the constant pressure of these conditions. To make that
message effective, the conditions must be changed. And it is
peculiarly the work of a church, situated as is Christ Church, to
say and do what it can to make them intolerable to the conscience
of a Christian city. I have said all this because I want you to
see clearly the place in the pulpit and church of such preaching
and work as we have tried to give and do. We must go forward with
increasing energy and purpose, and that whether the results seem
great or small. We may, and must, at least sow the seed in the
faith that God will inevitably bring it to the harvest.
Again and again he thundered, "The conditions must be made intolerable
to the conscience of a Christian city," and the spirit of the times
rolled back the sterile answer, "It can't be done in Cincinnati." But he
shook himself like a lion and took up the battle.
The fight for honest municipal government in Cincinnati was a mighty one
and the story of it is fairly well known, but a few pertinent facts are
essential as a background to Mr. Nelson's part in it. For more than
thirty years George B. Cox controlled the city by all the devices known
to the wily, astute politician. Few presumed to run for any office on
the Republican ticket without his approval. Unburdened by shame, he
declared, "I am the Boss of Cincinnati ... I've got the best system of
government in this country. If I didn't think my system was the best, I
would consider that I was a failure in life." He openly derided
reformers. Lincoln Steffens had surveyed and written up the city as he
had many others and declared it under the dominance of "the most vicious
political gang in any city." Few inroads were made on Cox's preserves
until after his death in 1916. At the close of World War I, the city
began to reap the bitterest and most evil results of its contentment
with benevolent despotism, and in 1922 found itself verging on
bankruptcy. Aroused citizens were determined not only that Cincinnati
should have an efficient, economical government but also that its
reputation as a sink of iniquity should be erased.
When the Republican organization perceived that an investigation was
inescapable, it determined to name the investigators! The Republican
Executive and Advisory Committee appointed a survey committee to devise
a plan to solve the city's and county's most pressing administrative and
financial problems. A distinguished group was selected; among the
members were Frank H. Nelson, George H. Warrington, Charles P. Taft, and
other eminent citizens some twenty-one in number. This committee engaged
Dr. Lent D. Upson of the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research, who
with a large staff of specialists proceeded to turn the city and county
governments inside out. The Upson Report furnished the ammunition for
what turned out to be nothing short of a revolution.
A City Charter Committee had been organized which, after the Upson
Committee reported, proposed an amendment to the city's home rule
charter embodying the city manager plan of municipal government and a
small council of nine elected at large by proportional representation.
In the fall of 1924 the critical issue was submitted to the electorate,
and a significant victory won. "This new movement, its representatives
youthful, clear-eyed, energetic and determined, took its place in the
books of our history as the first reform enterprise of any permanence
in a great city of the United States."[9] In this crusade of civic
warriors Frank Nelson ranked as "a flaming sword," to use the colorful
phrase of his friend Mr. Ralph Holterhoff. He was a constant worker in
planting the first seeds of the moral rightness of the cause, the
crusader whose faith clarified the fundamental religious background
inherent in good government. During the initial campaign of 1924, Mr.
Nelson, preaching this gospel from his pulpit, carried his parish with
him into the righteous cause, and he literally toured the city wards as
well. When the City Charter Committee was given permanent form,
following the sweeping victory of November 1924, it is significant that
the organization meeting was held in the Parish House of Christ Church.
Among the speakers were Mr. Nelson, Charles P. Taft, John R. Schindel,
and Henry Bentley, who was known as "the Commander of the legions that
gave a city a new body and a new soul," all of them leaders in the
campaign, and members and vestrymen of Christ Church. Another
parishioner, Ralph Holterhoff, was, almost single-handed, responsible
for financing the Committee's work for its next fifteen years.
