Baltimore Blow-Up

In Baltimore last week the grey hair of John J. Cornwell, general counsel for Baltimore & Ohio R. R. and onetime (1917-21) Governor of West Virginia, stood on end, as he and other conservative Marylanders were treated to the following outbursts of religious liberalism.

P: A discussion group of the Maryland Youth Council, representing all Protestant denominations, urged churches to discourage: 1) membership in the R. O. T. C.; 2) church memorials to War Veterans; 3) display of the U. S. flag. The group declared that "the active pacifist is the 100% Christian patriot."

P: Holding its national conference in Baltimore, the Church League for Industrial Democracy (Episcopal) voted 26-to-9 to affiliate with the American League Against War & Fascism. The conference also resolved in favor of equality of Negroes and whites in official Episcopal positions, went on record against the antisedition and anti-disaffection bills now pending in Congress.

It was the meeting of the Church League for Industrial Democracy that scandalized B. & O.'s tall, arrow-straight John Cornwell, 68, who attends Episcopal churches. Said General Counsel Cornwell to a Y. M. C. A. gathering in Baltimore last week: "My hair stood on end when I read those resolutions. I drew the line when I saw they advocated social equality with Negroes in church offices and they wanted to stop those who would penalize overthrow of our government by force. ... If that's going to be the doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, I'm going to do what Al Smith said he'd do -- I'll take a walk."

Replied the Church League's president, Rev. William Owings Stone of St. Mary's Church in Baltimore : "Former Governor Cornwell will find a majority of people in the Protestant Episcopal Church unfortunately holding his views. It may comfort him to know the Church League for Industrial Democracy is not an official organization of his church and that only a minority of the members of his church belong to the League. . . ."

Significance. Episcopalian Stone took words out of the mouths of his critics when he called his C. L. I. D. an unofficial minority. He might have anticipated more criticism if he had damned the American League Against War & Fascism as "Communist." Actually, with two Communists (Earl Browder, Clarence Hatha way) on its board of 15, A. L. A. W. F. is a varicolored united front organization em bracing Socialists, Liberals and Pinkos. Redbaiters make much of the fact that Communists publicly approve A. L. A. W. F. The U. S. Communist Party donated $100 to its last convention.

Of broader significance is the trend discernible in the Church League for Industrial Democracy's actions. In recent years bishops and elder statesmen of such churches as the Methodist and the Episcopal have issued long, vague, liberal pronouncements at their annual gatherings. By last week it was observable that young, zealous churchmen were attempting to put their elders' perfunctory liberal views into what in the churches passes for action.

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