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Correspondence with Professor Samuel Press
The Courier-Herald Co. Inc.
Walter Niebuhr, Pres.
Lincoln, Illinois
July 1.
My Dear Professor Press:
I have been wanting to write you ever since I returned from
school but did not know how to reach you until your brother told me
that you would probably be home now until the Elmhurst meeting.
I received the M.A. degree as you may have heard though just exactly how
it was done I am still unable to figure out. They turned down men
with perfectly good A.B. degrees though not of the highest class and
gave the degree to me without anything that might be called a college
education. I made pretty good marks but I did not think that it would
pull me through. But for some reason or other they were lenient
enough to let me by.
Rev. Baltzer may have told you that nothing has come of the
Washington propositions, at least not so far. He now intends to send
me to Detroit. I am a good deal worried about my future. In the first
place, as you may know, I have not gone for two years to Yale without
absorbing a good deal of its liberalism. I have enough confidence in my-
self to believe that I did not simply fall prey to my environment.
In fact I found that there is no distinctive Yale theology. What is
being taught there is being taught in all the big schools of the
country. Union, Oberlin, Yale. Andover and most of the larger schools
do not differ greatly in their theology. One would have to go to
Princeton to escape it. Now I am a good deal worried that my liberalism
will not at all be liked in our church and will jeopardize any
influence which I might in time have won in our church. I briefly
attended the conference in Champaign and there had a new opportunity
to see how widely I differed with the prevailing theology of our
church. I was totally out of sympathy with some of the things that
were said there in sermons and addresses.
At present I am also worried about finances. Rev. Baltzer told
me that he thought Detroit paid $900 a year. Since then I have heard
that they only intend to pay six hundred. I will be frank enough to tell
you that I will not accept a place for six hundred. I realize that I
owe a good deal to our church, not to the church so much as to some
of you individually who have done so much to help me. Any emphasis
on finances may therefore seem to be the worst kind of ingratitude.
But my two years at Yale have cost me a great deal of money. Most of
it I earned, this year about $350, but as you know I have debts. Be-
sides these debts I will now have to carry some of the burdens at home.
Since my fathers death my brother has very nobly carried the financial
burdens of our family in spite of the fact that he was deeply involved
trying to establish a large business without a cent of his own to begin
with. He has of course made a great deal but he had also needed a great
deal. Now I feel that I owe it to him and to the family to carry part
of the burden and to do so I must earn to the limit of my earning capacity.
I shall not write to Baltzer until I have heard authoritatively about
Detroit. But if the place should pay so little I shall find it impossible
to accept it. Perhaps I ought not bother you with these personal
troubles but because you have always been so good to me I thought I
would let you know how I feel about some of those things. I hope the
matter will come out better than it now seems that it will. I hope
you will be able to stop off here on your way to Chicago. There are
many things I would like to talk to you about and I would very
much like to see you some time. I hope you have had a nice vacation
after your strenuous year. I am about worn out from my year in Yale.
I put in the hardest year of my life.
My kindest regards to Mrs. Press and to Dir. Becker if you should happen
to see him.
Yours
Reinhold
Reinhold Niebuhr Papers: Library of Congress, Manuscript Reading Room
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