Introduction: The Present Situation,
the Present Conversation
As some have said, the
last few weeks have certainly been an interesting year! It's seemed
as though every day, even every hour, has brought new developments in
the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around March 7, I myself became
quite sick – intensely feverish, dry cough which became quite
violent, significant aches, etc. – although I was (understandably)
unable to get a coronavirus test. (I'm almost better, save for a few
lingering after-effects.) Not too long after that, I had to make the
difficult decision to suspend all gatherings and meetings of the two
congregations I pastor. Perhaps the most challenging part of the
process was, for a time, being too sick to have any real involvement
with the congregations. (Immediately after starting to show any
symptoms of illness, I entered into self-isolation.) Both churches,
as of this time, will suspend all gatherings until the public health
situation has improved sufficiently to render it advisable to meet
again without the need for appreciable social distancing.
The first COVID-19 case
confirmed in the United States was in late January, and the first
patient to die did so on February 28. On March 13, the United States
president officially
declared
a state of national emergency – a decision that seems an eternity
ago. Two days later, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) advised
gatherings be limited to fifty people or fewer, during the upcoming
eight weeks. The next day, March 16, the president asked citizens to
limit gatherings to ten people or fewer, a more radical suggestion.
In my state of
Pennsylvania, the same day as the president's suggestion also saw a
move by Gov. Tom Wolf – who had
declared the state in a disaster
emergency on March 6, a week before the national declaration – to
ask
“non-essential businesses” anywhere in Pennsylvania to “close
for at least 14 days to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19,”
while ordering all restaurants and bars to close their dine-in
facilities, effective on March 17. By the day after that, as March
18 brought the first Pennsylvanian COVID-19 death, Gov. Wolf was
advising
Pennsylvanians to “refrain from non-essential travel.” To the
extent possible, he
added
a day later, Pennsylvanians should “stay safe, stay home.”
Later that day –
Friday, March 19 – Gov. Wolf issued an
executive
order requiring the closure of all “non-life-sustaining”
businesses in the state: “No person or entity shall operate a place
of business in the Commonwealth that is not a life-sustaining
business, regardless of whether the business is open to members of
the public.” The same executive order warned that enforcement of
this order would take place beginning on Saturday, March 21, although
it would go into effect the night he issued the order. Over the next
several days, the Wolf administration continued to make adjustments
to the list of what categories of business do, or do not, constitute
a “life-sustaining business.” He also later, in light of
substantial public controversy and a high volume of waiver requests,
delayed
enforcement until Monday, March 23. In each iteration of the
business
category lists, “religious institutions” such as churches
do
count as life-sustaining.
On
Monday, March 23, Gov. Wolf's Secretary of Health, Dr. Levine, placed
seven of Pennsylvania's 67 counties – i.e., Allegheny, Bucks,
Chester, Delaware, Monroe, Montgomery, and Philadelphia – under a
stay-at-home order, that is, a requirement to “stay at home except
as needed to access, support, or provide life-sustaining business,
emergency, or government services,” with the order to “remain in
full force and effect for a period of two weeks, specifically until
April 6, 2020.” (One of the seven counties, Philadelphia, had
previously placed itself under a stay-at-home order.) The
Pennsylvania Department of Education further placed
all schools in Pennsylvania under a closure order, also until at
least April 6. The next day, March 24, Gov. Wolf and his Secretary
of Health added
an eighth county (Erie) to the stay-at-home order. On March 25, two
more counties (Lehigh and Northumberland) were added
to the stay-at-home order. Two days later, on March 27, Gov. Wolf
and Dr. Levine revised
the order to include yet another nine counties (Berks, Butler,
Lackawanna, Lancaster, Luzerne, Pike, Wayne, Westmoreland, and York)
– one of which is my own place of residence. The day after that,
they once again added
another three counties (Beaver, Centre, and Washington) to the order. On March 29, President Trump extended
nationwide guidelines on social distancing until April 30. Then, on March 30, Gov. Wolf and Dr. Levine added four more counties (Carbon, Cumberland, Dauphin, and Schuylkill) to their stay-at-home order and extended its duration to April 30 in accordance with the presidential action. Accordingly, President Trump issued a major disaster declaration for Pennsylvania.
By April 1, Gov. Wolf had issued a statewide stay-at-home order, covering all 67 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. Two days later, in a press briefing, Gov. Wolf “recommended that all Pennsylvanians wear a mask any time they leave their homes for life-sustaining reasons,” and the next day, Gov. Wolf's administration updated the stay-at-home guidance to clarify that, while the stay-at-home order should not be construed to prohibit the activities of religious institutions, “religious leaders are encouraged to find alternatives to in-person gatherings,” as “individuals should not gather in religious buildings or homes for services or celebrations until the stay-at-home order is lifted.”
Gov. Wolf's approach has
seen considerable pushback on the part of some angry citizens,
including a few local attorneys, who vocally insist that the state
government does not have the authority to temporarily close any
private businesses. One lawyer, Marc Scaringi of Harrisburg,
contends
that no disease can be classified as a 'disaster' under the Emergency
Management Services Code, and that “business owners have the right
to make their own decisions about closure in the face of the
coronavirus, and it's the governor's job to protect and not brazenly
override that right.” Influenced by this reasoning, several
businesses have
sought
to sue the Wolf administration. Other legal experts have
argued
that Gov. Wolf does indeed have the authority he has exercised under
the present circumstances. Should any case be adjudicated in the courts, the question will perhaps be settled. In the meantime, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
voted 107-95 on April 14 to lift the closure of businesses that comply with a coronavirus-mitigation plan, a resolution which was also
passed 29-21 by the State Senate on April 15. However, Gov. Wolf
has pledged to veto the bill. Gov. Wolf has, however, since put forward a Plan for Pennsylvania to “build a new commonwealth” through “relief, reopening, and recovery that will keep Pennsylvanians alive and repair the damage this virus has caused across Pennsylvania.”
Meanwhile, in Christian
discourse in the United States, churches have struggled to discern
the best ways to respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. Many (though
not
all) have made the difficult decision to suspend gatherings and
other meetings - overall,
perhaps 88% have done so. Most voices in the conversation have supported this
approach as a valid option, at least in the short term. Russell
Moore, a Southern Baptist leader, having
acknowledged
that “the corporate worship of the people of God is both a vital
and fundamental aspect of the Christian life,” nevertheless
praises
churches that “are voluntarily restricting their gatherings until
the crisis is passed because they care about their members, and
non-members in their communities,” while encouraging “maximum
recognition of the need for clergy and other religious workers to
carry out necessary ministry, in the same category as health care
workers.” David French, also an Evangelical,
argued
that “protecting your parents, your grandparents, and your
vulnerable neighbor is your moral duty.”
One loud voice to the
contrary, however, has been R. R. Reno, Catholic editor of
First
Things, in a series of
controversial articles. In “Questioning
the Shutdown” on March 20, Reno complained that “cancelling
services and closing churches underlines the irrelevance of
institutional Christianity in our technocratic age. … The docility
of religious leaders to the cessation of public worship is stunning.
It suggests that they more than half believe that secular
proposition.” Caricaturing his perceived opponents as believing
“that we should save lives 'at any cost,'” Reno argues that
“anyone who believes that our earthly existence is worth preserving
'at any cost' will accept slavery,” and that society should weather
epidemics confident in the assurance that “society goes on pretty
much as before.”
In
a follow-up piece three days later, the March 23 article “Say
'No' to Death's Dominion,” Reno censures “the false god of
'saving lives,'” slurring this goal as “a disastrous
sentimentalism” and “an ill-conceived crusade against human
finitude and the dolorous reality of death.” Reno warns that
“there is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at
any cost,” that “the mass shutdown of society to fight the spread
of COVID-19 creates a perverse, even demonic atmosphere.” He
fulminates against “religious leaders … suspending the
proclamation of the gospel and the distribution of the Bread of Life”
by suspending gatherings of worship, for “they signal by their
actions that they, too, accept death's dominion.”
In
the days ahead, Reno began publishing a daily 'coronavirus diary,'
recording himself spitting in the street in public (March
24), asking God's forgiveness “for my ill-tempered words and
actions over the past week, for my hasty judgments and sharp words”
(March
25), muses again at the problems of “well-intentioned rhetoric
of compassion” (March
26), and urges readers not to be afraid of “causing another's
death, being a 'killer' by communicating the virus to someone who is
in poor health, old, and vulnerable” (March
27). Reno persists in declaring that the 'shutdown' approach to
public health “is metaphysically aligned with death – the very
enemy we are committed to resisting” (March
28-29).
Numerous
Christian writers have (rightly) offered rebuttals – some quite
piercing and stinging – to Reno's demonization of pastors and
churches who do not lead according to his vision – in other words,
to the “hasty judgments” Reno himself knows he has made.
Evangelical writer David French incisively
ponders whether participating in a church gathering after
potentially becoming a COVID-19 carrier – as Reno would encourage –
might be a vainglorious form of “performative recklessness” of
the sort Satan encouraged in his second temptation of Christ in the
wilderness.
Catholic
theologian Timothy O'Malley calls
out Reno's writing for “the kind of shadowy hermeneutics that
ironically delights more in the terror of darkness than the light,”
and points out that Reno has utterly neglected the ways faithful
church leadership continues to minister to the faithful laity in
“sacrificial love” even amid the shutdown, and the prospect for
society to see the Church's “consistent ethic of life grounded in a
society committed to gratitude.” Catholic medical oncologist Pedro
Gabriel, reviewing
Reno's second article, observes that “many of his arguments warp
the truth, mixing morally correct statements with bioethical
blunders,” with logic that is “inhumane and immoral,” and which
“grossly misrepresents Catholic, medical, and bioethical
principles.” Dr. Gabriel reminds readers that “every death that
is due to a lack of medical resources, which could have been avoided
with proper safety measures, is indeed a moral failure,” and that
“there is no justice, nor beauty, nor honor in artificially
maintaining societal functioning at the expense of the death or
suffering of thousands of people.”
The
Orthodox columnist Rod Dreher, who considers Reno a personal friend,
nevertheless disdains
Reno's writing on the present topic as “so bloodless and abstract
and pious,” objecting to Reno “passing harsh judgment on priests
who are not serving mass to congregations today, accusing them of a
lack of faith and of moral courage. This is so, so wrong. Nobody –
not those priests, not the faithful – wants to be away from church
now. We do it not out of fear, but as a temporary sacrifice to save
lives. … While we cannot save everyone, we ought to be prepared to
bear a great sacrifice to save as many as we reasonably can.”
Dreher adds
later that “when Reno faults priests who (at their bishop's
order) are not able to go visit the sick, he ignores the biological
fact that a priest who is infected but doesn't yet know it can spread
the virus to the sick, and kill them. That is a fact that no amount
of pious rationality can deny.” In the end, Dreher recognizes,
Reno is “ignoring epidemiological facts to serve a 'political,
social, and spiritual narrative that he prefers.”
Alongside this, Catholic theologian Joseph E. Capizzi and Lutheran theologian H. David Baer likewise replied together to Reno, highlighting how “it is more than a little ironic that a conservative Christian critic of decadent consumerism and liberal individualism like Reno should grow alarmed at the speed with which all those self-absorbed autonomous selves abandoned the comforts of consumerism for the sake of their neighbors.” Capizzi and Baer further stressed that “temporary suspension of church services does not entail the surrender of the church to the dominion of death,” as Reno thought, since the church remains “bound together in the body of Christ even when they are separated” and compelled to undergo eucharistic fasting.
Welcoming all these fruitful critiques of Reno, I
wish to focus on another point, a more narrow one: Reno's treatment
of history. In his core articles, Reno repeatedly appeals to
questionable characterizations of an earlier era: the Spanish flu
pandemic. In “Questioning
the Shutdown,” Reno claimed that “during the Spanish flu
pandemic..., churches were open.” In “Say
'No' to Death's Dominion,” Reno claims that, when the Spanish
flu pandemic took place, Americans' “reaction was vastly different
from ours. They continued to worship, go to musical performances,
clash on football fields, and gather with friends.” Continuing,
Reno adds that the Spanish Flu generation “bowed their head before
the storm of disease and endured its punishing blows, but they
otherwise stood firm and continued to work, worship, and play,
insisting that fear of death would not govern their societies or
their lives.”
This is a historical
point. Reno makes a sweeping generation toward two generations (or
sets of generations): those active in 1918, and those active in 2020.
He claims that, as a matter of historical fact, churches remained
open for public worship gatherings in 1918 when the Spanish flu
epidemic was at its height, and that people did not allow societal
institutions to be disrupted at the time. The following historical
treatment will make quite clear, in considerable detail, that Reno is
far, far more wrong than he is right.
In spite of significant
differences between 'Spanish influenza' and COVID-19 (both in terms
of the characteristics of the disease and in terms of the medical
knowledge of the healthcare systems forced to confront them), the
ways in which communities and churches faced the 'Spanish Flu' can be
instructive. What follows is a consideration of six cases: six
Pennsylvanian communities, glimpsed in the autumn of 1918:
Mount Carmel, in
Northumberland County, east-central Pennsylvania
Lewisburg, in Union
County, central Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, in
Dauphin County, southeast of central Pennsylvania
New Castle, in
Lawrence County, far-western Pennsylvania
Allentown, in Lehigh
County, far-eastern Pennsylvania
Lancaster, in
Lancaster County, southeastern Pennsylvania
Background: Influenza
and the Order
When the disease
nicknamed 'Spanish Influenza' actually emerged, and where on the
globe it originated, remain contentious issues. (In spite of the
inapt name, some Americans preferred to scapegoat Germany, their
enemy in the World War then taking place – rumors abounded that
“the disease represents one of the fantastic methods of the German
war-makers, who are supposed to have developed the menace with weird
dreams of prostrated armies laid low and surrounded after the disease
had been spread by shells charged with it.”)
By the latter half of
July 1918, Pennsylvanians had begun to wonder whether this 'Spanish
Influenza' might spread to the United States Expeditionary Forces or
perhaps even their home state – but newspapers assured
Pennsylvanians that since “the death rate is very low and the
disease lasts only a short period with completely recovery, there is
no reason for alarm.”
Within weeks, as hundreds began dying in England, some
Pennsylvanians took a more somber tone, granting that “Spanish
'flu' in its symptoms is much like what the Americans call grippe.
But it is more severe and often fatal.”
Even so, other Pennsylvanians mused aloud “whether Spanish
influenza” was “really any worse than hay fever,”
with the press still carrying claims that Spanish influenza was
“short-lived and of practically no permanent serious results.”
It would take time for the lethal potential of Spanish flu to be
more universally appreciated.
By mid-September 1918,
confirmed cases of 'Spanish influenza' were on the rise in American
metropolitan centers like Boston and New York,
popularly believed to have “been brought over by persons on
returning American transports” from Europe.
Pittsburgh's department of public health soon announced that they
expected the disease's arrival in their city on September 17,
but it arrived a day ahead of schedule in the person of a 21-year-old
sailor named Stewart Eckstein.
The disease promptly appeared in other Pennsylvanian cities like
Lancaster
and Philadelphia (starting with US Navy facilities).
September 18 brought the first death from Spanish flu in
Philadelphia,
and within two days the fatality count had reached fifteen there.
The meeting of the Pennsylvania State Medical Society in
Philadelphia in late September 1918 discussed the influenza
situation,
all while cases spread from military camps to Pennsylvanian civilian
communities through soldiers permitted to return home on furlough.
Cases were soon confirmed in more and more places.
In Philadelphia, “the epidemic has reached such proportions in
this locality... that physicians and nurses will be mobilized in a
few days, so that they can be used where most needed.”
Pennsylvanians soon had good reason to take the disease spread
seriously: “Influenza is no joke; no newspaper talk. It is a real
disease, of a dangerous character, and the excitement incident to its
general outbreak is justified.”
