HUMANIST MANIFESTO I

From Philosopedia

HUMANIST MANIFESTO I

Raymond B. Bragg, the associate editor of The New Humanist, initiated the project that resulted in the 1933 publication by a group of thirty-four liberal humanists which became known as Humanist Manifesto I. It defined the philosophical and religious principles that seemed to them fundamental. Signers included philosopher John Dewey, atheist William Floyd, historian Harry Elmer Barnes, and many leaders of Unitarian and Universalist societies including Edwin H. Wilson. Wilson’s posthumously published The Genesis of a Humanist Manifesto (1995) is the most complete record of how the first manifesto was inspired, which individuals specifically contributed to its wordings, who declined to sign the work, and what Wilson, a nonagenarian at the time, remembered about the personalities of all those involved.

In 1995, the Wilson work about the manifesto was posthumously published. In addition to describing how the manifesto came about and including all the individuals involved, he included critiques of those who did not sign, some invited, some not:

• William Amberson, editor of the Journal of Social Psychology, never responded.

• Paul Blanshard for a reason

Wilson cannot explain either was not invited or did not sign.

• Harold Buschman who said he did not sign because of his “fear of creeds.”

• Alfred C. Cole a Unitarian minister, declined but later signed Humanist Manifesto II.

• Clarence Darrow, whose wife said her husband would not enter a church, did not respond; but his law partner, William H. Holly, later joined the American Humanist Association.

• George C. Davis, an official of the American Unitarian Association, declined.

• Irwin Edman was invited but never made a humanist commit-ment organizationally, although he was part of the humanistic influence stemming from Columbia University.

• C. Hartley Grattan, known for his broadside against the literary humanists, did not respond.

• Edward Howard Griggs, a Unitarian minister, whose The New Humanism: Studies in Personal and Social Development (1899) put him more in the category of a literary humanist along the lines of Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More.

• James H. Hart, minister of the Madison, Wisconsin, Unitarian Church, had some criticisms which included his feeling that a need for spirituality within a nonsupernatural framework can be incorporated with naturalistic humanism.

• E. Stanton Hodgin, a Unitarian minister, did not like labels; however, his Confessions of an Agnostic Clergyman (1948) old that he had been on the naturalistic and humanistic side of theological issues but was basically an agnostic.

• Rupert Holloway, later Unitarian minister in Madison, Wisconsin, was overlooked and never asked.

• John Haynes Holmes, minister of New York’s Community Church, who wrote, “I have never at any time seen any nec-essary contradiction between humanism on the one hand and theism on the other,” and who maintained a faith in immortality, God, and Puritanism.

• Robert J. Hutcheon, a professor at the Meadville Theological School and a Unitarian, in his Frankness in Religion (1929) spoke of his aim “to save for humanity the essential spiritual values which religious faith, and especially the Christian form, which it creates.”

• Horace Kallen told Wilson that Dewey had once asked him to sign, but he explained that he told Dewey he had stronger objections to the first than the second manifesto.

• Cassius J. Keyser, a Columbia University mathematician, who stated he was in hearty accord with much of the manifesto but was unable to sign.

• Frank H. Knight, a University of Chicago economist, declined to sign, complaining about language concerning “a radical change in methods, controls, and motives” of “an acquisitive and profit-motivated society.”

• Corliss Lamont, asked in 1972 why he had not signed, replied, “I have no idea. I wish I had,” an obvious reference to a break-down in communication.

• Judge Ben Lindsay, known for his views favoring “companion-ate marriage,” was invited but failed to respond.

• Walter Lippmann, whose 1929 Preface to Morals dealt with the “acids of modernity,” was invited but did not sign.

• Everett Dean Martin, a Unitarian minister, was invited but was unresponsive and, in fact, mysteriously disappeared.

• Dr. Arthur E. Morgan, who was once the moderator of the American Unitarian Association but became a Friend, declined and never joined the American Humanist Association.

• Max C. Otto, although he declined to sign, did not waver in his humanism and was the author of important humanistic works. In his 1949 work, Science and the Moral Law, Otto had written, “All Humanisms have one thing in common.It is the ideal of realizing man’s completest development. From here on they diverge.”

• Dr. Harry Overstreet was asked but his wife, Bonaro, was not, apparently an oversight. Both belonged to the American Humanist Association.

• James Harvey Robinson was invited but did not respond.

• F. C. S. Schiller, who caustically noted that the manifesto had 50% more articles than the Ten Commandments and one more even than President Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

• Harlow Shapley, the Harvard astronomer, who said he sub-scribed “almost in toto. But I wonder if we are ready for a religion of intelligence; and if so is it spontaneous enough, when nurtured by a deliberate manifesto?”

• Vincent Silliman, writer of humanistically oriented liberal ser-vice material, appears to have been overlooked and never asked.

• Thomas Vernor Smith, who never formally labeled himself a humanist, may not have approved because of its lack of “God language.” Later, he was elected to the U. S. Congress as a Representative.

• Hugh S. Tigner, a Unitarian with humanist views, found the first five or six affirmations repugnant; Tigner wrote the group that he was tired of signing such documents; and regarded Humanism “as Mr. Hoover did Prohibition, as a ‘noble experiment.’ ”

• Frank Waring, another Unitarian and humanist, was overlooked and was never asked.

The Roman Catholic perspective, by radio commentator the Reverend Michael J. Ahern, who broadcast regularly on the “Catholic Truth Hour,” was as follows:

With the Manifesto of the Religious Humanists, a Catholic finds himself in some agreement. He would agree that any religion must recognize its obligations to a better social order; should work for a greater social justice for all men; cooperate for the common good of human life and human happiness; use its best endeavors to cultivate all the arts, all the sciences, all the culture and all the emoluments of civilization; in a word, bring to pass on earth, the greatest sum of genuine human happiness in a genuine human brotherhood. But the Catholic cannot agree that this implies that this universal goal can be attained by purely naturalistic or materialistic means.

Signers of Humanist Manifesto I, including the one philosopher, John Dewey, were:

Auer, J. A. C. Fagginer

Caldecott, Ernest

Dieffenbach, Albert C.

Hankins, F. H.

Lovett, Robert Morss

Mondale, R. Lester

Potter, Charles Francis

Randall, John Herman Jr.

Swift, W. Frank

Thayer, V. T.

Vanderlaan, Eldred C.

Walker, Joseph

Weinstein, Jacob J.

Wicks, Frank S. C.

Williams, David Rhys

Wilson: Edwin H.

(See entry for Edwin H. Wilson. Also see, “The Lingering Humanist Manifesto I” by Lester Mondale, Free Inquiry, Fall 1996. The entry in Philosopedia for Humanistic Naturalism explains why some secularists, including John Dewey, prefer that phrase to Naturalistic Humanism or Secular Humanism.)

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HUMANIST MANIFESTO I

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