Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:34:46.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Pan-American Mass, 1909–1914: A Rejected Contribution to Thanksgiving Day

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James F. Vivian
James F. Vivian
Affiliation:
professor of history inthe University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Right Reverend Monsignor William T. Russell, pastor of Saint Patrick's Church in Washington, D.C., since 1908 and reputedly one of the finest preachers in the country, agreed to an unusual interview during the spring of 1912. Five other clergy, including a rabbi, likewise participated in separate sessions with the same Protestant minister. The resulting six semiautobiographical accounts appeared as a weekly series in Collier's magazine at midyear. Unlike the companion pieces, however, the article devoted to Msgr. Russell appeared at a particularly timely moment. On the one hand, the Pan-American Thanksgiving Day celebration, although just three years old, seemed well on the way toward becoming an annual observance that neither the president of the United States nor the Latin American diplomatic contingent could slight idly. Yet, on the other hand, the article heralded a major Protestant protest that would call the entire basis of the celebration into public and even political question. Upon assuming the presidency in 1913, an unsuspecting Woodrow Wilson would find himself inadvertently drawn into an interdenominational dispute over the special Catholic service. Embarrassed to the point of privately admitting a clumsy mistake, Wilson eventually yielded to the critics and finally withdrew his support from an implied experiment in the cultural extension of a famous holiday.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 321 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. MacFarlane, Peter G., “William T. Russell—Preacher of the Three Americas,” Collier's, 11 05 1912, pp. 18–19;Google Scholar Russell to Joseph P. Tumulty, 15 April 1913, Woodrow Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (unless otherwise noted, this information will apply to all references to Wilson's correspondence).

2. Russell's career is outlined in Thomas, C. F., History of St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D.C., 1789-1939 (n.p., 1939), pp. 92–95;Google Scholar and the New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Russell, William Thomas.” The quotation derives from Gibbons to Taft, 25 March 1909, William Howard Taft Papers, reel 346, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

3. MacFarlane, p. 19.

4. Ibid.

5. Thomas, pp. 98–100; Catholic Standard (Washington, D.C.), 13 12 1979, p. 3;Google ScholarJohn, BishopRussell, J. to author, 20 05 1980.Google Scholar

6. “Thanksgiving Day for Pan-America,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union 29 (1909): 1081–1085;Google Scholar “Pan American Thanksgiving Day in Washington,” ibid. 31 (1910): 978–982; “The Pan American Mass,” ibid. 33 (1911): 1045–1050; “The Pan American Mass at Washington, D.C.,” ibid. 35 (1912): 1158–1161.

7. Smylie, James H., “The Roman Catholic Church, the State, and Al Smith,” Church History 39 (1960): 321–343;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHornig, Edgar A., “The Religious Issue in the Taft-Bryan Duel of 1908,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 105 (1961): 530–537;Google ScholarColetta, Paolo E., “Election of 1908,” in History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968, ed. Schlesinger, Arthur H. Jr, 3 vols. (New York, 1971), 2: 2087, 2089.Google Scholar The quotation is taken from Pringle, Henry F., The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vols. (New York, 1939), 2: 834.Google Scholar

8. Wilson to Russell, 24 November 1913.

9. “The Pan American Mass at Washington, D.C.,” p. 1158; Catholic Citizen, cited in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 18 11 1913, p. 1;Google ScholarAmerica: A Catholic Review of the Week, 26 08 1913, p. 378.Google Scholar

10. Washington Times, 24 11 1913, p. 1;Google Scholar and ibid., 26 November 1913, p. 1.

11. Evening Star, 18 11 1913, p. 1;Google ScholarWashington Herald, 19 11 1913, p. 2.Google Scholar According to the Presbyterian Banner, 27 11 1913, p. 828,Google Scholar Rev. Randolph H. McKim, pastor of the Church of the Epiphany, and Rev. Wallace Radcliffe, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, both in the District of Columbia, supplied the leadership in drafting and distributing the resolution. Biographical material on McKim can be found in the Washington Times, 27 12 1913, p. 9,Google Scholar and Who's Who in America, 1914–1915, s.v. “McKim, Randolph H.” Rev. McKim did not limit his critique of the contemporary religious scene to the Catholic church. See McKim, Randolph H., “Christianity and Christian Science,” North American Review 199 (03 1914): 405–414.Google Scholar

12. Evening Star, 18 11 1913, pp. 1,2;Google Scholar and ibid., 19 November 1913, p.9.

13. Evening Star, 18 11 1913, p. 1;Google Scholar “Thanksgiving Day for Pan-America,” pp. 1084–1085; “Pan American Thanksgiving Day in Washington,” pp. 981–982.

