Correspondence resulting from the circulation of the pamphlet entitled "A protest" [microform]

97-84094-5

Cheatham, Kitty

Correspondence. . .entitled
"A protest"

[S.I.]

[C1918]

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CORRESPONDENCE

Resulting from the Circulatioii
of the Pamphlet
Entitled

"a protest"

BY

KITTY CHEATHAM

1

Copyright, 1918,

by

Kitty Clieatham.

274 Madison Avenue,
New York Ci^.

September 30, 1918.

My Dear Mr. L. . . : —

There is no power in any resistance to the
immutable law of God and to His Christ. Truth

will finally rule mankind. Good is now ruling
out evil, as is evidenced in the world-war.
Christ is destroying that which has no right to
exist, viz., sin and death, in individual and uni-
versal consciousness.

America, through Americans, is now demand-
ing an ideal standard. They are revolting against
the reversal of democracy, which has at last
been exposed as nothing more nor less than
human autocracy. They refuse longer to voice
sentiments in word or song, which they hereto-
fore ignorantly accepted, and to which they sub-
mitted, until compelled by spiritual progress, to
resist.

If this is "the land of the free and the home
of the brave," let every American be ''free' to
denounce law standards, viz., hate, envy, greed,
and human autocracy as suggested in some ot
the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Let us hope that there is a majority of Ameri-
can men and women of spiritual aspirations and
nobilitj' of character, who are ''brave" enough
to defend our nation and the coming generation,
from all who are attempting to deprive our
country of an anthem, which would breathe the
sentiments of true American manhood and
womanhood.

Woe! Woe! to all who are unwilling to obey
the immutable, irresistible law of righteousness.

4

The people cannot be forever lulled or deceiyed
by those who are attempting to defend the sen-
timents of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by quot-
ing the last lines of the poem, "our cause is so
just," and "In God is our trust!*' The efforts
to obscure the insidious suggestions of the death-
dealing missiles, "the rockets' red glare, . . .
bombs bursting in air." "foul footsteps' pollu-
tion," and "the foe's haughty host in dread si-
lence reposes," are discerned and will be de-
stroyed by the word of dk>d, through Christ, who
"is on the field, when he is most invisible."

I quote from your letter, "the good old pagan
Greeks were worthy models for us. . . . man
creates God in his own image." The Kaiser says
he puts his trust in God and he is constantly
appealing to this god of his own creating. Are
you and I, dear Mr. L..., obeying the divine
command, "I am the Lord thy God. . . . Thou
Shalt have no other gods [power] before me"—
eternal Life, Love, and Truth?

With Paul, I have the moral courage to say
to the scoffers of this hour, "THE UNKNOWN
GOD, Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship.
Him declare I unto you" (Acts 17:23). Do Amer-
icans express God — omnipotent good — eternal
Life and Love through the words of "The Star-
Spangled Banner," which breathe the sentiments
of animosity and all the qualities of the carnal
mentality in its opening verses?

I know that "The Star-Spangled Banner" can
never be adopted permanently as our National
Anthem. How do I know this? Because God— -
omnipotent wisdom and intelligence, the God of
prophets, seers, Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy,
and their followers who possess the Mind of
Christ— spiritual power— will prevent it. The God
of justice and mercy is not expressed in a con-
tradiction of Himself.

Through the Associated Press of September
25th was received this message from General
A.llenby: "Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth
u'hose supermen described Christianity as ^ a
creed for slaves." One cannot fail to perceive

5

the glorious spiritual significance of this tre-
mendous statement. In the New York Times
of September 26th, Alfred Noyes writes these
lines :

The Emperor mocked at Nazareth

In his almighty hour.
The Slave that bowed himself to death
And walked with slaves in Nazareth,
What were His words but wasted breath

Before that "will to power."

The trumpet blows in Nazareth.

The Slave is risen again!
Across the bitter wastes of death.
The horsemen ride from Nazareth,
And the Power we mocked as wasted breath

Returns, in power, to reign;
Rides on, in white, through Nazareth,

To save His world again.

The hour of restoration of all that is real
and eternal is at hand. America will eventually
become "the land of the free." I cliaim and shall
exerci se my divine prerogative to voice my
righteous convictions. I claim the liberty of a
follower of Christ to protest against evil in all
its forms and to establish justice, honesty, and
righteousness. I denounce license, but I demand
the privilege of an American citizen to speak,
act, and . live according to the law of right and
justice. I cannot submit to nor promulgate any-
thing that is opposed to Truth, so far as I under-
stand Truth.

