Richard Herzog
President Bohlmann called several of his close advisors to his office one day to view an artist color rendering of a new Lutheran Church Missouri Synod logo. Ralph asked each one of us what we thought of the design for a cross, that would be a new Symbol for The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. First John Koltz, Academic Dean, said he disliked it because it suggested the broken condition of Synod after the walkout. Then Roland Hopmann, Dean of Students, said he did not like the color, three shades of light blue reminded him of the United Nations flag. John Johnson said nothing when asked for his opinion. Finally, I got to speak, and agreed with John and Roland, but added that the color should be bold: in Gold, Black, and Red: gold for the glorious resurrection, black for the sins of the world, and red for the blood of Christ. Then Ralph said he liked it the way it is, and the Synod was going to adopt it. Then Roland Hopmann, John Klotz did an about face stating, they also liked it the way it was. John Johnson said nothing. I knew President Bohlmann did not appreciate opinion contrary to his own. John Johnson knew the President better than any of us and eventually became Seminary President. It was by the left-handed of God, that I, a nobody, became a participant at Concordia Seminary St. Louis after the Walkout.
The Party
Fifty years ago, Sunday February 17, 1974, The Bach Society of St. Louis was having a party to celebrate their annual 1973 Christmas Concert at Powell Hall and listen to a tape recording of the performance. In addition to the choir, members of the Bach Society Board of Directors were present: Dr. John Tietjen, President of Concordia Seminary, Charlie Burmeister, Concordia Seminary Board of Control, Dick Duesenberg, President of the Bach Society Board of Directors. I was a member of the choir and the choir representative on the Bach Society Board. My wife and I hosted the party because our house could hold a large gathering plus we had a sound system that accommodated the recording equipment used by the St. Louis Symphony’s sound technician.
While the technician was setting up his equipment, we partied by eating snacks and toasting ourselves with campaign, most of which were brought by members of the choir. The noise level had increased until the music started playing when you could hear a pin drop. At about two o’clock the phone rang, much to the annoyance of the choir, it was for Dr. Tietjen. After he hung up the receiver, he conferred with the Board members in attendance, whereupon they all abruptly left the party. The party continued without them until the recording of the Christmas concert had finished. Nothing seemed unusual except some of the choir member also left at the same time. Several Seminary professors sang in the choir. I remember Karl Volz (we both sang tenor) and several other professors leaving the party.
Up to this point, I was not involved in the Seminary controversy and only vaguely aware of the Synod resolutions at its 1973 Convention in New Orleans. Consequently, I thought nothing about the abrupt departure of John Tietjen and others from the Bach Society party. Plus, cleaning up after the party was a distraction for the remainder of the day. In addition, we had Seminary students living in our third-floor apartment unaware of the impending storm or perhaps trying to avoid it. I believe the news reached a national audience when reported on CBS Nightly News by Walter Cronkite. “One of the largest seminaries in the country, Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, over seven hundred students and seventy of their professors walked off the campus in protest over the firing of their president Dr. John Tietjen.” I think the WALKOUT was a wake-up call for the rank-and-file Lutheran church members. This amounted to the LCMS’s Pearl Harbor and became a hotly contested battles at the congregation level.
Post Walkout Environment
After the walkout, congregations began taking sides in the controversy. Liberal leaning members left orthodox churches and migrated to more “moderate” churches. Churches were being supplied by Seminex graduates or pastors more liberal in their approach to Lutheran theology. This caused a backlash with the conservative members who left for more conservative and orthodox churches. Families were split in their affiliation, and members became suspect of their fellow Christians. Perhaps it was a harbinger of current politics in America. Many families left congregations when the pastor left and formed a new congregation affiliated with a liberal Lutheran synod. The growing Seminex controversy impacted individual members belief in the truth of scripture, doubted the miracles, and the virgin birth of Jesus. In short, it was a real mess. Marriages were dissolved, friendships broken, doubt and distrust permeated the entire synod. Some called it a disaster, doubting that the Missouri Synod and Concordia Seminary would survive. To say the atmosphere was pessimistic would be an understatement. Church attendance dropped, collections shrank, and districts were withholding money from Synod. It felt like everybody was sitting on the fence waiting to see which way things would go, like waiting out an election for the winner to emerge.
