RHODE ISLAND HISTORY - Rhode Island Historical Society

•RHODE ISLAND HISTORYVOLUME38:2 MAY 1871

RHODE ISLAND HIST ORYPubl iahed byTHE RHODE ISLAND HlSTORlCAL SOCIETY. 52 POWERSTR EET. PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 02906 and printedby . cram 01 tbt' ST ATE OF RHODE ISLAND ANDPROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. J. .J

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35Tlverton's Fight For Religious Liberty,1692-1724joseph Anthony and John Sisson. tax assessors ofTiverton. and John Akin and Philip Tabor. tax assessorsof Dartmouth, on May 25. 1723 were arrestedand put in the Bristol County jail for civildisobedience. They had refused to 3SS6S taxeslevied upon their towns by the legislature. It wasnot the first time this had happened; in 1708 taxassessors o f the same towns had been jailed forthe same reason. But while seen as criminals bythe majority of people in Massachusetts, thesetax assessors were heron in the eyes of their fellowtownsmen. and so should they be viewed bytheir descendants today. Incarcerated for the principleof religious liberty, they and their fellowtownsmen. by thirty years of persistent resistanceto intolerance. brought about a major victory inthe long struggle for separation of church andstate in New England.Although Tiverton did not become a townshipuntil 1694 - when it separated from the town ofDartmouth - and although it did not become partof the colony of Rhode Island until the king settledthe lon g-standin g boundary dispute with thatcolony in 1746, the people who settled in westernP lymouth had much more in common with thefollowers of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williamsthan they did with the Puritans and Pilgrims.Predominantly Quakers and Baptists, theyhad settled on the outskirts of Plymouth colony,cheek to jowl with the Wam panoa g Indians, becausein that frontier region the authorities allowedconsiderable tolerance. Despite somedesultory efforts by the Plymouth magistrates topromote orthodox Congregationalism in thewestern area. few Congregationalists settledthere. When the king merged Plymouth into theMassach usetts Bay colony by the charter of 1692.by William G. McLoughlinthemore strict and domineering Puritans of Bostonsought to bring these outlanders int o the Congregationalfold. They did not reckon with thedissenters' stubborn determination to sustain libertyof conscience: nor have most historians giventhe dissenters the recognition they deserve.Quakers established their first meetings inDartmouth and Tiverton in the 16905and becamepart of the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting. LeadingTiverton Quakers in those years were JosephWanton, Amos Sheffield and Richard Borden.Stephen Wilcox. John Tucker. Nathaniel Howlandand Deliverance Smith were prominentQuakers in Dartmouth from 1690 to 1724. JohnCooke was founder of the Baptist movementthere. As a boy. he came over on the Mayflowerbut was expe lled from the Pilgrim church atPlymouth in 1654 for "the error of Anabaptistry."He moved to the frontier in Dartmouth, joinedJohn Clarke's Baptist church in Newport. and in1684 organized a group of his Dartmouth followersinto a church. Worship services were he ld at acentral point on the line between Dartmouth andTiverton. After Cooke died in 1695 the leadingmembers (and lay preachers) of the church wereHugh Mos ier or Mosher , Aron Davis, John Morseor Morss, Daniel Gold. Jacob Matt, and ThomasTaber, J r.The General Court passed a law in 1695 requiringevery Massachusetts town to hire and supportan "able, learned, and orthodox" minister of thegospel. By learn ed the magistrates meant a maneducated in Greek and Latin (at Harvard, or after1701. at Yale) and by orthodox they meant a Calvinistwho adhered to the doctrines and practicesof the Puritan churches.' But the majority of Tivertonand Danmouth inhabitants, being Baptists-William G. McLou l hlin is proI_ of hStory at Br.-nUnivtnit}' and th ~ aulhor of RhtJ

37 TIVERTONSmith. a Quaker, and Thomas Taber, Ir., a Baptist,went to jail from Dartmouth. Demonstratingthat they were not intimidated. Tiverton's voterssent two local law enforcement officials to ask theReverend Mr. Marsh what he was doing in theirtown. After talking to him, they exiled him fromtheir community on the grounds that he was a vagrantwith no visible means o f support. Outragedby this disrespect. Marsh departed.Meanwhile the Re verend Samuel Hunt inDartmouth, concl uding it wou ld hardly endearhim to the townspeople if he insisted upon beingpaid by ecclesiastical taxes, petitioned the GeneralCourt to reconsider its position. For the ti me being,he wrote, he would live on the voluntary contributionsof those who cam e to hear him. Hehoped that eventua lly he would convert the majorityto his views and then they would be willingto levy taxes for his salary. With Marsh gone andHunt conciliatory. the General Court backed off.The assessors were released from jail and matterswent on as before. The Boston cler gy did not giveup so easily. Cotton Mather. among others, wasfurious about the whole business and filled his diarywith diatribes against "miserable Tiverton"and equally "wretched" Dartmouth.Fourteen years went by, Samuel Hunt's congregationin Acushnet Village had grown slightlybut it was not sufficiently lar ge enough to providehint with a decent voluntary salary. His auditorspetitioned the legislature for help. Prompted byMather and other established clergy. the legisla ­ture decided it was time for a showdown. Obtainingthe services of the Reverend TheophilusPickering, the General Court se nt him to T iverton.Then the legislature again levied extra provincialtaxes upon the tw o recalcitrant towns forthe support of Hunt and Pickering.Again the towns refused to comply and againtheir assessors were jailed . In 1708. wh en mattershad reached an impasse. the people of T ive rt onand Dartmouth had considered an appeal toQueen Anne against the intolerance of Massachusetts.This plan was dropped when the legislaturebacked down. Now the plan was revived. In 1723Tiverton and Dartmouth sent a Quaker, ThomasPartridge, to London to present their grievancesto the king in council. Partridge was assisted bythe London Yearly Meeting, governin g body ofthe Friends.Massach usetts authorities had their own agentin London to defend their actions. After hearingboth sid es, th e king concluded the Puritans werewrong. What right had Congregationalists, themselvesdissenters from the king's church , to laytaxes in the king's name upon oth er dissenters?He ordered Massachusett s to release the T ivertonand Dartmouth tax assessors. He also susta inedthe two towns in their refusal to levy the religioustaxes assessed by th e legislature for H un t's andP ickering's su pport.It was a stunnin g de feat for the P urita n estab­Iishment. Faced with the king's decisi on, the MassachusettsGeneral Court passed a series of newlaws between 1727 and 1731 which, for the firsttime since the founding of Massachusetts,exempted Quakers, Baptists. and Anglicans fromreligious taxation to support establish ed Congregational ch urches. The long battle over ecclesiasticaltaxes in T iverton and Dartmou th was asignificant turning point in th e history of se parationo f ch urc h and state. The victory was notcomplete. however. for it often proved difficult fordissenters to gain the exemption granted them bylaw. Not until 1833 did Massachusetts finally abolishthe last vestiges of its system of religious taxationfor the support of Congregationalism."Still,the people o f Tiverton and Dartmouth deserve tobe better remembered for th eir contrib ution toNew England 's struggle for re ligious liberty.An eulil!1" venion of this article ..... (1ven ..aleaure at th eAmicable Con e reeationaJ Churc h in Tivenon.. May 9. 1976.Deuila of th is nOl'}' can be found in Suu.n R«

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3.Samuel Hopkins and the Revolutionar yAntislavery Movementby J~ph Confoni-Prior to the American Revolution. slavery existedvirtually unchallenged in the colonies. But thestruggle against Great Britain led many Americansto believe that slavery was a sin - a transgressionfor which divine providence punishedthem by holding the threat of British slavery overtheir heads. During the Revolution slavery alsocame to be seen as a political inconsistency. Britishofficials. for example. accused Americans ofhypocrisy for asserting their natural rightsagainst the mother country while denying thesesame rights to Africans in the colonies. In raisingawareness that slavery was both a sin and a politicalinconsistency, the Revolution encouraged thedevelopment of an antislavery movement for thefirst time in American history.'Samuel Hopkins. pastor of the First CongregationalChurch in Newport from 1770 to 1803. wasontoof the leading antislavery reformers in revolutionaryAmt'rica and later a heroic figure to manyantislavery reformers in nineteenth-century NewEngland. Born in 1721 in Watt'rbury. Connecticut.Hopkins graduated from Yale in 1741 , studied underthe brilliant evangelical theologian JonathanEdwards in Northampton, Massachusetts. and becamean ordained minister at Housatonic (renamedGreat Barrington in 1761). Massachusettsin 1743. Hopkins served his western Massachusettsparishioners until 1769, when dwindling financialsupport led him to request dismissal fromhis church. A year later he settled in Newport.where he crusaded against slavery for the rest ofhis lift'.Befitting a disciple of Jonathan Edwards. HoI'kins was a productive and highly original theologian.He completed his most important theologicalwork du ring his first years in Newport. Inthe Nature of True Holiness. published in 1773.Hopkins formulated his influential doctrine of disinterestedbenevolence. True virtue or holiness,he argued. consists in disinterested benevolencetoward God and mankind. From this simple definition,he advocated a radical view of Christiansocial ethics. A Christian's love of mankind shouldbe so disirneresred. Hopkins insisted, that heought to he willing to die, if necessary, for thegood of his fellow-man. A Christ-like, sacrificiallove of God and mankind comprised the centralelement in Hopkins's doctrine. A true Christianmust lead a life of self-denial, avoiding not onlythe selfish pursuit of worldly things but also theselfish pursuit of his own salvation. Disimeresredbenevolence required a Christian to lose himselfin a cause higher than his own salvation - namely,the temporal and eternal well-being of others,"Once Hopkins recognized slavery's sinfulness, themoral imperatives o f his doctrine obliged him tomake a wholehearted commitment to the Revolutionaryantislavery movement.Before St'ttling in Newport in 1770. Hopkins expressedneither disapproval of nor moral uneasinesswith the slave trade or slavery. His theologicalmentor. Edwards. had owned a slave. and (or severalyears during Hopkins's residence at GreatBarrington, a black female servant lived in hishousehold. The theologian's transformation into a·Mr. Conf«ti ia~t prol_ of hiatory at Rhodt- bland Col­Ieee .

