Robert E. Speer

Beauty's prize is a golden apple, smooth, lustrous, a pretty toy. The prize of 'leadership is a prickly pear.

In May, the Presbyterians will meet in General Assembly at Grand Rapids, Mich. Nearly half the delegates will be Fundamentalists in fighting, angry mood, 'determined to eject Liberalism root and branch. All the delegates will be faced with the necessity of raising $15,000,000 to provide munitions for the Church Militant at home and abroad. All of them will be confronted with the 20th Century challenge to the Cross. They must have a leader, what they call a "Moderator." Who?

The Presbytery of Philadelphia supports Clarence Edward Macartney, Fundamentalist, irreconciliable, implacable enemy of the teaching and preaching of Harry Emerson Fosdick and others of his ilk.

It is now stated that Liberals will advance the name of Robert E. Speer. Dr. Speer is a conservative. There is no weak-spot in his armor of orthodoxy. He could stand up with the best Fundamentalist before the judgment seats of John Calvin and John Knox. But he is not a Fundamentalist. He believes that Christianity is greater than theology.

, Some 40 years ago "Bob" Speer went to Princeton--a poor boy, tall, husky, with massive head and shoulders. He starred in the line of the football eleven, edited the college paper, won the oratorical contests. There is a tradition that his scholastic standing was second only to that of Aaron Burr in the history of the college. He prepared for the ministry, but would not become ordained because he felt that priesthood would limit his influence.* Almost at once he stepped into a world business -- Foreign Missions. Most of his life has been spent as one of the two or three executives of Presbyterian Foreign Missions. His business has led him into almost every country of heathendom.

A great orator/- (of the inspirational type produced in the 1890's), he has preached to a great part of the 1,800,000 Presbyterians in the U.S., at nearly every great international conference, in nearly every country. Under him, Foreign Missions has developed from the pioneer stage into a great civilizing force. Like Roosevelt, he is a lover of nature, an omnivorous reader with encyclopedic mind.

At the moment he is President of the Federal Council of Churches, the centre of Protestant cooperation. He is a fierce enemy of Roman Catholicism, particularly in backward countries.

Liberals believe his claim to the hazards of leadership cannot be successfully denied.

The present Moderator is Dr. Charles F. Wishart, of Wooster, Ohio, a moderate. William J. Bryan, fundamentalist hero, will again be a delegate to the Assembly, and will support Dr. Macartney.

* Although never ordained, he received the degree of "D.D." from the University of Edinburgh in 1910, became "Dr." Speer.

&$134; He is sometimes known as "Weeping Bob."