Repeatedly throughout successive years Mr. Nelson spoke at Charter
rallies, giving a series of remarkably effective addresses which
assisted immeasurably in sustaining the zest and interest of citizens in
the reform ideal. As Mr. Murray Seasongood has said, "The technique of
good local government has been developed by study, but the will to bring
about good local government has not been infused into the residents of
our cities." Toward that will and fusion in the city of Cincinnati, men
are agreed that Frank Nelson's moral and spiritual contribution was
enormous. Leaders declare that in routing the forces of corrupt
government from their strongholds, his was the most powerful voice
raised in the city. His trenchant words, his statesmanlike ability
spurred the lagging energies and fired men's spirits to greater effort;
he gave the necessary courage and drive and inspiration to carry through
and maintain the reform movement. "It is the man of ideals and faith,"
Frank Nelson reiterated, "who has more courage than any politician. We
shall set our faces steadfastly to the victory not only for good
government and efficiency, but for the morality and the righteousness
and the power of faith in this community." In the opinion of Mr. Ralph
Holterhoff, the treasurer of the City Charter organization, Mr. Nelson,
by his extensive contacts with all classes of citizens, radiating not
only through his parish but throughout the entire fabric of Cincinnati's
economic and social life, aroused the people with more success than any
other individual. He literally mustered thousands of recruits who became
zealous apostles and voters for the cause, although many had not voted
for years because they felt nothing could be done about the existing
evils. During the recurring campaigns for councilmen, Mr. Nelson was at
the beck and call of the organization, giving extravagantly of his time
and vitality at many rallies, particularly at the opening meeting of
campaigns, where he either was the keynote speaker or took such part as
expressed the religious convictions that lay behind the movement.
"Hearing him," wrote Alfred Segal, a newspaper columnist, "people felt
that good government was more than a matter of efficiency and economy.
It had to do with civic self-respect and social morale and bright
ideals."
Because the issue was clearly moral, this minister did not hesitate to
use his pulpit and his parish organization to further the cause. It is a
tribute to his church that he met with only minor criticism. He carried
his people with him because he enabled them to perceive the relationship
between religion and politics. Of course he met with criticism from
those who felt that a clergyman should remain aloof from politics, yet
at the same time he was genuinely admired and respected by those who did
not agree with him. Several of his bitterest political critics, such as,
for example, James Garfield Stewart, and Doc Hagen, a ward politician,
were not lacking in keen appreciation of his position. And on other
civic issues where he made no concealment of his opinions he was,
according to Herbert Bigelow, the minister of The People's Church and a
former city councilman, "never a trimmer, and those who have seen him in
tight places never saw him crawl."
Though the Cincinnati Community Chest is not in politics, it has
definitely influenced the course of good government because of the
character of the people who carry on the work of the numerous social
agencies which it comprises. In 1913, these agencies were organized into
a Council, and Frank Nelson's vision, enthusiasm and tireless efforts
were determining factors in welding together the diverse religious and
racial groups engaged in social service throughout the city. Through
this Council, multiple activities were coordinated, and Jewish,
Catholic, and Protestant welfare agencies were kindled with new spirit
and power which resulted in greater efficiency and an increased
opportunity for reaching larger numbers of people. As a consequence, the
majority of the social welfare enterprises were able to make a united
financial appeal, and since 1919 have continued together without a break
in the ranks. Charles P. Taft says of the Cincinnati Community Chest:
The executive direction and social vision of C. M. Bookman, and
the spiritual leadership of Reverend Frank H. Nelson have given
to the campaign and year-round organizations of volunteers a most
distinctive quality. It is not that we raise each year an amount
greater per capita than most other cities, although we do that;
but it seems to one attending our gatherings that all the men and
women of good will in our community have come together and that
their spirits are welded together in a great cause, the education
of the whole city to the highest standards of health, character,
and welfare.[10]
The welding together was again the work of many civic-minded men and
women, and Frank Nelson was the fire which fused the different parts
into a unity. "He made the Community Chest a platform upon which every
man could stand," says C. M. Bookman, the Executive Secretary. His work
in the formative years of the Council, particularly in the raising of
funds for the first three years, was of untold value. As the Council
achieved coherence and a consciousness of its identity, he went on to
the larger work of conveying to the city the idea that in this cause the
people of Cincinnati could be supremely united, above politics, and
beyond racial and religious prejudices. It was his ability to interpret
the spiritual basis of this work that made it a common platform. As a
result, contributors felt their gifts to have a downright significance.
"It is," he said, "God's way of making cities good in spite of
themselves."