On one side of the entrance of the Public
Library on Fifth Avenue is inscribed: "Beauty,
old yet ever new, eternal voice and inward man/*
On the other side of the entrance is inscribed:
"But above all things Truth beareth away the
victory." With the liberal and beautiful decora-
tions, which during the war have appeared on
Fifth Avenue, these reminders of the eternal
Power and presence, or a God of Truth and
Love, are the only ones I have seen on this ave-
irae. Truth is no longer on the scaffold. The

6

new era will float banners upon which will be
inscribed reminders of an ever present God in
whom we trust, and who, according to His prom-
ise, will deliver us from evil.

Again I repeat, that I refuse to implant in the
pure, plastic thought of the children of our na-
tion, ihe seedlings of autocracy, hypocrisy, "foul
footsteps' pollution," and all the discordant qual-
ities which "The Star-Spangled Banner'' ex-
presses. I shall continue to teach and to insist
upon the necessity of implanting in the virgin
soil of the child consciousness, the healthy seed-
lings of Truth, honesty, purity, unselfed love,
trust in God— the eternal Father— all that stands
for health, joy, holiness, harmony, and immor-
tality. _

Woe! Woe! be unto all who resist Truth-
Christ. Let Americans be "brave" and permit
me my right to follow the dictates of my own
spiritual convictions.

There are a large number of patriotic Ameri-
cans who recognize the great issues of this hour.
They are loyal to the spiritual ideals, upon which
this nation was founded, and they agree with
our President in his repeated emphasis for the
necessity of rising to uphold and support these
higher and spiritual ideals.

They will continue to demand and they will
obtain their inalienable rights of conscience and
freedom to exercise these rights. That they have
not been permitted to voice their convictions on
this vital subject is a proof that our nation is
still held in bonds of human autocracy and is not
yet "the land of the free and the home of the
brave." Let us be honest as a people. Let us
be true to ourselves, then it will follow "thou
canst not then be false to any man.**

October 1st. I was prevented from finishing
this letter last night, and again am rejoiced to
find, that President Wilson, as announced through
the press today, has once more been spiritually
moved to speak with solemn emphasis upon the
imperative necessity of the rising of our nation
to uphold the standard of pure democracy, upon

7

which it was founded. I do not feel that it was
a chance correlation that I was impelled to write
you at the same hour that the President waa
addressing his great message, in defense of
woman, to the United States Senate, which is
supposed to represent the highest democratic
governing body in the world.

Hear these divinely inspired words of Presi-
dent Wilson:

This is a peoples' war, and the peoples'
thinking constitutes its atmosphere and
morale. ... If we be indeed democrats,
and wish to leave the world to democracy,
we can ask other peoples to accept in
proof of our sincerity and our ability to
lead them whither they wish to be led
nothing less persuasive and convincing
than our actions

If we reject measures like this in ignor-
ant defiance of what a new age has
brought forth, of what they have seen, but
we have not, they will cease to believe in
us; they will cease to follow or to trust
us. . . .

The problems . . . will strike to the
roots of many things that we have not
hitherto questioned. . . . We shall need
their [woman's] moral sense ... to
discover just what it is that ought to be
purified and reformed. , . .

This is my appeal. . . . No one can
brush aside or answer the arguments upon
which it is based. The executive tasks
of this war rest upon me I ask that
you lighten them and place in my hands
instruments, spiritual instruments, which
I do not now. possess, which I sorely need,
and which I have daily to apologize for
not being able to employ.

Alas that any one should continue to try to
hold this nation in bondage. Alas for the "Phari-
sees" who are crying democracy from the "house-
tops" and who are forcing the Chief Ehcecutive of

8

this nation to ''apologize" to its people, because
he l^ prevented by dense autocratic materialists*
masquerading as representatives of democracy*
from using the ''spiritual instrument" — ^they
who are fighting to uphold the "spiritual ideals'*
of this nation — to aid him in discovering what
should be "purified" in our national conscious-
ness.

That there are many spiritual thinkers today
who are daring to voice their honest convictions
is i^parent. I quote from an article by Mar^
garet Sherwood, entitled, "For Democracy," and
which appeared in the October number of the
''Atlantic Monthly." .In touching upon the Amer-
icanization of the alien, she writes:

What have we been doing, we citizens of
longer standing, to whom has been entrust-
ed the starry flag? ... As our young
men fight in the fields of France for an
ideal, we should be fighting at home to
bring into clearer vision of ourselves and
others, the nature of that ideal. To this
task of enlightenment we need to bend
every energy, for an unintelligent democ-
racy is the worst foe civilization has ever
had.

The air is full of notes of exhortation
and of song ushering in a new era. There
is with us a consciousness of a need of
reconsecration, of refreshing ourselves at
the deeper sources of our national well-
being, of defining afresh for ourselves and
sharing with others the great and simple
hope of democracy in its purity.

