The Four Chaplains, my dad, Boy Scouts and Religious Tolerance

me | 1995 | me

[Daveinyork]

I wrote the following in 1995, and decided to post it because I've been told that yesterday was the anniversary of the sinking of the USS Dorchester taking with it the Four Chaplains, and the Boy Scouts have been getting some attention lately. If I have posted incorrectly, I apologize. I'm not very tech savvy:

I wrote the following about my father, and his ideals, two years ago. I am up-dating, because Monday, April 3, 1995,at 11:50 PM, my father's soul was taken into the arms of the Lord. He wore size 6 ½ shoes, but he left giant footprints.

In 1952, my father's picture was on the cover of the National Jewish Monthly, the national publication of the B'nai Brith. Also on the picture were several members and leaders of Boy Scout Troop 37, of which my father had been scoutmaster since 1940. What was truly noteworthy about that picture was that most of the boys shown were not Jewish. The reason for the picture, and the subject of the related cover story, was that Troop 37 , in tiny, little, York, PA, was the first Boy Scout Troop in the nation in which boys in all major American religions had qualified for their respective religious awards. This was the result of my father's deeply held conviction in the American ideal of tolerance.

In 1940 my father and Rabbi Alexander D. Goode were asked to found and lead a Boy Scout troop to be sponsored by the local B'nai Brith chapter, and to be based at the local Jewish Community Center. The condition under which they agreed to do this was that the troop would be open to all boys regardless of religious affiliation. This was a revolutionary concept for 1940 - especially in semi-rural communities like York, because most Boy Scout troops were affiliated with churches and generally the membership was composed of the sons of the parishioners, therefore, all of the same denomination.

That Rabbi Goode believed in this concept of multi-sectarian tolerance was to be proven beyond all doubt within three years. The Rabbi became a chaplain in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was assigned to the USS Dorchester sailing the North Atlantic. The ship was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine and was sinking when it was discovered that there were not enough life jackets to go around. Rabbi Goode and the three other ship's chaplains - two Protestant ministers and a Roman Catholic Priest - gave up their own life jackets, linked arms, said a prayer, each in his own way, and went down with the ship. They have since been immortalized as the Four Chaplains.

My father was a young bachelor in his mid-twenties when he became the first scoutmaster of the newly founded Troop 37, a position in which he was to serve for the next twenty-two years. He is the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who came here seeking opportunity. (From what I have been told, the region of their origin was ruled by a tolerant, and enlightened Hapsburg Emperor. Therefore, I think that they were not fleeing oppression.) Not very long after they left, World War I broke out, so it was lucky that they came when they did. Later, any family members whom they left behind became victims of the Third Reich.

Once here, my grandparents opened a series of restaurants in New York City, one of which was next to a pool hall frequented by ex-convicts. Whenever one of them was sent to prison, my grandmother sent him packages of food, and, having eaten many a meal that she cooked, I would imagine that it was a substantial improvement over the jailhouse fare. As a result she never had to worry about being robbed.

In about 1921, my grandparents and my great uncle took over a hotel and farm in Fallsburg, NY in the Catskill Mountains. In about 1928, a typhoid epidemic bankrupted the hotel, and nearly killed my father. My grandmother's younger brother was managing a textile mill in York, PA, so the family came here. A year later the nation was plunged into the Great Depression, and my father, aged 15, dropped out of school to go to work at that mill. Meanwhile my grandparents opened another restaurant and, later, one of Pennsylvania's best Kosher catering services.

On the night that he arrived in York, my dad had his first lesson in intolerance. The neighborhoods in which they had lived in New York City were predominantly Jewish, and the Catskill mountains have been a Jewish enclave. York was the first place in which he had lived which was not predominantly Jewish. His first night in York he witnessed a Ku Klux Klan parade whose route took the hooded wonders right past my dad's new home on the way to the hill on which they burned a cross every Saturday night. This has haunted his memories ever since. This would make him more than a bit apprehensive about his future here in York.

This lesson in intolerance would shape his attitudes, and mine, ever after. I grew up in a neighborhood in which very few Jews lived. Although my high school was racially integrated, the schools that I attended never had more than about a half dozen of us. I don't remember ever being confronted by real anti-Semitism, other than a few ignorant, but harmless, remarks that kids make from time to time. There was a certain amount of racial prejudice, but only among the less than enlightened classes. If I repeated, at home, any of those ignorant remarks regarding race, I was threatened with what would now be called child abuse.

My father's scout troop reflected his attitudes toward tolerance that he drilled into me. I remember sitting in a cabin at camp on Sunday mornings with boys and leaders of our troop. The Catholic boys were required to attend mass, so they were transported to the nearest Catholic Church. The rest of us held a multi-sectarian service in which the boys were encouraged to participate. This differed from a so-called non-sectarian service in which it would be attempted to purge everyone's specific sets of beliefs so that nobody would be offended. Multi-sectarian services attempted to include as much of each of the participating religions as time permits.

(In the early 1980's, some of Dad's former scouts held a surprise testamonial dinner in his honor. Over two hundred people were in attendance, and cards and letters poured in from every corner of the country. Several of these letters mentioned two things about our camping trips. Dad's famous vegetable soups, which was "rumoured to contain too much pepper," but warmed us through and through on cold autumn or winter nights, and his equally warm Sunday morning services, which were "short on ceremony, but long on feeling.")