40 SAMUEL HOPKINSRlHS LibraryJomthUl Edwll~ (l7OJ-/758). Sllmu~1 Hopkin• • fudi~ wifh Ed­Wll~ Ilh~r gr.odu.Ofion from y..l~,dedicated antislavery reformer occu rred between1770 and 1773, the period during which he developedhis doctrine of disinterested benevolence.But Hopkins's new-found antislavery identity wasnot simply a logical deduction from his theology.It evolved from his earliest experiences in Newport.For the first time in his life the backcountryminister con fro nted the slave trade's grim reality.Ch ained Africans were sometimes unloaded inNewport and sold before his eyes. Undoubtedly heheard horrific stories of this traffic in human flesh- accounts of suffering and wholesale death fromdisease while crossin g the Atlantic and gruesometales of slave insurrections at sea necessitatingmass slaughter of the valuable human freight.'Furthermore. Hopkins's moral awakening to slaveryin the early 1770s was influenced by emergingopinions that slavery was at worst a sin and atbest a policy inconsistent with the Americanstruggle for liberty against Great Britain.Perhaps as early as 1771 Hopkins preached tohis parishioners on the slave trade's iniquity. By1773 he denounced the slave system itself. Circumstancessurrounding these early sermonswould be romanticized by nineteenth-eentury abolitionistsand admirers of Hopkins, creatin g a heroicmyth of the impassioned, idealistic minister"rising up before his slave-holding congregation,and demanding, 'in the Name of the Highest, thedeliverance of the captive, and the opening ofprison doors to them that were bound.' " 4 Althoughthere were slaveowners in Hopkins'schurch, the vast majority of his parishioners werenot wealthy enough to possess such a fashionableluxury. Of those who did own sla ves, few heldmore than one. Newport's major slaveowners andslave traders did not belong to Hopkins's smalland relatively poor church; rather, they weremembers of the larger and wealthier Second CongregationalChurch or of Newport's non-Congregationalchurches.J While Hopkins invited enmityof the seaport's slaveowners and slave traders byhis outspokenness, he did not risk his pastorate bybecoming an antislavery reformer.By the time he emerged as a vigorous foe ofslavery many other voices were being raisedagainst the oppressive institution. Several of histheological followers in Connecticut publishedantislavery essays in the years immediately precedingAmerican independence." At the sametime both the Rhode Island General Assemblyand the Continental Congress took action againstslavery and the slave trade. In 1774, the GeneralAssembly enacted a law henceforth freeing allslaves imported into the colony. While this legislationdid not restrict Rhode Islanders involved inthe slave trade beyond the colony's borders, theactions of the First Continental Congress did . Thecongressional delegates agreed in 1714 to prohibitthe slave trade and they called for boycotts of anymerchants who defied the order.'By attacking slavery in the early 1770s Hopkinswas hardly a voice in the wilderness. Although ittook moral courage to defy slave owners and tradersin Newport, his importance as a reformer doesnot stem from an heroic solitariness. Hopkins'simportance derives from his sweeping moral indictmentof slavery and from his indefatigable efforts,which lasted until the end of his life, tosecure social justice for black Americana-

•41 SAMUEL HOPK INSIn 1776 Hopkins published A Dialogu~ Concemingth~ Slavery 0/the A/n·eans. the first oftwo major antislavery works. Dedicating thelengthy tract to the Continental Congress, Hopkinssought assurance that the congressional resolutionof 1774 against the slave trade issued" notmerely from political reasons but from a convictionof the unrighteousness and cruelty of thattrade and a regard to justice and benevolence:'He prayed that the congressmen were "deeplysensible of the inconsistence of promoting theslavery of the Africans. at the same time we areasserting our own civil tiberty. at the risk of ourfortunes and lives." Hopkins, in his Dialogue,urged the Continental Congress to establish amorally virtuous political course and to ensure theRevolution's success by "bring[ing] about a totalabolition of slavery in such a manner as shallgreatly promote the happiness of those oppressedstrangers, and (the] best interest of the public:'Explaining that degradation of both enslaved andfree blacks resulted from racial prejudice. Hopkinsinsisted that arguments favoring the naturalinferiority of the African race could not be legitimatelyused by true Christians as excuses forholding bla cks in bondage or for permitting themto live in a state of freedom but inequality. Socialequality would become a reality for blacks whenevery one saw them as true Christians did - "bynature and by right. on a level with our brethrenand children. and ... our neighbors.'"Endoning the view that British oppression wasa providential punishment for American sins, heargued that the enslavement of the African racestood fint among American transgressions of divinelaw . "And I take leave here to observe," hewarned, "that if the slavery in which we hold theblacks is wrong, it is a very great and public sin:and therefore a sin which God is now testifyingagainst in the calamities he has brought againstus." Slavery must be abolished. he prophesied."before we can reasonably expect deliverance oreven sincerely ask for it:'I.With the lifestyle of Newport's wealthy merchantclass undoubtedly in mind. Hopkins challengedthe American people not only to abolishslavery but also to reform all their selfish, indulgentbehavior and to commit themselves to disinterestedbenevolence toward God and theirneighbors. By concentrating on slavery's evil, hedid " not mean to exclude other publ ic, cryi ng sinsfound among us. such as impiety and profaneness- fonnality and indifference in the service andcause of Christ and his religion - and the variousways of open opposition to it - intemperance andprodigality and other instances of unrighteousness,etc:' Slavery and all other American sins,Hopkins pointed out. were "the fruits of a mostcriminal. contract ed selfishness." \1Since slave owning, slave trading. and othersinful modes of behavior were so common in Newport.Hopkins came to believe during the Revolutionthat the British occupation of Newport wasGod's visitation of a special affliction upon theseaport's residents commensurate with the gravityof their evil ways and with the radical reformationneeded to establish disinterested benevolenceamong such hardened wrongdoers. Shortly afterthe publication of his Dialogu~ in 1776. Hopkinsleft Newport to escape a British onslaught.Throughout 1775 the king's warships had crowdedNewport harbor, threatening the seaport's destruction.Sometimes the British released hatredof the defiant Americans by directing cannonballs to shore or by firing upon privateers in NarragansettBay . In the fall of 1775 American soldierswere dispatched to Newport to preventBritish confiscation of livestock to feed theirtroops. A mass exodus of apprehensive Newportersbegan. Ezra Stiles. pastor of the SecondCongregational Church. left early in 1776, andHopkins became a refugee when the British annyoccupied the city toward the close of the year."For the next three years he supported his familyby filling vacant pulpits in Massachusetts endConnecticut. In the meantime war brought destructionto Newport. The British finally endedtheir occupation of the seaport in October 1779. Amonth later Hopkins visited the city and round itin devastation. Hundreds of buildings had beenleveled and once fashionable homes had becomecharred ruins. Both Hopkins's church and the SecondCongregational Church were heavily damaged."I have not yet found more than four or fivefamilies of your congregation:' Hopkins informedEzra Stiles. the recently installed president ofYale. "They with those of mine are rather lowspirited. and without courage, which I suppose tobe in a great measure the effect. of their being solong under the taskmasters. and their present