At this time,
Pennsylvania's Acting Health Commissioner was one Dr. Benjamin
Franklin Royer (1870-1961), an 1899 graduate of Philadelphia's
Jefferson Medical College
who – after becoming chief resident physician at Philadelphia's
Municipal Hospital in 1903,
a state medical inspector in 1908,
associate chief medical inspector in 1909,
and chief medical inspector in 1910.
– was appointed “Acting Health Commissioner, to serve until the
Governor appoints a commissioner,” in February 1918 after the death
of the prior health commissioner Dr. Samuel Gibson Dixon.
Faced with the new crisis
of Spanish flue, Dr. Royer's initial observation to the media on
September 29 was that, although Pennsylvania had numerous confirmed
cases, it was merely a resurgence of the same disease outbreak that
had troubled the nation in 1889-1890.
(In fact, the 1889-1890 'Asiatic flu' pandemic is thought to have
been type H3N8, whereas the 'Spanish influenza' was type H1N1.)
Dr. Royer's recommendations for the general public were that “this
is the time to let sunshine into the houses. I notice many awnings
are still up. That is a mistake. Let the sunshine in. Avoid
crowded places, entertainments, and churches where there are crowds,
and keep in the open air as much as possible. Sunshine is what is
needed to keep in good trim.”
As the disease spread, Dr. Royer closed the month by ordering all
district health officers to gather reports of the disease and sent
them to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Late in the morning on
Thursday, October 3, 1918, Dr. Royer issued an emergency order.
Highlighting the evidence that large public gatherings tended to
spread disease, he directed each locality that “your board of
health is directed to close all public places of entertainment,
including theatres, moving picture establishments, saloons, and dance
halls, and prohibit all meeting of every description until further
notice from this department.”
However, Dr. Royer shied away from any state-level action regarding
two core institutions: schools and churches. This, he left as a
decision to be made strictly at the local level: “It will, for the
present, and subject to further orders from this department, be left
to the judgment of local health authorities as to whether or not
public schools, Sunday schools, and churches be closed.”
Case 1: Mount Carmel,
Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
Mount
Carmel is a borough in east-central Pennsylvania's Anthracite Coal
Region. Although today the population has decreased to about 5,573,
at the time of the 'Spanish influenza' outbreak it enjoyed a
population over three times that, around 17,500. (It was thus, at
the time, more populous than Sunbury, which is presently the county
seat, though not quite so populous as Shamokin.) Before
the end of September 1918, Mount Carmel had recorded “several dozen
cases” of Spanish flu – including local fireman James Latshaw and
student Lillian Fisher – and for that reason
the local press insisted that “Spanish influenza, which has many
victims all over the country and has invaded our midst, should not be
treated lightly, but with every effort to avoid it, for it is deadly
and is proving fatal to many people.”
Two residents at the nearby town of Kulpmont died from the Spanish
flu on September 28 and 29.
However, “one doctor said he doesn't see any cause of needless
alarm. Many regard the epidemic as nothing more than the usual siege
of la grippe that usually holds the people in its power about this
time of the year.”
In nearby Shamokin, meanwhile, there were “dozens of new cases
being reported every day,” leading to “several deaths, and the
Shamokin health authorities are alarmed over the rapid spread of the
disease.”
Promptly
after receiving Dr. Royer's directive, Mount Carmel's borough-level
health board – presided over by a local doctor named R. W.
Montelius – met and passed a resolution that, effective at midnight
on Friday, October 4, not only would theatres and saloons be closed,
but so would the community's schools and churches.
Thus, the newspaper the day after the order went into effect noted
that “there will be no services in any of the churches in Mount
Carmel borough tomorrow, in obedience to the order issued by the
Board of Health, caused by the epidemic of Spanish influenza.”
Several nearby communities in Northumberland County, such as
Sunbury, Shenandoah, Northumberland, Williamsport, Locust Gap, and
Mahanoy City were under similar orders; however, a minority of others
– such as Ashland and Shamokin – did plan to keep the churches
open.
For Mount Carmel, then, the suspension of church gatherings lasted
for several weeks – it applied to Sunday, October 6, as well as the
following three Sundays, October 13, 20, and 27.
But
around that time, the Mount Carmel health board received an answer
from the State Health Department in which Dr. Royer suggested “that,
so far as practicable, the resumption of school work should take
place about midweek, and of the churches and Sunday schools on the
Sunday following,” i.e., on Sunday, November 3.
As the date drew nearer but without as much reduction in the spread
of influenza as had been hoped, the health board approached the
matter cautiously, considering the prospect of opening churches for
one service per Sunday but keeping the Sunday schools closed.
As a turning point was reached in which “the plague has almost
entirely disappeared in Mount Carmel,” the plan was for churches to
hold services limited to one hour in length – though some feared
that the time limit would result in the consolidation of services and
hence a greater risk from heavy crowding in the churches than if more
services were permitted.
So on the evening of Friday, November 1, the health board directed
the full lifting of “the quarantine on stores, churches, and
schools.”
By the following Sunday, November 10, the churches were fully open,
with service times announced in the local newspaper the day prior.
Mount
Carmel shows us a functional template for the implementation of
public health measures. The local churches had their meetings
suspended, by health board order, for four consecutive Sundays, with
consideration given to a lesser restriction for a fifth Sunday in the
interest of public health.
Case 2: Lewisburg,
Union County, Pennsylvania
Even
closer to the center of the state than Mount Carmel, the borough of
Lewisburg is the seat of Union County and the home of Bucknell
University. By 1918, the population was nearly 3,200. Bucknell
University, at the time, was functioning as a post for the Student
Army Training Corps, with plans to make it a “minor West Point”
for seven hundred student-soldiers alongside the civilian students.
But Spanish influenza beat the student body to Lewisburg. Among the
first casualties of the disease was 18-year-old Earl Vincent Sherman,
a member of the local United Evangelical church: Having enlisted in
the Merchant Marine Service and traveled to Boston at the start of
September, he – and a number of other young Lewisburg men – found
the barracks there under quarantine due to the Spanish influenza
outbreak therein. Sent home, Sherman soon developed symptoms of
Spanish flu and the consequent lethal pneumonia: he died on Tuesday,
September 24.
Several
days later, on the evening of Saturday, September 28, the town of
Lewisburg held a large-scale parade to initiate their fundraising
drive for the Liberty Loan program.
A day later, 27-year-old Blanche Lenhart, living west of Lewisburg
but a member of the same United Evangelical church as Sherman,
likewise died as he had.
A somewhat growing awareness was undoubtedly growing locally of “the
new disease, Spanish 'flu.'”
By the time Dr. Royer issued his state-wide quarantine order, “the
so-called Spanish 'flu' was rather severe on several of Lewisburg's
business places, on account of the working force suffering from
attacks. Some stores had their staffs of clerks so depleted that
trade with customs was greatly interfered with.”
In
answer to Dr. Royer's order, “the Lewisburg Board of Health has
decided all churches shall be closed on Sunday and to continue until
further notice,” along with other public places like theaters.
There were therefore no church gatherings in Lewisburg on Sunday,
October 6. In lieu of church gatherings, many residents went hiking
to collect chestnuts.
Two days later, a
28-year-old rural mail carrier, Frank Alleman, also a member of the
United Evangelical church, died as yet another victim of the Spanish
flu.
By
the close of the week, it was painfully evident no church services
would be held on Sunday, October 13, either: “The state-wide
quarantine, closing churches, schools, and public amusement places
because of the influenza epidemic, has not yet been lifted,”
printed The Lewisburg
Journal
on October 11, “and hence all church services on Sunday are still
off. Public announcement of the resumption of such services will be
made through the daily and local press, the local Board of Health
having promised to notify the pastors as soon as word is received
from Harrisburg. The outlook at present is not very encouraging, the
crest of the epidemic having hardly been reached in this section of
the state, and therefore it is not likely any services will be held
next Sabbath or next Wednesday evening.”
Accordingly, some local churches began preparing to delay any
special services such as rally days,
and the upcoming county fair was canceled.
The local press urged residents to “take every precaution
regarding the spread of the Spanish influenza.”
However, caution flew out the window in the early hours of Sunday
morning, as news of progress toward ending the World War reached town
burgess Frank Catherman in the dark morning hours, resulting in fire
alarms and church bells calling the slumbering citizens to an
impromptu parade through the darkened mists, gathering them in the
downtown by the hundreds – until one parader was fatally mowed down
by a reckless driver at three o'clock AM.
Perhaps equally troubling was the potential for disease transmission
in the crowded streets.
Over
the coming week, as more and more locals were killed by the Spanish
flu (including Frank Alleman's widow),
announcement went out that “the churches of the town will still be
closed another Sunday,” October 20.
The United Evangelical church accordingly delayed their scheduled
Joash-Chest Rally.
One local family lost five members to influenza,
and in another family eight children were orphaned due to the
disease.
Lewisburg residents were strongly encouraged to fight influenza by
“keep[ing] their windows open day and night, allowing all the fresh
air possible to circulate freely through every room of the house.”
With church buildings still closed down on Sunday, October 27, some
local pastors began to plan substitutes for church services – for
instance, Methodist pastor J. B. Brenneman called on his congregation
to “give at least one hour on next Sunday to special scripture
reading and prayers in your home, asking our Father's blessing and
help upon and for all who are ill and in sorrow for our community,
and for blessings upon our nation and all the Allied armies. Your
pastor will join you in this from 11am until noon.”
As
Lewisburg health authorities like borough health officer Dr. Thomas
C. Thornton were waiting for cues from Harrisburg authorities to lift
the quarantine locally (even as the case load in Lewisburg lightened
while adjacent rural areas worsened), “it is thought that it will
be two weeks before … re-opening of the schools and churches.”
Shortly after that notice was given, a turning point was reached in
Union County,
and Lewisburg health authorities lifted the local quarantine at noon
on Wednesday, November 6.
This cleared the way for church services to resume on Sunday,
November 10, after five consecutive Sundays missed.
United Evangelical pastor Edgar Crumbling planned to preach that
morning on “The Triumph of Christianity Over Death” and that
evening on “It Is Time to Seek the Lord,”
whereas the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed churches of the town did
not announce the topics of their morning and evening messages (the
Presbyterian church would have no evening services due to illness in
the pastor's family).
Reflecting
on the five-week suspension of services, The
Lewisburg Journal
remarked that “while there may be some financial losses in the
closing, yet the modern church has such excellent financial systems
that it will not likely be serious, especially if church-members
follow the well-given advice the next Sabbath, all give a substantial
thank-offering in the loose offering for spared lives and renewed
opportunities for service. The Peace News of this week only brings
greater cause for worship.”
By the community Thanksgiving service held in Lewisburg's Lutheran
church, there was much rejoicing, and yet “with the influenza
pandemic still raging in many places and reappearing in others, there
is a sterner call than ever for humiliation and confession before God
that any further serious ravages of this dread disease may be
stayed.”
Case 3: Harrisburg,
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Perhaps
few cities in Pennsylvania are as iconic as Harrisburg, not only the
county seat of Dauphin County but also the state capital. A
significant metropolitan area even then, in 1918 it boasted a
population of nearly 75,000 people. In addition to being an
industrial center, the city is anchored by the Pennsylvania State
Capitol (though most of the surrounding complex has been constructed
since 1918), with a dome inspired by St. Peter's Basilica. The Roman
Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg celebrated its golden jubilee
(fiftieth anniversary) with a procession just after Spanish influenza
made an entrance into the city.
On
Friday, September 20, a local Harrisburg resident, 30-year-old
bindery foreman Edward H. Ripper, a member of Harrisburg's Redeemer
Lutheran Church, began displaying symptoms. The same became true of
a visiting Philadelphian named John Goodman, who on Monday, September
23, was taken to the Harrisburg hospital for treatment. Ripper died
early the following Saturday morning, September 28,
by which time other cases were diagnosed, such as those of Clayton
Bausman, Felix Schraedley, and Shannon McCord.
A few days later, on Monday, September 30, Harrisburg's hospital
admitted another Spanish flu patient, a 75-year-old Italian Catholic
resident of Middletown named Nicholas Negro, who died later that
night.
The
morning after Dr. Royer's order was issued, the city health bureau
office was the site of a meeting between local health officials and
several prominent Harrisburg pastors to discuss whether the churches
would continue their meetings. By noon, the city health board had
issued a directive that, in addition to the venues mandated by Dr.
Royer's order, also closed churches and Sunday schools until further
notice would be given by the health board.
The local press noted that “doors of all Harrisburg churches will
be shut tight tomorrow” on Sunday, October 6, and that “clergymen
of the city, when they heard the new ruling, were quick in cancelling
all meetings held in their churches on Sunday.”
That Sunday, the bells of the churches were silent, signifying a
lack of meeting “because of the strict quarantine measures which
have been adopted by city and state departments of health in an
effort to check the spread of the influenza epidemic.”
By this point, Harrisburg had about two thousand identified cases of
the Spanish flu.
By the following week, liquor sellers were becoming anxious to get
back to business. Dr. Royer rejected their appeal to re-open, noting
that “the churches, schools, moving picture people, and theatrical
people – all greatly inconvenienced – are not complaining.”
One local church member wrote his prayer in a letter to the editor,
asking for God to “free us from the perils which enshroud us in
death” and to “be... with all who suffer and give them aid.”
Church
services continued to be suspended, but Harrisburg pastors found ways
to encourage their congregants to remain spiritually lively during
the hiatus. For instance, local Episcopal priest W. C. Heilman
mailed his congregation a letter of encouragement, asking them to
hold worship services at home at the same time he did in the
otherwise-vacant church building:
It
is to be regretted that, during this time of distress, circumstances
compel the closing of the churches for the time being. I beg of you,
however, that you do not let this fact keep you from your worship,
for, though the church doors be locked, your rector will at the
regular hours of service be at the altar commemorating, in the
service our Master himself gave us, the great sacrifice of the Son of
God upon the cross. At the regular hour of service, then, will you
not take your prayerbook and go through the service in your own home,
remembering that at that moment prayers are being offered on your
behalf before the altar of God.
In
the week that followed, rumors – no doubt driven by vain hopes –
circulated that the quarantine would soon be lifted; but Dr. Raumick
insisted that there was no term limit decided upon, and that “the
quarantine orders will be enforced indefinitely” until the public
health situation had sufficiently been altered.
Letters to the editor during this time urged businesses to be more
civic-minded rather than profiteering through “their exorbitant
prices they charge the afflicted citizens.”
As
the churches in Harrisburg neared their fourth Sunday without
meeting, the newspaper presented suggestions from various pastors,
including one in an adjacent county who encouraged a program of
home-based worship geared toward intercessory prayer.
By this point, many of the city's pastors had begun to chafe under
the closure order, believing that the health department had
overstepped its bounds or made a miscalculation, wondering “whether
the closing of the houses of prayer was a greater safeguard against
influenza than permitting them to remain open and have the members
pray for the relief of the community from the scourge.”
One newspaper interviewed six Harrisburg pastors under condition of
anonymity, finding a mixture of submission to scientific wisdom and
pain at the loss:
One pastor said: “I have two opinions about the closing order.
The health authorities certainly know more about this epidemic than
we do, and if from a scientific standpoint they feel justified in
closing the churches, we cannot but cooperate. On the other hand,
they are losing a big ally. I think meetings should be held under
restrictions. The services could be short, with only one a day,
devoted entirely to prayer.”
A second pastor said: “It is certainly a great mistake to close
the churches. They have a steadying effect on people and would have
been of much help at this time. Then, too, to close them together
with other places tends to promote a panic among the people.”
A third pastor said: “It was not right to close the churches. I
can appreciate the task of the health officials to guard the public,
but they should not have been classified on the same level with
theaters and saloons. The church stands as an institution to
itself. I believe prayer, worship, and devotion would have been a
great help in meeting this trouble.”
A fourth pastor said: “While I don't think the churches should be
closed, it would have certainly been advisable to curtail the
services and have them as short as possible. But we must obey the
law and submit to the order. We should pray and have more faith and
confidence in God. There are crowds congregating in other ways, as
in street cars or markets. It would do no harm to have a brief
service, and I am sure every clergyman could arrange to meet such a
condition easily.”
