A train ride, two poems, and a prayer

J.S. Woodsworth (1874-1942)

Cut the hawsers - haul out - shake every sail! …
Steer for the deep waters only…
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all…
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

— Walt Whitman

From those condemned to labour
For profit of another
We take our new endeavour.

For sect and class and pattern
Through whom the strata harden
We sharpen now the weapon.

Till power is brought to pooling
And outcasts share in ruling
There will not be an ending
Nor any peace for spending.

— Frank Scott¹

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Travelling across Canada by train in 1926 roughly six years before the founding of the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation J.S. Woodsworth scribbled these words in his diary:

“[As] I write, my train is rushing forward through the night carrying me homeward. The universe too is driving onward — we may well believe it is toward some goal and inspired by some increasing purpose. But as I rest back in my seat in the car, I must confess that I am not bothering about the road-bed or the train dispatchers or even possible accidents. I am being carried forward. That is enough. So in his study of phenomena or in his dealing with practical affairs, the modern man is not worrying much about first causes or final causes. He is absorbed in the consideration of the process itself. His faith is shown in his reliance upon the force that seems to be driving the world onward and upward.”²

Woodsworth, who had been elected to the House of Commons in 1921 as an MP for the Independent Labour Party, hailed from a tradition of dissident Methodism called the Social Gospel. Those in the Social Gospel movement believed that to live the truth of Christ meant working to alleviate human suffering, here and now, rather than trying to save people’s souls for the life beyond. This called not only for the doing of charitable deeds but for building a new society, a New Jerusalem, through which the evils and injustices of industrial capitalism would be transcended for good. An ordained minister of the church, Woodsworth was also a committed socialist who dedicated his life to the cause of earthly salvation.

The words above have stayed with me since I first encountered them because they so beautifully capture the ethos of democratic socialism (Christian and otherwise) in the early 20th century. Woodsworth, who is mostly remembered today as a prophet, was equally a serious and disciplined political organizer who was under no illusions about the challenges facing the socialist project in Canada and beyond. But riding in his railcar against the black canvas of the Prairie night, he felt ineluctably carried forward, as if propelled by some celestial force with a momentum of its own.

This was how many socialists, religious and secular alike, once saw the world and their place within it. Whatever difficulties or setbacks might confront their movement, history and human existence had a telos that would ultimately lead to the promised land. A party elder whose family has been in the movement since it began once told me that in childhood the New Jerusalem always felt tangible and inevitable. Many turns and detours awaited, yes, and the hard political work still had to be done. But the endpoint was never in doubt and humanity would duly reach the Kingdom of Heaven at the appointed time, as sure as Woodsworth’s train had pulled into Winnipeg’s dusky dawn.

Since the founding of the CCF in 1932 and its successor the NDP in 1961, there have been many turns and detours and some real victories to go with them. Family allowances. Trade union rights. Paid parental leave. Employment Insurance. Medicare. Workplace health and safety laws. Public pensions. A legislated minimum wage. But the promised land still remains elusive, and there have usually been more defeats to mourn than victories to celebrate. Throughout my own life, in fact, the celestial force of which Woodsworth once wrote has seemed to pull backwards rather than forwards.

Last Saturday would have been my friend Ed Broadbent’s 90th birthday and, just like Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, and countless others before him, he never lived to see the world socialists dream of creating. This, tragically, has been the lot of millions who’ve walked the same path throughout the past two hundred years. In the 19th century, modernity and mass politics set alight the flames of justice and emancipation only to see the first half of the next century tamp them down. The evils of war, poverty, exclusionary nationalism, colonial violence, and genocide were not abolished, and today the spectres of oligarchy and authoritarianism threaten the fragile promise of democracy once again.

But, whatever its failures and disappointments, the socialist tradition is no mere artefact or heritage object. Today, and forever, it remains a living and powerful inheritance: a source of vitality, inspiration, and strength handed down to us by millions who never lived to see their New Jerusalem come into being but died believing in it nonetheless. In a secular age, when so little feels certain, it can be hard to fathom the hopeful convictions of our political ancestors. But if, even in the throes of the Great Depression, Woodsworth and his contemporaries could feel the winds of history at their backs, there is no reason we should resign ourselves to the doldrums. Instead, we should hold close his prayer, which calls on us to name and confront injustice wherever we may find it; to recognize beauty in the world and the goodness human beings are capable of; to make from a society of exploitation and competition a richer pattern of life and a future of equality and justice for all.

J.S. Woodsworth wrote:

“We pledge ourselves to united effort in establishing on the earth an era of justice, truth and love. May our faces be to the future. May we be the children of that brighter and better day which even now is beginning to dawn. May we not impede but rather cooperate with those spiritual forces which we believe are impelling the world upward and onward. For our supreme task is to make our dreams come true; to transform our city into the holy city and to make this land, in reality, God’s own country.”

1. F.R. Scott (1899-1985), son of an Anglican priest, was a lawyer who helped draft the CCF’s founding manifesto and an acclaimed Canadian poet.

2. I’m indebted to historian Allen Mills and his wonderful account of Woodsworth’s life and thought, Fool for Christ.