1927 and the Rise of Modern America

by Charles Shindo

  While criticism of the entire ordeal filled the pages of America’s, and the world’s, newspapers, for most people the event was not life-altering. Only around 20 percent of those in Massachusetts felt an injustice had been done, and the percentage declined the further one got geographically from New England.34 But percentages alone do not explain the adamancy with which people argued their beliefs. “The conflict within society over the case developed characteristic fears and hatreds. The unfortunate result in this particular situation was that fear for the safety of the established order led to hatred of that order’s critics, and finally to a belief that the exercise of mercy would indicate a strategic defeat.”35 Those critics of the established order, who favored either a new trial or an outright pardon, overwhelmingly came from the intellectual and artistic classes. The story of Sacco and Vanzetti sparked the imagination (or ignited the indignation) of artists and writers. Two volumes of poetry, The Sacco-Vanzetti Anthology of Verse and America Arraigned! appeared within a year of the execution. Upton Sinclair’s Boston (1928), Nathan Asch’s Pay Day (1930), Bernard DeVoto’s We Accept with Pleasure (1934), and John Dos Passos’s The Big Money (1936) were some of the novels to use the case either as background or as the central theme.

  The case did have lasting effects. According to Louis Joughin and Edmund Morgan, “The bequest [of the case] to the law was doubt, and that doubt has grown to such proportions that the case has become a criterion for the study of legal justice. The bequest to society was a revelation of deep cleavage and grave conflict. We have not, unfortunately, seen the end of that struggle.”36 Both these legacies emphasize the failure of the United States to deal with a fundamental problem that arises in a democratic and capitalistic society, namely, how to protect individuals (especially poor individuals who cannot afford to protect themselves) in the face of hostile public opinion. The doubt that the case shed on the law extended further to doubt about modern society as a whole. Herbst realized this when she and her husband walked the foggy streets of Portland, Maine, just after the execution. “All I knew was that a conclusive event had happened. What it meant I couldn’t have defined.” As they walked, they held hands, and “without saying a word, we both felt it and knew that we felt it: a kind of shuddering premonition of a world to come. But what it was to be we could never have foreseen.”37 What Herbst and her husband feared was the culture that developed out of a highly industrialized and bureaucratic society, a culture in many ways reacting to the forces of modernization through the staunch defense of tradition.

  This feeling of doubt about the world to come was shared by many in the 1920s and was expressed in many different ways. Doubts about changes in population and about new and different ideas in religion and politics and science all led to actions designed to curb these doubts. A reinvigorated Ku Klux Klan used modern methods of organization and recruitment to become a national organization with its greatest strength in the Midwest where the primary targets for their aggression were not African Americans but immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and radicals, who threatened the Protestant and American way of life. The passage of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act enabled the government to suppress dissent not only about World War I but also about the military and about the American form of government. These laws, and their strict enforcement by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, led to the infamous Palmer Raids of 1919–1920, in which thousands of people, mainly immigrants, were arrested and in some cases deported for being “un-American.” These pro-American feelings led to the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924, which sharply curtailed immigration from “undesirable” nations, such as those in southern and eastern Europe and Asia. Fearful of the influence of immigrants, especially non-Protestant immigrants, the Ku Klux Klan joined temperance forces in supporting the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1919, enacting Prohibition. The movement to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools also expressed people’s doubts about the progress resulting from science and technology.

  Walter Lippmann noticed these doubts as he explored the reasons for political indifference in the 1920s. He remarked that average Americans were not concerned about politics, at least in terms of economic issues or foreign and domestic policies; rather, they expressed their concerns through movements against immigration, alcohol, radicalism, and evolution. “These questions are diverse,” he wrote, “but they all arise out of the same general circumstances. They arise out of the great migration of the last fifty years, out of the growth of cities, and out of the spread of that rationalism and of the deepening of that breach with tradition which invariably accompany the development of a metropolitan civilization.” These social movements, according to Lippmann, express “symbolically the impact of a vast and dreaded social change,” namely, “the new urban civilization, with its irresistible economic and scientific and mass power.” It is in the cities, “the seat of a vast population, mixed in origins, uncertain of its social status, rather vague about the moral code,” that “the patriarchal family, the well-established social hierarchy, the old roots of belief, and the grooves of custom are all obscured by new human relationships based on a certain kind of personal independence, on individual experiment and adventure, which are yet somehow deeply controlled by fads and fashions and great mass movements.” And while Lippmann believed these social movements were doomed to fail eventually, they were nonetheless deeply felt and ardently fought. “They are at any rate fighting for the memory of a civilization which in its own heyday, and by its own criteria, was as valid as any other.”38

  In 1927, this revolt against modernity was expressed in less obvious ways than the Klan, the National Origins Act, the Eighteenth Amendment, or the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, though each of those had an impact on the lives of Americans during the year. Two areas best illustrate the concern people felt about the modern society they found around them: popular religious literature and popular historical writing. The debates argued in each of these areas illustrate the ambiguity with which Americans faced modernity. In both religion and history, Americans sought for both reassurance and answers to the problems of modern America.