A fifth pastor said: “It has been a big problem in my mind. All
of us are trying to be loyal now to the hundredth degree. If some
folks spread the contagion, it would be exceedingly bad to have the
churches open. The other thought is that only under exceptional
circumstances should such an action be taken. Will the local
situation justify closing the churches? I have not read an accurate
report of the epidemic situation in Harrisburg.”
A
sixth pastor, quoting another colleague, said: “It would be a
great deprivation for the city. I think under any possible
circumstances, the churches should remain open. I am observing the
closing order, because if the medical authorities think it dangerous
to assemble, it would balk their plans to not close. May I voice
the opinion of an older colleague of mine who said: 'I should regard
my ministry a failure if I thought that the religion of my people
would be lost or jeopardized by their abstaining from divine
services for a few weeks, especially when such abstinence is
necessitated by consideration of the public health.' The sorrows
and sufferings that the present scourge visited upon thousands of
our people fully warranted the churches to close so that all would
cooperate with the health authorities and strive with all their
might to relieve our city from the pall of its present epidemic. It
is not a question at such a critical time that merely a few affected
directly or indirectly gather in their respective houses of worship,
but that each and every man, woman, and child turn with eyes
heavenward and invoke God in their own homes, upon their own
hearths, that he stay the ravages of this dread epidemic. The
gatherings together of large groups of people at such a critical
time should certainly have been averted, and it was a very wise and
safest measure to take under these circumstances.”
A
few days later, health officer Dr. Raunick speculated that, if the
disease spread slowed enough, then in just a few days, “the ban on
churches, Sunday schools, public and private schools, soda fountains,
pool rooms and bowling alleys, and all other public gatherings may be
lifted before next Tuesday,” i.e., before November 5.
However, the following day – Friday, November 1 – Dr. Raunick
clarified that the time was not yet right for churches to resume
meeting, and “for this reason, ministers are asked not to conduct
services of any kind.”
Churches remained closed on Sunday, November 3, while “all stores
and business places except restaurants and drug-stores will close at
6:30 o'clock.”
The
next day, the newspapers reported that noon on Tuesday, November 5,
would see the cessation of all quarantine measures in Harrisburg, and
Dr. Raunick expressed thanks to the general public for their
cooperation. The press noted that “on Saturday evening [November
2], merchants and other businessmen in the city cooperated with the
health bureau and closed promptly at 6:30 o'clock. It was the fourth
Saturday night that the stores were closed, only druggists and
restaurant proprietors being permitted to remain open. Churches and
Sunday schools also were not permitted to hold services. They will
resume again next Sunday, after being closed for five weeks.”
Many Harrisburg churches in fact opened on Wednesday, November 6,
for midweek prayer services, which in many cases would function as
“services of thanksgiving and praise because the influenza epidemic
with its attendant dangers has been practically stamped out in
Harrisburg.”
By this point, “religious workers throughout the city have made
preparations to undertake their work again with renewed energy after
the period of the quarantine. … It is generally expected that the
services throughout the city tonight will have large congregations in
attendance.”
By Sunday, November 10, “after more than a month of closed doors,
the churches of Harrisburg will be opened today for services. In
many churches, there will be special rally meetings and services of
thanksgiving.”
It was “the first Sunday since September that services were held,”
which “led to the assembling of audiences larger than ordinarily
gather in the city sanctuaries,” so “hundreds of worshippers made
their way to the favorite places of prayer.”
The end of the World War overshadowed all thought of the epidemic
and its cessation.
Case 4: New Castle,
Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
New
Castle, situated about fifty miles north of Pittsburgh, is the county
seat of Lawrence County, located at Pennsylvania's western edge, at
the border with Ohio. Eight miles southeast is the county-bridging
borough of Ellwood City, which extends slightly into Beaver County.
In 1918, New Castle's population was about 43,000. In that year,
before the epidemic had even reached the city, New Castle's local
health officer Dr. William Lewis Steen (1874-1943) had “been
studying reports of the disease” and passed along suggestions for
the public from Pittsburgh's Dr. Philip Marks:
The
best treatment is to go to bed, observe a light diet, and keep the
bowels open. The spread of this infection would be materially
limited if the public would exercise care to avoid spitting in public
places and to invariably cover the mouth and nose with a handkerchief
when forced to cough and sneeze. Any member of the family developing
a cold should be isolated. Crowded street cars, poorly-ventilated
offices, and close rooms at home should be avoided.
By
October 2, Ellwood City was beginning to report “several cases of
Spanish influenza.”
In the wake of Dr. Royer's October 3 order, Dr. Steen promptly
issued notice to the “proprietors of all theatres, moving picture
houses, saloons, pool rooms, and dance halls to close these places
and keep them closed until such time as the quarantine against the
spread of the Spanish influenza is lifted by the state authorities,”
but more time was taken to deliberate on the question of the local
schools and churches.
As in other locations, the New Castle health board did make the
decision to impose a closure on local churches, which prevented
services from being held on Sunday, October 6: “The churches will
remain dark until orders from the State Health Department at
Harrisburg permit the quarantine to be lifted.”
One local newspaper stressed that “the regulations apply to
religious meetings in private homes” as well as in church
buildings.
So on Sunday, October 6, the town's Catholic church held private
masses without the presence of the laity, and the Protestant churches
also had closed doors.
On
the third Saturday of the quarantine, New Castle's pastors held a
morning meeting to develop a plan for the spiritual sustenance of the
city's Christians – namely, “to urge their people to join with
them spiritually in prayer at the usual hour of morning services on
Sunday. According to this plan, each pastor will be in his church at
eleven o'clock Sunday morning and will there engage for some time in
private devotion while the members of his congregation in their
several homes join similar devotion. It is suggested that such
devotion be opened with a hymn, if possible, and the reading of a
passage of scripture. … Prayers should also be made for the
abatement of the epidemic and for the sick and dying.”
This plan included Roman Catholics, who would “naturally say the
mass prayers together with such other devotions as may be thought
fitting.”
The nearby town of New Bedford, however, had still been untouched by
the Spanish influenza, and accordingly, in that place, “schools and
churches are still holding their regular sessions and, except for the
quarantine established by the state, no other measures of quarantine
have been put in force.”
By the following week, just one section of the county – East New
Castle – remained influenza-free, but even there, as a precaution,
“the schools and churches are closed, and rigorous regulations are
being observed.”
For
some people, the quarantine was perceived as a greater menace than
the disease itself. This was especially so for one New Castle city
councilman, William C. Shanafelt (1880-1950). When the city council
met on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, Shanafelt urged that the
churches should be allowed to reopen for half-hour church services
“for the benefit of the religiously inclined of the city during the
quarantine,” since “short meetings in the well-ventilated
churches should not be productive of disease-breeding, he said.”
Since Dr. Steen was not in attendance at the meeting, the council
took no action on Shanafelt's suggestion.
On
Sunday, November 3, nearby Ellwood City – which had likewise
suspended meetings of its churches – called on members of one key
church there to take the church bell's ring as a cue for families to
hold household worship services in their homes, with “a special
prayer for the sick [and] for those who minister to them.” The
church building itself would be open for people to pick up Sunday
school literature and drop off donations, while the pastor would
visit the sick upon request.
During
the coming week, the hope formed early that the order closing
churches and schools, if not the rest of the quarantine, would be
lifted by Friday, November 8.
Soon, this order was in fact given, that on noon Friday the
quarantine would be fully lifted, so that “on Sunday, the churches
will all resume their services.”
The newspaper quipped that “it's funny, but there is more demand
for the opening of churches and saloons on account of the flu
epidemic than anything else.”
So
went the announcement. Before Friday, however, report of
seventy-three new cases in town “caused some apprehension in the
city.” Nonetheless, the churches continued to plan for Sunday
services, “hoping that the local situation will not necessitate a
special ruling to continue the quarantine.”
No special ruling was given: Dr. Steen assured the New Castle public
that the ban was no longer necessary, although “individual
precautions should be continued, and people should not become
reckless because the public enforcement of rules to stop the spread
of the disease has ceased.”
And so, on Sunday, November 10, “after five weeks' interruption,
the churches of the city will resume public services.”
One local newspaper reviewed the course of the five-week closure and
how it was handled:
The
closing of the churches, along with other public meetings, was
thought necessary by the health authorities to hold in check the
epidemic. The comparative lightness of the attack here is due no
doubt in no small measure to the promptness and thoroughness with
which our health department acted. Any inconvenience that the
churches may have suffered is secondary to the health and welfare of
the community. This enforced closing of the churches is without
precedent, it would seem, in all the history of the city. Previous
to this, there never was a Sabbath when the worshiper might not enter
the church door and join his brethren in public worship. These
opportunities have been afforded with little thought of what it would
mean if they were withheld. During this time, many people have said
that they did not realize how much the church meant to them till they
were deprived of it. If this lesson is remembered, it will be
worthwhile to have learned it, even in this way. We trust that the
opening of church doors tomorrow morning will be greeted with a
hearty response by the people of the community. The churches have
not been idle during this time. A concert of prayer has been
observed at the 11 o'clock hour on the Lord's day. Sermonettes and
other religious literature have been distributed. Many calls have
been made by pastors and the church workers. The ministers have been
called many times to the homes saddened by death. Many earnest
prayers have been offered for the protection of our city, the welfare
of our land, and the safety of the men in the camps and far across
the sea. Many realize as never before that 'except the Lord keep the
city, the watchman waketh but in vain' [Psalm 127:1].
Although
services resumed on November 10 in New Castle, this was not the case
in Ellwood City, which did decide to retain certain restrictions.
It was not until Sunday, November 17, that public worship services
resumed in Ellwood City, with the pastors urging everyone to be in
attendance.
Their request was answered, as after four weeks of no church
meetings in Ellwood City, the first Sunday back saw “large crowds
were present at all the services, and prayers of thanksgiving were
offered for the safety of those present and the boys overseas.”
Whether
these moves were advisable may be questioned, as since the lifting of
the quarantine, about 37 new cases appeared in New Castle daily,
while Sunday, November 17, saw twenty-six new cases reported in
Ellwood City, though the health board doubted whether the cessation
of the quarantine was to blame.
By November 19, the New Castle city council was already deliberating
the prospect of reintroducing quarantine measures to New Castle, but
not yet implemented: noteworthily, when asked, acting health officer
Dr. J. K. Pollock expressed his belief that asymptomatic carriers
could not spread the disease.
Meanwhile, the Ellwood City council gave similar thought to the
prospect of reinstituting quarantine measures.
As the spread increased in New Castle, the press urged that “this
is no time for the people to become frightened, but it is time for
the people to take cognization of the situation and utilize the
methods of prevention, such as remaining home nights and away from
crowds of all kinds and taking every precaution to keep themselves in
the best of health.”
By
the morning of Friday, November 22, the State Health Department had
directed the New Castle city council to “place a ban on movies,
theatres, saloons, and clubs.”
That night, local district attorney George Muse suggested that the
quarantine be extended to schools and churches again, and local
United Presbyterian pastor J. Elmer Campbell “stated that the
ministers were glad to cooperate and would welcome an order which
would close the churches until the curse of the epidemic had
passed.”
On this voluntary basis, public worship services were held in New
Castle's churches, therefore, on Sunday, November 24 – and so, the
following day's newspaper remarked, “the city is now in virtually
the same condition as it was during the other quarantine – no place
to go and nothing to do these evenings but read or watch the second
hand tick away the dreary minutes.”
The
following Saturday, November 30, acting health officer Dr. Pollock
issued a proclamation in which he directed that “all churches,
meeting places, public, private, parochial, Sunday and other schools,
theatres, opera houses, billiard halls, pool rooms, picture shows,
dance halls, saloons, wholesale and retail liquor places, places of
amusement, and all gatherings and meetings whatsoever are hereby
directed to be closed, and to be kept closed so long as shall be
necessary to prevent the spread of Spanish Influenza and until
further order of the Council.”
Hence, the churches did not gather for corporate worship on Sunday,
December 1.
By
Friday morning, December 6, entertainment and liquor providers were
thronging the council's chambers, urging that something be done.
Councilman W. C. Shanafelt, as usual, pressed for a prompt lift of
the quarantine, to allow the churches to resume meeting (as well as
pool rooms, bowling alleys, and all other venues), stressing that he
did not believe a partial quarantine was at all effective. New
Castle's mayor Archibald D. Newell (1858-1922) voiced his support for
a more all-or-nothing approach: either lift the ban, or extend it
also to the nickel-and-dime stores.
The next day, an order went into effect to have stores and banks
close by 6:00 PM, and Dr. Pollock noted that “in another week...,
it may prove advisable to pry off the lid to the extent of allowing
churches and schools to open.”
The local ministerial association, represented to the council this
time by Reformed Presbyterian pastor Edgar A. Crooks, supported the
continued ban on church meetings: “the ministers were not clamoring
for the lifting of the ban and would be pleased to see it remain on
as long as the public health demanded.”
Nevertheless, for local believers like city councilman W. T. Burns,
there was considerable suffering felt in the absence of church
services, “as his spiritual growth is as important to him as
dollars are to the business people whose places have been closed.”
Several days later, on Friday, December 13, several motions relating
to adjusting the quarantine all failed, and local Presbyterian pastor
Robert Little, on behalf of at least some of New Castle's churches,
declared that those churches had agreed not to hold services on
December 15, regardless what the council decided, as they believed it
was still in the interest of public health not to meet.
Accordingly, that Sunday, Methodist pastor J. Austin Rinker declared
that he would be praying in his closed church's pulpit, and
encouraged his members in their homes to “engage in scripture
reading and prayer at the same hour, reading especially the Psalms 91
and 103. Special prayer is to be offered for the sick, the
sorrowing, and the overburdened, the stay of the plague, and that
divine wisdom may be given those in authority in the city and in the
nation...”
New Castle's churches opened again for midweek prayer services on
Wednesday, December 17, which was “welcome news to churchgoers
here.”
Case 5: Allentown,
Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's
Lehigh County, not far from Philadelphia, is itself dominated by two
prominent cities: Allentown (currently the third-largest city in the
state), the county seat, and Bethlehem, which – although mostly
located in Northampton County – straddles the county line and makes
its presence felt in Lehigh County. It is the home of Bethlehem
Steel, a significant manufacturing company, which was heavily active
in producing munitions for the war effort during the World War. The
city of Bethlehem as such was formed in 1917 from the merger of two
boroughs, and had a burgeoning population fast approaching 50,000.
Allentown, though it had a background in iron production and a
long-lasting brick industry, by the World War had become dotted with
several dozen silk mills, in addition to being the center of
production for Mack Trucks, a prominent contribution to the war
effort in its own right. In 1918, Allentown's population hovered
around 70,000. Between Bethlehem Steel's munitions and Allentown's
trucks, this stretch of the Lehigh Valley had assumed a national
important in the war.
Before
the Spanish flu ever struck, Allentown had already undergone a recent
quarantine procedure – not for Spanish flu, but due to a measles
outbreak. By mid-June 1918, the measles epidemic had reached
“enormous proportions.”
In consequence, the prospect of quarantine was soon being discussed
in the press,
and at the outset of July, health officer Dr. J. Treichler Butz
“announced a general quarantine for children sixteen years of age
and younger. The quarantine was placed indefinitely and closes all
churches, theatres, moving picture places, public places, schools,
parks, and playgrounds to the children.”
The following Sunday, July 7, found the local Sunday schools “very
badly crippled … as a result of the quarantine for measles. Very
few children presented themselves to the schools through ignorance of
the regulations which have made it impossible for them to attend any
public gathering. Those who did, of course, were promptly turned
away.”
The measles quarantine on children was lifted on the morning of
Monday, July 22,
and thousands of children promptly swarmed the local playgrounds.
And so life resumed, more or less as usual.
