For National Purposes

(See front cover)

George Washington, a good but not essentially religious man, considered the Church a desirable adjunct to the State. He planned for Washington "a church for national purposes." Not in his lifetime, nor in the succeeding century, was anything done about founding one. There existed in Washington no official church for state weddings or funerals or solemn thanksgiving or prayer in time of stress. The religion of the U. S. President was, and is, of no concern to the State: he could worship, get married, be buried with his own kind. But for the nation itself there ought to be a church, thought George Washington and many men after him, where heroes should be entombed and citizens make pilgrimage. It assuredly must be a great cathedral.

Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers are not cathedral-builders. Roman Catholics are; but there has been no Catholic President, and many a politician who hates & fears the Pope of Rome is determined there shall be none. The Protestant Episcopal Church builds cathedrals, has a personable and dignified clergy, a body of communicants who are wealthy and social. It was an Episcopal foundation which in 1893 got a charter from Congress to build a great Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul on Mount Saint Alban, highest spot (400 ft.) in Washington. It was this Cathedral, they decided, which should fulfill George Washington's plan, become the U. S. Westminster Abbey. This week eminent Episcopalians and national officials were to gather to open for public worship the first sizable unit on Mount Saint Alban.

Ascension Day, May 5, was long ago chosen as the day Church & State would meet for the first time in the Cathedral choir and sanctuary. There would be Holy Communion, celebrated by the Cathedral's Dean George Carl Fitch Bratenahl, and a sermon, broadcast to the U. S. by stocky Rt. Rev. James Edward Freeman, Bishop of Washington. There would be a procession in which would march representatives of other sects and Episcopal Bishops Darst of East Carolina, Abbott of Lexington, Ky., Jett of Southwestern Virginia, Cook of Delaware, Rhinelander (retired) of Pennsylvania. Most Rev. James De Wolf Perry, Presiding Bishop of the Church, was to send as his representative Bishop Hugh Latimer Burleson of South Dakota. New York's small Bishop Manning agreed to come. An honorary canon of Washington Cathedral, he would preach later in the day. Eyeing the light, airy choir, Bishop Manning might reflect that his own Cathedral of St. John the Divine is bigger but darker. He might also recall a remark Bishop Freeman made in Manhattan some years ago, when both Cathedrals were campaigning for money: "If Washington is not more powerful than New York, then the Capitol ought to be transferred to New York."

Rivalry between St. John the Divine and SS. Peter & Paul, would be of little import to most of the guests on Ascension Day. One might seek to become a "National Shrine," the other a "House of Worship for All People." But in the eyes of the national Episcopal Church they were the same as any of the other diocesan cathedrals in the land.

The State. President Hoover accepted an invitation to the services. There was plenty of precedent. President McKinley dedicated in 1898 the Cathedral's large Peace Cross, symbolizing the end of the Spanish-American War. President Roosevelt helped lay the foundation stone in 1907. The service Woodrow Wilson attended on the Sunday following the Armistice in 1918 was considered the nation's religious observance of that event. After the opening of the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments in November 1921, President Harding led all its 34 delegates to a special Cathedral service through the Bethlehem Chapel doorway over which is carved "The Way of Peace." On Mount Saint Alban in 1928 Calvin Coolidge addressed an open air meeting of the 49th General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

"Temple of Peace" In the sermon he prepared for the dedication, Bishop Freeman wrote: "Nothing could be more fitting in a time so critical, fraught with such momentous events, than this service. . . . The very fact that this Temple is but partially completed seems to suggest that the vast work of rehabilitating a disordered and disorderly world, presents to us an opportunity and a challenge of incalculable value. . . . Without these walls, a troubled and distracted world is seeking again the ways of Peace and orderly living. Within these walls fresh affirmation is given of the ways and means by which alone that Peace can be secured. . . . Here, we are seeking to understand through symbol, praise and sacrament, the paths that shall lead us ultimately to those serener heights where we shall know and comprehend God's larger plan for the peace and happiness of His children. . . . In no place other than here in the capital of the nation has such a Temple of Peace a more appropriate setting. ..."

Foundations were laid (1907) during the episcopate of the late Rt. Rev. Henry Yates Satterlee, first Bishop of Washington, cousin to Herbert Livingston Satterlee who is John P. Morgan's brother-in-law and a prominent money-raiser for the Cathedral. For many years the Cathedral existed only underground. Since 1912 there have been daily services in Bethlehem Chapel which is one of three, in sturdy Norman architecture, burrowed among piers which will some day bear the weight of the 262-ft. central tower. These chapels began early to receive great dust. Woodrow Wilson was a Presbyterian but his widow had him interred in the Episcopal pile. George Dewey, Henry Vaughan (Cathedral architect), Bishop Satterlee and his successor the late Bishop Alfred Harding are in the chapels, in handsome sarcophagi. Last person to be buried there was Counselor Melville Elijah Stone of the Associated Press. The delicate matter of arranging interments is in the hands of the Cathedral Executive Committee, who are empowered to accept no more than one person a year. For his interest in arranging such matters, Bishop Freeman has been called, with the sometimes startling jocularity of high churchmen, "The Body-Snatcher."

Power-House & Railman. Besides the 14th Century Gothic cathedral--a close copy of Canterbury--Mount Saint Alban plans call for a chapter house, administration building, synod hall, guest house, residences for canons and minor canons There are now schools for girls and boys, a college of preachers, the Bishop's house and garden. All of the 67 1/2-acre wooded hill is to be enclosed by a wall with gates dedicated to the twelve Apostles. Ultimately it will represent perhaps $40,000,000 worth of pious enterprise--what Bishop Freeman calls a "powerhouse of religious energy." Of the more than $12,000,000 the Cathedral Foundation lists as assets, $7,000,000 has been raised since Bishop Freeman took office the autumn of 1923.

