Part 3 (1/2)
Thank you indeed, and thank you still more for these seventeen years of most extraordinary service, and personal loyalty and friendshi+p 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 lad that you are co 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 refreshth 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' hout 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 lith and influence Many an evening on his way home he went into his church or chapel to pray, and lay before God the problereat heart
”Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of the day, O faithful shepherd! to co 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 liness and sordidness can effect very far-reaching changes, and retain his faith Mr Nelson succeeded in both He cah compulsion of a h plane of faith and vision To have retained such conviction over a period of forty years in the sort of hich 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 rowing clean, and entering into paradise” Solory he created Christ Church is located in Ward Six, forht, 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 ould 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 fla 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 reh-ranking office such as Bishop
This ht into full blooue, half-formed ideals Many looked upon him as the spokesrow up in an age of radical and revolutionary econorams 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 nizant of religious faith as laying upon hihty conviction he expressed in varying ways as we shall see, but never inwords 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 h 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 byreligion in fellowshi+p with one another
A study of his annual reports indicates that froe's days he was do 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 arethe 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 therows up in an atmosphere of openly accepted corruption will inevitably lack sensitiveness of irls are subjected to a moral pressure that is extremely difficult to resist What is the duty of the Church? Thepeople is its inti 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 theh It ainst 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 device in order that they ainst the dictuht,” 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 de to standards and character It ainst overcrowded and unsanitary tenement houses, not because it considers its function to be the censorshi+p of buildings, but because such conditions breed ie alone is made ineffective by the constant pressure of these conditions To ed 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 y and purpose, and that whether the results seereat 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 hiht for honest hty 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 e 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 shaot the best systeovernment 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 do 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 contenting on bankruptcy Aroused citizens were determined not only that Cincinnati should have an efficient, econoovernment but also that its reputation as a sink of iniquity should be erased
When the Republican organization perceived that an investigation was inescapable, it deterators! The Republican Executive and Advisory Committee appointed a survey committee to devise a plan to solve the city's and county's uished group was selected; aton, Charles P Taft, and other eaged Dr Lent D Upson of the Detroit Bureau of Governe staff of specialists proceeded to turn the city and county governments inside out The Upson Report furnished the a short of a revolution
A City Charter Coanized which, after the Upson Committee reported, proposed an a the city overne by proportional representation
In the fall of 1924 the critical issue was subnificant victory won ”This new etic and determined, took its place in the books of our history as the first reforreat city of the United States”[9] In this crusade of civic warriors Frank Nelson ranked as ”a fla sword,” to use the colorful phrase of his friend Mr Ralph Holterhoff He was a constant worker in planting the first seeds of the htness of the cause, the crusader whose faith clarified the fundaovernn of 1924, Mr
Nelson, preaching this gospel frohteous cause, and he literally toured the city wards as well When the City Charter Co victory of Nove was held in the Parish House of Christ Church
A the speakers were Mr Nelson, Charles P Taft, John R Schindel, and Henry Bentley, as known as ”the Coave a city a new body and a new soul,” all of then, and members and vestrymen of Christ Church Another parishi+oner, Ralph Holterhoff, was, al 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 i the zest and interest of citizens in the reforood has said, ”The technique of good local govern about good local government has not been infused into the residents of our cities” Toward that will and fusion in the city of Cincinnati, reed that Frank Nelson's moral and spiritual contribution was enorovernholds, his was the most powerful voice raised in the city His trenchant words, his statesies and fired e 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 e than any politician We shall set our faces steadfastly to the victory not only for good governhteousness 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 becahcould be done about the existing evils During the recurring cans for councilanization, giving extravagantly of his ti ns, where he either was the keynote speaker or took such part as expressed the religious convictions that lay behind the al, a newspaper coluovernment was more than a matter of efficiency and economy