42 SAMUEL HOPKINSJ j l " •.( . ,.IN , r_' r. /,'/10/11' / v).-'IJ /1'/ II /"INItIHSu...-,.Th.. _~.. olN ..wpon. I ns. M encr. VUl~ fromGrntl~ '. M;l C'anne. HopkiN saw 'M 8m." ocrtIpafion a God'. purtiUtrnrnr forNrwpon' inwol....mrnl in 1M slo .... uade'poverty." Dur ing the war mor e than half of Newpert'spopul ation had fled to safety into thecountryside. Only a few had returned. Hopkins reponedto Stiles, beca use most feared the Britishmight sa il into pon egatn."While the F irst Congregational Church and thecity of Newpo n attempted to recover from the effectsof the war in the early 1780s. the Revolutionaryantislavery movement began to realizemodest but concrete results. Even before thewar's official end in 1783. Newpon and otherRhode Island merchants had resumed their involvementin the sla ve trade. In December of thatyear many of the state's Quakers, unde r the leadership of Providence's Moses Brown, petit ionedthe Genera l Assemb ly to abolish slavery and toprohibit Rhod e Isla nders from trafficking inslaves. Responding to this plea, a committ ee ofde puties designed a bill requiring the manumissionof all slaves born after March 1, 1784, and recommendingthat they be Christianized anded ucated. The proposed legislation also providedfor the gradual emancipation of many blac ks whowere then enslaved. Males were to be freed attwenty-one and females at eighteen. Masters whofreed sla ves at a younger age were required toprevent them from becoming public charges. Thebill reasse rt ed the 1774 Congressional resolutionpro hib iti n g the slave trade and stipulated thatowne rs of all Rhod e Island vessels sailing for Africapos t a bond o f one thousand pounds as a guaranteeagainst their involvement in the evil

44 SAMUEL HOPKINSthat cut through regional and religious differences.By the decade's close, Hopkins's contributionsto this antislavery movement had won himrecognition as a reformer compa rable to the reputationhe had already achieved as a theologian.In 1785 the newly formed New York AbolitionSociety (one of only two such societies then in existencein Am erica) reprinted Hopkins's antislaveryDialogue, written nearly ten years earlier. T h esociety UK'd 2,000 published copies in a campaignto end the slave trade in New Yor k. The Dialoguewas distributed to all the members of Congressand to all New York legislators. For the ne xt severalyears the society's corresponding com mitteeinformed Hopkins of thei r efforts and sought informationon antis lavery activities in New England."During these years Hopkins repeatedly ur gedfellow ministe rs in Connec ticut, Massa chusetts,and Rhode Island to organize clergy in a unitedfront against the slave trade. Early in 1786 MosesBrown reported that dissenting clergy and a numberof Quakers in England had begun to unite andlaunch efforts to end slavery in the British coloniesand outlaw the slave trade. "I could wish theinfluence of the American clergy were more Unitedand Engaged in this Business," Brown wrote.Less than a month later Hopkins began workingto unify cle rgy against the slave trade. "Would itnot be worth while ," he suggested to his friendthe Rever end Levi Han of Preston, Connecticut,"to attempt to get the convention of Clergy inBoston, the general Association of Connecticut,and the Synods of New York and Philadelphia torem onst rate against it to Congress or (in] someothe r way to bear test imo ney against it.":Z Hart inth e eastern section of the state and Jonathan Edwards,j r., in New H aven became Hopkins's alli esin promotin g such a plan in Connecticut. Severalmonths later Hop kins reponed to Moses Brownthat the clergy in Boston had taken a publicstance against the slave trade and he hoped thatthe clergy in every state would ope nly pro test theoppression of blacks. "I am attempting to pr0­mote this," he notified Brown. He labored, in1787, with little apparent success, to organize firstthe ministers of Newport and then all the clergyof Rhode Island to petition the assembly to suppressthe slave trade."Wh ile keepin g his hand in several local antislaveryefforts, Hopkins began writing a ne w essaycalling once again for a radical reformation ofAmerican behavior. Although he hoped it wouldbe published in the N ewport Herald, Hopkins reponed.to Moses Brown that the printer had decid ­ed against publication because many of hissubscribers were involved in the slave trade. As aresult, Hopkins sought Brown's help to publishthe essay in Providence."The essay - sig ned "Crito" - appeared in twoinstallments of the P ro vidence Gazette and CountryJoumal on October 6 an d 13, 1787.n Hopk insdrafted. the essay wh ile the constitutional conventionwas still in session in Philadelphia. Althoughhe did not dedicate th e work to the convention,his m essage was clearly dir ect ed toward themembers of that body wh o ha d just completedthe ir de libera tions by the ti me the essay appeared."Crito" hoped that the delegates woulddevise a constitution giving the national governmentpower to prohibit Am erican citizens fromparticipating in the slave trade. While the Revolutionhad launched antislavery efforts, Hopkinsstressed that in continuing to oppress blacks theAmerican people had failed to absolve themselvesof "a national sin, and a sin of the first magnitude- a sin which righteous Heaven has never sufferedto pass unpublished in this world."In Iact, "Crieo" insis ted, the social and politicalturmoil o f the 1780s - the disorder of the socalledCritical Period, culminating in Shays's Rebellionin 1786 - was clearly divine punishmentfor the failu re of Americans to reform their selfish,unc hristian ways. The persistence of the slavetrade and of slavery stood ou t for Hopk ins as asigna l that the Revolution had failed to refor mthorou ghly American s' indu lgent, self-cent eredbeh avior and to reconstruct the social order onthe basis of disinterested benevolence toward Beingin ge ne ral. Havin g forsaken their Revolutionarycommit m ent to simplicity and frugality ­symbolized by "homespun" clothing - Americanswere spen ding their money "for foreign luxu ­ries or unnecesseries, and those things whichmight have been manufactured among ourselves."For Hop kins. nothing less than moral redemptionof the Revolution and salvation of America lay inthe convention delegates' hands. By suppressingthe sla ve trade, the convention could rekindleRevolutionary idealism and ded ication to disinter-

45 SAMUEL HOPKINS)1_ 8rOW'l'I WdRl>o

46 SAMUEL HOPKINS-', "• I I II.-RlHSLibfaryFin l ConK,..g .'~1 Ch lUCh (c ~nr .T '. wh~ ~m u el HopkinsprcKh«1 1

47 SAMUEL HOPKINSpress the slave trade on a nationa l level continued.the ratification of the Constitution placed an almostinsurmountable legal obstacle in its way. Atleast the new government could not prohibit actionby individual states against the traffic. Hopkins'sdisappointment with the results of thePhiladelphia convention was partially offset inthe fall of 1787 wh en the General Assembly approveda strong bill outlawing the slave trade.The de puties barred Rhod e Islan d citizens andresidents from engaging in the slave traffic. Violatorswould be punished by fines of one hundredpou nds for eve ry slave transported and one thousand pounds for each shi p involved in the illegaltrade."Soon Hopkins shifted his attenti on to Connecticut.wh er e Rh ode Isla nd slavers secretly carriedon trading activit ies. He tried to im press LeviHart and Jon ath an Edwards. Jr. with the urgencyof prosecuting their earlier plan to organize aclerical protest against the slave trade in Connecticutas the first step in a campaign to achievelegal suppression of the abominable traffic in thatstate. In the fall of 1788 the clergy of Connecticutunited and created a committee to draft a petitionreq uesting the General Assembly to follow RhodeIsland's example and outlaw the slave trade.-Rhode Island citizens, however, continued totraffic slaves in Connecticut and some boldly defiedthe anti-slave trade law at home. Rhode Island officials failed to enforce the law adequatelyor pun ish violators. Moses Brown and Hopk insag reed in the fall of 1788 that the time ha d comefor establishing an abolition society in the state .Fo r a number of years bot h antislavery reform ershad bee n corresponding with the two ex istingabol ition societies in Philadelphia and New York.Indeed , Hopkins had worked so closely with thesetwo reform groups that both societies conferredhonorary mem bership on him in 1788. Earlier,Hopkins and Brown had discussed the prospect ofestablishing a local abolitio n society. Wh en Hopkinsfirst hea rd of the New York society's formationin 1785 he had written to Brown expressingthe hope that "sim ilar societies will be formed inot he r states: ' Was "it not worthwhile to try one inthis State?" he asked Brown.t' It took more thanthree years. however, before a voluntary societywas established in Rhode Island. By th e close of1788, continued violations of the state's anti-slavetrade law convinced local reformers of the needfor an antislavery society . Such a local organizationcame to be viewed as a necessity to encourageenforcement of the state's anti-slave trade legislationby elected officials.In February 1789 R hod e Island's antislaveryre formers met and established the Providence S0­ciety for the Abolition of the Slave T rade. T hefollo wing month Hopk ins wrote to Moses Browndispleased wit h the ti tle of the new organization.which he found "too confined." He recommendedthat the society's name "be extended to the wholestate." Furthermore. he suggested, neither in itstitl e nor in its activities sho uld the new society"be confi ne d to the Abolition of the Slave T rade.It oug ht to promote the freedom of those now inslavery, and to assist those who are free, as far asmay be, to the enjoyment of the privileges of freemanand the com forts of life." u Despite his objectionsand his ea rly refusal to sign the organization's constitut ion unless the changes he proposedwere made, Hopkins joined the ne w Providence-basedsociety shortly after its formation.With the abolitio n society's appearance someRhode Island merchants geared up pro-slavetrade presses for a concerted attack on the organization.John Brown, under the pseudonym "ACitizen," conducted a lengthy public cam paignagainst the society in Providence newspapers.»Opposition was so int ense in Newport that Hopkinstold Moses Brown he saw no prospect o f thesoc iety establishing a corresponding committeethere: "no committee formed in this town wouldbe able to do much: and if the re should be anyprosecution s, they mu st be carried on in Providence......Hopkins had grown acc ustomed to segme nts ofthe Newport community opposing his antislaveryefforts. In the 1780s local slave traders sometimesexpressed more hostility toward Hopkins than histheological foes, who for years had att acked hisstric t Ca lvinist doctrines. Several contemporaries'recollections suggest that, in the w ords of oneNew po rt resident. Hopkins's "ultra-Calvinismwas taken ad vantage of by the slave traders ...and he was grossly calumniated and his sermonsand speeches were wickedly perverted." As ayouth in the late eig hteenth century. th is Newporterheard such stories about Hopkins th at he"was afraid of him as 1 should be of some men-