As
Spanish flu began spreading throughout the state, it became a matter
of key concern in the vicinity of Allentown and Bethlehem before any
case appeared, given the area's production of munitions and
transports used by Allied forces in the World War. Consequently, on
Friday, September 27, Bethlehem mayor Archibald Johnston called a
meeting with local health officers and state department
representatives to discuss precautionary measures.
The following day, Allentown's city council presented an ordinance
“that action be immediately taken in the matter to prevent its
appearance here and to use all precautionary measures to safeguard
the public's health. It was also urged that suspicious cases that
might border on that disease be immediately reported to the health
authorities for investigation.”
Try
as they might, not only did Allentown soon see cases of Spanish flu,
but it began losing citizens to it, as in the deaths of 68-year-old
John L. Keiser on Sunday, September 29, and of 29-year-old Harvey S.
Diehl (who contracted the illness at Camp Dix) on Monday, September
30.
The next day, Dr. A. J. Lanza of the United States Public Health
Service met with the Allentown city council to recommend “an
absolute quarantine to be enforced in this city in order to guard
against the danger of a Spanish influenza epidemic which the
government fears would cripple the industrial centres hereabouts that
are turning out war products and thereby hamper the carrying on of
the war abroad. Literally, the recommendation and desires of Dr.
Lanza, as expressed in a letter from Brigadier General T. C. Dickson
in charge of the government work at Bethlehem, would mean the
prohibition of all public gatherings in this city, the closing of all
schools, theatres, saloons, pool rooms, soda fountains, and churches
for an indefinite period or until the epidemic and the danger from it
had been gotten under control.”
While some on the city council such as Robert Wheeler favored the
drastic measures given the military importance of the local munition
industries, Allentown's mayor Alfred L. Reichenbach demurred, denying
that such radical action was required, and the city council opted to
defer action until they saw what Bethlehem and Easton would do.
The local health board did, in the meantime, take out advertising in
the local press, calling on residents to “prevent the spreading of
grippe (Spanish influenza) by using your handkerchief if you have to
sneeze, cough, or spit. Stay at home, go to bed, and call in the
doctor if you have Spanish influenza.”
Where
officials like Dickson and Lanza called for drastic measures that
included the statewide closing of schools and churches, Dr. Royer
insisted this remain a local decision: “He contended that with
small supplies of coal on hand in most homes, it is better to have
the children attending school than housed in damp homes.”
Subsequently, however, Dr. Royer did issue his order that “every
place of public amusement and every saloon in Pennsylvania was
ordered closed forthwith... as a means of preventing further spread
of influenza.”
Applied locally, “while the order was not welcome by any means
either to the owners of these places or to the patrons, steps were
taken to put the order into operation at once.”
Or so, at least, the local press claimed.
After
receiving Dr. Royer's order, the Allentown City Council met on
Friday, October 4, and directed that the quarantine order would
become effective after it could be suitably published to the general
public.
(Many in Allentown detested the order, and Mayor Reichenbach blamed
Bethlehem for provoking the state action.)
But the city council declared that conditions did not yet warrant
closing churches or schools until so advised by the State Health
Department.
Accordingly, unlike in many localities, many churches did hold
services on Sunday, October 6.
The same was true in the neighboring city of Bethlehem, where
“several of the clergy made reference to the [quarantine] order
from the pulpit... and indicated by their remarks the feeling there
is against the ruling.”
(The populace of Bethlehem reacted “with poor grace in many
quarters,” with numerous businesses flouting the order to sell
their remaining stock.)
And the nearby borough of Northampton issued an order that would
close churches and other venues, but not until after October 6.
Editorially,
The Morning Call
granted that the state-wide quarantine was a divisive issue, but
encouraged community members to comply so that the quarantine would
be done sooner: “It will end quickly if its spirit be obeyed and
the results be obtained. Therefore, there ought to be complete
cooperation by all, that these results may be attained and the
business and social life of the community be speedily restored to its
former conditions.”
Allentown's
failure to implement the State Health Department's orders in a timely
fashion – it was only placed into real effect at midnight on
Saturday, rather than Friday morning as in other places, thus
allowing Allentown businesses to do two extra days of commerce –
were not received well by the state government, which sent state
police to Allentown to investigate. When the order was
finally implemented in Allentown on a business day – Monday,
October 7 – wholesale liquor distributors still defied the order
and did business at first, until local authorities put a stop to it
by noon. In the evening, other than a small crowd gathering in the
square for a Liberty Loan meeting, “people remained home, for, the
theatres being closed, there was little reason to be out.”
The theater owners, however, insisted that the government treat them
as an essential business, given their status as a key source for
information about the Liberty Loan program as well as a great support
for public morale.
After
the nearby town of Coplay's city council met on the evening of
October 7 to issue an order banning all church meetings for the
duration of the emergency, Allentown was a bit slower to reach that
point.
Whereas the school board decided on the night of October 8 to close
the public schools,
no action was yet taken on churches. Several churches in the broader
area reached the decision before it was forced upon them, such as
Fullerton's St. John's Lutheran Church, which independently decided
to “discontinue services until after the quarantine.”
However, Allentown's own ministerium met on October 9 and offered
their vote of “confidence in the health authorities of the state
and city, and the willingness on the part of every congregation to
suspend services, should the health of the community and the judgment
of the officials deem it advisable.”
They further offered the use of church buildings as makeshift
hospital space, if Allentown's leadership would find that useful.
Even
so, some citizens began to grumble criticisms of quarantine orders
that failed to apply to the community's churches. Yet even “without
an order, it is known that a number of clergymen are considering the
advisability of closing the churches and Sunday schools on Sunday,”
October 13 – for instance, St. Luke's Lutheran Church had already
declared it would close, while St. Michael's Lutheran Church had
decided to hold services in an outdoor pavilion.
The afternoon after those voluntary decisions were published,
Allentown's city council resolved to suspend all church services and
Sunday school classes in the city until further notice, and to notify
all churches that they were not to meet.
In
lieu of indoor church meetings, though, the churches of Allentown
planned large outdoor meetings, “held outdoors beneath God's open
sky because the churches have been closed by the quarantine
regulations.”
On the same page as the notice suspending church services, the
city's Catholic churches declared their intention to celebrate
outdoor masses,
while the city's Protestant churches made plans for “a great
Community Service on Centre Square for Sunday morning at 11 o'clock
in which it is hoped all the religious forces of the city will join.
… The purpose of these services is to provide an opportunity for
worship during the period of the quarantine.”
Both
Protestant and Catholic events drew large crowds. In front of the
Church of the Immaculate Conception, an altar was set up across from
the church building at the parochial school, and three morning masses
were celebrated while “the people heard the devotions from the
pavements on both sides of the streets.” At the Church of the
Sacred Heart, an altar was set up on the plaza and masses were said
with the congregation “grouped about and standing.” And in
Centre Square, the Protestant service “brought out the faithful in
numbers exceeding all expectation, and those who were unable to
attend their regular indoor church services found a pleasant hour of
prayer, music, and sermon.” The pastors involved represented at
least five denominations, and an announcement was made that “the
service will be continued every Sunday until the quarantine is
lifted.”
During this inaugural outdoor service, however, “there were quite
a few thoughtless men who stood in the crowd and smoked and spat upon
the pavement or upon those about them,” particularly troublesome
not merely for its lack of decorum but because “spitting is one of
the ways in which the disease is most easily transmitted. If there
be groups of men in the gatherings on the Square at the religious
services who smoke and spit, there will be the undoing of the very
things for which the quarantine was established and a lowering of the
standards of the services themselves.”
By
Monday, October 14, the rate of the epidemic's spread was increasing,
bringing the total number of cases over a thousand in the city.
Day by day, over a hundred new cases would be added,
and the churches remained closed for services – although at least
one pastor did perform several private baptisms.
Plans were set for a second general outdoor worship service in
Centre Square on Sunday, October 20: “Enthusiastic congregational
singing will be a strong feature of the service. An inspiring hour
of worship is certain, and everybody is invited to join. All
ministers are requested to take a place on the platform.”
In addition to the open-air masses at Allentown's Catholic churches,
this Protestant gathering drew an estimated 2,500 people to
participate and to hear a sermon on Haggai 2:7-9.
By
this juncture, Allentown's hospitals had become “woefully
overcrowded.”
Over the next several days, the “plague” kept spreading in the
city, such that “there is not the slightest hope” for “those
who wish to see the epidemic end and the quarantine lifted,” as
Allentown's case load soared above two thousand.
Meanwhile, at least one local church – Grace Lutheran Church –
began to plan its own open-air services for the following Sunday,
October 27.
And even as warmer and damper weather worsened the epidemic,
city-wide public worship services were likewise planned for Centre
Square, with United Evangelical bishop William F. Heil selected to
preach the sermon: “The hearty cooperation of all members of the
community in this hour of prayer and worship is invited.”
This time, the open-air worship service was attended by three
thousand people, with various pastors reading Psalms 46 and 91 and
Bishop Heil preaching from Acts 27:23.
The
day prior to the service, Allentown's city council had met and
petitioned Dr. Royer “for information as to the probable date when
the influenza quarantine ban will be removed, and also asked him for
authority to withdraw the ban entirely should any other city in this
state be granted the privilege this week. Members of Council said
that reports published in newspapers indicate that several cities in
Pennsylvania, particularly Philadelphia and Chester, have announced
the intention of removing the closing order about the middle of the
week.”
Allentown meanwhile exceeded three thousand cases, with “a big
report of cases accumulating over Sunday.”
Even so, representatives of alcohol sellers and entertainment venues
were present at the city council's meeting two days later – on
Tuesday, October 29 – and pressed the city council to defy Dr.
Royer's orders and revoke the quarantine. “Councilman Allen, who
declared that the quarantine is 'only a scheme of the doctors,'
introduced a resolution to remove the quarantine and defy the state
authorities, but could not get a signer to it. Councilman Kohler,
who had been opposed to the quarantine in the beginning” now
“refused to take a positive stand in defiance of the state, as did
Councilman Wheeler.”
The following day, the county's district attorney, Warren K. Miller,
died from the Spanish flu.
After
receiving permission from Dr. Royer, the city council met on
Thursday, October 31, and issued an order that “the quarantine upon
this city with respect to theatres, moving picture establishments,
dance halls, and all meetings and on the sale of alcoholic beverages
will be lifted in this city on Wednesday noon next, November 6,”
and that the churches could reopen even sooner, on Sunday, November
3.
(This over the objections of Councilman Wheeler and also Dr. Thomas
H. Weaber.)
Following the order, the executive committee of the Allentown
Ministerial League approved of opening churches again on November 3.
Except for the city's sixth ward, Allentown showed a decrease the
numbers of new influenza cases by this time.
Most churches in Allentown resumed services for November 3,
and among those that did, “the attendances were large, indicating
that the churchgoers welcomed the return of the old order and the
opportunity for church worship.”
A few churches – for instance, St. Luke's Lutheran Church
and Christ Reformed Church
– opted to wait until the following Sunday, November 10, before
resuming public services.
Case 6: Lancaster,
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster
County, and its county seat of Lancaster, is an utterly remarkable
region of Pennsylvania – but, as a son of its native soil, I'm
certainly biased! Having formerly served as the state capital during
earlier times, by 1918 Lancaster itself had a population of about
50,000.
The
'Spanish influenza' reached Lancaster in mid-September, and by
September 17, “our physicians report quite a good many cases.”
Lancaster's first Spanish flu fatality was 32-year-old J. H.
Herchelroth, a member of Christ Lutheran Church, who died on
September 26, and of the hundred or so other cases in the city at the
time, one was local barber Abe Bonham, who was thought to have
“contracted the germ while shaving visiting soldiers from the
training camps.”
Soon thereafter, numerous families in nearby Quarryville were
infected – “scarcely a house in the borough does not contain at
least one case of the disease, while many have three or four, and in
a number of families every member is suffering from it”
– and a local Army Medical Corps officer, Lt. Thomas R. Ferguson of
Colerain Township, died at the Lancaster General Hospital on October
2, having contracted the Spanish flu in late September.
In these early stages, Lancaster's board of health speculated that
perhaps the disease's early introduction to Lancaster was the result
of local residents employed at “the ship-building plants at Hog
Island and Chester,” who contracted the disease there and brought
it back to the community during weekend visits home.
(Later, a Lancaster doctor would propose that the influenza germs
had been brought back from the battlefield on souvenirs, i.e., German
relics.)
One
local doctor sounded the note of warning that “this thing is
serious. … If you see anyone in a crowd sneeze, take him by the
back of the neck and throw him out. That's putting it strongly, but
it is none too strong. The thing is both infectious and contagious.
Citizens cannot take enough care of themselves at present.”
Concern over the spread of the epidemic, however, did not dissuade
Lancaster County residents from gathering by the thousands at their
annual county fair in the first week of October.
By
that week, cases of Spanish influenza were on the rise in Lancaster
city, Quarryville, and southern Lancaster County; and in nearby
Columbia, the town's small hospital was placed under quarantine,
since three nurses there had caught the disease.
(One of the other Columbia patients, 30-year-old railroad fireman
John Donohue, died there on October 3, the same day that 70-year-old
John Shopf died of Spanish flu in the Lancaster General Hospital.)
Lancaster's Reformed Theological Seminary suspended classes on
October 1, since nearly fifty percent of its small student body (29
students) had become infected.
Medical authorities suspected, even at this early stage, that
“Lancaster and vicinity will be compelled to endure the disease for
five or six weeks yet.”
After
Dr. Royer issued his October 3 order, Lancaster and several other
nearby towns began to implement it. On the afternoon of Friday,
October 4, the Lancaster Board of Health, presided over by James
Shand, met and read Dr. Royer's message.
The relevance to their community was no mystery: one board member,
Dr. Walter Blankenship, was treating four children whose father had
brought Spanish flu home to his family from Hog Island. But it was
Charles G. Baker, a lay member of the board, who most assertively
pressedfor “drastic action,” as he “believed that the schools,
churches, and places of amusement should be closed for a short time
at least until further action is taken.”
Baker's uncontested view won the day, and the Lancaster Board of
Healh ordered the closure of “all public places of entertainment
including theatres, moving picture establishments, saloons, dance
halls, and all meetings of every description,” and additionally
“all schools, public and private, churches, Sunday-schools, pool
rooms, bowling alleys, boxing exhibitions, and all public
gatherings.”
This order, however, did not affect “hotels, dining rooms, stores,
and barber shops.”
By
Friday night, after the afternoon's health directive went into
effect, “people who were on the streets... looked lonesome, being
'all dressed up and nowhere to go.' The influenza has effectively
bottled up everything in the amusement line. … Churches and
Sunday-schools of all kinds will close until further notice, as a
matter of course.”
In Quarryville, the story was the same, with “all the hotels,
schools, churches, and lodges of Quarryville... closed for an
indefinite period.”
The same was true in the nearby town of Mount Joy, which issued a
directive banning public sneezing, coughing, and spitting even before
the telegram with the state orders arrived; and once it did, they
closed “all saloons, dance halls, moving picture places, or any
other place of amusement until the epidemic is checked. It is quite
probable that Sunday schools and churches may be closed.”
In Lititz, “the schools are closed indefinitely on account of the
influenza … All the churches were closed on Sunday [October 6], and
the town was as quiet as a graveyard. Only the restaurants and the
confectionaries were open...”
Likewise,
in Ephrata (my own hometown), the board of health met on the morning
of Saturday, October 5, and ordered “the closing of all the
churches and Sunday-schools temporarily, also the public schools of
the borough for at least one week. The hotels and pool rooms,
theatres and other public gathering places in town were closed
indefinitely on Friday.”
The result was “an amusementless Saturday and a churchless
Sunday.”
In New Holland, too, the “rapid spread... of Spanish influenza”
resulted in orders given on October 4 to close churches among other
venues, which “brought about the most quiet Sunday experienced by
the present generation. With very few automobiles allowed to be run
so as to conserve gasoline, and with no church bells ringing, no
Sunday school or church services to go to, and no other meetings,
there were few persons to be seen outdoors, making it truly a day of
rest – a day for reading and meditation.”
