Great Day

The Baptist World Alliance represents some 15,000,000 Baptists in 62 countries. Last week the Alliance moved its headquarters from London, where it was founded in 1905, to Washington. Though the U.S. (with 14,208,295) is the Baptists' stronghold, the Alliance headquarters was kept in London because, says Dr. Edward Hughes Pruden of Washington's First Baptist Church: "We figured that Europe, with its minority groups, needed more guidance and leadership." Actually, the Alliance has been operating from the U.S. on a temporary basis since the war began.

Moving day was celebrated at an evening service in Washington's red brick First Baptist Church. On hand for the occasion in his regular pew (ninth from the front) was President Harry Truman, who spoke to the congregation from the floor before the altar: "It is a great day in the history of the United States and of Washington. . . . We hope that you will take to heart the prayer in the invocation for a just and honorable peace. . . . We are getting closer all the time . . . but we must have the support of all those organizations that stand for God and a moral code in the world."

Chief speaker at the service was moose-tall Rev. Charles Oscar Johnson of St. Louis, new president of the Alliance and onetime president (1932-33) of the Northern Baptists. Johnson, a genial, 260-lb. ex-farm boy from east Tennessee, runs one of the livest and most prosperous churches in St. Louis, where he has a reputation for knowing how to take care of himself in a fight without losing his enormous personal popularity. A humble man. he likes to be called Oscar. "I don't like anything," he once said, "that is going to separate me from the common people who may need my help. I have D.D. degrees from two colleges, but they have never been used on my stationery--they are brand-new." Once when he visited President Roosevelt after the legalization of 3.2% beer, Baptist Johnson cracked: "Mr. President, we are back of you 96.8%. We can't go the 3.2%."

President Johnson told the visiting Baptists that world relief would be the Alliance's "biggest thing" for the coming year. Plans were already formulated to raise $1,000,000 for food and 1,000,000 pounds of clothing for Europe during the next nine months. Boomed big-hearted Baptist Johnson:

"Every action taken by Congress or the President in this relief crisis will have the unequivocal support of the great body of Baptists throughout the United States and the world. We will join any kind of rationing program or make any voluntary sacrifice to make bread available to those who do not have it. . . . There is no place for divisiveness on this issue, for it is the biggest issue of the hour."

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