48 SAMUEL HOPKINSster."UUndeterred by local hostility, Hopkins notonly continued but expanded his reform activitiesin the last decade of his life. In 1801, two years beforehis death, for example, he founded the MissionarySociety of Rhode Island "to promote thegospel in any part of the State where there maybe opportunity for it and to assist Africans in comingto a knowledge of the truth in any way whichmay consist with our means and advantages."> Atage eighty Hopkins was installed as the society'sfirst president.Although the Revolutionary antislavery movementfell far short of its goal to end slavery andthe slave trade in America, it did lay much of thegroundwork for nineteenth century abolitionism.Samuel Hopkins was a major link between thesetwo phases of the antislavery movement in America.In the 18405and 18505 New England reformersrecalled (sometimes romantically) Hopkins'santislavery efforts. William Ellery Channingcredited Hopkins with awakening him to theslave trade's evils. "I am grateful to this sternteacher: ' Channing wrote in 1840, "for turningmy thoughts and heart to the claim and majestyof impartial universal benevolence." John GreenleafWhittier in 1847 published a vignette of Hopkinsthat memorialized the theologian as anantislavery reformer and hailed the Newport minister"as the friend of all mankind - the generousdefender of the poor and the oppressed." Similarly,Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her historical novelTht!' Ministt!'r's Wooing (1859), saluted Hopkinsfor his contributions to the antislavery cause."The only mistake made by the good man," sheobserved, "was that of supposing that the elaborationof theology was preaching the gospel. Thegospel he was preaching constantly, by his pureunwordly living . . . and by the grand humanity,outrunning his age, in which he protested againstthe then admitted system of slavery and the slavetrade."]l In the midst of this "rediscovery " ofHopkins by New England abolitionists, his antislaverywritings were reissued in a volume entitledTimely Articles on Slavt!'ty by the ReverendSamuel Hopkins. Through his doctrine of disinterestedbenevolence, through personal example,and through his writings, Hopkins bequeathed animportant religious legacy to nineteenth-centuryantislavery crusaders.II,-' -JRIHSUbnryWilliam EIl.ry Channing (l7tJ(J../fU2) ........ on. ofHv.ral nin.­tHmh-c.mury ,..,form.,.. in flu. n

..49 SAMUEL HOPKINS6 FOI'innance, Levi Han. Libtfly DetaibNlind Recom mend«!(Hanford, 1173),7 Donald L Robin.on. Sla"ery in the Sl'1UCtun of AmericanPWitics. J76.S-1&2ll(New YOI'll., 1970). 78-79• Two rKmt _ya analyze upecu of Hope;n.'.caner" anantiala....1'Y rrionnw. o.vid S.1.oYejoy , '"Sam..el Hopkina; Relirion.SIa..ery, and the Revoll.ltion.~ N_ &#..., Ouanerly, 4QQune 1967): 227-243. and David E . S.,;ft.. ~ s..m u e l Hopkin&: CalvinistSocial Concern in Eightemth.century New England.. ~}oonral ofPresbyterian Hi&tory. 47 ( Mat. 1969): 31·S4,9 Hopkins. A~ e C«>cemin# the S~¥1!'".ofthl!' Afric&tJS;Showin# it to br till!'DutyMId lnr~ of till!'American Co:>IorUrIto 1I'tMlJrip-'e.n!Mil' A1rit:MI Sl-WII . .. (Nonrieh. ConrL.1776). iii. 34.10 Hopkina. A Di.lJope. S.II Hop kin.. A Dialo#ue, 32. S- al.a Edmund S. Mor ga n. "ThePuritan Ethic and lhe America n Reecluuon.' Willi.aman d MaryQrw-terly, 24 Uan. 1967):)-43.12 Strphm W-. ed... Skerche.oI th e Life01 the Lale R#l'. Sam­11#1 HopUa D. D.. . , ( Hanford. 11M ). 17; MOI'I an. The GC'ntkPurTt.n. 278-27'9.13 HopkiN toStil", 10Nov.• 1779, Yale Un i... MSS. SH al.aFranll.lin Bowditch Dexler, eod., The Litl!'rary 0;."'01 Ezra5ril", D. D.. LLD~ (New Yor k. 19(1) 2: 390.14 Elizabrth Donnan. "Thl!' New Enc1and Slave Tr~aftH theRnoaI.ution.- N_ &#""Qgu1l!'rly. 3 ( Apr . 1930): lSJ.21S;Mxk TJ-nl*'fl. M_ Brown: RehM;unt RI!'Iormer (ChapelHill 1962 ). 117-111 .13 Thom1*'fl.182.16 Robinoon, ehap. I. and Davi.. chap. 1.17 Brown to HopIri... 3 M ar~ 1184. M.....Bro-n Papen. RIH S-Library.I' Fin'! Congregational Chun:h Recorda. Jan. 30, Mar. 3. 1784,Newport HiatoricalSociety,19 Davia. 202-209,20 Newpon Merr:ury. 1 May. 1784 S- ~ HopkiN to Brown.29 Apr . 1784. M.-a Brown Papera.21 Hopkins to M..... Brown. 16 Mar ~ 1785. M..... Brown Papen;;Hopkins to Levi Han. 10 Feb- 1186,and n Jan., 17&7. HiatoriealSociny 01Pmn.-ylvania MSS (hft'eaftll'l' citeod .. HSPMSS ),22 Brown to Hopkina, 20 Jan.• 1786, Moan Brown Papen; H~kina to Han, 10 Feb.• II Apr.• 1786, and 27 Nov, 1781. HS PMSS.23 Hopkina to Brown. 16 Sept.. 1781. l3 Aug .. 17117. M.....Brown Papen..24 Hopk.... to Brown. 13 Aug ~ 17117, M..... Brown Papen.23 Thl!'"""y ....as n-prinleod under the titl e ~The St.ye T rade andSl...ery~ in Timely Artir:Jes on 51."ery by the Re". Samuel Hop­JWu(Bo.ton. 18.S4), a ccllecnon of 1I0pldn l 'I .ntialayery writ ­inp.1 h...e uaed thill edition.26 HopkiN., "The S~Ye TBde and Sla..ery .- 61~U . 619, 620­62>.27 Hopltina 10 M.-Brown. 3 jan.•and 23 Frb-I188. M....BfOWIl Plpen;; HopkiN to Levi Han. 27 N oy ~ 1787. HSP MSS.211 Hopltina to Levi Han , 29 Jan.• 1788. NI!'....Yor k Hi l t ori ~ a l S0-ciety MSS.29 Donnan. 2U TbompKft. 102.30 HopllinalO Hart. 27 N.... ~ 1787. and 8 Sept.. 1788. HSP MSS;Hopll inllo M..... Brown, S Jan_ and 24 Sept.. 1188. M.....Brown Papen.31 T hom l*'fl. 194--193; Ho pkinl to William ROill!'tI, 22 Sept.,1788, liSP MSS; Eben Huard 10 Hopkina. lODee., 1788. YaleUni... M5S; Hopkins to Brown. 16 Mar . 11118. M.... Brown Pa­"...32 Hopllina to Brown. 7 Mar . and 17 A u C ~ 178'11. M.... BrownP apera. Sft a1Io Pennaylvania Abolition Sorirty 10 Hopkin&. 9M ar ~ 1189, HSP MSS.33 Hop kinl to Moan Brown, 30 Mar ., 1789. Moan Brown Pa ·pen; T hom l*"lo 19f>-200.14 HopkiN 10 Brown, 11 Aug ~ and 18 Nov ~ 178'11. Moan Brownp."...35 Wilklna Updikl!' to E. A.. Park, n.d, Yall!' Univ. MSS. SH alaoWilliam Ellery Channing to Park, 14 Fe b.• 1&40. Yale Univ. MSS:George Channing, &rly RecollC'cti0n8 01 N ewport , R. I.. (romthe year /793 10 181/ (Bo.lon, 1868).87-89: William Patten, Reo-­miniaunr:e. of the ulle Re y, Samuel Hopkilll 0 .0 .. 01 Ne wport.R. I.. . , (Provldencl!', 1843), 1I 7-12S,31 Clunning to E. A. Park. 14 FC'b ~ 1&40. Yale Uniy . MSS; J acll.Mmdl!'lllOhn. Channing. The RellKtan t RacUc.J(BoRon. 1971),226: Whittier , 144; Stowe, 8.