Smaller rural communities toward the county's eastern end, such as
Goodville, California, Spring Garden, and even Denver, likewise
suspended church services.
Columbia stood out in ordering the closure of “all saloons, clubs,
pool rooms, motion picture houses, the opera house, and all other
places of amusement and entertainment, including dance halls,” but
did not close the churches; however, they did notify all the town's
pastors to insist that “members or others suffering from colds must
remain away from both church and Sunday-school services.”
It consequently was one of the few Lancaster County communities
whose churches did
meet on Sunday, October 6.
In
these places, naturally some people questioned whether church
closures were really warranted: “To many persons, the restrictions
placed on public gatherings, especially the holding of church
services and the sessions of Sunday-school tomorrow, may seem most
too severe.”
Others saw it as the sort of extreme measure to which years of war
had made them accustomed, and felt that “if the rule is made
drastic now and the spread of the epidemic is checked, the lifting of
the ban will come that much sooner.”
By
October 7, with over three thousand cases of Spanish flu in Lancaster
city, the board of health had decided that “churches must remain
closed till Saturday evening; further notice will be given by that
time.
(Lancaster had seen several Spanish flu deaths by then, including
41-year-old railroad engineer William Lindley,
19-year-old college student Harvey Myers,
60-year-old doctor John Kinard,
20-year-old moulder Paul Berkheiser,
53-year-old cigarmaker James Stark,
35-year-old motorman Charles Rehm,
21-year-old watch factory employee Catharine Wilson,
and others.)
The
following afternoon – Tuesday, October 8 – the Lancaster Board of
Health met again to discuss the possible need for further strong
measures to stem hundreds of newly confirmed Spanish flu cases.
They urged the population to stem their excessive “shopping,
traveling, and visiting more than is absolutely necessary.”
(This day saw the Spanish-flu-caused death of two Lititz residents,
29-year-old Paul Petry, a member of the local United Evangelical
Church, and 31-year-old newspaper associate editor Chester Spickler;
the following day, a third victim would fall, 41-year-old electric
company superintendent Charles Loercher.)
By October 9, “the schools as well as churches are to remain
closed until further notice from the board,”
but the board expressed confidence that Lancastrians were “cheerfully
bearing the measures taken for their protection and have a wide
appreciation of the Board's efforts.”
Meanwhile, with thousands of Spanish flu cases in Lancaster city
amid rising fatality rates,
several other nearby communities had several hundred of their own,
such as Ephrata,
Lititz,
and Quarryville.
In Columbia, one resident grumbled that the 'Spanish flu' was really
“German influence.”
By
Thursday, October 10, the Lancaster Board of Health had determined to
continue “the city quarantine as now existing... over Sunday, at
least.”
The following day, October 11, the health board ruled that “all
stores must close tomorrow evening at six o'clock except stores
selling foodstuffs,” and asked Lancastrians to “keep off the
streets tomorrow evening and Sunday as much as possible.”
Additionally, county medical inspector Dr. J. L. Mowery issued a
county-wide order for “all public gatherings [to be] discontinued,
and Sunday-schools and other schools closed for one week, beginning
Monday, October 14. This applies to churches as well as to other
gatherings.”
They called it a move for a “Stay at Home Sunday.”
One Lancaster doctor soon suggested that kissing should be banned
for the duration of the epidemic!
On October 12, when the Lancaster Board of Health met again and
expanded their ruling to include ice cream shops, one Catholic priest
– Msgr. Anthony F. Kaul, of St. Anthony's Catholic Church in
Lancaster – requested permission to enter his church to celebrate
Mass privately, on behalf of his parishioners; but the board of
health “refused, as there may be no services in any church.”
Nearby,
Ephrata's board of health likewise voted unanimously “to keep the
borough public schools, as well as the churches and Sunday-schools,
closed for another week at least,” given the still-increasing
spread of the Spanish flu.
Even the smaller town of Akron south of Ephrata ruled that “schools
are closed, churches likewise, hotels, post-office, and restaurant
have notices posted: 'No loafing.'”
In some places, local school boards had to function as boards of
health and order the “cessation of church services and Sunday
schools and public funerals.”
As trends led to health authorities suspending “even open-air
gatherings in many places,” sports – that true American religion
– at last began to suffer in Lancaster County.
By Saturday, October 12, even smaller towns such as New Holland
could mention up to forty cases of Spanish flu (though with few or no
casualties yet),
while in the larger city, Lancaster newspapers could list the names
of 52 young and middle-aged victims (some residing outside the
county) killed by Spanish flu,
and write:
The
sudden and almost terrifying sweep of Spanish influenza, a disease
whose name was almost unknown in America a month ago, has covered
Lancaster County as well as the rest of the country, almost one might
say the world. There are said to be 3600 or more cases in Lancaster
city, and every town and hamlet has its quota. Physicians are almost
worked to the limit of endurance. … Bar-rooms continue to be shut
up. Schools and churches and lodges are adjourned also. Fairs and
festivals and spelling bees are postponed; all funerals must be held
privately. The death rate is not high. Scarcely one victim in a
hundred dies. It is, of course, possible that many, many cases of
the influenza are only cases of severe colds. “It's fashionable to
have the grip” was said 25 years ago. It is probably just as
fashionable to be an influenza victim now.
The
extent of the 'terrifying sweep' of Spanish influenza was plainly
laid bare by reports of coffin shortages in Lancaster,
while both of Lancaster's hospitals were “filled with patients to
overflowing.”
Still, one city newspaper, The
Lancaster Examiner,
insisted that, more than the disease itself, “it is the near panic
which has resulted from the wide spread of the disease which is now
dangerous. … It is no use to worry over the situation, which we
know is well in hand.”
Looking toward the prospect of another “Churchless Sunday,”
another city newspaper, The
Daily New Era,
printed a set of suggestions by local Presbyterian pastor John T.
Reeve on how the area's Christians might still worship:
Although
our Board of Health, in obedience to all wisdom and prudence, felt
compelled to close the churches, let us not close our hearts to God.
This is no time for
a “closed season in religion.
With three-fourths of the world writhing in the agonies of war, with
one-and-a-half millions of our own boys away from home, some never to
return, with our country stricken from end to end with the worst
plague that ever afflicted us, with the Fourth Liberty Loan dragging
heavily when it ought to be going by leaps and bounds – this
is no time for America to forget her God.
It would be incredible if, in such an hour, we should “take a day
off.” Because our incomparable soldiers and sailors and Allies are
pressing on to a glorious victory, we must not think that we do not
need to pray. How can we expect the Divine Favor if, in this solemn
and fateful hour, it can be said of us, “God
is not in all their thoughts”?
So
let us set up the family altar. At
some appointed hour, say 11 o'clock, let all the family gather
together in one room. If you have an instrument and hymn books, sing
a hymn. Then, let the father or mother read a chapter from the
Bible, or, better still, let each have a Bible and read a verse
aloud. Read the Sunday-school lesson about “Abram Helping Lot,”
Genesis 13, or Nehemiah 9, or Luke 15, or Hebrews 11.
Then
let someone lead in prayer, all kneeling down. May I suggest some of
the elements?
Remember
to thank God for his mercies in Jesus Christ; for the Church and the
Bible; for the glorious success he is giving to our arms in France;
for the splendid young men in the service.
Confession
of sin, both national and private, asking God's forgiveness. Prayer
for the removal of the dreadful scourge of influenza that is now
upon us, and that the many homes bereaved may be comforted.
Prayer
for our President and his associates, and for the success of the
Fourth Liberty Loan, that our country may have money to properly
back and protect our boys.
Remembrance
of the suffering peoples of the earth, that their trials may soon be
over, and prayer for a lasting peace founded upon justice,
righteousness, and truth.
Then
let all join in repeating the Lord's Prayer, and close with another
hymn.
The
churches of Lancaster County did not physically gather on Sunday,
October 13.
That afternoon, the Board of Health met and – finding that many
doctors were so busy that they didn't even have time to fill out
reports on all the Spanish flu patients they found – decided that
“the situation demanded more drastic action than the Board had yet
adopted in order to safeguard the public health,” namely, “the
strictest quarantine measures” – and so the Board of Health
“issued an order closing today all commercial and industrial
establishments. Today [i.e.,
Monday, October 14],
Lancaster, from a business standpoint, was closed up tight. The food
shops, hotels, drug stores, banks, and newspapers are the only places
doing business today.”
They furthermore banned all social home-to-home visiting and
threatened violators with legal prosecution.
(Sunday night, one of the churches I pastor lost its Sunday school
teacher, 28-year-old Amy Althea Baxter, after ten days of sickness
from the Spanish flu,
while other members of her family were likewise ill.)
On
October 14, the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce's board of directors
assembled to “thoroughly approve the action of the Lancaster Board
of Health in closing the mercantile and industrial establishments of
the city until such time as the situation is believed to be under
control.”
As of this time, it was the case that “2,000 Lancaster homes are
affected by the epidemic, 6,000 persons are stricken, the death list
is increasing, and the city is approaching the limit of its
resources. Not one cheering note can be heard throughout the city.
Everywhere death and illness have usurped everything.”
That
afternoon, pleased with the Chamber of Commerce's cooperation, the
Board of Health met again and expressed hope that businesses could
reopen on Wednesday after being suitably “fumigated and aired,”
provided that things would not worsen.
Even so, they sent a telegram to Harrisburg asking for advice about
a proposal to fully bar travel in and out of the city for 24 hours.
The
local press commended the Board of Health's actions as “fully
justified,” saying that “we may all suffer some inconvenience by
the orders, but we must bear it with the thought that it is done for
the good of the entire citizenship, as well as for the individual.”
State authorities, meanwhile, warned that Pennsylvanians could
expect to be in it for the long haul, as “all reports from
afflicted districts indicate that conditions will become worse before
they become better. … Citizens of Pennsylvania, the call for
immediate personal service is imperative. The only solution of the
problem is by free community service, tending the sick, feeding the
hungry, and bearing the burdens of the weak. Both men and women are
needed and should report for duty to their local health authorities
or Red Cross chapter.”
That night, the president of the Lancaster City and County Medical
Society, Dr. W. H. Daniels, died as yet another Spanish flu
casualty.
On
Tuesday afternoon, October 15, the Board of Health met and resolved
to “lift the ban on commercial and industrial business, and all
places will be allowed to be open as usual, beginning Wednesday
morning. The ban on public places, amusements, saloons, churches,
etc., is still in force.”
This was so even though “the Lancaster General Hospital is crowded
almost to capacity with influenza and pneumonia patients, with no
let-up today in the number of cases being received..., nor do
indications point to an abatement in short order, as new patients are
being received continuously.”
Meanwhile, the businesses in New Holland had reopened that very
morning,
but Columbia saw enough new cases that “until conditions are
greatly improved, the drastic measures adopted by the Department of
Health will be enforced.”
Amid all this, the Lancaster Ministerial Association issued two
separate statements through the newspapers – the first, to reassure
the people of Lancaster that spiritual help would still be available
for the sick and dying:
It
has always been the spirit and policy of the ministers of the gospel,
of this city, represented by the Lancaster Ministerial Association,
to respond willingly and gladly to any form of ministerial service to
which they have been called by the people of the community, both in
and out of the churches, and both rich and poor, as well as by their
Master. At this particular time and in the midst of the present
epidemic, when so many of the homes of this city are stricken with
sickness and sorrow, the Ministerial Association, in behalf of the
ministers of the city, hereby reassures the people of this community
that, while gladly complying with the requests and regulations of the
Board of Health as to general visitation, the ministers of the city
are ready and willing to respond to calls for their services in all
emergencies.
The
second statement by the Lancaster Ministerial Association encouraged
Lancastrians to turn toward God:
Our
city, in common with many other communities, confronts at this time
an epidemic of sickness hardly paralleled in the experience of this
nation. On every hand, we find homes where sickness and sorrow have
made their entrance. The hearts of our people are asking now the
everlasting “why” with which our humankind have always faced
sickness, sorrow, and death. Our spirits cry out for solace and
comfort. In such an hour, there is one supreme place of refuge –
“The secret place of the Most High;” one unfailing source of
comfort in the words and fellowship of Him who said, “Lo, I am with
you always;” one Helper who has said, “My grace is sufficient for
thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” We beg all the
suffering, sorrowing children of our heavenly Father to turn to His
Word for counsel, to His loving heart for comfort, and to His
almighty arm for help. And to those men and women in our midst who
are strangers to our God and have not learned the blessedness of
trust in Christ, we say, with all earnest and love, that this hour of
trial and need is calling them, with us, to turn to God with
repentance and faith.
If
in this time of trial we shall one and all learn the way to the heart
of our Father-God and enter into fellowship with His Son, our Saviour
and Elder Brother, through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit,
then will even these afflictions be turned into blessings. May God
in His mercy and love sustain, support, and save us in this hour.
By
Wednesday, although the morning saw the death of Catholic priest Fr.
Henry Ludes, chaplain at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lancaster,
“our streets have lost their Sabbath-like appearance, a condition
that was brought about by the Spanish influenza. The enforced
idleness of thousands of our people was regarded in anything but a
holiday light by them, and there are few who did not return to their
interrupted occupations with extreme satisfaction. Absence from work
meant loss of income to most of them, as it meant loss to their
employers. And yet there are few people who did not approve the
closing order of our Board of Health. People are today going about
their usual business with a more cheerful air than they have for a
week...”
The mayor, meanwhile, suggested to businesses that they no longer
accept returns of sold goods.
As
Lancaster's business sector reopened, the Board of Health was
convinced, based on the reports they saw, that the influenza epidemic
was slowing down in Lancaster city (in terms of mortality, if not the
appearance of new mild cases of the flu), even though it was still
rising in the more rural regions of the county.
The board did nevertheless instruct all pastors “that clergymen
conducting religious services in influenza-infected houses must wear
the masks provided by the health authorities.”
In the midst of this, one Lancaster newpaper minimized the severity
of the epidemic, editorializing that it was milder than the 1889-1890
pandemic and asserting that “more than one-fourth of the ailing now
have been frightened largely into catching the disease.”
Yet another of Lancaster's newspapers – even while criticizing the
closing of businesses for its psychological impact in stoking panic
– nevertheless editorialized firmly in favor of church closures:
Invariably,
any restrictions placed upon public gatherings which include the
churches brings forth the plaint that man is running counter to God
and interfering with the plans and desires of Jehovah. The order to
close the churches was received in this community in a sensible way
and obeyed willingly. In fact, most of the local churches, if not
all, had arranged to close before the order was issued and when only
the suggestion had been made that it would be the wise thing to do.
In some other localities, however, overzealous religionists have
bitterly protested the order, and, following the example set by the
Kaiser, assumed to hold a brief for God. One, Samuel Upjohn, wrote a
letter to a Philadelphia paper demanding that the churches be kept
open at all costs, and complaining that the Board of Health by its
closing order does not allow the people to get near God. Another, S.
P. Finner, replying to Mr. Upjohn, said:
May
I suggest that Mr. Upjohn's God is a poor creature if He cannot be
reached through prayer at any place, regardless of whether it is in a
church or not? Does his God dwell only in the churches? If so, what
could He do before man built those churches? How could He make the
world, the universe, and man himself? Really, this plea is a relic
of the dark ages, and quite surprising in these days of presumed
enlightenment.
Peter
at Caesarea said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons” [Acts 10:34], and again Jesus said: “For He maketh
His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and unjust” [Matthew 5:45].
Neither
the roaring flood nor the devouring fire, the rending of the
earthquake nor the lightning's bolt show any more mercy to the church
building than is given to the saloon or the brothel. Nature, which
is the only visible evidence of a God, gives no indication of
hesitation when engaged in any one form of its innumerable
destructive agencies of venting its anger on the church if the
building is in the line of its effort. Mr. Upjohn's plaint that a
closed church or a destroyed one prevents the people from getting
near to God, if true, would put God through his hand agent of Nature
in the position of intentionally keeping a certain portion of mankind
at a distance, for at all times, some place or other, church edifices
are closed as a result of accidental destruction, or, as the legal
fraternity in drawing up a protecting proviso in a contract would
say, by an act of Providence.