A letter recently received from one of the
most noted educators of this country states:

I am inclined to believe that a large per-
centage of the people agree with you in
all you say with regard to "The Star-Span-
gled Banner/' and a great many more
would see light if they would only think
as they sing. So many people sing this
song without ever giving a thought to the

9

words and what they convey. In teaching,
children a new song I firmly believe la
scanning the poem to see what it contains,
and I think adults should be treated the
same way and shown what poem scansion
means to them. • . «

As you are aware, a great many people
are afraid to say what they think in regard
to the song in question, and the longer the
war lasts the less they will express their
feelings. I have yet to find one out of the
many readers of your ''Protest" here that
does not agree with you, but they dare not
open their mouths in some cases:

For instance, the dean of the Music De-
partment in a local college, a close Mend
of mine, is forbidden by the president to
express his feelings in the matter. But tor
that I have no doubt your "Protest," or at
least excerpts from it, would have appeared
in a local paper. In answer to a Question,
he said that he heartily agreed with you
but must keep his views to himself and
keep out of the public eye. I inyself,
being in the capacity of a public servant,
am not allowed to air my views as I would
like to.

So you see that while you have many
sympathizers in the matter, it may be a
hard thing to get them to take up the
cudgels and fight.

I noticed your statement in regard to the
Constituted Authorities of New York de-
manding that the children be compelled to
learn the song in school. It may interest
you to know that I had a somewhat simi-
lar experience last winter in. . . .

A society of women designating them-
selves as the "Parent Teachers' Council"
met, proposed, seconded and unanimously
agreed that the children of the city should
be compelled to memorize the words of
"The Star-Spangled Banner." A full ac-
count of the proceedings was mailed to the

10

Board of Education with a demand that
the music teachers in school be command-
ed to teach the song at once. There was
nothing said about the music of the song,
but the Board concluded that it was a
matter for me to handle, and in about two
minutes I convinced them that I was ful-
flUing my duties here to the children and
public alike and that was the last that was
heard of it.

It would interest you to know, no doubt, that
I am in receipt of a letter from Queen Mary of
England in which she states that she has read
my pamphlet, "Words and Music of 'The Star
Spangled Banner' Oppose the Spirit of Democracy
which the Declaration of Independence Embod-
ies," and assures me of her interest in it, and
also her interest in the words of the new Na-
tional Antbem. "Our America."

There is a divine power working which wiU
establish an American National Anthem. Any
resistance to the law of spiritual progress is
futile. The hour of decision is come. One must
either follow in the line of light and righteous-
ness or remain in mental darkness, ^which per-
petuates war and its barbarous results. America
will not remain in mental darkness.

You say, dear Mr. L . . . , that you teach music
to children. Do you realize your responsibility
and obligation to the children of this new era?
What reply would you make to a little child
who asked you the meaning of the words, "foul
footsteps' pollution" or "the foe's haughty host
in dread silence reposes"? There are many think-
ing mothers who are awaking and who are re-
sisting this despotic autocracy, which is endeav*
oring to force them to impress upon the minds
of their children the vicious mental pictures
which "The Star-Spangled Banner" expresses.
They recognize the divine necessity of keeping
the thoughts of their children pure, in order to
make them good citizens, and they are, in this
hour, crying out for a higher standard— the

11

true expression of America's claim to democracy
through a National Anthem, which wiH incite to
that which is good and pure.

Americans are beginning to understand, that
only through insistence upon implanting the right
thoughts in the child's consciousness can the
right results be obtained. They are realizing
that things are the manifestation of thoughts.
Like cause, like effect. Thoughts evolve phe-
nomena and phenomena are the result of
thoughts. Paul says. "To be carnally minded is
death; but to be spiritually minded is life and
peace" (Romans 8:6). I rejoice that thinkers
are coming forth who apprehend, that by think-
ing and singing evil thoughts, they will ob-
jectify those thoughts, and such conditions as
we are witnessing today in the world-war, will
continue.

America will finally awake to spiritual think-
ing, which will reveal "a new heaven and a new
earth" wherein dwelleth righteousness and
wherein "there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain: for the former things [thoughts J are
passed away" (Revelation 21:1,4).

The musical director of one of the bu-gest
military camps in this country writes me:

I wish that you could have been present
on the evening that we sang "Our Ameri-
ca" at Camp. . . . Many of the men in
the audience were sailing for France be-
fore daylight, and all of them left before
the week was out and their treasured
copies are overseas by this time. They
learned this beautiful National Anth^
quickly and gratefully. . . .

