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HOLMES, JOHN HAYNES 1879-1964

MINISTER

Pacifist

John Haynes Holmes was a leading political and religious liberal in the first half of the twentieth century. He was ordained in the American Unitarian Association in 1904 and in 1907 moved to the Church of the Messiah in New York City, where he remained until he retired in 1949. He was deeply disturbed by World War I and helped organize the American branch of the pacifist organization the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He was a leader in the American Union Against Militarism, an umbrella organization that opposed American involvement in World War I. The controversy over his pacifist views caused him and his church to leave the Unitarian Association, and the name of the congregation was changed to the Community Church. Following the lead of Holmes, the Community Church remained one of the most active liberal groups in the nation.

Civil Liberties

After the United States entered the war in 1917, Holmes helped to create an organization to protect the rights of pacifists to resist conscription into the military. After the war the Civil Liberties Bureau became the American Civil Liberties Bureau, later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Holmes remained active with the ACLU and its efforts to protect the constitutional rights of free speech throughout his life.

Social Critic

Holmes believed that the horrors of the Great War came in part from the deep flaws of capitalism and its connection with imperialism. He was sharply critical of the two leading American political parties and sought to create an alternative political alliance that would bring together the nation's progressive forces to create true reform. He was not a Marxist and had reservations about aspects of socialism, but his antiwar beliefs committed him to supporting the Socialist Party, which opposed most conflicts. He was a close associate of Norman Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister, and supported Thomas in his various campaigns on the Socialist ticket in the 1920s, including Thomas's first campaign for the presidency on the Socialist Party ticket in 1928. Thomas was soundly beaten, and in 1929 Holmes joined other liberals in organizing the League for Independent Political Action. But the league failed to create a new political coalition, and again in 1932 and afterward Holmes supported Thomas's campaign efforts.

Antiwar Efforts

In the 1930s Holmes worked actively to stop war, a commitment that led to his being named honorary chair of the War Resisters' League; he also became an ally of the Keep America Out of War Committee. While he opposed war as barbaric and useless, he had no illusions about totalitarian states, either of the Left or the Right. When war finally came after the 1939 German-Soviet nonaggression pact and the American Communist Party shifted its position to oppose the collective security policies it had favored up to the outbreak of war, Holmes joined others on the board of directors of the ACLU to force those close to the Communist position from the board of directors. Holmes replaced Harry F. Ward as chair of the ACLU as the threat of war and its challenges to civil liberties moved closer to the United States.