If
it be true that God has a good reason for all that is wrought in the
name of nature, then it is obvious that there must be the imminence
of a greater evil when the closing of a church building through its
destruction is brought about through natural causes.
But
as Christ and Peter said, God makes no distinction between the just
and unjust. Smallpox and influenza are as contagious or infectious,
whichever way the disputing physicians may elect to hold, in the
church as they are in any other assemblage of mankind. Disease germs
are no respecter of persons. The question of whether their victims
are engaged in worshiping God or paying homage to the demon rum never
enters into the matter of human lodgment. Closing the churches was
the right think to do, as all sensible church people admit. It is
only the Upjohns who, if they cannot praise God from the housetops
seen by all men, cannot praise Him at all, enter foolish protest.
Gradually
but surely, the endeavor of the church as a whole is taking a new
trend. Less is heard of the old claim of close association with
heaven and an aloofness from earth. The work of the church is here,
and more and more its principal function is being directed in the
channel of bringing more heaven to earth. Again, in the eyes of the
law, the church is a human institution. Its members are free to hold
any theological beliefs they may choose, but in the practice of them
they cannot trespass on the rights of others, and among these rights
of the others is one of governmental protection, as, for instance,
the Board of Health order in question. The public will no more
submit to a dissemination of a disease, and especially one entailing
so large a portion of fatalities as the present epidemic of
influenza, by the church than by the brothel. When the point is
reached where any organization or association becomes a common peril
when it becomes a medium for the transmitting of disease, the purpose
of its being must be ignored in the matter of public safety. If God
is no respecter of persons, public safety can be no respecter of
assemblages.
By Thursday, October 17,
both of Lancaster's regular hospitals had become too full to
accommodate any other patients, requiring the opening of an
additional emergency hospital in the Moose Home.
Meanwhile, whereas Lititz and Columbia were still heavily afflicted
by influenza,
Ephrata's board of health planned to meet that evening to consider
“the question of the re-opening of the Ephrata public schools and
churches,”
but – the next night – “unanimously decided to keep the public
and Sunday-schools and churches closed for another week at least.”
Meanwhile, three pastors from the town of Paradise submitted the
following public message through the press:
In
view of the prevalence of the epidemic, the many cases of illness in
the homes of our community, and the bereavement by death, as
Christian ministers and “servants unto men,” not having the
privilege at present of speaking from our pulpits, we desire by the
courtesy of the public press to extend to you who are afflicted our
sympathy, the assurance of our daily intercessions in your behalf,
and our willingness to serve you by day or by night. We also wish to
call the attention of all Christian people to the opportunity they
now have, in unusual number, of showing forth the spirit of our Lord
by acts of kindness and helpfulness to the many who lack the
assistance their illness calls for.
The people of some
Lancaster County towns, such as Marietta, were indeed reportedly,
“like thousands of others elsewhere, scared and imagine themselves
worse than they really are. In the long run, however,” as one
newspaper opined, “it is a good thing for some people to be scared,
because in no other way can they be prevailed upon to take proper
care of themselves.”
By this time, Lancaster County had perhaps seen ten thousands of its
residents infected by 'Spanish influenza,' and “churches and
schools... are out of business temporarily.”
(In the rest of the county, the disease was still on the rise: New
Holland had 200 active cases by October 18, though with only one
death; still, 30% of silk mill employees and 10% of machine works
employees were unable to work due to their degree of illness.)
On Saturday, October 19, businesses once again closed early at 6:00
PM at the order of Lancaster's Board of Health, with most to remain
closed on Sunday, October 20.
At the same time, they received notice from acting health
commissioner Dr. B. Franklin Royer that the matter of school closures
was no longer a local matter – he ordered “that no schools be
opened in Lancaster county until further order.”
Some Lancaster residents
were by this point beginning to tire of “drastic rules” which
they believed to be “absolutely unnecessary” and even “nonsense,”
particularly in light of the risk of “financial injury or ruin,”
and one opinion-writer remarked that “the public is rapidly coming
to the conclusion that a police power which places the business and
industries of the State at the mercy of one man,” i.e., acting
health commissioner Dr. B. Franklin Royer, “is too dangerous to
continue unrestricted. … Men are gregarious, and no law or order
will prevent them from social gathering.”
Others, however, granted that the “financial loss to many was
unfortunate,” but suggested that “a real good civic lesson has
been taught by the circumstance, viz., that power to promote and
conserve the general weal, in measure equal to any emergency, always
abide with some branch of the civic administration.”
Since the church
buildings were to remain closed for Sunday, October 20, the Lancaster
Ministerial Association released yet another open letter to Lancaster
residents, providing spiritual reflections:
Again,
we, as representatives of the Churches and Christian Ministry of our
city, on the eve of another Sunday of abandoned public worship,
desire most profoundly to give our people, unitedly, a message of
spiritual help and triumph.
The
supreme assurance of our holy faith is the message of the cross, that
love conquers all things. It
is the message of our Master and our Father, the same as of old. God
our Father loves us all in life and in death, in sickness and in
health; none of these can prevent, all of them ought to help our
fellowship with Him. Every experience which may come to us in this
mortal life can be made a stepping stone nearer the joy of His life,
unquenchable and eternal.
“God
is our Refuge and Strength, a
very present Help in trouble.” This is eternally true for nations
and for individuals. Our own dear nation is finding it so; so are
countless homes and our soldiers at the front. His voice reassures
us in every struggle and trial. His message is our hope. He
abides when all else seems to fail.
Back of every need in life is our need of Him. None other can
answer or satisfy. More than ever before, our hearts cry out to the
living God.
The
whole world is learning again the blessedness and need of prayer.
Let us not pray for ourselves only, but for others, too. Some cities
are regularly using the noontide moment for offering up silent but
earnest prayer to the Giver of all good, that He will guard and guide
our nation, our armies and our allies. Shall not we somehow join in
this great river of intercession? God asks us to pray. Sickness and
death are not always the punishment for sin, but in sin and in
forgetfulness of Him, alone lies their sting. “Whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth,”
and yet His love for us is so unutterable that He gave His own Son to
die for our sins, to save us from our sins, to win us back to love,
the Love that triumphs over all things, and awaits us at
the moment of death....
When
we or our loved ones recover from our sickness, let us not fail to
render thanks for His mercy; when they are taken from us, let us use
the words of old, “Father, into Thy hands we commend their
spirits,” remembering, too, Him who said, “I go to prepare a
place for you, that where I am there ye may be also.”
When
the restrictions are removed, let us throng our churches and there,
as in our secret closets, lift up holy hands in prayer with contrite
hearts and dauntless spirits to plead for mercy on the world. Life
is a war, a ceaseless battle, but the victory of good is eternally
sure. Let us gladly fight, die if need be, suffer, sorrow, and serve
the cause of our transcendent Master who set us the one perfect
example. In this spirit, let the Churches of Lancaster, in a new and
higher sense, live, work, and pray together, and each member of them
feel the joy of true comradeship in the work and service of Christ.
So will the lesson of this experience bear good fruit until life
eternal.
Additionally, at least
two Lancaster churches – Trinity Lutheran and First Methodist –
chimed their church bells in the morning and evening to invite people
to participate in household worship services: “It was the beautiful
custom of our ancestors, when they could not go to church, to take
their Book of Worship and go
through the entire service while the congregation were at public
worship. The present closing of our churches should lead to the
revival of this practice. If such should be the result, the enforced
intermission of our Sunday services will not have been in vain.”
Trinity Lutheran Church, in particular, chimed out the tune to the
hymn “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”
“As the city sits in ashes, so many of her homes made desolate,”
one writer remarked, “the sound of the church bells, ringing the
old familiar tune in solemn measure, must have stirred up precious
memories and filled with comfort and peace the darkened chamber of
many a 'prisoner of hope.'”
At
a third church – St. John's Episcopal Church – the rector, Rev.
George Israel Browne, celebrated a private eucharistic prayer service
in his church with the assistance of two servers, and asked “all
the absent ones” to “silently, separately, and secretly join with
us in that Supreme Act of Intercession.”
Rev. Browne added a plea for all Lancaster pastors to realize “that
there is nothing either in the letter or spirit of the request of the
Board of Health (which we have all loyally obeyed) to prevent us from
saying our prayers alone in our churches at any given moment and to
invite all our people to join with us at that time and in that Act of
Prayer for our City, our Sick, our Nation, our Army, our Allies; for
God's Mercy on the World; for a new turning of all our hearts and
lives to Him.”
(This,
in spite of the Lancaster Board of Health's denial of permission for
Msgr. Kaul to do precisely that on behalf of Lancaster's Roman
Catholics!
Further, the undoubtedly sincere request by pastors to pray for the
American cause in the World War cannot be separated from the hounding
of Lancaster County pastors accused of insufficient patriotism:
Lutheran pastor Paul Schmieder, accused of unpatriotic remarks, was
forced to kiss an American flag and surrender nearly five months'
salary, and was then directed by police to leave the city, whereupon
he resigned his pastorate and fled to Philadelphia;
Reformed pastor George Seibel had his home defaced and rumors spread
that he defended the German cause in his sermons, despite his
financial contributions toward the American war effort and the
enlistment of his own son in the US Army;
and Mennonite pastors Joseph and John Boll, living north of Manheim,
were threatened with violence and had their homes defaced.
Some of these acts of mob action were alleged to be connected to the
rise of a group, the Li Lo Cos, which various sources compared to “a
modern Ku Klux Klan in Lancaster County.”
The county branch of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense
declared they were “satisfied that no such organization exists,”
but admitted that “unthinking citizens, from a misdirected excess
of patriotic zeal, have adopted methods for obtaining subscriptions
to the Fourth Liberty Loan that cannot be commended.”)
Monday,
October 21, brought the welcome news that the rate of increase in
influenza diagnoses had dropped sharply over the weekend, and that
both St. Joseph's Hospital and the Lancaster General Hospital were
now able to accept a few new patients again.
The Board of Health debated whether trolley windows should be kept
open or closed – the point was so contentious that the mayor walked
out of the meeting, after Dr. E. S. Snyder objected to citizens
making suggestions at the meetings – but kept them open.
Quarryville and Ephrata by this time were also seeing some recovery
from the epidemic.
On Tuesday, October 22, the priests of St. Mary's Catholic Church
submitted a request to the Board of Health for permission to open a
side door to the church, allowing individuals to enter for private
worship.
The Board of Health declined to give permission but promised to pass
this request to Dr. Royer.
The board's discussion turned to the matter of reopening churches
and schools, a suggestion strongly opposed by Dr. Snyder. The board
delegated one of its members, Charles G. Baker, to speak with Dr.
Royer.
When he did so later in the afternoon, Dr. Royer “congratulated
the Lancaster Board on its efficient handling of the epidemic in this
city,” but directed that churches “must be kept closed over next
Sunday.”
On
Wednesday, October 23, in spite of not having received the Board of
Health's blessing, St. Mary's Catholic Church advertised in the
morning newspaper that “the first side door of St. Mary's Catholic
church will be open to the members of St. Mary's parish for the
purpose of short visits to the Blessed Sacrament and to secure the
Sunday Visitor and Messenger and monthly envelopes. Door will be
open from 7am to 8pm.”
Noting this defiance of the Board's order, a local health officer
went to the church and ordered personnel to comply by locking up the
church. The Board, in commenting on the defiant move, “added that
if the door was not closed, this violation of a plain health measure
would be reported to the State Health, with possible prosecution.”
Beyond just the local Catholic scene, “school and church
authorities are now clamoring for permission to open.”
The epidemic continued to lighten by this point, such that “most
of the factories were running above 75 percent normal” and “the
stores are doing more business, showing that the people are beginning
to appreciate that the epidemic is under control in this city.”
(The petition of the Chamber of Commerce's Mercantile Trade Bureau
to allow businesses to stay open until nine o'clock in the evening on
Saturdays, however, did not win.)
Thursday,
October 24, suggested that perhaps the relaxed restrictions had been
premature, as “the 'flu' situation was anything but satisfactory
today. Seemingly it has taken a slightly new grip. The city seems
to have the epidemic under control very much better than some of the
county districts.”
The Board of Health was convinced that “the influenza epidemic is
fast running its course.”
(Ephrata and Columbia also saw similar improvement,
though the same was not true for other Lancaster County towns like
Terre Hill and Marietta.
The county's farming communities in particular were by this juncture
heavily afflicted by the Spanish flu.)
By Friday, the death rate in Lancaster remained high, and so –
after considerable debate – the majority of the Board of Health
elected to continue pursuing the same policies as before, regarding
Saturday business closures.
(One lay board member, Henry B. Cochran, argued strongly in favor of
letting businesses stay open, and suggested that the doctors were
insufficiently attentive to economic realities. He was thoroughly
outvoted.)
On
Saturday, October 26, the Board of Health met again and read a
message from Dr. Royer, which gave permission for Pennsylvanian
schools to reopen on October 30. In light of that deadline, Charles
Baker moved that churches be permitted to resume meeting on the same
date. “As there is church every day in the Catholic churches and
midweek services in all the others, church members are glad that the
ban is lifted.”
Later that night, most businesses in the city closed early at six
o'clock.
By this point, it could already be said that “everybody seems more
optimistic and cheerful than for some weeks past.”
In advance of the coming Sunday, the Lancaster Ministerial
Association invited churches to ring their bells, and issued another
public letter:
The
churches remain closed, but their voice is not silenced, neither is
their fellowship broken. The bonds of sympathy and service, of hope
and love, are stronger than ever. More than ever before are we
conscious of our deep need of the church. Chastened and subdued by
affliction and sorrow, our souls long for the courts of the Lord and
our hearts cry out unto the living God.
All
life has a deeper meaning since Jesus lived and died. By his sorrow
we have rest, and through his death abundant life has come to all.
Sickness and death have lost their gruesome dread and power, and in
the dark and mystic valley shines the light of an ineffable day. His
words are our comfort and cheer, and his gracious presence dispels
the gloom and loneliness of our broken companionships. “Be of good
cheer!” This brief word was thrice spoken by our great Friend. It
is a light in a dark place. It is the song of hope in the night. In
each of these three records, this word meets the soul in the great
moments of life as it stands at the parting of the ways – when the
guilt of sin burdens the soul, Matthew 9:2; in afflictions' waves,
Matthew 14:27; as the shadows of death gather, John 16:33.
Sin
is the great barrier to peace. It is the ultimate cause of all
suffering. Until sin is death with, life has no assuring outlook.
And so our Lord prepares the foundations of an abiding peace by his
word of pardon. The divine method of dealing with sin is to forgive
it. But forgiveness of sin is costly. It is no trifling matter.
The death of Christ on the cross is the price. “If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.” To
every honest suppliant who confesses and believes from the heart, he
says: “Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven.”
But
what of our sufferings? Sickness, sorrow, discipline, war, death!
“Thy billows are gone over me.” In this unprecedented hour of
gloom, is there any word to cheer? Yes. In all suffering, God draws
nigh. The love of our heavenly Father is never more real than in the
afflictions of his children. “The eternal stars shine out as soon
as it is dark enough.” Afflictions often sweep away the false and
deceiving and lead us to the surer foundations. In the midst of it
all it is He, unchanging and true. The very waves that threaten are
the path in which he meets us. “It is I: be not afraid.” Jesus
Christ is real, and the message of his evangel is profoundly real.
He abides when all else fades. And he gives us peace.