50RIH S LbrIryJ am " C..rdinlJ! Gibbon. (c~nl..r)., rh.. IIIOol cvn!wcr.alion of th O'Church o f rh.. RI..s.oed SKT.am ..nr, A c" dtm y A ....nu ... Providen.....

- - --- - - - - -51The Providence VIsitor andNativist Issues, 1916-1924by Donna Thomes"The years 1916 to 1924 were a time of considerableinstability in American society and politics and. asso often happens. troubled Americans looked for ascapegoat. They found one in the alien - the immigrantwhose cultural or religious traditionswere at variance with those of old-stock Americans.Since so many of the newer immigrantswere Catholic. the church in America viewed bothdirect and indirect attacks on the alien as especiallydangerous. The church fought back defendingitself and its foreign-born faithful as being completelycompatible with the noblest American values.At the vanguard of the church's defense wasthe Catholic press. Close examination of a diocesannewspaper, particularly one in a diocese witha large foreign-born population. reveals muchabout the church's concerns and policies during acrucial period in its history. The Providence Vjsjtor.official organ of the Diocese of Providence, issuch a paper; its editorials and news stories castconsiderable light on attitudes among the Catholichierarchy in Rhode Island during World War Iand the immediate post-war period.Hardly new to American society of the 19105and 19205. bigotry reached new heights of stridencyagainst all things viewed as alien. HistorianJohn Higham has studied these anti-alien impulses- which he calls "nativism" - and hastraced them back to early days of the republic. Hedefines nativism as "intense opposition to an internalminority on the ground of its foreign (i.e.,'en-American') connections. He concludes thatthree strains of nativism twist throughout our history:fear of the Catholic as agent of a foreign andhierarchical religion, fear of the foreign radical.and exaltation of the Anglo-Saxon "race" as theworld's superior people. From the days of preparednessparades to the era of severe immigrationrestictions under Coolidge, all three strains of nativismmanifested themselves, and an unusuallypowerful tide of bigotry swept the country.'Events of the period show ways in which nativismaffected Americans. The Red Scare of 1919stands as a monument of wide-spread fears thatovert "radicalism" could evoke. Notions of An glo­Saxon supremacy espoused by the powerful KuKlux Klan demonstrated the appeal of racial superiorityas an issue among many wo rking- and middle-classProtestants. Arguments against"mongrelization" of old-stock Americans throughintermarriage with immigrants affected a numberof intellectuals and would-be intellectuals. Thepopularity of Madison Grant's Passing of theGrear Race. which lamented Anglo-Saxon declinein pseudo-scientific detail, reflected the fact thatracial superiority was a concept accepted by manywho were neither uneducated nor of the workingclass. Anti-Catholicism was visible in many forms,including discriminatory legislation in severalstates and vigorous campaigns against the churchby the Klan, whose aims and propaganda wereavowedly anri-Catholic.!Between 1916 and 1924, the Catholic church inAmerica found itself bucking powerful forces. Notonly were Catholics attacked for their religiousbelief. but many of the faithful - the foreignborn- were attacked also as undesirable and p0­tentially dangerous aliens. To a church that drew°A PhD andicbt~.tth~ Univenity of Floricb and an editorial_......1 f.... FloridI Him:Jric.J Quart",>,. o.::.m. n-n.. wiahes toacknowIedle theh~lpofProf_Junes FindlIoy. UnivenityofRhod< Iow.d

5 2 PROVIDENCE VIS ITORmuch of its strength from persons of Iri sh , Italian,German. French, and Eastern European backgrounds.th e dimensions and the urgency of theproblems posed by nativism were obvious. An examinationof the ways in whi ch the church respondedto nativism during these years of stressclarifies both the history of American nativismand the history of the Catholic church in theUnited States.That the chu rch chose to attack the problem ofna tivism squarely is not surprisin g. Self-interestalone dictated that political rights of Catholics beprotected an d that a lenient immigration policybe supported. The way in which the attack wasmade seems unusual at first glance. The churchemployed a st rong na tionalistic spirit to proveboth the "America n-ness" of Catholics and Catholicismand the "Catholic-ness" of Americanideals and culture . On the intellectual front, thisspirit was neatly expressed in the historical viewof "America - Land of Destiny ," by Lawrence J.Kenny, S.].:Without the design ofany man, our land wasnamed America in honor ofone ofGod's saints,Emeric or Amerigo, who died rich in far-off Hungary,but whose name means self-government orLiberty; a Christbearer discovered the land; thearms o f Mary protected him in his work. Surelythe new-born lan d, over which Heaven took suchcare, is meant for glorious days.To Spain, when her Catholicity was her life,this nation owes her birth; to old Catholic France,her emancipation from servitude to a foreignstare. 3On a political level , the church 's defenders notedthat every conflict since the Mexican Wa r wasmarked by an ecclesiastical call to Catholics torally around the flag . James Cardinal Gibbons,dean of the American hierarchy, expressed thisclearly in April 1917, claiming that all Catholicsaccepted "wholeheartedly and unreservedly" thedeclaration of war against Germany. During thewar. Gibbons and the hierarchy continued theirsupport of the conflict. In his capacity as chairmanof the League of National Unity, Gibbonswrote to President Wilson: "We are working tothe end that our countrymen may see the follyand grave disobedience of unjust and ill-temperedcriticism of national policies.?'In essence political dissenters became the commonenemy that many church spokesme n denounced,in hopes that Catholics and P rotestantscould unite as loyal citizens for the duration of thewar. "It is not surprising to find Anarch ist s, Socialists,and IWW firebrands active in their oppositionto conscription. The na tion has hithertobeen indulgently tolerant. There is a limit, how ever."declared the Providence Visitor in this spirit.This feeling survived beyond Armistice Day, sinceit demonstrated the loyalty of Catholic Americans.A 1919comment on immigration laws reflecteda patriotic view: "The people of thi scountry will give their approval to any reasonableimmigration measure that will protect their countryfrom dangerous revolutionaries and social pirates."As Dorothy Dohen concludes from studiesof the nationalistic impulse in American Catholicism, the church adopted a stance of "my country,right or wrong" in times of national stress, carefullyemphasizing the compatibility of the churchwith American democracy and stressing its powe rto mobilize immigrant opinion for national aims.!Catholic clergymen adopted this stance in responseto militant American nationalism, butevents within the church itself helped develop thesocially conservative nature of Catholic na tionalism. In the late nineteenth century, severalAmerican archbishops, led by Gibbons and JohnIreland of Saint Paul, Minnesota, proposed thatthe church try to convert more Protestantsthrough establishment of friendly relations withrival denominations. to show Americans they hadnothing to fear from the church. The archbishopsplanned to stress American featu res of Catholicismas a way to show that the faith fit well intothe mainstream of American life. The majority ofthe American hierarchy, however, opposed thisscheme as damaging to the purity of the churchand as endangering the souls of American Catholics.These conservatives were dominated by German-Americans,for whom parochial schoolsserved a a means for transmitting German languageand culture to their American-born young,and by native-born converts, many of whom wereoriginally drawn to the church by its rigidity anddogmatism. Until the conservatives gained an audienceamong the Curia - dominated by Europeanultramontanes - liberal "Americanizers"had their way. In the years after 1890, whenRome's reaction came, conservatives were vindi-

