Charles Stelzle

              191?

Tireless, inventive, resourceful first-generation American, he has the ability to rise to any occasion and any responsibility—
Buffalo Express.


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Charles Stelzle


Charles Stelzle, Consulting Sociologist
By George French
Constructive sociologists have for several years been watching the gradual drawing together of business and religion.  Now they are so nearly united upon the same platform of operation that both feel the need of some effective medium to draw them together into the ideal amalgam of the twentieth century.  Manifestly, that medium must be a man.

Obviously, Charles Stelzle is the man needed.  None is better fitted than Mr. Stelzle for the work of putting religion into business and business into religion.  It means making of business the square deal, and of religion a practical working force.  Mr. Stelzle's profession—Sociological Counsellor—typifies the new comprehension of the true relation of business and religion; and he plans to act as a medium through which they may be drawn together, to the advantage of both.

That he was born to extremely humble circumstances, that he has had to fight his way against the heavy odds the very poor inherit, that he has won out in the fight for opportunity and position, signifies much.  But that he was born with the strong-fibered mind, the acute sympathy, the keen comprehension, the logical power, the big heart, the capable brain, and the will to do, signifies everything for the work that he has undertaken.

Mr. Stelzle sees clearly, thinks logically, reasons acutely, concludes deliberately, and acts inexorably.  He is force actively at work.  He sees a problem and its solution as a map.  He works the problem out as an engineer tunnels a mountain.  The ends of his proposition meet as exactly as do the ends of the rightly planned tunnel.  He analyses a problem with deliberate speed; its elements fall into order, and its solution appears clearly, logically, practically.

Mr. Stelzle is short but solidly built.  His features are clean cut.  His eye is steady and inquiring.  His voice is full and strong, and vibrant when he is driving something home.  In height, girth and weight he is not remarkable.  He has a personality much more remarkable than his physique.  While his eye, and his mind and heart, are fixed upon the ultimate best, he is always thinking and working for the possible best.

Mr. Stelzle knows this job of his.  He has been working at it all his life, and specifically since he became connected with a national home missionary board as its social service executive.  He did so many vital things in that connection, all of them based upon business principles, and all meant to help people see the facts of life to be molded to their good, that that ten-year period was his university training for his present undertaking.

The whole record of Mr. Stelzle's life is a record of achievement.  His lectures and talks, his writings, his work with religious and other organizations, are all directed toward some concrete end that he strenuously believes in.  He never has a theory that is not based upon a workable plan to put it into operation.  So it happens that his life has been marked, all along the years at frequent and regular intervals, by things accomplished.  He has the rare and valuable faculty of being able to put things over.  This faculty gave him his start in life, and has been the main-spring of his advances.  When he came to attack his great problem—the work of the Social Service bureau of the Presbyterian Church in America—he had definite plans, and those plans are now the record of his achievements there—his diploma of ability to do the more extended work he has now undertaken.  He was one of the leaders of the wonderful Men and Religion Forward Movement in 1911-12, and one of its most effective speakers.  He organized and conducted for two years the famous Labor Temple in lower New York—one of the most notable sociological experiments ever attempted, and which is to-day being carried on as he originally planned it.  Several other accomplishments of a similar nature must be placed to his credit.  He can also persuade others to do that which he sees should be done, by voice, pen and example.  He is one of the more forceful speakers in the field of labor, sociology and religion.  He always draws big crowds; convinces, enthuses and animates them
 to action.  He has made a profound study of labor conditions, in America and Europe, and has influence with labor organizations only equalled by a very few of the more popular leaders.  He is a born organizer—a persuading, compelling, convincing man, full of the spirit of the times, earnest to the point of apostleship about the things he wants done to advance and improve the world, and the people in it; consumed with the fire of his aspirations, yet practical as any carpenter, and as successful in constructing realities out of his aspirations.

That Mr. Stelzle has gathered about himself a staff of sociological experts to help carry out his plans is another indication of the way that he works.  His staff consists of a group of men eminent for what they have done in their spheres—in the fields of survey, exhibit and publicity.  They are interpreters of social facts and forces.  This high class organization is known as Charles Stelzle and Staff.

A great many people who have come in contact with Mr. Stelzle know what he has done, what he can do, and are ready to testify.  Excerpts from a few such expressions are given on the next page, selected from hundreds of like tenor that Mr. Stelzle has received.


A Section of a 12,000 Stelzle Audience





A Few Sample Appreciative Opinions

At the Labor Temple I found Mr. Stelzle giving a curious and most interesting proof that the right type of church can successfully meet the religious needs of the people in the crowded working quarters of our great cities.—
Theodore Roosevelt, in The Outlook.


