An 83-year-old Methodist churchman who somewhat resembles an older, stouter Franklin D. Roosevelt sat by his radio one night last week in his home in Madison, N. J. He tuned in on a broadcast from Constitution Hall in Washington, where was being celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. Had his health permitted, Dr. Frank Mason North would have joyfully been present. He, more than any other man, had helped found the Federal Council, was its president for four years (1916-20), is still a member of its executive committee. Keen-witted, good-humored, he attends monthly meetings in Manhattan as regularly as possible. But last week Dr. North, unable to go to Washington, could only listen by radio to President Roosevelt's speech and feel a quickening in his old heart when the Constitution Hall audience arose and sang a famed hymn which he himself had written: Where cross the crowded ways of life, Where sound the cries of race and clan, Above the noise of selfish strife, We hear Thy voice, 0 Son of Man!
Dr. North's thoughts could drift back to a December day in Philadelphia, when the Federal Council was in the throes of organizing. It was no easy matter to thread the creeds and dogmas of dozens of sects and bring them together in a common Christian purpose. Out of a bog of conflicting theological ideas Dr. North led his confrères to high and solid ground—social service. An active minister and city missions worker, he believed that "when the standards of the Gospel shall have become the rule of Society, His Kingdom will be here." He wrote the first social creed for the Federal Council which was the cornerstone of its existence. That stirring document called for conciliation and arbitration in industrial disputes; protection of workers against dangerous machinery and occupational diseases; abolition of child labor; suppression of the "sweating system"; reduction of working hours with at least one day in seven free; a living wage; "suitable provision" for old and incapacitated workers. Tame though it sounds today, Dr. North's social program struck many a good churchman as downright radical in 1908. Since then the Federal Council has revised its credo, adding notably stronger clauses on social planning and control of credit and money; a "just share" of profits for workers; old age, sickness and unemployment insurance.
The actual formation of the Federal Council, with 33 cooperating churches representing 18,000,000 Protestants, was preceded by the efforts of Dr. Elias Benjamin Sanford, a New England Congregationalist who had been working on Christian unity since 1866. But not until 1905 was a plan of federation considered. Then, at an Inter-Church Conference in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, a delegate cried: "We must pray together until the house trembles!"