An
anxious mother wrote the other day out of her loneliness and sorrow:
“Tell me, shall I see my loved one again? If I were quite sure, I
should not grieve.” Hundreds of others in our city today know the
deep sorrow of that question. Beyond their usual wont, our aching
hearts and heavy feet are anxiously pressing the farther shores. Our
homes are broken and bereft. Our hearts feel the strange thrill in
the mystic arch as loved ones pass out. What does it all mean? Does
death end all? Is there a light upon the dark horizon? “If a man
die, shall he live again?” Listen! One stands on yonder side of
the grave; the crown of a fadeless life is on his brow, and he
answers: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Death does not
end all. It is only a bend in the road. Beyond are the Father's
home, the loved reunions, and life forevermore. In the deep shadows,
Jesus meet us: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
These
three words he speaks to us. They are meaningful and moving words:
Pardon, Peace, Power. Take them and make them thine. Back of these
words is Jesus. They have meaning through what he did. To each one,
he brings a great service. If we too shall be led out of self into
service, then shall we walk in his ways and be his disciples indeed.
“Be of good cheer.”
For
his part, United Evangelical pastor G. R. Mergenthaler addressed his
congregation (Bethany UE Church) in the newspaper as well:
Greetings
to Bethany United Evangelical Church, which is scattered but not
lost. We hope that this epidemic which has prevented your mutual
fellowship and communion has driven you close to God and kindled your
enthusiasm in devotion to Him.
In
this epoch of the world's life, maintain your faith in God. While
the loyal “Sons of Freedom” are turning the tide of barbarism and
carrying the evangel of liberty into a benighted land, let us keep
our communion with God intact. Pray unceasingly that our hands may
not be stained with the bloody deeds of barbarism. We are anxious
that you keep in mind our coming communion service. If the
quarantine is lifted, we will observe the above service on the 10th
of November.
On
Sunday, October 27, Lancaster's churches again did not convene any
gatherings. (Nor did churches meet in Mount Joy, Terre Hill, New
Holland, or other county towns.)
But, as on the Sunday previous, First Methodist Church rang their
chimes at 10:45am, Trinity Lutheran Church rang their chimes at
11:00am,
and thereafter St. John's Episcopal Church celebrated Holy Communion
with its priest and two servers at 11:30am, rang its bells at the
time for receiving the sacrament, and invited all its members to
“join in spirit with this united intercession and with such prayers
in the family circle as they may choose or alone if nothing else may
be convenient.”
The Lutheran Pastoral Association explained the reasoning for the
ringing of the chimes:
...so
that there may be a unanimity of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving
within the homes of the people. It is hoped that, as those who have
been unable to attend services have always been accustomed to unite
with the congregation each Sunday in the Lord's Prayer at the ringing
of the bells, so now one and all may unite in fervent petitions to
the throne of grace that soon this awful visitation resting upon our
people may cease and that again, by the grace of God, we may assemble
in His house for the glory of His name, the furtherance of His
kingdom, and the sanctification of our never-dying souls. As the
hearts of our people are weighed down with many forms of grief and
bereavement, may this coming Lord's Day [i.e., Sunday,
October 27] be a call for united
prayer that God may also “protect and prosper our beloved country
in this time of war, making us, by His grace, a people worthy to be
entrusted with victory, and that He may use, direct, and bless our
Army and Navy that they may become His chosen instruments in
overcoming wrong and establishing liberty, truth, and righteousness
in all the earth.”
As
Monday, October 28 arrived, news of Philadelphia's unilateral
decision to defy the State Health Department's orders and reopen
entertainment venues and bars led to Charles Baker placing a morning
telephone call to Dr. Royer to inquire whether this set a precedent
they themselves might employ – the answer was a firm no, asserting
that local health boards were required to enforce state-wide orders
“until you are officially authorized by this office to rescind
them.”
Still, that afternoon, two lawyers representing “the liquor and
amusement resort interests” met with the Lancaster Board of Health
to petition for the lifting of the ban on their business activities.
(For weeks, the liquor sellers of the city had been eager to find
ways around the restrictions: “a
few saloons are selling liquor quietly” from their side doors –
and the Board of Health threatened that “saloon-keepers will be
held responsible for violating the law.”
No doubt the liquor sellers had received some encouragement from
Judge Charles Landis' repeated expressions of his opinion that “the
Board of Health had no right to close the saloons, and that the order
was without sanction of the law.”)
This time, the Lancaster Board of Health was inclined to listen,
though mostly out of irritation with Dr. Royer's approach, to which
they objected in a formal resolution.
(They believed that it was unfair to let Philadelphia off the hook
but not give Lancaster the same consideration.)
Several representatives planned to go petition Dr. Royer to change
his mind in person, but Dr. Royer informed them it would be
pointless, as his mind would not be changed.
In consequence, the Lancaster Board of Health met again on Monday
evening and issued an order that would lift the quarantine entirely
on Wednesday morning.
The
following morning – Tuesday, October 29 – Dr. Royer telephoned
Lancaster mayor Harry L. Trout, warning him that if Lancaster did not
promise by noon to obey the state health directive, he would have it
enforced by police. After conferring with the city's lawyer B. J.
Myers, who claimed that Dr. Royer (apart from a meeting of the State
Board of Health) had no legal authority to keep Lancaster businesses
closed, Mayor Trout sent a reply via telegram, deferring to the
Lancaster Board of Health and asserting that he would not permit any
Lancaster city police officers to cooperate with Dr. Royer's orders.
That afternoon, Dr. Royer issued a public statement to the press
that “the ban will positively not be lifted in Lancaster tomorrow,
and he is prepared to take drastic action if the local authorities
make any attempt to defy his authority.”
In a telephone call with Lancaster theatre manager Charles Howell,
Dr. Royer released the information that the ban would officially be
lifted, not on October 30, but at noon on November 5.
And that night, health board president James Shand received a letter
from Dr. Royer asserting that he was revoking the portion of the
Lancaster Board of Health's resolution “affecting theatres, moving
picture establishments, dance halls, public meetings, saloons, and
wholesale and retail sale of alcoholic stimulants.”
The
decisive day arrived: Wednesday, October 30, 1918. Lancaster's
theatres, hesitant to transgress the state health order, chose
voluntarily to remain closed.
But to ensure the compliance of the saloons and other liquor
sellers, ten health officers arrived in town that morning to serve
papers to each alcohol seller in Lancaster, notifying them of their
legal orders to remain closed. In spite of their efforts, “quite a
number of liquor places opened for business this morning, while the
proprietors of others considered it the part of wisdom to await
further developments.” At noon, the Board of Health met again and
chose to stick to their guns, refusing to assist in the enforcement
of Dr. Royer's orders, such that “the matter now rests entirely
with the State health authorities.”
In
the afternoon, the state health officers sent by Dr. Royer posted
placards on any open liquor dealer, proclaiming the venue “Closed
by order of the Commissioner of Health of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania,” and his representative Dr. T. H. A. Stites announced
that Dr. Royer had consulted the state's attorney general about
bringing lawsuits against any sellers not in compliance with state
orders.
That evening, many churches celebrated by holding midweek prayer
services, as did First Presbyterian Church, Grace Lutheran Church,
Bethany United Evangelical Church, Grace United Evangelical Church,
St. John's Reformed Church,
and the Church of God.
Also that night, Dr. Royer issued a warning that open liquor sellers
in Lancaster the following morning would be risking arrest.
(Dr. Stites pledged that the same procedure would be followed in
Ephrata,
which was rumored to have followed Lancaster's example in lifting the
state restrictions without state authorization,
though Ephrata's board of health subsequently denied these reports.)
Overall, of seventy places licensed to sell alcohol, only thirty
were initially in compliance with Dr. Royer's order, and another
eight fell into compliance after being warned, leaving thirty-two
open in defiance of the regulations, with some even removing the
'Closed' placards placed there by the state health officers.
On
Thursday, October 31, as the Lancaster Public Library at last
reopened,
the morning found that most of the prior day's defiant liquor dealers
had fallen into compliance after being warned that thirty days in
prison could be the cost of continued defiance.
Seventeen saloon-keepers persisted, however – mainly smaller ones
outside the business district – and were referred to state lawyer
John Coyle for prosecution.
In
the afternoon, the Lancaster Board of Health issued a statement
denying Dr. Royer's public accusation that they were beholden to the
liquor industry.
During the course of the day, several additional saloons opened, as
their “proprietors mustered courage enough to throw open the doors
of their establishments to customers.”
Ordinarily,
a Halloween festival would have been celebrated through the streets
of the city, but orders to cancel all Halloween celebrations on
account of the Spanish influenza had been given over a week earlier,
and were still followed even after the Lancaster Board of Health
declared other restrictive measures to be lifted.
The result, by one account, entailed “darkened, almost deserted
streets..., strange quiet, the absence of funsters..., even the
pumpkin in the window was strangely missing. Doorbells remained
unrung, steps were stationary, and confetti, corn, and ticklers were
conspicuous by their absence,” which all “brought home...
forcibly... the seriousness of the situation to young America.
Similar conditions held true in every borough and hamlet in Lancaster
county.”
Others thought things less quiet, griping that beyond the limits of
downtown Lancaster, youngsters “were loose, just as usual, smashing
doors with cabbage butts and stuffed clubs, ringing doorbells and
throwing corn and confetti. And they exercised their lungs pretty
well with tin horns. They indulged in pranks usual to kiddies and
had a bully time, the police making no attempt to disturb them...”
There were, however, prayer services at 7:45 PM in the city's
Christian and Missionary Alliance church.
(This was so even though one Lancaster doctor urged the public “to
stay away from all public gatherings or assemblies, such as churches,
schools, places of amusement, etc., until the present epidemic is
practically over.”)
And so October closed, with Lancaster having had 7,550 cases of
Spanish flu, leaving 301 residents dead – countywide, over a
thousand dead.
The
next day – Friday, November 1 – a few additional saloons chose to
re-open, seeing no sign of prosecutions being initiated as of yet.
One saloon-keeper was quoted as remarking, “We have called Royer's
bluff, and he has backed down.”
“There is no trouble getting a drink in Lancaster,” one writer
quipped. “Indeed, there was little trouble getting liquor any time
during the closed (?) period proclaimed on account of the flu. And
it is known that the 'stuff' went to other places from Lancaster in
actual wholesale quantities.”
John Coyle refused to take any action in the matter.
St. Mary's Catholic Church reopened with three masses to mark the
Feast of All Saints.
St. John's Episcopal Church likewise celebrated the eucharist twice
that morning and gathered again in the evening,
and Memorial Presbyterian Church's choir resumed holding rehearsals.
However,
Friday night – with first news arriving before the churches held
their evening worship – brought a far greater shock: an order by
Dr. Royer imposing a quarantine of the entire city of Lancaster:
“Whereas every other available process for securing an observance
of the orders of the Commissioner of Health in the City of Lancaster
has been exhausted, therefore I, Benjamin Franklin Royer, Acting
Commissioner of Health, have... declared the City of Lancaster to be
under quarantine and have directed the railway companies, the street
railway companies, and other common carriers to discontinue after
twelve o'clock midnight this day the carrying of passengers to and
from the City of Lancaster except Federal and State officials and
representatives on official business … This action is taken for the
purpose of protecting the people living outside of the City of
Lancaster from any further possible dissemination of influenza due to
premature relaxing of restrictions; for the purpose of protecting
other municipalities from similar lawlessness under the protection of
duly constituted authorities which might result from the precedent
which the City of Lancaster would establish; and for the purpose of
preserving the dignity and efficiency of the laws which have been
adopted by this Commonwealth for the protection of the lives and
health of its people.”
What
this meant, given its timing on a Friday night, was extreme: “Farmers
coming to the city markets” – for Saturday was to be market day –
“will not be allowed to cross the city line. Farmers who entered
the city... before midnight will not be allowed to depart for their
homes in the county. Iron workers, munition workers, and all other
war laborers who are employed in plants outside the city will be
prohibited from returning to their homes in the city. Employees of
industrial and mercantile establishments located within the city, who
reside outside of Lancaster, will not be allowed to enter the city to
go to work.”
This would “mean the loss of thousands of dollars to merchants and
farmers and others.”
To secure the quarantine, the State Department of Health directed
that detour signs be placed at all roads leading into the city,
with guards also stationed there to ensure the full lockdown of
Lancaster.
This would take place for at last three major roads by 2:15 AM on
Saturday morning.
Lancaster
was promptly thrown into an uproar, for “the announcement of the
quarantine was like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.”
Late into the night, Lancaster's mayor and assorted business and
civic leaders met at the Hamilton Club to discuss the situation in
whispered tones, but dispersed at 11:15 PM without comment.
As Friday faded into the early hours of Saturday, the local train
station was still selling tickets by one o'clock AM, as the official
text of Dr. Royer's order had not yet reached them.
At two o'clock in the morning, health board president James Shand
fulminated against Dr. Royer: “He cannot close this city. It's all
humbug. He does not have the authority.”
Once the train station did receive Dr. Royer's order and start
following it, a riot started there in the early hours, as “several
hundred government employees waited for trains to take them to
Coatesville and Middletown.” Upon being informed by railroad
police what had happened, “the workers made speeches condemning the
order and angrily loitered about the station. They finally boarded
cars of the Conestoga Traction Company and took the slower and longer
routes to their places of employment.” The traction company
“apparently regarded the Royer proclamation as a joke, and
continued to haul passengers into and out of the city in direct
violation of the quarantine ruling.”
(Shortly after noon, Dr. Royer would give an order exempting all
Lancaster munitions workers from the lockdown.)
Furthermore, Franklin & Marshall College president H. H. Apple
telephoned Dr. Royer to object to the prohibition against their
college football team leaving the city to play an away game against
Ursinus College.
When
news reached the farmers' market, there was considerable panic, and
many farmers began packing up their produce in hopes of hurrying out
of the city before all obstacles were in place, requiring the chief
of police to assure them that there would be no problems.
Throughout the morning, “telephones of Mayor Trout's office and
the newspaper offices... were kept busy answering inquiries from all
parts of the county,” to which the reply was given not to worry,
because “Lancaster is paying no attention to Royer's orders.”
Later that morning, while the Chamber of Commerce hoped to pressure
local saloon-keepers into obeying the closure order so as to appease
Dr. Royer,
the Board of Health met in special session, passing resolutions
condemning Dr. Royer's actions as done in “a spirit of
vindictiveness,” and so “unwarranted, unfair, and arbitrary and
not founded upon the true health conditions” in Lancaster.
By this point, at least two state troopers had already arrived in
Lancaster's Penn Square to assist in enforcing the lockdown,
while other armed guards arrived to guard the ropes crossing the
turnpikes at ten and eleven o'clock.
(These men were, however, evidently quite happy to give people
directions for circumventing the roadblocks and making it in and out
of the city.)
At
noon, shortly before Lancaster County's medical inspector Dr. J. L.
Mowery would resign his position out of rage at Dr. Royer,
Mayor Trout gathered the city council, which unanimously voted to sue
in court for an injunction against the lockdown order.
At the meeting, Dr. Snyder of the health board was heard to declare
that, since Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh had first appointed Dr. Royer as
Acting Health Commissioner while the state legislature had been in
recess, they now regarded Dr. Royer as an “illegal officer”
rather than the true head of the State Health Department.
The
mayor and the city's lawyer knew that their case would receive a
favorable hearing from Judge Charles I. Landis (whose vocal opinion
limiting Dr. Royer's authority was one of the reasons for Dr. Royer's
quarantine order in the first place).
However, the judge was temporarily at Millersville, outside the
limits of the city. With all major roads blocked off, Trout and
Myers had to slip covertly out of town and take the back roads
through the countryside. (At least six roads out of the city
remained still unblocked.)
Reaching Millersville at three o'clock in the afternoon, they handed
him the council's bill of equity and informed him of the roadblocks
on all the turnpikes.
Their request received its expectedly warm reception, and Judge
Landis granted the injunction, to no one's surprise.