  the varieties of religious modernism

  The most popular religious writer of the 1920s, Bruce Barton, was the son of a Congregationalist minister. Barton’s primary vocation was not as a preacher but, rather, as one of the nation’s most successful advertising executives. He was founder and partner of Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (which in 1928 merged with the George Batten agency to become the highly successful BBD&O agency), one of the largest advertising agencies in the country with a client list that included General Electric, General Motors, and United States Steel. Barton created ad campaigns that became a part of American culture, such as the slogan for the Salvation Army, “A man may be down but he is never out,” and the trademark baker, Betty Crocker, and he helped establish the importance of advertising to an economy no longer dependent on production but, rather, limited only by the demands of consumption. Barton’s faith in advertising as the driving force of the economy stemmed from his recognition of the shift from a producerist to a consumerist economy. In 1927, Barton delivered an often reprinted speech, “Creed of an Advertising Man.” Barton believed that advertising not only increased sales, allowing for mass production that was efficient in both materials and capital, but also made business better by evolving it beyond the greedy acquisition of wealth to “the best hope of the world. I am in advertising,” Barton stated,

  because advertising is the power which keeps business out in the open, which compels it to set up for itself public ideals of quality and service and to measure up to those ideals. Advertising is a creative force that has generated jobs, new ideas, has expanded our economy and has helped give us the highest standard of living in the world. Advertising is the spark plug on the cylinder of mass production, and essential to the continuance of the democratic process. Advertising sustains a system that has made us leaders of the free world: The American Wa
y of Life.39

  Not only had selling to consumers become more important than the means of production, but Barton proposed the idea that greater efficiency in society meant greater democracy. For Barton, democracy meant that everyone had access to consumer goods, not that everyone had a hand in running society.

  While many in the business world knew Barton as a powerful and talented ad man, most Americans knew him as a popular religious writer. His most famous works were produced in the mid-1920s: The Man Nobody Knows (1925), a portrait of Jesus Christ as a successful business executive and entrepreneur; The Book Nobody Knows (1926), a collection of modernized biblical stories; and What Can a Man Believe? (1927), an argument for religious belief in the face of war, prosperity, and science. Much has been written about Barton’s characterization of Jesus as the most successful businessman ever and the founder of modern business in The Man Nobody Knows, but much less has been made of What Can a Man Believe? which was written in response to a letter from a father of two and a “president of the largest business of its kind in the world.”40 The letter writer states that he has seen “certain men, whom I respect, who seem to have faith. It gives satisfaction that I envy. I should like to have such a faith. I should like my son to have it, and the young men in my business. But,” he continues, “I shall not be a party to the acceptance and dissemination of bunk.” Instead of parables and creeds that induce superstition or fear, this captain of industry asked for a book that would answer five simple questions: “Would the world be better or worse off if it should abolish religion? Has the church done more harm than good? Of the various religions now extant which is best? What few simple things, if any, can a business man believe? If there is to be a ‘faith of the future’ what kind of a faith will it be?” (6).

  In answering these questions, Barton synthesizes his beliefs in the importance of advertising and Christianity to the modern world. He does this by surveying the history of the world’s religions and comparing Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, and Jesus and the religions that have developed from their lives. And even though he admits that their teachings are not always reflected in the institutionalized religions that followed (in fact, he argues that in many ways these men were saying the same thing), he does compare the relative worth of each religion by looking at the effect each has had on the nations that practice it. He concludes that it is “the degree and quality of hope and inspiration which they hold out for the future” that sets these four religions apart. “And each has fixed upon its people the stamp of its own character” (133–134).

  The Chinese neither hoping nor fearing, but patiently enduring; the Buddhist renouncing all active effort as useless; the Mohammedan showing no mercy to his foes, already condemned to eternal punishment, but gladly incurring any risk in exchange for the delights of a fleshy heaven; Christianity teaching that every thought and act has eternal significance, that “God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap.”

  Few will deny that in the face which it turns toward the future Christianity is markedly superior to the other three faiths. (134)

  But religion alone does not determine the worth of a nation, according to Barton. “The United States is Christian and progressive; Mexico is Christian and unprogressive.” Differences in “climate, blood, diet, inheritance—help to form national character. We are not made by faith alone” (137). Therefore, the most valuable things a man can believe are those things that not only comfort the soul but also enrich the individual and society; and furthermore, the faith of the future should combine those best elements of Christianity and American business, two institutions that are not antagonistic to one another but, rather, similar in their goals. “Business, in [Jesus’s] eyes, was the machinery which God had set up for carrying on the unfinished task of creation.” Barton concludes, therefore, that “the salvation of the modern world depends upon the mutual understanding, and reaction upon each other, of business and the church” (187). In this relationship, Barton sees the lessons of business teaching the church how to be more efficient and more attentive to the needs of the community through market research. As Barton sees it, business has already learned from religion, since the goal of business in America is not simply wealth but the betterment of individuals, society, and all of mankind, the same goals as religion has. Churches in the United States, however, need to learn the lessons of business in order to compete in the modern world. According to Barton, the church has in many respects lost its faith. “It sounds almost shocking, yet it is true, that in some respects the church does not have as much faith as business” (192). The difference is, Barton explains, that “business knows that to-morrow is going to be different; the church is too often merely afraid that it may be. There is a gulf between them. The church trembles at anything that looks like change. It sticks to old methods, believing them sacred because they are old” (193). It is this lack of adaptability that is the root problem for American churches, and by extension, for modern American society. For Barton, as for Henry Ford, embracing the modern did not mean relinquishing the traditional, but it did mean adapting only those aspects of the traditional that fit with the modern. This compromise was a healthy process for both religion and business since, according to Barton, it brought both back to the fundamentals upon which they were based. Modern religion, as Barton saw it, had strayed from the original teachings of Jesus and needed to return to the simple core beliefs. He logically outlines the steps of this argument:

  1. I believe in myself.

  2. I know that I am intelligent.

  3. Because I have intelligence, there must be Intelligence behind the universe. “In other words, because I am, I believe God is” (157).

  4. That God is not only more intelligent than man, but since man is ultimately good, God must be better, and God must have a plan for man, because to not have a plan seems unjust (162). And furthermore, there must be a heaven “where life goes on, where injustices are righted and inequalities evened up, where those who have been thwarted and disappointed and cheated are given a fairer field and a better chance. This world as we know it can not be the whole answer, for it does not square with intelligence. And Intelligence is God.” (163)

  Therefore, for Barton, belief in God was reasonable, and the teachings of Jesus served to instill hope for the future, but the best way to realize those hopes was through business, and doing the job of business was doing the work of God. This divine interpretation of business was more succinctly summarized by Calvin Coolidge when he said, “The man who builds a factory, builds a temple. The man who works there, worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.”41 For both Coolidge and Barton, business and religion were mutually beneficial and were beneficial to the nation, especially if religion did not get in the way of business. And indeed, for Barton, religion had much more to learn from business than vice versa, for a religion based on business principles would be a religion that was simple, adaptable, and useful in the pursuit of business success.

  Whereas Barton and others saw the opportunities that business and religion offered each other, others saw the dangers of religion’s using modern methods. The most widely read critique of religion in 1927 was Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, the best-selling novel of the year, in which Lewis illustrates how modern ideas about psychology and advertising have corrupted religion. The novel’s main character, Elmer Gantry, is a small-town midwesterner who rises to fame and fortune by taking advantage of opportunities and of the people he meets along the way. Gantry is not a noble clergyman but, rather, the most hypocritical, pragmatic, dishonest, and successful character in the novel. He manipulates the masses at tent revivals, in sermons, and through his use of the press, and he manipulates individual men for power and wealth and individual women for sex. For Lewis, Elmer Gantry is representative of the kind of danger modern society holds for the country, someone who understands how publicity, advertising, status, and wealth influence the public and who uses them for his own gain. Such
earlier Lewis characters as Carol Kennicott in Main Street (1920) and George Babbitt in Babbitt (1922) eventually accept modernity and conform to modern society; another, Martin Arrowsmith in Arrowsmith (1925), rejects modern society altogether.42 Each of these stories depicts a loss of innocence and simplicity in the wake of modernity. Elmer Gantry is not a story of loss; rather, it is a warning about the threats to society unleashed by modernity. Elmer Gantry uses similar means but has different ends than does Bruce Barton’s ideal Christian businessman. For Barton, modern business practices will help churches become more successful by making religion more responsive to the public’s needs, by providing a spiritual balance to the material ends of business. But for Lewis, modern business practices teach religion to be as ruthless and manipulative as any business and justify these means with the sacred end of saving souls. Elmer Gantry threatens the modern society that created him, and thus he illustrates the modern American dilemma: how is an individual to act in the face of an increasingly mass society; that is, by what standards, values, and motivations should an individual live? For Barton, the answers are to be found in the practice of business and simple religious belief, but for Lewis, placing one’s faith in modern business and modern religion as answers to the problems of modern society is like turning to a thief to stop crime. While Barton sees progress in economic modernization and some aspects of modernism, Lewis sees abuse, subterfuge, and loss of individuality.

  Yet Lewis really has no answers for the conflict he describes. Moral honesty and a critical eye for the teachings of religion as well as for the modern devices of persuasion are not the answer for Lewis, as is evidenced by the one noble character in Elmer Gantry, Frank Shallard, Elmer’s college roommate and antagonist. Shallard is neither successful in society’s eyes nor content in his own. He is critical of religious dogma, and he does not totally discount the findings of science. He is beaten nearly to death for his convictions after losing his pulpit because of Gantry’s machinations. Politically, economically, and socially, Gantry is successful, but Lewis’s narrative shows us that the culture has lost. Like all of Sinclair Lewis’s novels of the 1920s, Elmer Gantry not only warns the reader of the pitfalls masked by prosperity but also describes the shared origins of both, the benefits and dangers of modern society. Lewis criticizes an American culture dominated by a shallow materialism and image consciousness that has seeped into every aspect of American life, even religion.