53 PROVIDENCE VISITORcared. Althou gh liberal Ameri cans wer e not condemned.the princi ples of those European libe ralswh o had built upon the Americans' ideas - theseEuropeans. significantly, called their program"l'Americanisme" - wer e declared heretical. T hecondemna tion was a clear signal to American liberalsto temper their views on coexistence wit hP rotesta nts: this they indeed did All that remainedof the liberal movement was the propensityto appeal to nationalistic impulses of AmericanCatholics: it was a way both to protect and to promotethe church. Cardinal Gibbons said in 1917:"The primary duty o f a citizen is loyalty to country."His statement best summarized the patrioticand conservative stance adopted by the church beforethe coming of the Great War.'Int ellect ual battles meant little had not theviews of the church hierarchy been widely publicizedamong the American faithful. The bishops.in keeping with the need to publicize the church 'spositions on many issues, had urged establishmentof a strong and outspoken Catholic presssince the 1880s. Fear of Protestant-oriented•• 'Sunday papers: which often attack fait h andmorals," led bishops to promote diocesan newspapers."but one paper for each Province," By 1911.when the Catho lic P ress Assoc iation was founded,this goal had been largely reached. When nativismreemerged with such great force in 1916, a vigorousCatholic press was ready to ed itorialize indefe nse of th e ch urch and its faithful. F ounded in1873, the Providence Visitor was typi cal of theCatholic press, both in the nature of the diocese itserved and in the fact that its editor, Edward 1­Cooney, became first president of the CatholicPress Association, placin g the Visitor in the mainstreamof both Ca th olic life and of the press establishmentof the church.'Providence's diocese - actually encompass ingthe state of Rhode Island - had many characteristicstypical of other urban dioceses of the 1910sand 19208. It ministered to large numbers of foreign-bornpersons, many from Catholic countries.In 1910, the diocese and sta te had 178,025 personsof foreign birth residing within their borders: despitenatural attrition and sharply reduced immigrationduring the war, 173,499 residents bornabroad were listed in 1920. In 1910. the largest ofthe traditionally Catholic groups were, in order ofsize: French-Canadians. Irish . Italians, Poles, andP ortuguese. By 1920 Italians were the most numerousgroup among the foreign born. T o thesefigures must be added la rge num bers of second ­and third-gen er at ion Am ericans who retainedst rong ties to their ancestral ho melands.sDes pit e the sheer nu mbers of F rench-Canadiansand Italians in the diocese, the Visitor an d thechurch hierarchy remained Irish-dominated.Throughout the period. the Visiror ea gerly followedreports of Irish bravery in the British expeditionaryforce on the battlefields of Fran ce, the1916 Easter R ising in Dublin, and establishmentof the Irish Free State. Early in 1920 the Visitorsummarized its view of the Irish question: "Therewill be no permanent peace until Ir eland's claimsare satisfied. Not so much because four millions ofpeople are denied the right of self-government,but rather because Ireland's cause is the cause offreedom." The Visirortook a sour view of th eLea gue of Nations after it appeared that theTreaty of Verg,illes would not establish Irish independence.Its editorials and news items revealedan orthodox Iri sh pa per,Despite its Irish bias, the pa per occasionallybowed to other ethnic groups; T he growing powerof Ita lians, es pecially during the 1920s, warrantedmention. T he Visitor corr ectly linked the newestimmigration restriction bill with nativist enmityagainst Italians, concludin g: "We have felt thefor ce that wou ld drive from us the spiritual values,and so we enact a law against the It alian inwhom resides the high culture of Christian civilization."Occasional news items touched uponchurch activities, especially in war relief in Polandand other eastern European nations. Buteven the P oles, a sizeable group. received onlyone mention, in a column commending the immigrationbureau for refusing to deport two Polishgirls,OCuriously, French-Canadians received no editorialmention in the Visirorduring this period. Despitethe size of the French-Canadian community,only items of a social nature appeared in local colummunder Woonsocket parish activities. TheFrench-speaking community did, however, haveits own papers- including the important La Tribune.Perhaps the sense of being a separate. albeitdevoutly Catholic entity - as Jacques Ducbarme.a French-Canadian writer, has suggested-c-explains their absence from the pages of

54 PROVIDENCE VISITORthe Visitor even on the eve of the SentinelJemovement, in which leading French-Canadianschallenged the diocese's authority over theircommunity. Certainly French-Canadians weremore conservative than the Visitor on some issues,especially labor. While the diocesan papersupported moderate union activities, La Tribunedenounced unionism in the wake of the 1922 textilestrike, offering its own solution to industrialproblems:Le malaise actueJ commone les craints pour Fevoirseraient vires dissipes. si taus Ies patrons eetow: les ouvriers eraient ce tholiques er suiveruhumbtem em ee pleusement ces reeratres s.a.intescomme les suivem nos trevsileure Irenco-emericans. I 'Even questions raised by the legislature' s pa s­sage of the Peck Bill - designed to curtail sch oolinstruct ion in languages other than English - didnot bring the Visitor to cham pion the French­Canadian cause. Since the F rench-speaking community had much to lose by the 1922 law, t he diocesemight have attempted to rally all Catholicsagainst it as a discriminatory measure. Ratherthan that approach, the paper attacked the Pecklegislation solely as another form of dangerousgovernmental "centralization," saying nothingabout either French-Canadians or ot her groupswhose cult ural heritage was endangered by thelaw."Providence's diocese, counting more than275,000 members in 1916. was not un ited on all issues.The Visit or purported to speak for all RhodeIsland Catholics but it spoke with an Irish brogue.Despite heavy emphasis on Irish-American concerns,and real disagreements with French-Cans-I• rChun-h of l h. ~ Blood (n ,hl' ~ttd er~mm~r ~hOOI. WOOl>­IOC''''''. Rh

55 PROVIDENCE VISITORdians on some issues. the paper did noticeablybroaden its base on issues of a nativist nature. Therole of Catholics in World War I, immigrationpolicies. the threat of the Klan and to a lesser extentprohibition were heatedly discussed in its editorialpages. These were issues before whichCatholics closed ranks, and splits within the dioceseitself were forgotten when these issues dominateddiscussion.World War I received vast amounts of coveragein the Visitor. Here the phenomenon of Catholicnationalism, expressed so well by Cardinal Gibbona.was clearly visible. Early the paper put itselfon record in favor of preparedness, both in boastingProvidence's efforts as "second to none in itsenthusiasm, numerical proportions. and patrioticspirit," and in mocking foes of preparedness. R~presentative Frank Clark of Florida, a notorioussupporter of immigration restriction, was lampoonedfor stating that he would cppcee preparednessif it interfered with any federal moneyscheduled to be spent in his district. The Visitorwryly summed up his stand as "patriotism is just'pork.' "uSuppon for preparedness, however, did not pr~vent the paper from considering the morality ofthe conflict. It warned against American travel onarmed merchantmen. "Sometimes it is right toforego our right," it stated, and it quoted the opinionof Cardinal Gibbons on the need for caution inthe face of wartime danger. Beyond the relativelysimple issue of travel in wartime lay the explosive"hyphenate problem" - the fear, held by manyold-stock Protestants, that naturalized Americanscould not be counted on to defend America, sincetheir loyalties would always remain with the oldcountry. The church sensed that the hyphenateproblem contained much anti-Catholic, as well assuper-patriotic, feeling. The Visitor counteredthat by stressing the loyalty of Catholics (as in itspraise of the manhood of America answering thedraft call) and concluding that, with the comingof war, "the hyphenate has ceased to be upon thisWestern Continent." At the same time, it condemnedProvidence's anti-draft agitators as "traitonand near-traitors," a striking contrast to loyalnaturalized Americans. Even as troops preparedfor the front, the church felt obligated to discussthe central question of morality, and of loyalty,whether Catholics were justified in killing theirfellow Catholics in battle. A news item, circulatedto the Catholic press as a whole, proclaimed:"Catholic Church Champion of Liberty UnderFlag - No Question of Divided Allegiance WhenPatriots Were Needed in the Hour of the Nation'sPeril- Liberty and Equality the Heritage ofCatholic Teaching." The Visitor reiterated thesepoints in a lengthy editorial on"Catholicity andWar..•The ethics of war has been set forth time andagain by the theologians ofthe Church. A contentioncsrriedon by force ofarms by sovereignstates may be JUSt, and then it is right for theState to calJ upon its citizens to enforce its claims.The civil authority. by divine sanction, has theright to be obeyed. The private citizen may pr~sume that its country is right, and this presumptionis sufficient to induce him to heed thecommand ofhis lawful superiors.In view ofthese facts it is easy to reconcile theapparent anomalyofCatholics kneeling at thesame altar on one day and fighting each other tothe death on the next. Though the Church praysto be delivered from wars. she recognizes thatthere may be some greater evils in the world. andfor the avoidance ofthese she justifies the State,when it is necessary, for the settlement ofdisputes.to have recourse to the final arbitrament ofthesword. uThe editorial described the war effort in terms ofthe Catholic concept of the just war and usedCatholic theology to attest Catholic patriotism.The Visitor vigorously defended the patriotismof ethnic groups. When the Irish were accused ofharboring secret sympathies for the Kaiser, thepaper reminded its readers of thousands of Irishand Irish-Americans fighting bravely in the Alliedarmies. The paper did not overreact to theloyalty issue, which became sadly apparent whenWaiter Ranger, the commissioner of education.called for an investigation of Providence parochialschools to determine whether or not Catholicchildren learned "German propaganda" alongwith the usual curriculum. "The German propagandacould hardly be expected to exist," the Visitorsneered. "in a class-room that can report aperfect record of one hundred per cent efficiencyin all that it has been called upon to do in aid ofthe Red CfCl8S,," and noted that the public schools'Red Croea records were poor by comparieon.u