James Edward Freeman, 65, had in his youth no intention of going into the church. He was a New York boy, educated in public schools. He jerked soda in a Seventh Avenue drugstore, then went into the Long Island Railroad. He switched at 18 to the New York Central as an office-boy. Years later he returned to a reunion of old New York Central employes. Three of the executives* he recognized as oldtime office-boys and members with him of a church literary society. Office-Boy Freeman became an accountant for the railroad, dabbled in politics. At the age of 22 he was on the speakers' committee in the Benjamin Harrison-Levi P. Morton campaign. The late Bishop Henry Codman Potter of New York heard him speak one night. Summoning young Freeman to his office he said: "You have the gift of tongues, and you are either going to be a menace to society through that gift or you can become a great power for good. I earnestly suggest that you dedicate your life to the Church."

Few months later, James Freeman did so. Bishop Potter helped him read for Holy Orders, had him tutored, ordained him deacon in 1894, priest in 1895. Rector of a Yonkers church for 16 years, he was called to Minneapolis in 1910. When Rector Freeman was considered for the deanship of St. John the Divine or the presidency of St. Stephen's College, the elder J. P. Morgan told him: "You'll not be happy in a town of 300,000 inhabitants. New York is where you belong. You'll be packing your crockery within six months."

Rector Freeman packed no crockery for eleven years. He declined the Bishop Coadjutorship of West Texas and a Chicago church. In 1921 he went to Washington's Epiphany. Two years later there was a diocesan convention in Washington. The Cathedral's executive secretary, Edwin N. Lewis, says that on that fateful day, on the far-off New York Central Lines many an engineer and fireman leaned from his cab to ask: "How's our Bishop running?" Then they learned that Railman Freeman was a bishop.

Men like Bishop Freeman. He is an occasional golfer (with Dr. Ze Barney Thorne Phillips, chaplain to the Senate), an expert crossword puzzler, a pipe and cigaret smoker. He weighs 190 lb., is still husky but much older looking than when he became Bishop of Washington.

Salesman & Builder. Bishop Freeman does not attempt to express Washington Cathedral's glory in figures. To raise money he has resorted to dramatic speeches and to committees (such as the Women's, chairmanned by Mrs. Herbert Hoover, which is giving the North Porch --TIME, May 25). There are many notable campaigners like General John Joseph Pershing and ex-Senator Pepper. But it is Bishop Freeman, chiefly, who gets the gifts. Biggest givers include: the late Rug Manufacturer Alexander Smith Cochran of Yonkers ($1,510,000 for the College of Preachers) ; the late Banker George Fisher Baker ($750,000 for the completion of the North Transept); the late Realtor & Mrs. Archibald D. Russell of New York ($500,000 for the apse); the late Minister to Austria-Hungary John A. Kasson of Washington ($554,300 for general maintenance); Mr. & Mrs. Frederick H. Prince of Boston ($215,000 for a chapel in memory of their son Norman, War ace). The small, lovely Children's Chapel was given by Roland L. Taylor of Philadelphia and his wife. Only Coventry (England) has a similar chapel reserved for children. The late Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, mother of Publisher William Randolph Hearst, gave $201,000 to establish the National Cathedral School for Girls. Givers of $100,000 or more include Andrew William Mellon, his brother Richard, the late Ambassador to France Henry White, Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, the late Percy R. Pyne. Of $50,000 or more: Henry and Edsel Ford, the late Samuel Mather of Cleveland and his half-brother William, John Hays Hammond, Mrs. Gibson Fahnestock, the late William Amory Gardiner.

Dean. Spending this money, overseeing the whole Cathedral project is the work of Dean Bratenahl,* who has been connected with it from the beginning. Tall, mustached, shy, he would be 70 this week, day before the opening. Like Bishop Freeman, Dean Bratenahl was in business before entering the ministry. As chairman of the building committee and administrative head of the Cathedral Foundation, he has become an expert on cathedrals, stained glass, iconography.

Dean Bratenahl lives near the Cathedral, spends most of his time there. His wife is the Cathedral's landscape architect. On the slope of Mount Saint Alban to the south of the Cathedral is the Bishop's Garden, open to the public. Here are Gothic and Romanesque sculptures, collected with the aid of George Grey Barnard. Nearby are box bushes, ancient and costly, brought from Virginia. Mrs. Bratenahl plans the planting, often gets donations from ladies who are pleased with her suggestions: such as that a $5 gift be spent for moss at the base of an old cross. A sculpture from the time of Charlemagne is surrounded by plants listed in an old herbarium of the period. Most famed plant at Washington Cathedral is the Glastonbury Thorn, grown from a cutting from the British one which is supposed to have grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea. The British Thorn blooms occasionally on Christmas. The U. S. Thorn, planted 30 years ago, did not bloom until 1918. Said Dean Bratenahl: "Perhaps the blooms have waited for a true Christmas, when the hearts of men should be filled with goodwill." Last Christmas the Glastonbury blooms were the best in years.

*Guy E. Hustis, since retired as comptroller of the Lackawanna; James H. Hustis, vice president of New York Central; Malcolm R. Connell, auditor of N. Y. C. disbursements.

*He was born in Cleveland but knows of no connection between his name and that of the Cleveland suburb Bratenahl.

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