Ohio History Journal

  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  •  
  • 5
  •  
  • 6
  •  
  • 7
  •  
  • 8
  •  
  • 9
  •  
  • 10
  •  

WASHINGTON GLADDEN:

WASHINGTON GLADDEN:

FIRST CITIZEN OF COLUMBUS

by C. GEORGE FRY

The story is told that Washington Gladden was once a guest at a down-

town businessmen's luncheon in Columbus.l A stranger was present and

was introduced to Doctor Gladden. Assuming him to be a physician, he

asked, "Sir, where do you practice?" Gladden smiled, and replied, "Oh, I

don't practice. I just preach."2

Friends and admirers of Washington Gladden knew, however, that he

did practice as well as preach in many areas. He was, beyond doubt, one

of the most celebrated and distinguished citizens of Columbus, Ohio, in

a century. He had a national reputation for many reasons. Together with

Walter Rauschenbusch, he has been acclaimed by church historian William

Warren Sweet as the father of the social gospel in American Protestant-

ism.3 Generally remembered asF "a prophet of social justice,"4 he cham-

pioned the rights of labor in an age of big business, and began to attack

"the utter stupidity and absurdity of an industrial system based on [labor]

war."5 In the realm of labor relations he was a "trail blazer" of the mod-

erate approach.6 Concern for economic justice prompted him to initiate a

petition which urged President Theodore Roosevelt to intervene in the

anthracite coal strike of 1902.7 In his passion to apply Biblical principles

NOTES ARE ON PAGES 130-131