....56 PROVIDE NCE VISITOR••In iI IWIli Fftkril' H ill pilril

57 PROVIDENCE VlSlTORsoldier who died in the ca use of his country," Unfortunatelysubsequent events proved that thiswas hardly an oversta tement. nThe Visitor was also concerned with the nativistthreat implied by prohibition, a favorite reformof many nativists who associated drinking withundesirable immigrants from traditionally Catholiccountries, Alt hough the "sons of cold water"had gained considerable support by 1916, the paperstill mocked them, suggesting that prohibitionistsform a political party with"pacifists andsuffragists" and nominate William jennings Bryan,the Visitors symbol for all tha t was ludicrousin fundamentalist Protestantism...A further suggestionmight be in order:' it continued, "thatpolitics is a man's game, and the above-mentionedwould do well to keep out of it alt ogether." By theeve of World War I, the paper warned againstpoliticians who clai med that prohibition would"reform the world"; the editorial implied that prohibitionistshad become an important politicalforce ."With wartime austerity came increasing demandsthat prohibition be adopted as a war measure,The Visitor, with restraint, pointed out thatprohibition's main problem "has always been thatit didn't prohibit, and that difficulty bids fair topersist even in th e face of war." It became shrilland excited, however , when Oklahoma passed alaw that did not ex empt altar wines from proh ibition.The paper even praised its old foe, Williamjennings Bryan, for his stand against the Oklahomalaw, which he had called an infringementupon organized religion. "It is precisely such actionas has been taken in Oklahoma," the paperwarned local "drys," "that periodically gives riseto the suspicion that the prohibitionists areagainst the Church." Questions and complaintsraised by the Visitor centered around sacramentalwine, rather than the laity's beer and wh iskey, asrevealed in a 1918 editorial that continued the paper'sopposition to prohibition but stated that "aconstitutional assurance written into the law ofthe land" in the interests of religious libe rtywould ease Catholic suspicions regarding this "seriousquestion." One wonders if the laity felt thesame."During 1917 the Visitors attack on prohibitionshifted to religious grounds alone. It scored a Cincinnatiproposal to tax church property to makeup for revenue lost under prohibition: "On e mightima gine that the prohibitionist party would havelearned by this time that the cause is not helpedby antagonizing the Church." When the E ighteenthAmendment finally did become law, thepaper was silent; communion wines had beenexempted. Rhode Island - notorious for its voteagainst the Volstead Act and its laxity towa rdprohibition enforce ment - finally passed a stateenforcement act in 1922, to which the paper merelyreplied: " 'Obey the Law' is the proper footingfor our recent enforcement act." Quebec's prohibitiondebates of 1922 evoked comment from theVisirorabout America's "great mess of ou r attemptsat prohibition."·Two years later, with Al Smith - a Catholicoppon ent of prohibition - in the field for thepresidential nomination, the paper became bolder,questioning the morality of the Volstead Act byclaiming that irregularities in the pairing of opponentsand supporters contributed to its passage inCongress. Never did the Visitor even hint, however,that the law was not morally binding for anyreason. In the end, the hierarchy's and the Visiror'einterests as "good Americans" were betterachieved by remaining fairly restrained on theprohibition issue, regardless of the laity's opiniono f the ban on alcohol."A more direct threat to Rhode Island 's Catholiccommunity was immigration restriction. Historianjohn Tracy Ellis has said that immigrationrestriction laws "made a direct contribution to thematurity of the church in the sense that duringthe last generation its faithful has for the firsttime had an opportunity to become more or lessstabilized.v"The Visiror of the postwar years, however, didnot have the benefits of Ellis's hindsight. Instead,it saw immigration restriction as an attempt toba r its readers' Old World relatives from the possibilityof a better life in America . Obvi ously asource of continuous Catholic growth would likewisebe curtailed by any restriction s. Ra ther thanthink ing in tenns of consolidation of the laity alreadyin the United States, th e paper neverstopped crusading against the schemes of restrictionists.In 1916 the Visirordenounced as "biased legislation"the Burnett Bill, designed to establish literacytests and other restrictions on immigr ation,

58 PROVIDENCE VISITORBiahop Willi.m Hichy. Ih~ In.h -A m~ric.n BWoopof P1olrid~l>('~from 19/9 10 Hilland when a similar bill passed the House of Representativeslater in the year, it pointed out thatthe Chinese and Japanese governments successfullyprotested the bill's clauses relating to Orientals,forcing amendment of the bill. "Whyshouldn't the Caucasian races be shown as muchconsideration?" the Visitor needled. The paperconsistently argued that the only just restrictionswere those that banned the mentally retarded.the dangerously ill. prostitutes and sex offenders,and the "socially unfit... the paper's term for anarchists.socialists, and other radicals.ZJThe Visitor argued passionately against literacytests:The immigration committee has found it difficultto frame a bill which will protect us againstthe peril ofEuropean agitators and not excludeemigrants who come with honest purpose to theland ofopportunity. No one knows better thanthe immigration committee that the illiterates arenot the most undesirable and in the words offormerSpeaker Cannon, "highly cultured men andwomen in some of the American colleges havestrange ideals on social questions."Advocates ofthe literacy test overlook the facrthat ability to read and write is not an esunrialqualification. The most dangerous and undesirableapplicants are too ohen those who have acquiredandmisapplied an education and who comesolely for the dissemination ofideas that are destructiveto American institutions and principlesthat are dangerous to social welfare. 1tBy heaping scorn on the dangerous alien radical.the Visitor served both patriotism and the causeof the immigrant.The paper did not limit its defense to Europeanimmigrants. It editorialized against a 1919 attemptby some senators to pass a bill effectivelybarring the "asiatic people" from American citizenshipthrough a type of grandfather clause. In asimilar manner. a long editorial of 1921 criticizedAmericanization attempts that treated immigrantsand their children as lesser beings. "Speakingby and large. immigrants are the best blood ofEurope," the paper noted. and it pointed out thattheir coming was the result of " honest ambition,"not any "lack of enterprise."uThe Visirorwas silent. however, on the RhodeIsland Americanization Act of 1919, which madenight classes in English compulsory for personsaged sixteen through twenty-one who did notmeet state standards of literacy in that language.~There were probably many reasons forits silence. The Americanization issue had nationalisticovertones for many Americans, and it waspotentially dangerous to the church hierarchy forthat reason. Most likely the Irish-oriented paperwas unwilling to tackle an issue of limited importanceto Irish-Americans despite that issue's impactupon "newer" immigrants who were directlyaffected. The paper's silence, moreover. couldhave been an attempt to please conservative, na ­tionalistic sentiment both within the church andoutside it, It was far safer to criticize any congressionalaction, especially on restriction. than tobattle on the local level over potentially explosive

59 PROVID ENCE VISITOR1issues such as Americarueancn. The church wasdoubtless sensitive that attacks on Am~ricanizationwould appear to be attacks on attempts to instillAm~rican values and culture into recentimmigrants. leaving Catholicism open to severecriticism from the Protestant majority.The restriction issue con tinued to draw the paper'.fire. The Visitor expeeseed shock ever Secretaryof Labor James]. Davis's article on the"social detriments' o f the Icreign-bom that firstappeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1923.Three months later the Visitor was still attacking"circulation geners" and " 'patriotic' outpourings"against immigrants. "T he so-called 'Alien'can give a pretty good account of himself duringthe past decade of years without pointing to hiswar record or recalling the names of disringutshedmen of any race." When the RestrictionAct of 1924 passed Congress in April. the Visitordenounced it as "a sop to labor. balm to the prejudiced.and the first practical measure proclaimingan ascendancy of the Anglo-Saxon race" and castit in terms of light versus datkness. The new law,however. did not receive thorough evaluation untilSeptember. when figures compiled by Catholiceditor and historian Dr. E. C. McGuire appearedto de monstrate how drasticall y immigration fromCatholic countri es had been restricted. The law indeedhad " fan gs," but it took the paper nearly fivemonths to discover their dimensions. Because restrictionwas such an im portant issue, and becausethe Visitor had shown such concern over it. todayit is difficult to understand why the paper did notfully analyze t his crucial legislation much earlier."Immigration restriction provided only onemanifestation of ferocious bigotry that marredthe early 19208. Catholics, often the target of hatredin the past, maintained a vigil against developinghate campaigns such as those led by the KuKlux Klan. Like the Catholic press in general. theVisit or had long been concerned with prejudiceand vigilante activities. always aware that an attackon other groups could expand into anti-CathoJicismas well. During the war the paperdemanded removal of anti-Semitic passages fromTh. F.tr.!me~,«f~f'ftmderxw...d ....,them Euro­P-II pwu fmm Jill J 10 11134. Above. ,_ F.tr. • • MnMi~ .tSUI'. PI« II.