Who can tell how far the influence thus
sent into operation may spread! You are
indeed doing a splendid thing in standing
out so strongly, as you do, for the right
principles of Truth and Love in this day
when the world seems convulsed by the
forces of evil, and the Anthem, "Our Amer-
ica," places the right emphasis on the con-

12

structive power of true patriotism, rather
than on the destructive power of false
patriotism. May. its influence for good
continue to grow!

After a recent patriotic gathering at the home
of a well-known banker in New York City, I
xeceived this word from my host:

I am glad if I have been helpful to your
cause, and pM*ticuIarly to the bringing out
of the new National Anthiem which I hope
will be generally adopted. I entirely agree
with you; in fact I have had this feeling
for over fifty years with the idea of trying
to cure evil rather than seek revenge.
It may be interesting to you to know that
I expressed these sentiments before I came
. to this country, and I have now been here
over fifty years.

The president of one of the largest trust com-
panies in America has just written me:

I have read with great interest your pam-
phlet concerning "The Star-Spangled Ban-
ner" and I appreciate the high-mindedness
of your position. ... I agree with you
that a great many of the songs that are
held dear by the community are not those
that contain the highest sentiments. . . .

Your ideas interest me very much and I
shall appreciate it highly if you will give
us five minutes of your time some morning
to talk or sing to the employees of this
company.

From the far Northwest comes a letter from a
writer of special articles and short stories for
magazines and newspapers:

I read with the greatest interest your
masterly "Protest." It is indeed timely and
voices the sentiments of many earnest
souls. That it will accomplish a vast
amount of good and bring about a badly
needed reform, is my firm belief. . . .

13

Your wonderful gifts of song and pen—
your fine brain, your fearless soul and pure
heart tell me that you can accomplish any-
thing you choose.

I am glad that you have lived, that you
live and that you will live forever!

Your "Protest" will prove very valuable
to me in making quotations. I will wel-
come eagerly any further communication
which you may choose to send.

Again thanking you for the good you
are doing in helping to bring the sad world
mto the light and sunshine of Truth and
Love, I am, . . .

The Governor of a near-by State, which has
been the center of many of the most important
events of our national history, writes me:

May I express to you my sincere grati-
tude for your most valued letter and article
which you were good enough to mail me
concerning the importance of a proper in-
terpretation of the spirit of America in
the songs of our people? I have read what
you have sent with great interest and
profit, and I trust that you will continue
your propaganda until our whole people,
marching and singing will rise to the high-
est plane of patriotic endeavor.

A business woman, the secretary to the presi-
dent of a banking institution of international
interest, writes:

Will you kindly send me several copies
of your 'Trotest" so that I may circulate
them among those who are hungering for
jusft this message? . . . Today, yester-
day, and on other occasions I have sent
this petition to God, my Guide: "Grant to
Kitty Cheatham an answer to her work
and prayers, and to all who are working
for higher ideals, so that America may

14

awake to a song which is the expression
of the highest, noblest thinking."

Yours in the interests of the hearts of
humanity.

A Chinese scholar, an editor of the most widely

read Chinese weekly in the world, writes me:

It gave me much profit and interest to
read your pamphlets. They gave me a new
thought about the "Words and Music of
'The Star-Spangled Banner.' "

May I have the honor to get better ac-
quainted with you in the future? . . .
Trusting that success will come to you in
your enterprises. . . •

I have just received a letter from a member
of the Greek Parliament, who is now in America,
representing officially, the Hellenic Government,
from which I quote the following:

I am deeply impressed and touched by
your mighty protest against autocracy.

I stand by your side in your very noble
effort to destroy a false connection be-
tween Greece and America, as suggested
by the degeneracy of the original words
of "The S tar-Spangled Banner," ^"To An-
acreon in Heaven."

Our nations are eternally united through
their ceaseless effort to establish divine
democracy. The same spirit which stirred
Paul to make his mighty protest 1900 years
ago on Mars' hill, against the autocracy
and idolatry which were holding the men
of Athens in bondage, is the spirit which
you voice in your protest.

It is the spirit which your President
voices. America and Greece, and all men
"of one blood" (Spirit) are united through
this Spirit, whose mighty power is ending
this WftT*

I was* glad to have your new, noble
American Anthem, "Our America," whose
beautiful sentiments wUl redeem the world.

15

I assure you that as a Greek I am very
grateful for your sincere interest in our
country and in our cause. Hellenism will
recognize your support.

These are a very few of the many letters
which I have received from all parts of America
and from Europe. Tou must see, dear Mr. L . . . ,
that "God [is] within the shadow, keeping watch
above His own/' and that Christ's ambassadors
are being revealed throughout the world. They,
with all who love righteousness, will put an end
to this hellish war and the satanic forces that
caused it.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) KITTY CHEATHAM.