I am grateful to Eric Lyons for this fascinating article, and I am happy to share it.
Atheism and Liberal, Missouri
by Eric Lyons, M.Min.
In the summer of 1880, George H.
Walser founded the town of Liberal in southwest Missouri. Named after the
Liberal League in Lamar, Missouri (to which the town’s organizer belonged),
Walser’s objective was “to found a town without a church, [w]here unbelievers could
bring up their children without religious training,” and where Christians were
not allowed (Thompson, 1895; Becker, 1895). “His idea was to build up a town
that should exclusively be the home of Infidels...a town that should have
neither God, Hell, Church, nor Saloon” (Brand, 1895). Some of the early
inhabitants of Liberal even encouraged other infidels to move to their town by
publishing an advertisement which boasted that Liberal “is the only town of its
size in the United States without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, God,
Jesus, hell or devil” (Keller, 1885, p. 5). Walser and his “freethinking”
associates were openly optimistic about their new town. Excitement was in the
air, and atheism was at its core. They believed that their godless town of
“sober, trustworthy and industrious” individuals would thrive for years on end.
But, as one young resident of that town, Bessie Thompson, wrote about Liberal
in 1895, “...like all other unworthy causes, it had its day and passed away.”
Bessie did not mean that the actual town of Liberal ceased to exist, but that
the idea of having a “good, godless” city is a contradiction in terms. A town
built upon “trustworthy” atheistic ideals eventually will reek of the rotten,
immoral fruits of infidelity.
Such fruits were witnessed and reported firsthand
by Clark Braden in 1885.
|
 St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, Saturday, May 2, 1885
|
Braden was an experienced preacher, debater, and author. In
his lifetime, he presented more than 3,000 lectures, and held more than 130
regular debates—eighteen of which were with the Mormons (Carpenter, 1909, pp.
324-325). In 1872, Braden even challenged the renowned agnostic Robert
Ingersoll to debate, to which Ingersoll reportedly responded, “I am not such a
fool as to debate. He would wear me out” (Haynes, 1915, pp. 481-482). Although
Braden was despised by some, his skills in writing and public speaking were
widely known and acknowledged. In February 1885, Clark Braden introduced
himself to the townspeople of Liberal (Keller, 1885, p. 5; Moore, 1963, p. 38),
and soon thereafter he wrote about what he had seen.
In an article that appeared in the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch on May 2, 1885, titled “An Infidel Experiment,” Braden
reported the following.
The boast about the sobriety of the town is false. But few
of the infidels are total abstainers. Liquor can be obtained at three different
places in this town of 300 inhabitants. More drunken infidels can be seen in a
year in Liberal than drunken Christians among one hundred times as many church
members during the same time. Swearing is the common form of speech in Liberal,
and nearly every inhabitant, old and young, swears habitually. Girls and boys
swear on the streets, playground, and at home. Fully half of the females will
swear, and a large number swear habitually.... Lack of reverence for parents
and of obedience to them is the rule. There are more grass widows, grass
widowers and people living together, who have former companions living, than in
any other town of ten times the population.... A good portion of the few books
that are read are of the class that decency keeps under lock and key....
These infidels...can spend for dances and shows ten times as
much as they spend on their liberalism. These dances are corrupting the youth
of the surrounding country with infidelity and immorality. There is no lack of
loose women at these dances. Since Liberal was started there has not been an average of
one birth per year of infidel parents. Feticide is universal. The physicians of
the place say that a large portion of their practice has been trying to save
females from consequences of feticide. In no town is slander more prevalent, or
the charges more vile. If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each
other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that
its inhabitants are the devils (as quoted in Keller, 1885, p. 5).
According to Braden, “[s]uch are the facts concerning this
infidel paradise.... Every one who has visited Liberal, and knows the facts,
knows that such is the case” (p. 5).
As one can imagine, Braden’s comments did not sit well with
some of the townspeople of Liberal. In fact, a few days after Braden’s
observations appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he was arrested
for criminal libel and tried on May 18, 1885. According to Braden, “After the
prosecution had presented their evidence, the case was submitted to the jury
without any rebutting evidence by the defence (sic), and the jury speedily
brought in a verdict of ‘No cause for action’ ” (as quoted in Mouton, n.d., pp.
36-37). Unfortunately for Braden, however, the controversy was not over. On the
following day (May 19, 1885), a civil suit was filed by one of the
townsmen—S.C. Thayer, a hotel operator in Liberal. The petition for damages of
$25,000 alleged that Clark Braden and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
published an article in which they had made false, malicious, and libelous
statements against the National Hotel in Liberal, managed by Mr. Thayer. He
claimed that Braden’s remarks, published in the St. Louise Post-Dispatch
on May 2, 1885, “greatly and irreparably injured and ruined” his business
(Thayer v. Braden). However, when the prosecution learned that the defense was
thoroughly prepared to prove that Liberal was a den of infamy, and that its
hotels were little more than houses of prostitution, the suit was dismissed on
September 17, 1886 by the plaintiff at his own cost (Thayer v. Braden).