60 PROVIDENCE VlSlmRthe Manual of Inst ructions issued to army medicalexaminers. It also rebuked the American Legion- an organization it usually approved ­when the legion took the law into its own handsagainst radicals. With its record of concern overprejudice and extralegal activities. the Visitor naturally viewed the Klan - an organization thatcombined vigilantism, anti-Semitism. arni-Catholicism,and racism with a heaping amount ofxenophobia - as its mortal enemy/ 'The church as a whole vigorously condemnedthe Klan. and the Catholic press circulated Klanstories far and wide. The first major Klan storythe Visitor printed concerned the organization'sgrowth in Illinois. Alt hough rather small inRhod e Island and the rest of New England. theKlan provided just enough of a threat to justifythe bitter attacks upon it. In 1921 only one kleaglerecruited in all of New England. but in 1922 NewEngland Grand Goblin A. J. Padon claimed thatR hode Island contained 2.000 Klansmen. HistorianKenn eth Jackson estimates total R hod e IslandKlan membership for the period 1915 to 1944 at5.000 with about 3,000 members residing in theP rovid ence metropolitan area durin g thoseyears."The frenzied attacks of the Visitor are easilyunderstood when one examines the Klan's propaganda.An undated broadside was typical of Klanviews: "Every crimina l. every gambler, everythug, every libe rti ne, every gi rl ruined. everyhome wrecker, every wife beater, every dope peddler,every moonshine r, every crooked politician.every papist pri est, every shyster lawyer , every K.of C., every brothel madam, every Rome controlled newspaper, every black spider - is fightin gthe Klan. Think it over . Wh ich side are you on ?")OQuoting William Allen White. the famous Kansaseditor, the Visitor ca lled the Klan "moral idiocy"and an "un-Arnerican invisible gov ern ment: 'In response to Imperial Wizard William j. Simmons'sstatem ent that all Catholics were excl udedfrom the Klan, the paper ret or ted that "Catho licsare no t payin g $10 for the privilege of wearin g afool's cap and ma king mock of the Co nstitution oftheir country : ' It snicke red at the Klan's sex scandalthat involved the organization's chief promoters,Edward Y. Cla rke and Elizabeth Tyler. It alsotr embled at the opening of "the door to dangerouspossi bilities" tha t the Klan posed for Catha-Ku Klux K lJon In ProV>drncrlies, Jews, and blacks alike."T he Visitor took com fort from the Klan's poorsho wing in Rh od e Island but underestimated theorganization it feared so greatly. "The strikingfeature of th e Klan in Rhode Island is that thereisn't such an an imal," the paper stated late in1923. " Abo ut one per cent of our citizens are saidto be fit subjects for membership," it report ed ­certainly a gross oversight of the old Yankeestock in the sta te . A 1924 editoria l represented thepaper's contradictory view of the Klan in thestate: "Catholics have no thing to fear. But wemust be eve r on th e alert. We must not misjudgeor underestimat e th e powe r of ignorance and pr e]­udice.?"D urin g the election campaign of 1924. both partiesin the state denounced the Klan by na me, asu re sign that the organization's appeal hadpeaked in Rhode Islan d. By this time there wereclear signs that the Klan's grip on areas it had

61 PROVIDENCE VISITORonce dominated was weakening. The Visitor exultedthat "convention after convention has pronouncedagainst it in terms that admit of nomisunderstanding:' and summed up the local situation:Here in Rhode Island both parties stand in forma/opposition to the organization. It has beenexamined and found bad. Henceforth a11 ofirswords and acts are the words and acts ofan outlaw.The Ku Klux Klan in Rhode Island can rightfuJJyclaimno other standing. DIn pronouncements on wartime loyalty. prohibition,immigration restriction. and the Klan, theVISitor came as dose as it was to come into politics.During the period 1916 to 1924, it did not endorsecandidates for either state or national office.Only once did it appear to slip into Democraticpartisanship natural to an Irish-dominated paper.In 1922, the paper commented on the appeal bysome of Oregon's Democratic legislators for religioustoleration, "a principle which has alwaysbeen a cardinal doctrine of Democratic faith." TheVisirorfollowed AI Smith's campaign for the 1924Democratic nomination with interest but with emphasisonly on the right of any Catholic to be consideredfor the presidency. It was disgusted thatneither national party had denounced the Klan byname in its platform. Both Republicans andDemocrats "have unmistakenly proven that theyhave not the strength and wisdom necessary tothe management of the great ship of State." Thatwas far more grievous, in the paper's eyes, thanSmith's defeat at the Democratic convention. Asloyal Americans. Catholics did not have to dependon Catholic politicians to defend the rights of thefaithful. )0The Visirorresponded to several nativist issuesin ways that stressed roth the nationalistic feelingsof Catholicism and a lurking fear of thedominant Protestant environment. In this sense itresponded in a pattern that has been quite commonin American Catholicism. In Boston, many ofthe same issues and responses emerged duringthe age of World War I and Harding-Coolidge"normalcy." Earlier, before the Civil War, a similarpattern was visible in New York.:UIn the issues Stres&e'd - the Catholic role in thewar, prohibition, immigration restriction, and theKlan - the Visitor attempted to unite the diverseelements of the diocese and protect the position ofthe church in Rhode Island vis-a-vis the Protestantelements with which it coexisted. By stressingnational issues, sometimes at the expense oflocal issues directly related to "newer" immigrants.the Irish-American hierarchy and its diocesannewspaper proclaimed that Catholics wereloyal Americans and that Catholicism was compatiblewith American society.So the church made its peace with a politicallyand socially conservative society during an era ofdisturbing change. But there was a price for thispeace. A consistently conservative stance on issuesof the day. while pleasing old stock Protestantforces, also contributed to the growth of theright wing within the Catholic Church in theUnited States. At least one historian has tracedthe fanatically anti-communist impulses amongsome Catholic leaders during the 19505 back tothe nationalistic stance of the church in the earlytwentieth century.- During the 19605 and 19705.as during the 19105and 19205, decisions over whatto render to Caesar and what to render to God remainserious questions for American Catholicismto answer.2 Hilham. 222·123. 286-299. lSs-t57, 271)-277.3 c.thoJk Mind. 25 (~pt . 8. 1927); 321·l4O . ncerpu from 324and 334 quote

62 PROVIDENCE VISITOR9 Provilknce VWf Ol'". 19 Mar , 1920 (edi torial); 19 Sf,pt ~ 1919(editorial); 23 Jan., 1920 (edi torial); 24 Apr ~ 1924 (edi torial); Hoe, 1921 (edilorial).10 JacqllNDuchanne, The SIudo.... of rhe TrTft.(Ne",York.11M3). 78-84 '"The current malaise, aa "'ell aa Inr lor the future ...nil be oL.ip"ted ,_ iJ all the owne~and all the workPn-.uldbecome c.tholica and follow hwnbly and piouaIy the hol y ref ·liCe...doOllf Franco-American workers." w Tribune. 18 Mar"1922 (editoria1).II ~VwrOl'". 21, 28 Apr. 1922 (edi toriall). A eoodINdy of the' diapQte ia Robl'n MendiUo. '"The P«k Bill CofltfO"~ ol 1922" (unpubliahed P"P"'". Univ""';ty of Rhode Island,1976).12 ~ Vl&iror. 21 Apr ~ 1916; 2 J une . 1916 (editorial); 21Jan.. 1916 (.mtorial),1J ~nce V.,ror. IO M ar ~ 1916 (edi torial); 8 June, 1917(ed itorials); 1J Apr ~ 1917; 17 AliI.. 1917.14 Prooride.oce Y"-ror. 28 SfpI ~ 1917 (edi torial); 8 Mar.. 1918(edi tonal).IS~nce Vmrror. 6 SfpI.. 1918 (.mtorial).17 ProYidM« Ywror. 6 JWle'. 1919 (edi torial); I I Apr.. 1919 (t'di.lorial).23 Providence Vwror, 21 Ja n., 1916 (ed Llonal); 12 M ay, 1916(edllorial).24 Providence VimrOl", 31 Oct. . 1919 (ed ilorial).Z3 ProvideflCe VISUM, 26 Dec.. 1919 (edilorial); 23 Feb.. 1921(t'ditorial).26 Frank V. Thoml*"lo Amffic:aniutioo Sr~ The Schooling01 rhe Immigrllfll ( MorillOtau-. N J ~ 1971).322; Ed ward G«Jr,eHarunann. The Mov"lIM'fIl ro Americaniu rhe Immignnl ( NewYork. 1967).242·24.127 Pn:>vi

63From the CollectionsPhoto grapher Avery Lord captured sce nes of concentrationand comic relief at the construction. fiftyyears ago, of Mou nt Hope Bridge. Lord (1894 ­1% 7) was one of Rhod e Island's first aerial pbotographersand. during the 19205 and early 19305.was a feature wri ter for the Providence J ournalT he Library's collection of over a thousand originalglass plate and film negatives by Avery Lordincludes both professional wo rk and pict ures offamily. friends. and local events.••

64 FRO M THE COLLECTIONS