“Men and women of all faiths, yes, men and women of little faith, must cry out today to the God they have known or to the God they long to believe in at such a time. We ask for victory, the triumph of good over evil, of freedom over slavery, of decency over brutality, and of order over
chaos.”
~Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, Bishop of Washington
During WWII, WNC served wartime duty by opening its doors to a variety of ecumenical speakers who discussed “the broader usefulness and functions of the Church in time of national crisis” (United services at Washington Cathedral, 1942), by serving as an air raid post, by spon- soring evening tours, and by sponsoring additional Saturday tours specifically for servicemen staying in Washington, D.C. During this time, Cathedral rhetoric changed focus from the previ- ous outward “sisterhood of nations” with an American appeal rhetoric to an inward-focused rhetoric based on WNC’s national nature and on its role as the home of peace and reconcilia- tion, of “comradeship and cooperation” (United services at Washington Cathedral, 1942). Tour- ism, especially, during and immediately after WWII helps show off the continued building of the Cathedral, now close to half completed, by bringing in not only awareness of its existence, but its ecumenically spiritual and national character.
The devastation of the Great Depression left many in the nation wondering if the United States could possibly survive. For the moment, the idea of material goods mattered in a differ- ent way from the post-WWI/Roaring 20s era and into the great devastation of the Depression. Between 1930 and 1933, the number of unemployed persons rose from five million to thirteen
million, representing almost one-fourth of the national workforce (Burg, 1996). Political chang- es also occurred throughout Europe, all triggered, domino-style, by the financial depression gripping the United States. The rise of fascism in Germany saw the coterminous rise of Adolph Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy. The nation, now facing a possible new war in the late 1930s, forced Americans to consider anew a sharper meaning of democracy and free- dom, prosperity and materialism.79 As Bishop Freeman stated, “It is evident that our boasted industry, our excelling ingenuity have proved inadequate to meet the extraordinary conditions through which we are passing.”80 There was the idea that perhaps technology, by itself, was not the answer to progress, for progress’ value relies on people rather than objects. It is the “social people,” or people acting as a social unit, that determines social value, and as John Dewey clearly states, people act out moral judgment and moral responsibility through the so- cial environment, making morality a social phenomenon (Dewey, 1973, p. 714). Since we value on a social, rather than truly individual, level, the Cathedral provides (at least according to Ca- thedral representatives) the necessary social moral backdrop for truth. Always referring back to George Washington, Freeman quotes from his Farewell Address: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable (sic) supports,” and with this sentiment, Freeman carries WNC into the delicate and turbulent years of World War II. With the world in a seemingly continuous cycle of upheaval, Freeman pushes the idea that man, especially Americans, ought to go back to the roots of the republic and heed the sage
79
For example, quoted from Burg’s The Great Depression, p. 94, an anonymous letter to President Hoover written in October 1930: “I am persuaded to write you, concerning aid to unemployment. I hope this movement will be speeded up so people in Pottstown will feel and know results before Cold weather comes upon us, the struggling starving working class under nourished Men. Women. And children. It really is alarming that this so called pros- perous Nation that we must suffer on acct [account] of a few men seeking power and rule…I am one of the men out of work but the rich don’t care so long as they have full and plenty.”
80
advice of our Founding Fathers because, in the words of Bishop Freeman, “our strength does not reside in our man power, our inventive genius, our economic astuteness or our accumulat- ed wealth; it resides in the moral and religious character of our people.”81
The First World War taught Americans that they are not isolated from the world, but are an integral part of it. Relatives of and comrades-in-arms with certain European nations, as with any family, American learned that although it is good to let others fight their own battles, it is also good to help our brothers in need. It saves the family. This is a lesson the Cathedral takes to heart and continuously respects; but there are too many personal stories of Americans, es- pecially of whole families rather than singular sons, during the Depression, replacing the stories of the Great War, to ignore that strong impulse toward an American society and Americanism. The Cathedral, just prior to the advent of the Second World War, turns its rhetoric away from the attempt to be America’s Westminster Abbey (although this never entirely disappears and, as will be forwarded in section 5.4, reappears after the war), and towards a national cathedral focused on the spiritual needs of the nation. As Bishop Freeman lamented, “A sober reckoning with those values that we call “American ideals” must be had and the test of loyalty to them applied with increasing insistence.”82 This inward impulse led to an increased focus on making the Cathedral truly accessible for meeting the religious and moral needs of the people. Forcibly rejecting Marx’s dictum that religion is the opiate of the people, along with the notion that the
81 Rt. Rev. James Freeman, “Guarding the Trust,” The Cathedral Age, 1941, vol. XVI, no. 1, p. 4. 82
“materialism is the supreme desideratum,”83 the Bishop of Washington leads the Cathedral into its new era of traditional American ideals.
Knowing that the building of a Cathedral seems an awful expense in a time of such fi- nancial upheaval, the Cathedral dean and PECF understood the uphill battle for financing the building. In the 1930s, building hospitals and schools is difficult enough. The Cathedral, how- ever, is not dependent on government funds. This means it has no ready source for income, and, as the Cathedral has no dedicated congregation of its own, is always relying on the gener- osity of the various donations of others who believe in the mission of WNC. Defending the meaning of the Cathedral’s very existence relies on people feeling the reality of majestic aura of the place as well as its spiritual necessity. The Cathedral decides to focus on Satterlee’s original vision of the Cathedral as “a house of prayer for all people” as well as Frohman’s idea of
Gesamthunstwerk. The idea is to invite the public in, letting those who enter be enveloped by
the national narratives of history and religion as one encompassing narrative.
