The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-13
Ask Church Aid To Stir Voters
 To Duty

To a small number of representative statesmen, educators, ministers, and A few laymen Gin the east and middle west-we had not time to go to the Pacific coast), says the Homiletic Re- view, was sent reprint of the Homi- letic's June editorial on ''The Church and the Voter" together with a letter which called attention to the appalling danger to our country through apathy on the part of citizens noted the exist ence of organization and machinery all ready for use in the church itself; ex- pressed desire for cooperation with the Review in it's assumed task, and asked for suggestions and plans of work.
 In regard to this letter the states men have been silent and unresponsive. Is there any significance in that? Ed ucators and ministers, on the contrary, have been singularly prompt, earnest, explicit, and cordial in their replies, and, with few, exceptions, quite con .cordant. For the most rart they rec ognixe the need of more faithful per formance of the duty of voting, and also see the propriety of urging this duty as not mere civic but as essential ly religious.
 | Henry c. King (Oberlink is laconic and unequiyocal:
 T think the suggestion made In the editorial of the Homiletic Review, Hrg- ing Christian men and women to vote, is quite to the point"
 President Nicholas Murray Butler implies approval by sending two recent addresses in which he says in one place:
 We can have no orderly liberty in America, no progress under our Constitution, without participation in government by substantially the whole of our great electorate. If they fail there is no hope in the world"
 In another place, after describing the vice of minority rule, he says:
 "The abuses and dangers of minority rule can be escaped only if the majority asserts itself. This can not be done so long as one-half of the citizens of vot. ing age in the United States fail to register and to vote even at our most hotly contested elections. Almost all of the important public officers who just now are responsible for the legis+ lative policy of the government were placed in nominatio by pathetically small minorities of the total popula ation qualified to vote, and were finally chosen by minOrities.
 President Marion LeRoy Burton of the University of Michigan, gives the following turn to the ''every member" idea:
 T desire to express genuine ap- preciation of the campaign which you are organizing through The Homiletic Review for stirring up a keener con scientiousness in regard to the citizens duty as voter.
 The day must come when the prin- ciples of religion are applied to our re- sponsibilities as servants of the pub lie. In a democracy our civiliza tion must depend upon high type of intel lfgence in every community. Moreover that intelligence must come to ekpres- sion. Emphasis must be placed not upon our right to vote but upon our duty. Whether we like it or not 1t is the solemn obligation of everyone who lays claim to the privileges of citizen- ship in our country to exercise intel ligently his right as a voter. Some times we hear members of the church expresse the opinion that the church's duty is in the field of religion and. that thought to let politics alone. Any such sharp demarcation between the two fields reveals a curious and narrow interpretation of religion. I can not conceive of any movement which would be more sgenuine significant to our country than for the Christian churches of the land to make up their mind that every member, through an active and vigorous campaign, would see to it that he performed fully his functions at the ballot box.
 Other educators and ministers show quite as keen an interest in the sub- ject, the Homiletic for July publishing a number of the most interesting com ments.