George S. Benson
George Stuart Benson was an American missionary, college administrator, and conservative political activist. After fleeing communist uprisings in China as a missionary, Benson became an anticommunist and conservative activist, taking stances against the New Deal, and later, racial integration. Benson served for many years as the president of Harding College, and oversaw a large propaganda network through his National Education Program, which sponsored short cartoons, "Freedom Forums", and lecture tours for Benson.
Early life and education
Benson grew up on a Dewey County, Oklahoma homestead. His parents, Stuart and Emma, were devout Christians, never missing the meetings in the Taloga schoolhouse church held by the various itinerant preachers who passed through. They instilled early the values of hard work and self-reliance, so that by age eight he worked full days on the farm. George completed eight grades in nearby Bonto and a year of high school each in Seiling and in Claremore, where his janitor job paid the rent for the shack he lived in. The year away from home in Claremore was foundational in his resolve to serve God "above all else" and "regardless of where it might lead". After three years working on the family farm and teaching in nearby schools, George completed high school in Kingfisher.Benson attended Harper Junior College in Kansas, later to merge into Harding College, where J. N. Armstrong was then president. He went on to earn a B.A. from Harding College in 1925, a B.S. from Oklahoma A&M University, and an M.A. in history with an emphasis in Oriental studies from the University of Chicago in 1931. He received several honorary doctorates including those from Harding University, 1932; Knox College, 1948; and Oklahoma Christian University, 1968.
Missionary career
Benson started his career as a missionary to China for eleven years, 1925 to 1936. After only six months in Kwei Hsien, Communist propagandists arrived and "insisted that these intruders should be either killed or driven out". The Bensons had difficulty finding a boat to take them to Hong Kong because of threats against those who carried foreigners. After a year in Hong Kong, George Pepperdine offered them support to work in the Philippines. Benson pitched a tent in Pinamalayan and started preaching, making converts and establishing a congregation. Sixty days later, he left for Paglasan and then Baguio, where he followed a similar procedure. While passing through 30 years later, Benson "found the church at Baguio still continuing faithful to the Lord".The Bensons returned to China in 1929, having heard that the situation there was improving. George taught English for a year at Sun Yat-sen University in Canton. Through this experience, he decided that "the most effective way to reach the Chinese people was through teaching English". Following masters studies that improved his understanding of Chinese history and culture, the Bensons returned to Canton in April 1932. Together with a growing team, they opened the Canton English Finishing School opened in February 1933, which grew to over 100 students by year-end. In 1933, the intensive Bible training short courses that had been conducted several times in 1932 were expanded and formalized as the Canton Bible School, starting with 14 full-time students. The three-year program included Chinese reading and writing in addition to the primary Bible instruction. As the students matured, they participated in evangelism work in the country, taught children's Bible classes, and taught children to read and write at a new "school for the poor" they had suggested. The English and Bible schools continued to operate until 1949. Another significant effort in Guangzhou was translating and publishing literature in the Chinese language, including an award-winning publication of J. W. McGarvey's Commentary on Acts.
Families that had joined the work in Canton included the Oldham, Davis, Whitfield, Leung, So, Ko, and Bernard families. Lowell Davis and Roy Whitfield had been in a missionary methods class at Harding that George taught winter 1931–1932 while on furlough. When Benson received Armstrong's invitation to the Harding presidency in March 1936, he was inclined to turn it down. But as the now-experienced team contemplated the quantity of missionaries that would be needed to "take the Christian message to the other great cities of China", they urged him to accept this role where he could "influence the recruitment and preparation of future missionaries for China".
After their first year in China, Sally wrote a short book, "Chats About China" to share their "first impressions" of the people in the "small part of South China" they had observed so the reader might "know something about the people on this side of the world" and "be interested in their soul salvation".
Towards the end of his career, Benson wrote "Missionary Experiences". He discusses preparation and attitude for effectively sharing the gospel, drawing on his and others' experiences in China, the Philippines, Korea, and Zambia as well as his "preparatory years" growing up in Oklahoma and in college.