Reception
of the matter in the press was a bit varied – the Democrat-leaning
Lancaster Intelligencer
found fault evenly distributed among “the 'lawless' Republican
State Machine,” represented by Dr. Royer, “appointee of Governor
Brumbaugh, protege first of the Penrose machine and now of the Vare
machine,” and “the 'lawless' Republican County 'Machine,'”
represented by municipal authorities who months earlier had “turned
loose on the community a string of desperate criminals to wreak their
vengeance of ravishment and murder” and whose aims aligned with the
Li Lo Cos.
Likewise, The Lancaster Examiner
declared that both the local health board and the state health
department were afflicted with 'Mars-itis,' war fever – that both
were “succumbing to the fighting blood surging through their
veins.” They did, however, tend to favor the health board's
position as the “exhibition of common sense,” observing that
“many citizens of Lancaster have felt from the beginning that
certain of the regulations and restrictions were inaugurated and
enforced more from a love of exhibition of power than for the
sanitary benefits to be derived,” and so “feel resentful against
further observance when one set of health officials approves and
another condemns.” Comparing Dr. Royer to Kaiser Wilhelm (against
whom the United States was at war!) and gripped in “the delirium of
supposed autocratic authority,” they granted that the State Health
Department did legally have wide police powers but complained that
“its powers have been carried to an extent where it has gathered to
itself the idea it can do and act without respect to or consideration
of either the law or public opinion.”
But
other Lancaster press organizations put the blame even more squarely
on Dr. Royer, and him alone. The News-Journal
viewed Dr. Royer's actions through the lens of “vindictiveness and
petty personal spite,” saying that “like a child with a new whip,
he spoiled for an opportunity to apply the lash, and again like a
child he timidly overlooked the big offenders, like Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh, and made his attack on the little fellow,” i.e.,
Lancaster.
Going further, the Republican-leaning Daily New Era
slurred Dr. Royer as “a new Dictator,”
mocked him as “Czar Royer,”
declared that “it is time for the people to rebel,” and called on
Gov. Brumbaugh to either rebuke Royer or remove him from office.
(Where the Democratic papers saw Dr. Royer as part of a corrupt
Republican machine and thus told people that the best way to oppose
Royer was to “go to the polls next Tuesday and vote the Democratic
ticket,”
this Republican paper saw Dr. Royer's actions as a political ploy to
manipulate the Lancaster Board of Health into angering
Anti-Prohibitionists and somehow inciting people to angrily “vote
against the Republican ticket” – for which they saw the rightful
way to oppose Royer being for Lancastrians to “go to the polls on
Tuesday next and vote for the Republican ticket.”)
Once
Judge Landis had given his ruling, the court order was delivered to
Lancaster sheriff Christian G. Garber, who sent a copy to Dr. Royer
via telegram and communicated to the local railroad companies, being
served to the railroad agent at 4:40 PM.
Thirty minutes later, at the Stevens House, the mayor and his party
served the order to state health agent E. O. Zealy and to state
police sergeant Ely, while Sheriff Garber's deputies traveled around
to serve the same order to the men brought in to guard the roads.
All acquiesced promptly; Sgt. Ely in particular expressed relief.
By six o'clock, the train station had again begun selling tickets.
The press opined that the city's lockdown, however brief, had “hurt
the business badly on Saturday because so many people throughout the
county believed that, if they came into the city, they could not
leave it.”
On
Sunday, November 3, as Dr. Royer's local representatives slipped out
of the city,
Lancaster's churches were all able to resume their services,
including four Roman Catholic churches (Sacred Heart, St. Joseph's,
St. Mary's, and St. Anthony's), two Mennonite churches (East Chestnut
Street and East Vine Street), three Methodist churches (First, Broad
Street, Lancaster Avenue, and St. Paul's), three Presbyterian
churches (First, Memorial, and Bethany), ten Lutheran and Evangelical
Lutheran churches (Emmanuel, Advent, Grace, Christ, St. Mark's, St.
John's, St. Stephen's, Trinity, Mt. Calvary, and Church of the
Redeemer), six Reformed churches (First, Faith, St. Peter's, St.
Paul's, St. Andrew's, and St. Stephen's), an Episcopalian church (St.
John's), a Baptist church (Olivet), an Evangelical church (Pearl
Street), two United Evangelical churches (Bethany and Grace), a
Church of the Brethren (Charlotte Street), and a United Brethren
church (Laurel Street), as well as Moravian, Church of God, and
Church of Christ congregations, plus Unitarian and Spiritualist
pseudo-churches.
Moravian
pastor H. A. Gerdsen pledged to preach in the morning on “The
Epidemic” and in the evening on “Jesus' Statement Concerning the
Departed,” perhaps the most apt selections for the age of
influenza.
Other churches also advertised the sermon titles for November 3: at
St. John's Lutheran Church, the pastor would preach on “Gratitude
and Thanksgiving for Deliverance From the Pneumonia Epidemic”; at
Lancaster Avenue Methodist Church, Rev. Samuel Johnson would preach
first on “The Christian's Glorious Hope, or Leaving the Tent and
Moving into the Mansion,” and later on “God's Appeal to the
Undecided”; at St. James Church, Rev. Twombly would preach first on
“The New Death,” and later on “The Epidemic and God's Message
to Us”; at Memorial Presbyterian Church, Rev. H. W. Haring would
preach first on “The Church in a World of War,” and later on “The
Church in a World of Sorrow”; at St. Andrew's Reformed Church, Rev.
J. Hunter Watts would preach first on “The Privilege and Duty of
the Christian at a Time Like This,” and later on “The Divine
Magnet”; at St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Joseph L.
Gensemer would preach on “What to Do During These Solemn Days”;
at First Presbyterian Church, Rev. John T. Reeve would preach first
on “When Thou Art in Tribulation,” and later on “The Break-up
of a World”; at Trinity Church, the pastor would preach first on
“The Place of Providence in World Life,” and later on “The
Difficulties That Jesus Met”; at the Church of God, Rev. George R.
Hoverter would preach first on “How to Help the Pastor,” and
later on “Fishing On the Wrong Side”; at Faith Reformed Church,
the pastor would preach first on “The City of God,” and later on
“Starving the Soul”; at First Methodist Episcopal Church, the
evening sermon was to be on “Out of the Depths”;
and at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Rev. P. George Sieger, home on
furlough from chaplaincy at Camp Wadsworth, would preach on “The
Christian Soldier in Modern Warfare.”
Some
churches, like First Reformed Church, advertised the precautions they
would continue to take against the spread of influenza at their
churches: requesting the ill to stay at home, brief Sunday school,
and windows open during all services for ventilation, “in order to
prevent the church services in this church from being an agency for
the distribution of the disease of the present epidemic.”
Meanwhile, Trinity Lutheran pastor J. E. Whittaker published an
appeal in advance of the services:
Tomorrow
[i.e., Sunday, November 3],
the churches of our city will once more open their doors for divine
worship. The past month, our people were deprived of the privilege
of gathering around the altar of God to offer their prayers and sing
their praise. This is a unique experience in the history of the
Church in America. It reminds us of those ages in the past when the
ban was placed on the churches because of sin and disobedience. The
measure was always effective and brought the desired results.
In
the present case, back of the Board which closed the churches, is the
outward cause of the plague which has desolated so many of our
American homes. And back of the plague is that hidden cause which
none but the Almighty sees and knows aright. Pain is penalty: the
word denotes it. A plague is a stroke: someone delivers it. A
scourge is a lash: there must be a hand to wield it. And the primary
cause is in the sin which infects our lives. At bottom, the closing
of our churches is God's ban upon our people. We have forgotten His
love; we have despised His mercies; we have neglected the ordinances
of His house; in the midst of our successes, we have not given Him
the praise. And since the goodness of God is designed to bring us to
repentance, His severity should lead us to confess with the prophet,
“We have sinned and have committed iniquity, and have done
wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Thy precepts and
from Thy judgments: therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil,
and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all His
works which He doeth: for we have not obeyed His voice” [Daniel
9:5,14].
And
what shall be the outcome in our case? The half-emptied churches
should be filled with worshipping assemblies. The half-hearted
worshippers should come with a new purpose of heart, full of
penitence and praise. And as the church bells ring their welcome,
the soul's response should well up in the words of the psalmist, “I
was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the
Lord” [Psalm 122:1]. And if the desolation which has swept from
coast to coast and wrought sad havoc in our homes, is followed by
sincere repentance, ensuring pardon and comfort and peace, the
sacrifice will have served its divine purpose as surely as has the
sacrifice of life on the battle front in the attainment of the
objects which have brought us into this great world conflict. We
should settle down to this conviction, “It is the Lord;” and
bowing to His will in true submissiveness of spirit, we should say,
“Let him do what seemeth Him good” [1 Samuel 3:18]. And so on
the morrow, let us, as a Christian people, “Enter into His gates
with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” [Psalm 100:4].
Other
county towns also saw the resumption of public worship gatherings in
the churches. This was the case in New Holland, where St. Stephen's
Reformed Church's new pastor Rev. C. G. Bachman, scheduled to preach
his first sermon on October 6, was now able to do so a month later.
In Columbia, after a month shuttered, the churches reopened, and
“the streets presented a lively appearance as hundreds of
worshipers emerged from their home to attend the services. All the
churches report a good attendance, and a general good feeling seemed
to pervade the people as they were again privileged to attend divine
service.”
The same was the case in Mountville, where the local health board
permitted churches to open their doors again to hold “their first
services in more than a month.”
During
Sunday afternoon, Dr. Royer's stated plans to call a meeting of the
State Health Department were foiled, as he could not reach a number
of the advisory board members. He did, however, note that he had not
been formally served with Judge Landis' injunction, and so regarded
the quarantine as still in force. Locally, Lancaster carried on as
if nothing had ever happened – the trains had started running again
Saturday night, the trolleys had never bothered stopping, and the
orders from Judge Landis served to clear obstructions from the
roads.
As
Monday, November 4 arrived, it no longer became worthwhile for Dr.
Royer to bother Lancaster, since he had already announced the
quarantine would end the following day. (Besides which, he was now
quite preoccupied fighting the same fight against a larger but
equally intransigent city: Pittsburgh.)
He did express his displeasure with Judge Landis' “unwarranted
assumption of judicial authority, without legal effect” at least.
Dr. Royer himself came in for harsh criticism from Lt. Gov. Frank B.
McClain, a native Lancastrian, who labeled Royer's handling of the
situation as “a disgrace and a stain upon the administration” of
Gov. Brumbaugh.
But Dr. Royer issued a sharp statement of his own, announcing that
“were it not for the fact that the health conditions in the city of
Lancaster are improving to such an extent that the ban may be safely
lifted on Tuesday, I would request the governor to declare the city
under martial law and enforce the physical closing of the few (15 out
of 75) defiant saloon-keepers, a power which unquestionably exists.”
That night, the city's four Catholic parishes rallied to fundraise
for the war effort.
Tuesday,
November 5 opened with still more Spanish flu deaths in the city –
including a nearly-22-year-old Lancaster General Hospital nurse named
Violetta Groff, who had been sick for three weeks.
But the day was largely taken up with the election. The results, as
the night bore out, were quite favorable to the Republican Party,
giving a strong victory to their gubernatorial candidate William C.
Sproul with majorities in nearly every city district.
The New Era was
thrilled: “The result in the State shows that its people place
loyalty to the nation and devotion to high principles and ideals
above personal support of an individual who demands servile
submission to his will above any appeal to base, mercenary, and
selfish considerations.”
The Intelligencer
blamed internal dissension among Democrats over “the liquor
question” for depression turnout at the same time Republicans'
“partisan feeling” was stoked by misinformation.
Life
in Lancaster continued as before: Wednesday morning brought the death
of Sister Corina, a 38-year-old nun who had been nursing Spanish flu
patients and had contracted it herself.
The city's young women volunteers in general received considerable
praise for their service to the community: “Undismayed and
unafraid, these young women went about caring for sick and needy
children, delivering broth prepared by the Hamilton Club to the sick
in homes and hospitals; taking around in their automobiles the Red
Cross investigators, the volunteer nurses, the visiting nurses, and
the busy doctors whenever they needed a driver or their cars were
disabled. While working so unselfishly, some of the service girls
dropped from the ranks, overcome by the dread disease.”
As for the Board of Health, they had discontinued regular meetings,
although new cases of the Spanish influenza continued to be reported
by the medical personnel of the city.
It became a topic of discussion as the Lancaster County Medical
Society met that Wednesday afternoon.
By
Saturday, it could be said that “new cases of influenza are
comparatively few in this city; here the grip of the plague has been
pulled loose,” although “in some of the boroughs, as for instance
Marietta and Lititz, the disease still has a firm hold.”
That night, Elizabethtown's church bells rang out simultaneously at
eight o'clock to inform residents that their churches would reopen on
Sunday, November 10,
and the churches reopened that day in Marietta also.
It would also be – by Gov. Brumbaugh's proclamation – “a day
of prayer for the passing of the influenza epidemic.”
For Lancaster churches, life could at last begin adjusting to a
post-epidemic world.
It was to be celebrated also as a world freed – for a generation –
from worldwide war: “now that the way has been opened for a world
peace, our hearts go out in a prayer of thanksgiving.”
(Sunday afternoon, St. Anthony's Catholic Church celebrated a
belated All Souls' Day with a prayer service in their cemetery.)
Moments before three o'clock on Monday morning, all the church bells
of the city again rang out – announcing the signing of the
armistice.
Three Brief Concluding
Thoughts
Several
things should be apparent, after the above review of six historical
cases. First, Americans then and Americans now are, in certain
respects, not so different. Many people now are afraid, but so were
many people then. Some people now look to conspiracy theories for
answers, such as seeing COVID-19 as a Chinese or North Korean
bio-weapon; but so did people then who saw the 'Spanish flu' as a
German bio-weapon. Quite a few people now have misgivings about the
economic impact of public health orders that restrict business
operations; but the same was true then, too. Some people now, even
still, wonder if the matter isn't blown out of proportion; but even
then, during one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, some
people took it lightly even to the bitter end. Some people presently
rail against civic authorities whose measures they perceive as
excessive; but the same was true then, too. Some people today wrestle with the wisest and most faithful course for churches to take; and those questions were asked and discussed then, too.
Second,
Reno is flat wrong about the general behavior of society with regard
to worship gatherings in churches. By and large, church buildings in
1918 did not keep their doors open. Public worship assemblies were
not held there. In only one of the six cases were there outdoor
worship gatherings (and whether this was advisable in light of the
public health situation may be readily contested). Note also that,
in many of these cases, the decision to suspend public meetings in
churches was made by local municipal health authorities, with which
the churches readily cooperated (and in some cases volunteered).
There appears to have been relatively little discussion about whether
the health boards had the authority to make that decision, even when
unpopular – no doubt a sad testament to our present state of
division and eroded trust as a society.
Third,
the churches survived! In every place, the churches continued to
live on while temporarily scattered. Ministry kept happening. The
people really did worship in their homes, really did read the letters
their pastors sent, really did keep praying. They dearly felt the
pang that suspended gatherings induced, the loss of something
precious. Some pastors publicly expressed hope that the temporary
closures, teaching via deprivation, might stimulate wider recognition
of the preciousness of gathering 'around the altar of God.' Rather
than convincing people that the church (or its physical location) was
dispensable, it appeared to have the opposite effect, at least for a
season: people surging back to the gatherings, back to the altar.
Rather than sidelining the church as irrelevant to society's life, it
provided a platform for the churches to join their voices and call on
whole communities to repent, believe, worship, pray, love, and serve.
(The gospel ministry of God's people is absolutely an essential
service, supplying food and drink for the soul of greater objective
value than all that the neighborhood grocery store can hold. We are
to provide it, however, in ways that show sacrificial love to others
rather than being cavalier about their health and life; but to show
sacrificial love with wisdom and prudence requires innovative
ressourcement in this present season of ours.) Might we not today
hope for many churches to survive or even perhaps thrive on the other
side of this challenging season? Might we not at least take cues
from a past generation, adapting them to the present state of society
and technology, and find a productive way forward?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