I was preoccupied by my own life of day-to-day work, raising a family, and trying to fit into my church life as a Sunday school teacher and member of the choir. Our pastor, in conjunction with other liberal players, some ex-seminary professors, were driving the conservatives out and/or threatening to leave taking half the congregation with him. Finally, it came to a showdown, the liberal, pro-Seminex group, came up short, and the pastor left with about forty families. Our church, Village Lutheran Church in Ladue, was seriously wounded, still alive, but in no better shape than the Missouri Synod or the Seminary.
Post Walkout Seminary
Immediately, the Seminary had to resume classes for the remaining students that paid their tuition and stayed. Martin Sharlemann was quickly appointed Acting President until the Seminary Board of Control could elect a new president. Subsequently, Ralph Bohlmann was elected as the replacement for John Tietjen. Only five Seminary professors refused to walkout and remained at their post to teach a remnant of the former student body. Fortunately, many of the Seminary staff stayed in place, keeping the school running and open as usual. Most of the remaining students were living on campus, along with the faculty members that stayed.
The prospects for increasing student enrollment were discouraging since the Military draft had been eliminated about the same time as the walkout. Statistically, seminary enrollment correlated closest to the military draft. The more draftees, the more seminary students. That was not what President Bohlmann wanted to hear and flatly rejected such a prospect. Nevertheless, it would be an uphill battle to increase enrollment requiring a vigorous PR and recruiting effort.
Economic Consequences
The expenses of the campus did not stop with the walkout. It cost almost as much to run an empty campus as it does to operate at full capacity. Perhaps there is some savings of variable costs but most of the costs are fixed: utilities, maintenance, food service, and staff salaries. But it was obvious that the loss of student tuition seriously impacted the Seminary’s “break-even” point. Charlie Burmeister and I did a quick break-even analysis to determine the minimum number of students (400) to get out of a deficit situation. It was apparent that one of the major consequences of the Walkout was economic. Not only for the Seminary but also for the Missouri Synod and its member churches. Synod was strapped for funds and was forced to curtailed support for the Seminaries. If the situation was bad enough (never say “it could not get any worse” or the “worse is over”), it got worse with rising energy costs unprecedented in our history, caused by the Arab oil embargo, referred to in 1973 as the “Energy Crisis.” Gasoline prices went from $0.20/gal to $0.96 in one year. Not only gasoline prices but all other prices dependent on oil: natural gas, fertilizer, food, wages, etc. rose astronomically. By 1979, bonds were as high as 18%, and 11% home Mortgages were normal financial instrument rates. Not many church workers could afford an 11% mortgage. The Missouri Synod was paying interest on bonds and other securities to finance their operations. Church collections were shrinking and purchasing power was eroding due to inflation. It was one of the worse times in American economic history. Second only to the “Great Depression” of 1929 and equaled the period following WWII. It was crucial for the Missouri Synod to continue staffing the Seminary with students and confessionally competent professors since the reputation of the Missouri Synod hung in the balance.
Other problems were surfacing after the walkout that were not well known outside the seminary administration. Book store inventory had soured due to mismanagement of purchase orders at pre-walkout levels. The chief accountant/business administrator was absent, being treated for cancer. His secretary, sympathetic to the walkout, left abruptly. Rumors circulated about the state of the administration among the Board of Control, casting doubt on the character of the newly appointed President, board members, Charlie Burmeister, Rauscher, Narjes, and others felt that they needed a way to monitor the seminary administration other than by reports of the President. At that time, I was a commissioner of the St. Louis Housing Authority, a State Agency that supervised federal money for low-income housing. Public low-income housing needed updating and equipment needed retrofitting to become more energy efficient. One dollar spent on energy efficiency translated into a two to four times the savings in utility bills. Like I said before, there were students living in my house that were lamenting the poor situation at the Seminary and encouraging my involvement. Charlie Burmeister and the Narjes family, whom I had a close relationship, urged action.
I agreed to do it on a part time basis not to interfere with my duties at the Housing Authority. Plus, I had access to Government money, and suggested ways to get it for “schools.” First, my title was to be Vice-President of Administration. That was shot down by President Bohlmann, perhaps in deference to the ailing business manager. Then he came up with a ubiquitous title like “Institutional Planning Director/Assistant to the President.” So, I was hired on a part time basis to survey, recommend, and improve the seminary but have nothing to do with academics. Given an office next to Dr. Martin Sharlemann was to become a major benefit of the job. The part about hands off academics was unnecessary, I am not a trained theologian, didn’t know the difference between exegetics and homiletics, and would have screwed things up worse than a Seminex professor. Plus, my German shepherd puppy ate my leather-bound Bible.