Administrative career
Harding College
Benson left China in 1936, at the invitation of J. N. Armstrong, to succeed him as president of Harding College. The college had not yet repaid any of its debt from the 1934 Searcy campus purchase, so its prospects were bleak. Like Western, Cordell, and Harper colleges that Armstrong had led before it, Harding was becoming insolvent. Finances were further challenged by a controversy that isolated the school from potential donors in the Churches of Christ: In 1935, President Armstrong was accused of being sympathetic to premillennialism in the Gospel Advocate and Gospel Guardian, which may have led to his resignation. Upon assuming the presidency, Benson was pressured to fire Armstrong from the Bible faculty, and then criticized in publications such as The Bible Banner when he would not. Benson traveled around the country raising money to pay the $70,000 debt and on Thanksgiving Day of 1939, Armstrong was able to toss the cancelled mortgage into a fire.In 1940, Benson announced the next major goal would be accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. This would aid Harding students seeking admission to graduate schools. From 1941-1948 he "significantly strengthened faculty qualifications, increased the institution's financial resources and endowments, and undertook a costly building program." He hired retired NCA Review Board members to evaluate the school and make recommendations. The 1953 NCA reviewers recognized "a top quality faculty", fully satisfactory physical plant, "one of the most stable financial situations among small colleges", and high quality graduates. However, there was strong opposition to Benson's work with the National Education Program on the NCA Review Board,. The NCA rejected Harding's applications four times from 1948 to 1953. Continuing to engage with knowledgeable contacts, Benson learned that he could win over most of the Review Board by separating the NEP from the college. This was done in early 1954 and that March the NCA granted accreditation.
Another primary goal for Benson was increasing faculty salaries and "to retain this dedicated faculty, with its deep spiritual commitment to cultivating genuinely Christian character in students." One of the first things he did upon assuming the presidency was to establish a firm salary schedule that would be paid each month rather than paying "whatever the school could afford".
In 1937, Harding began holding "Distinguished Speaker" lectures on campus with speakers such as James L. Kraft and Charles F. Kettering. In 1943, Benson started and directed Camp Tahkodah, purchasing it himself after the board refused his suggestion that the college buy it. In 1958, the Harding Graduate School of Bible and Religion began operating on the King Estate in Memphis that had been purchased. Benson's proposal two years earlier to establish it on the Searcy campus had been rejected by a faculty vote over concerns it would lead to faculty members in other disciplines no longer being allowed to also teach Bible classes.
During Benson's 29-year presidency, Harding grew from 324 to 1228 students and 15 buildings were erected, increasing the campus value from $600,000 to $25 million. Following his 1965 retirement, he continued to assist in the development of several other Church of Christ-related institutions, including Oklahoma Christian University, Lubbock Christian College, Alabama Christian College, and George Pepperdine College.
Desegregation
Benson resisted a 1957 effort by students and faculty to desegregate Harding, but faced with the prospect of losing federal funds, in the fall of 1963 three black students were admitted to the Searcy campus. Benson's stated reasons for opposing desegregation in 1956 were that the "community is not yet ready" and that time was required for the South to absorb the "great shock" of the Supreme Court decision. He claimed that integrating immediately would cause white students to leave Harding, and that equal educational opportunities were available for all without integration, stating "The Little Rock Nine left a far better building and their own teachers to go to Central." In a 1958 chapel speech, Benson claimed that few blacks desired to attend Harding, and that he personally provided funds to attend all-black colleges to those few that applied. Losing financial support was likely also a concern. But he especially feared that interracial marriage would follow integration, and warned of "increased destruction to properties, increased gonorrhea and syphilis, and increased pregnancies." He expressed his belief that segregation was the natural order of creation, stating "the blackbirds and bluebirds, the blue jays and mockingbirds, they don't mix and mingle together, young people!" In a 1966 sermon he maintained that "Before God, all men are equal, but in like manner there is no reason to think the Lord wants a mixing of the races and the creating of just one mongrel race. Benson also believed that black people were under the Curse of Ham, a biblical reference that was often used to cast Black people as inferior and provide theological justification for slavery and segregation. While Benson's interest in global humanitarianism and worldwide evangelism indicate that he did not harbor stringent racial animosities, his positions were used by followers who believed that their faith in God and scripture mandated segregation in order to fulfill God's will. In 1963, Benson directed Harding to grant an honorary doctorate to Senator John McClellan for his work opposing the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.In 1957, student body president Bill Floyd circulated a "statement of attitude" that affirmed that the signers were ready to accept black students. Upon hearing of it, Benson announced in the required daily chapel that students should not sign it, yet over 85 percent of the student body and almost one hundred faculty and staff did so. Nevertheless, Benson dismissed the statement as "not an accurate expression of student feeling" and explained "they didn't understand what they were signing". The following day, students posted an ironic "whites only" sign in the lily pool, a decorative pond that serves as the central gathering place on the Searcy campus.
Harding's graduate school in Memphis admitted four black students in 1962.
Integration proceeded slowly at Harding, with blacks comprising less than 2% of the student body in 1970, and challenges in areas like roommate assignments, dating and athletics continued beyond Benson's presidency.