14. Hayden to Wilson, 8 December 1913.

15. Smethers to Margaret Wilson, 16 September 1914; America, 28 02 1914, p. 494.Google Scholar

16. Roberts to Wilson, 28 November 1913.

17. John D. Bradley to Wilson, 24 November 1913; John E. Smallwood, secretary, General Good of Order Committee, to Wilson, 21 November 1913; J. E. Smith, president, American Federation of Patriotic Societies, to Wilson, 6 November 1913; and Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1955), pp. 175–182.Google Scholar

18. Concordia Seminary to Wilson, 4 November 1913; I. N. Ross to Wilson, 25 November 1913; Anna L. Boyd to Wilson, 18 December 1913; The Independent, 4 12 1913, p. 434.Google Scholar

19. Presbyterian Banner, 27 11 1913, p. 828,Google Scholar enclosed in J. W. Anderson et al to Wilson, 5 December 1913; Christian Observer, 10 December 1913, enclosed in J. L. Sherrard to Wilson, 18 December 1913; Christian Herald, 3 12 1913, p. 1140,Google Scholar enclosed in Charles F. Geiger to Wilson, 6 December 1913.

20. See, for example, N. O. Mann to Wilson, 30 November 1913; Thomas E. Murdock to Wilson, 28 November 1913.

21. New York Times, 28 11 1913, p. 3;Google Scholar and ibid., 29 November 1913, p. 12.

22. New York Times, 2 12 1913, p. 10;Google Scholar and ibid., 3 December 1913, p. 14; North American Review 199 (01 1914), p. 25.Google Scholar

23. New York Times, 8 12 1913, p. 8;Google ScholarWashington Post, 24 11 1913, p. 14.Google Scholar

24. Washington Post, 24 11 1913, p. 14.Google Scholar

25. Russell to Wilson, 8 December 1913.

26. McKim to Wilson, 29 December 1913; “The Conspiracy against Rome,” America, 29 11 1913, pp. 173–174.Google Scholar

27. Evening Star, 15 12 1913, p. 10;Google ScholarWashington Times, 15 12 1913, p. 2;Google ScholarWashington Herald, 16 12 1913, p. 14.Google Scholar

28. See, for example, Rev. J. A. Detter to Wilson, 13 October 1914; Rev. P. Luecke to Wilson, 20 October 1914; Ansel E. Johnson to Wilson, 27 November 1914. See also Kinzer, Donald L., An Episode in Anti-Catholicism: The American Protective Association (Seattle, Wash., 1964), p. 241.Google Scholar

29. Wilson to Russell, 5 November 1914; Russell to Tumulty, 23 November 1914, Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407; Link, Arthur S., Wilson: The New Freedom (Princeton, N.J., 1956), pp. 461–465;Google ScholarQuirk, Robert E., The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 (Bloomington, Ind., 1973), pp. 63–69.Google Scholar

30. New York Times, 27 11 1914, p. 16;Google Scholar Wilson to Russell, 22 June 1915.

31. Thomas S. Kennedy to Tumulty, 23 November 1916, Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407; compare Ellis, John Tracy, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834-1921, 2 vols. (Milwaukee, 1952), 2: 515 n.;Google ScholarLink, Arthur S., Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915 (Princeton, N.J., 1960), p. 468.Google Scholar On Catholic support for Wilson in the 1916 campaign, see Miscamble, Wilson D., “Catholics and American Foreign Policy from McKinley to McCarthy: A Historiographical Survey,” Diplomatic History 4 (1980): 227–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Memoranda, 13 October 1917, Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407.

33. Thomas to Tumulty, 2 November 1917, Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407; memoranda, 7 November 1917, Wilson Papers, reel 271, case 407; Bulletin of the Pan American Union 45 (1917): 670.Google Scholar

34. Schauffier, Robert H., Thanksgiving (New York, 1916), p. 14;Google Scholar memoranda, 12 October 1916, Wilson Papers, reel 298, case 849; Adee to Rudolph Forster, 13 October 1911, Taft Papers, reel 402, case 600.

35. Memorandum, 12 May 1912, and Taft to Russell, 6 and 7 November 1912, Taft Papers, reel 460, case 316.

36. Washington Times, 27 11 1913, p. 8.Google Scholar

37. Higham, , Strangers in the Land, pp. 181–182;Google ScholarWhite, G. Edward, “The Social Values of the Progressives: Some New Perspectives,” South Atlantic Quarterly 70 (1971): 64–65.Google Scholar

38. America, 29 11 1913, pp. 182–183.Google Scholar

39. See, for example, Gibbons, James Cardinal, “The Church and the Republic,” North American Review 189 (03 1909): 321–336;Google ScholarCross, Robert D., The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), chap. 4.Google Scholar

40. “World-wide Thanksgiving?,” America, 19 11 1955, pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

41. Weiser, Francis X., Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (New York, 1958), p. 268;Google ScholarStokes, Anson P., Church and State in the United States, rev. ed. (New York, 1964), p. 503.Google Scholar