Preacher & Pact

Did the U. S., in signing the Kellogg-Briand Anti-War Pact, assume that the possibility of war was about to vanish? Decidedly not, most people would agree.

Yet a Minnesota preacher took the opposite view last week, and so gave a new twist to a recurrent religious problem. The U. S. Supreme Court has held that a native-born U. S. citizen is under a legal obligation to bear arms in war. Many a U. S. religious leader, and a large section of the Christian Press, hold on the contrary that God's will is more binding. Notable were the cases of Rosika Schwimmer, Yale Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh and Nurse Marie Averill Bland, aliens who were refused citizenship because they refused to promise unqualifiedly to bear arms (TIME, Jan. 25). Last week it looked as if they were to be joined by Rev. Thomas Frederick Rutledge Beale of St. Paul, Minn.

Born in England 42 years ago, Mr. Beale preached there and in Scotland, went to Canada in 1913. Three years later he settled in the U. S. For ten years he was a Congregational minister in Bridgeport, Conn. He was graduated from Yale (B. D. 1923), studied at Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa). Four years ago he suffered a breakdown. Thin, highbrowed, grey-haired, he now looks older than he is. In March 1931 Mr. Beale took over the People's Church in St. Paul, whose pastor for many years had been Howard Y. Williams, now secretary of Professor John Dewey's League for Independent Political Action. People's was down-at-heel, in a shabby neighborhood. Preacher Beale stepped up its program, managed this year to increase its budget by 50%.

Alien Beale lately applied for U. S. citizenship, was refused it. Last week, acting as his own counsel, he filed a brief with Federal Judge Matthew M. Joyce. So did R. A. Carlson, district director of naturalization, representing the U. S. Government. Judge Joyce will decide between the two late this month. Central issue lay in the Kellogg-Briand Treaty. Alien Beale said he would bear arms only under the terms laid down by Statesman Kellogg, citizen of Minneapolis. He inferred that those terms make unnecessary any pledge and that the treaty "now constitutes our chief national defense." He declared he would defend the U. S. if need be, pointing out that he had once carried arms as a special deputy sheriff in Iowa. Director Carlson pointed out that "there appears no indication that the ever present possibility of war has vanished, and from the words used it is doubtful if the high contracting parties were of such an opinion. . . ." None of the signatory powers has ceased to provide for their military defense.

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