Chaplains in Chicago

Twelve years ago some 60 men of God who had gone through the World War founded the Chaplains Association of the Army of the U. S. They drew up a constitution providing for annual conventions in Washington. When the trip to the nation's capital proved too costly for inland chaplains (only eight turned up at one gathering), the chaplains nullified their constitution, met where they pleased. Last week in Chicago gathered the largest chaplains' convention to date, 226 men of 26 denominations in 40 States.

There are about 1,600 full and part-time Army chaplains, 126 attached to the regular force, 200 to the CCC, the remainder to the National Guard and Reserve Corps. For every 100,000 civilian members of a U. S. church, one chaplain .is supplied to the Army, an interfaith commission acting as clearing house for the men. Applicants, who must be ordained and have three years' pastoral experience, take a stiff examination, if successful are commissioned as first lieutenants at $200 a month ($260 if married and not residents of an Army post). Top rank is colonel, with base pay of $4,000 a year, plus $156 a month if the chaplain has a family. Most chaplains are married, but not a few join the service to get away from church suppers and sewing clubs. Others like to wear a uniform, relish the security of a chaplaincy as compared with a poor parish, or are eager--especially since the founding of the CCC--to do God's work among men who are comparatively insulated from the badness of the world.

Last year three important U. S. churches, the Methodist, Evangelical & Reformed and Disciples of Christ, disowned the commission which appoints chaplains. Many a U. S. churchman would strip the chaplain of his rank and uniform. Of this the Association meeting in Chicago last week was acutely conscious, but an estimated 90% of its membership is satisfied with the chaplaincy as now constituted, and the matter was not publicly discussed. Said one chaplain loftily: "We prefer to emphasize our principles by example rather than debate." Said U. S. Chief of Chaplains Alva Jennings Brasted: "We have no grievance against anyone. Countless facts bear testimony that the Lord is blessing the work of the chaplaincy. . . ."

Best-known speaker to the convention was Chicago's Episcopal Bishop George Craig Stewart, who restated for the chaplains the arguments they knew well as to why Christians could be obligated to go to war. Chaplain William A. Sessions of Fort Lind, N. D. was billed to show how he led CCC boys in singing with his expensive accordion, but someone stole the instrument when he laid it down for a moment. For the third year the chaplains elected as their president Dr. Arlington Aice McCallum, reserve chaplain, energetic rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Washington, who presides at conventions with a stopwatch to make sure no one talks too long.

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