Politics, Agriculture and Religion
Just exactly what the connection is between agriculture and religion in the present political set-up may puzzle many wise heads. A recent bulletin from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, A.A.A., Program Study and Discussion Section, Dr. Carl F. Taeusch, Chief, hardly solves the puzzle.
On April 10, 1939, a philosophy conference on agriculture was held in Washington, D. C. Its aim was to consider the problems of agriculture in the United States, especially from the philosophical point of view. Although Aristotle and Kant have never helped the present writer to grow either gladioli or lima beans, still a number of professors' of philosophy from a number of colleges attended. The results of the discussion were then sent to (I judge) all the professors of philosophy in the country. The contents are significant.
On page 11, carefully underlined so as to attract attention, we read that "indoctrination, not to mention any form of propaganda in the vicious sense, should be scrupulously avoided." How this is to be done in adult education is explained on the preceding page. "Our problem now is to protect the right of the individual to the richest possible self-development in a social context... This involves a shift of emphasis from protection of the individual against interference..." This last sentence is not underlined, perhaps in order not to attract too much attention. Instead of protection for the individual, stress will be laid on "co-operation" (Rooseveltian for coercion).
Every reader of this paper knows how the late Dr. J. Gresham Machen opposed governmental interference in private business; how in Philadelphia he appeared before the city council to plead the case of the pedestrian; how he held to the fine old American political principles. But, one will ask, what has this to do with religion?
On page eight of Dr. Taeusch's bulletin, there is the usual call for "directed intelligence." "The centralized, technical bureaus of the Department of Agriculture" will assist in local planning (p. 9) so as to coordinate economic, medical, and religious units. Apparently the Federal Council of Churches, with the aid of a censored radio and bureaucratic pressure, is to serve in suppressing dissenting religious groups.
Directed intelligence has now caused us to suffer from a planned depression for some years; it is time to have some individual protection against interference by prodigal bureaucrats.
- GORDON H. CLARK
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