Braden was exonerated in everything he had written. Indeed, the details Braden
originally reported about Liberal, Missouri, on May 2, 1885 were found to be
completely factual.
It took only a few short years for Liberal’s
unattractiveness and inconsistency to be exposed. People cannot exclude God
from the equation, and expect to remain a “sober, trustworthy” town.
Godlessness equals unruliness, which in turn makes a repugnant, immoral people.
The town of Liberal was a failure. Only five years after its establishment,
Braden indicated that “[n]ine-tenths of those now in town would leave if they
could sell their property. More property has been lost by locating in the town
than has been made in it.... Hundreds have been deceived and injured and ruined
financially” (Keller, p. 5). Apparently, “doing business with the devil” did
not pay the kind of dividends George Walser (the town’s founder) and the early
inhabitants of Liberal desired. It appears that even committed atheists found
living in Liberal in the early days intolerable. Truly, as has been observed in
the past, “An infidel surrounded by Christians may spout his infidelity and be
able to endure it, but a whole town of atheists is too horrible to contemplate.”
It is one thing to espouse a desire to live in a place where there is no God,
but it is an entirely different thing for such a place actually to exist. For
it to become a reality is more than the atheist can handle. Adolf Hitler took
atheism to its logical conclusion in Nazi Germany, and created a world that
even most atheists detested. Although atheists want no part of living according
to the standards set out by Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament, the
real fruits of evolutionary atheism also are too horrible for them to
contemplate.
Although
the town of Liberal still exists today (with a population of about 800 people),
and although vestiges of its atheistic heritage are readily apparent, it is not
the same town it was in 1895. At present, at least seven religious groups
associated with Christianity exist within this city that once banned
Christianity and all that it represents. Numerous other churches meet in the
surrounding areas. According to one of the religious leaders in the town, “a
survey of Liberal recently indicated that 50% of the people are actively
involved with some church” (Abbott, 2003)—a far cry from where Liberal began.
There is no doubt that the moral, legal, and educational
systems of Liberal, Missouri, in the twenty-first century are the fruits of
biblical teaching, not atheism. When Christianity and all of the ideals that
the New Testament teaches are effectively put into action, people will value
human life, honor their parents, respect their neighbors, and live within the
moral guidelines given by God in the Bible. A city comprised of faithful
Christians would be mostly void of such horrors as sexually transmitted diseases,
murder, drunken fathers who beat their wives and children, drunk drivers who
turn automobiles into lethal weapons, and heartache caused by such things as
divorce, adultery, and covetousness. (Only those who broke God’s commandments
intended for man’s benefit would cause undesirable fruit to be reaped.)
On the other hand, when atheism and all of its tenets are
taken to their logical conclusion, people will reap some of the same miserable
fruit once harvested by the early citizens of Liberal, Missouri (and sadly,
some of the same fruit being reaped by many cities in the world today). Men and
women will attempt to cover up sexual sins by aborting babies, children will
disrespect their parents, students will “run wild” at home and in school
because of the lack of discipline, and “sexual freedom” (which leads to
sexually transmitted diseases) will be valued, whereas human life will be
devalued. Such are the fruits of atheism: a society in which everyone does that
which is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6)—a society in which no sensible
person wants to live.
Note from Cory: "grass widows" and "grass widowers" are terms that referred to those divorced, separated, or living away from their spouses. For more information: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grass+widow.
REFERENCES
Abbott, Phil (2003), Christian Church, Liberal, Missouri,
telephone conversation, April 7.
Barnes, Pamela (2003), St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
telephone conversation, March 12.
Becker, Hathe (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise,
December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.
Brand, Ida (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise,
December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.
Carpenter, L.L. (1909), “The President’s Address,” in Centennial
Convention Report, ed. W.R. Warren, (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing
Company), pp. 317-332. [On-line], URL:
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/wwarren/ccr/CCR15B.HTM.
Haynes, Nathaniel S. (1915), History of the Disciples of
Christ in Illinois 1819-1914 (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company),
[On-line], URL:
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/nhaynes/hdcib/braden01.htm, 1996.
Keller, Samuel (1885), “An Infidel Experiment,” St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Special Correspondence with Clark Braden, May 2, p. 5.
Moore, J.P. (1963), This Strange Town—Liberal, Missouri
(Liberal, MO: The Liberal News).
Mouton, Boyce (no date), George H. Walser and Liberal,
Missouri: An Historical Overview.
Thayer, S.C. v. Clark Braden, et. al. Filed on May 19, 1885
in Barton County Missouri. Dismissed September 10, 1886.
Thompson, Bessie (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise,
December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.