The most remarkable scene of the whole convention followed the address of the Rev. Charles Stelzle, on his specialty of the relations of the church to the laboring men. …  There had been a great solemn hush over the audience as Mr. Stelzle spoke these words.  But the moment he ceased a tremendous tempest of applause broke forth from the convention.  Moment by moment it swelled greater.  Finally man after man leaped to his feet, until the whole great body was standing, and to the hand-clapping, vociferous cheers were added.  Tears also on many faces attested the emotion of the crowd.—
Report of the National Presbyterian Brotherhood Convention.


To contribute towards the solution of the pressing enigmas of his time is, as I see it, the man's consuming passion; he is at heart close kin to all whose battle-cry is brotherhood, for human weal is his supreme goal.  His hobby is helpfulness; his ambition is altruism. …  And he understands the essential art of linking up the desirable to the possible; relating what he knows to what he can do; crystallizing theory into actuality.  This is the lesson learned at the machinist's bench.  To use a term of the trade in an enlarged sense, he is a practical man.—
A correspondent of The Outlook.


But for the determined mouth and chin, the apostle of church and labor might pass in repose for the mildmannered business man.  When he speaks mildness melts and business predominates.—
Toronto News.


Stelzle has stood as delegate to all kinds of meetings, been on every forum from pulpit to soap-box, written, traveled, and been a kind of tireless human kaleidoscope.  By quick turns he has been inspirational, institutional, devotional, educational, and at all times sensible.  No doubt Stelzle has done a great deal for the workingman; but his great achievement, after all, has been to educate the rich and powerful Presbyterian Church to a sense of something more than a vague, theoretical responsibility for standing on terms of brotherhood with the unprivileged.—
The American Magazine.


Mr. Stelzle's fresh and vigorous personality made a great impression on all who met him, and he has got himself many warm and appreciative friends in this country. …  His passion for his own work, which led him completely out of the beaten track of the foreign visitor, and sent him to study people and to examine methods of work and to consult with leaders of church and labor instead of to the museums and art galleries, was in itself an inspiration and a rebuke.  His next visit to England will be a triumphal procession.—
The Rev. Richard Roberts of London, in The Interior.


There is no upward slant to his eyes, no quiverings in his voice, no ecclesiastical cut to his coat, or vest.  He is a workingmen yet, without cant, unction or effeminancy, and speaks of his employment as being his job.  In speech Charles Stelzle is an educated man.  In preparedness he is equal to his task.  Industrially and religiously joining two opposite and hostile worlds into one, Charles Stelzle is the most eminent and original specialist in the United States.—
Boston Globe.


In all the interesting history of the last ten years there has been nothing more worthy of remark than Stelzle's own story.  He is a child of the East Side of New York.  Inured to tenement labor in early childhood, apprenticed to the machinist trade in the Hoe Printing Press works, he fought his way up to something like an education, secured through the free library.  He was in boyhood recruited into a Presbyterian mission and became ambitious to do Christian work.  Although he is now an ordained minister of the gospel, he is still guiltless of either college or theological education, and he still carries his card of membership in the machinists' union.
There have been compensations for Stelzle's lack of classical education.  He has the efficiency of the American practical man.  Whenever church leaders in any department look about for somebody capable of putting through a new, hard task, they think first of Stelzle. …  He is today the foremost figure in the field of social service in America.  He also has organized and addressed the largest men's meetings ever held under religious auspices in this country.  It is estimated that he has spoken to more than 500,000 workingmen in the last ten years. …  Tireless, inventive, resourceful first-generation American, he has the ability to rise to any occasion and any responsibility.—

Buffalo Express.


All in all the change wrought in the attitude of the church toward labor is, next to the moral revival in politics, the greatest making over of sentiment that America has experienced in this generation.  It has touched all evangelical churches equally with the Presbyterian.  But the Presbyterian Church covered the origin of it, and the human factor from whom by writing, speech and conciliatory counsel these efficient influences radiated was Charles Stelzle.—
The Continent.


Plainly, he's the man for the job.  He looks more like a labor leader of the John Mitchell type than a preacher.  Dressed in a simple business suit, with a quiet, reserved manner, he appears to be what he is, a modest man used to doing things.—
Philadelphia Press.

This man Stelzle is the livest wire in present-day organized Christianity.  He is bringing more things to pass than half a dozen boards, hoary with age and dignity.  He has made good on one of the stiffest propositions that ever confronted a religious body.—William T. Ellis.


There is little doubt but that the theory of Mr. Stelzle's organization is broadly practical.  It is typical of the man himself.  It is hard to conceive of any more ambitious movement than that which attempts to remedy the troubles of the church of the world, for were it accomplished it would mean that millions who are now non-churchgoers would become members of churches.—
New York Press.

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