Visitation, in the form of tourism, at the Cathedral begins in earnest with the outbreak of war in the late 1930s.84 Tours for schoolchildren are as much a focus for the Cathedral as general tourism in Washington, D.C. Pamphlets for tourism show an increasingly intensified sense of awareness that Public Relations are not exclusive for Cathedral members and donors. If the Cathedral is to be truly national, there must be a way to speak to those people of the na- tion; there is need to convince the public that Washington Cathedral is a cathedral for the peo- ple. No longer relying on the longer booklets and articles of the past to justify the Cathedral,
83
Rt. Rev. James Freeman (1933). Building the Republic, p. 7-8. WNC ChA: j. 102, b. 5, f. 2. 84
In a most frustrating manner, WNC’s tourism pamphlets are not dated. The cathedral archives do not have them separated or organized in a dated manner. It is near impossible for most of these pamphlets to be date deter- mined. As a result, this section is devoted to tourism, in general, rather than specific to the WWII era. However, tourism pamphlets and tourism are not mentioned in any rhetoric prior to this era.
now almost half built, WNC reduces its print to pamphlets and increases its reach into the gen- eral public in a more personal way.
School children are particularly embraced because they are the future ambassadors for the Cathedral. School tours outside of parental jurisdiction allow children to explore more freely, and, being generally more open-minded, “children-as-the-future” represent a newly dis- covered raison d’être for the Cathedral’s existence. Tours for children bring not only the Ca- thedral idea to their awareness, tours also allow for religio-historical experience in a very real, hands-on manner. In one pamphlet titled, “Today Your Child Visited Washington National Ca- thedral,” parents are informed that their child participated in a free, no reservations required, hands-on experience at the Cathedral. The tour enables children the opportunity to engage in a bit of medieval cathedral building wherein they could piece together a stained glass window, use a chisel and mallet to carve stone, and make a gargoyle out of clay. The pamphlets offer a plethora of “fun facts” about the Cathedral:
Q: How large is the cathedral?
A: Washington National Cathedral is 83,012 square feet in area, making it the sixth larg- est cathedral in the world and the second largest cathedral in the United States.
Q: How much do the stones weigh?
A: The average piece of stone weighs 300 pounds. The heaviest stone in the cathedral is the 5.5 ton center boss over the west balcony. A boss is the carved stone placed where the ribs in the vaulting meet.
A: More than 100 gargoyles, including a monkey, an owl, and many fantastic creatures, have been set on the cathedral.
And so on. The history lesson naturally begins with the George Washington/Pierre L’Enfant equation. Associating the founding of the nation with the founding of the cathedral is thoroughly embedded in Cathedral rhetoric.
Walking children through the Cathedral while it is being built, seeing the stone masons at work, seeing the additions of stained-glass windows, and finding all the small American nov- elties in the Cathedral can only be fun for children. No less important is the children’s chapel, built small scale for smaller children (Appendix J). The chapel includes a small organ, a statue of a child Christ with his arms wide open inviting children to come forth, a stained glass window telling the story of Samuel and David, a statue of St. Michael slaying a dragon, and needlepoint kneelers of Noah’s Ark and various animals. Not ending in the physical aspects of the Cathe- dral, children are given the stories of children involved in the building of the Cathedral. In a Reader’s Digest article (Bryant, 1966) reprinted by the Cathedral, we learn two stories: (1) The teacher of a high-school Latin class in Pontiac, MI, took her pupils to Washington every year for fifteen years, and their aggregate gifts of $900 are designated to carve a corbel (projecting wall support) depicting an open book and sword with the Latin inscription Spiritus Gladius—the Sword of the Spirit. (2) Two children gave $10 as a memorial to their mother after their aunt brought the two orphans to the Cathedral business office to inquire about the price of a stone. They returned three months later with a box filled with nickels and dimes amounting to the $10.
The powerful stories of the contributions by and to children in the name of the cathe- dral are not simply cute and heartwarming. They illustrate the narrative nature of the Cathe- dral as a cathedral for all people, including children. Blending the Christian story of Jesus wel- coming the children into the national nature of the Cathedral is a major trope not to be belit- tled. In the still segregated world of the United States, bringing children in to the Cathedral to- gether and seeing how the Cathedral welcomes all and blends all is a major effort with long- term non-guaranteed possibilities. [During the war, there is little rhetoric that speaks directly of the race factor, but the Cathedral has always been friendly to the African-American popula- tion, in general, from the beginning as shown in Satterlee’s Private Record in his resolve to proselytize the Negro population. There is no argument, however, that although there is a general acceptance, there is also no direct effort to make either the Episcopal Church or the Cathedral inviting to the Negro race.]
The pamphlet for children’s visits is directed toward the parents, but the tour is decid- edly directed to impress children and works hard to achieve what Walter Fisher calls narrative fidelity, or verisimilitude (Fisher W. R., 1984). Children must buy into the stories and those sto- ries must be memorable, personalized, and real. Not that the Cathedral is working toward some practical, pragmatic, or rational argument for the moral purposes of building a Cathedral geared toward children; rather, the Cathedral is working to establish a theological narrative that corresponds with the national narrative, one that even children understand and will re- member long afterward. If children are our future, and Jesus Christ welcomes and embraces the value of children, then the Cathedral must show that the nation also values children be- cause they are the future leaders of a powerful—and ideologically Christian—nation. That they
participated in the building, through exposure to Gothic stone masonry, stained-glass making, and gargoyle carving, is enough to administer narrative fidelity between George Washington’s desire to build a national temple and the cathedral now being built.