So, we gathered around the fireplace on fall or winter Sunday mornings - Jews, Protestants, Lutherans, Blacks, Whites, rich kids, middle class kids, and poor kids. Some of us were asked to read a passage from the Bible that expressed our own beliefs, and Dad gave the sermon. The sermon was always the same - expressing Dad's definition of tolerance, which matches our nation's ideal of tolerance. He would roll up his sleeve and say" If you cut my arm, the blood would be red." Then he pointed to a few other boys and said "If you cut their arms, their blood would be red too." He was celebrating our similarities, looking for the common ground, reflecting his opinion that underneath the superficialities of race, religion, or national origin, we were basically alike in many ways. This contrasts sharply with today's multiculturism, which celebrates our diversity, our differences. The latter is divisive, the former unites.

In its fifty-plus year existence, Troop 37 has served more than eight hundred boys, awarded the rank of Eagle to more than one hundred boys, (including my brother and me, of course) including boys of all major religions and, to my knowledge, two of the only three African-American boys in York to attain this rank. Boys of all major religions have qualified for their respective religious awards, and the Shoffar award, which is awarded for service to Jewish Boy Scouts was, for the first time to my knowledge, bestowed upon several gentile leaders of this remarkable troop.

Over the years the local probation officer and a grade school guidance counselor sent my father their problem boys and he set many of them on constructive pathways.

This happened because two young men, ahead of their time, believed in an ideal. One was to give his life for this ideal, one was to live his life according to this ideal. Let's not destroy what they have built.

November 9, 1993

[rktman]

Must mean “Scouts of America”?

[Albion Wilde]

Boy Scout list. Ping to a wonderfully nostalgic and meaningful essay about the BSA when it was true to its purpose.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the ping Albion.

Yesterday - BSA
Today and into the future - Trail Life USA.

Having to kiss BSA goodbye really breaks my heart. An American tradition, trashed by the libs.

[vetvetdoug]

Over 900 men went into the water from the USS Dorchester and just a few over 200 were saved. Hypothermia killed two thirds of them. The American Legion magazine had a great article about them recently. The Coast Guard arrived on the scene within a few hours but was still too late to save most of the men.

[Carriage Hill]

Beautiful, Dave.

My Mom’s & Dad’s Family lived in York and Emigsville, so our Family came back for 2 week visiting in the 50s & 60s.

I moved back for good in 1990; Sis moved back in 2013, from SF. Mom passed in May 2012; Dad in August 2018, at 94.

I was in the BSA in the 50s & early 60s, Troop 7, Arlington Hts, IL, attaining Eagle and Vigil Order of The Arrow in 1963. My Dad and Mom were active in both BSA and GSA, with me and my Sister.

The BSA years were some of the best I had.

After college, I went to work professionally on local and national staffs, for the BSA for 5yrs, to pay it ahead for my wonderful years.

May your Dad Rest In Peace, for all that he did for Scouting.

[KC Burke]

Just had my best friend from childhood spend a week with us. Scouting is one small part of all the wonderful memories we share from 60 years of friendship.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Terrific story. Yes, when times were better IMO

You, me and most others here were so fortunate to be blessed with wonderful fathers.

May they all we’ve lost RIP

[tbw2]

Conservative Boy Scout Alternatives
https://wehavekids.com/youth-programs/Conservative-Boy-Scout-Alternatives

[DUMBGRUNT]

A very nice homage to your father.

Thank you for sharing.

Our Scoutmaster at the Lutheran Church was Mr. Rosenblum (sp?). A great Scoutmaster and super knowledgable guy.
Missing a leg from WWII, also very good at wheelchair basketball.

They had a rattlesnake roundup at Camp Dan Beard and Mr Rosenblum only had to be careful of one leg, the other was a prosthetic!

No, not a Lutheran, yes Jewish and I never heard a word of it; except when he was occasionally asked.

[jmacusa]

Father John Washington was born and raised in my hometown of Kearny, NJ. On the large front lawn of Saint Stephens Church in Kearny is a beautiful statue to these four brave and selfless men of God.

[Daveinyork]

Every year, here in york, there is a Four Chaplains prayer breakfast, and there is a school named after Rabbi Goode. We belong to the congregation he led.

[jmacusa]

Sounds nice. They were brave men.

[MacNaughton]

Wonderful testimony of your father.

My family was travelling back to our home in AL from my father's parent's home in ME in the summer of 1960. We stopped in Washington D.C. to tour what was then called the Smithsonian Institute. Amazing what I can still remember of that tour at 5 yoa. I recall seeing a diorama of life-sized mannequins in honor of the Four Chaplains. It is special to learn all these decades later that Rabbi Goode had a connection to the BSA.

stain glass window at the Pentagon

John 15:13 (NIV, 2011) Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

My Scouting youth days, 1964-1972, were a grand experience. We lived in the segregated South and had no cause to wonder otherwise. Decades later I learned how white troops and black troops were segregated to attend different summer camps within the same council area.

When it came time for me to do my time with a troop as an adult volunteer, 1981-1990, I was in NC. We had 2 black families who had sons in our troop. It all seemed natural at that time. As it turned out, my residential development in Pfafftown, NC, was named Dorchester.

The interfaith worship services started becoming somewhat problematic in the 1990s. Frankly, no one really had an idea how to do them well because most of the youth members were Christians.

[IncPen]

ping to a nice remembrance of a father and his scouts...

[beejaa]

https://spectator.org/the-marxist-progressive-war-on-the-boy-scouts/