Government Energy Grants
The same crew of architectural engineers that was working on the housing projects did an “energy survey” of the Seminary campus. They found thousands of dollars in building and equipment repairs and upgrades that would save millions of dollars in the long run. For example, the leaded glass windows installed 50 years ago were loose and rattling. The air infiltration rate was equivalent to leaving the window open an inch. Multiply that by the number of windows on campus and the loss is astounding. The boiler plant needed upgrading to a more current energy efficient level. Electrical and lighting upgrades were needed since very little had been done since the Seminary was built in1926.
How did we get the money to do the work? By using the new Energy Act by Congress, administered by HUD, and supervised by each state. The architects were familiar with the process and were using it to do the energy retrofit work at the St. Louis Housing Authority. With the help of Senator Tom Eagleton, we had to go to Congress and beg for money because the housing authority was in hock to HUD for $20M for the Pruitt-Igoe fiasco, and HUD blocked our application to fund energy improvements. After presenting our energy plan for the Housing Authority, I will never forget Senator Harrison Williams, chairman of the joint Ways and Means committee of Congress, asking why I needed only 750 million dollars? I was almost speechless and said, “where I’m from, that’s a king’s ransom.” He replied, “young man, I only deal in billions.” Tom Eagleton, sitting next to me, said, “don’t worry, you got the money.” We piggy backed on the Housing Authority since it is a state agency, our application went to Jefferson City, not through HUD. Next it was up to our Architect; Peckham, Guyton, Albers, and Viets to apply for State funding for a school, “Concordia College, St. Louis, MO” under the newly enacted Energy Act. A couple of trips to Jefferson City with Ed Kriege and his bosses we were able to tap into the pool of energy related Federal funds. It may have been a first-time federal money was spent on a religious institution. But it was a joy to use political contacts to help the Seminary recover economically, including benefits that would help into the future.
The Bookstore
Our auditors could not reconcile the seminary’s bookstore inventory with the accounts. Much money had been spent on purchasing books and few books were found. That was a red flag for the auditors. The business manager/chief accountant was on sick leave. The bookstore manager was a longtime unsupervised employee, with an attitude of a librarian not a bookseller. First, the bookstore was in a confined space inadequate to display merchandise. Second, when books did not sell, they would be stored in a closet making room for more books on the shelf. Judging from the number of closets where books were being stored this practice must have been going on for over ten years. Third, many of the stored books were expensive reference and textbooks of Roman Catholic origin. Ralph fired the manager, and I picked out one of the office workers, reluctant but willing to manage the bookstore. As it turned out, Waldo Kiehnhoff did a superb job of turning the bookstore into a profit center for the Seminary. We had a huge book sale advertised at all the Catholic Schools in St. Louis. The value of the books that had been squirreled-away gave a needed boost to the Seminary coffers. Based on his success, Waldo expanded the floor space of the bookstore to the lower level of the administration building.
Real Estate Planning
President Bohlmann had mentioned three things he was interested in relating to real estate. First, there was a need for additional student housing in anticipation of increased enrollment. Second, the Seminary desired a proper chapel, not an auditorium where chapel had been held since 1926. Third, there was a desire to move Synod Headquarters out of rented quarter on N. Broadway in downtown St. Louis to the Seminary campus. Our Architects, Albers and Viets, were not site architects and recommended another landscape architect. Before the study was complete and the architect’s findings were available, President Bohlmann purchased two apartment buildings off campus on an adjacent street. I reluctantly handled the transaction against better judgment and the need for haste. His idea was to expand the campus southward toward Clayton Road. The decision was premature considering the architects findings. First, they recommended additional student housing be built on Campus and move the faculty off campus into private housing. This recommendation resonated with several members of the Board of Control that heard rumor of faculty inbreeding as an underlying cause of the “Walkout.” Student housing would be better utilization of the unused space along Big Bend Blvd. at the western end of the campus. This was indicative of Ralph’s style of management, “shoot first then ask questions.” Two sites were chosen for a future chapel on campus: one on the east side facing De Munn Ave., the second located where the old log cabin sits, approximately in the center of the campus. Synod Headquarters was not an option for the Seminary campus much to Ralph’s disappointment. As I recall the problem, the only site suitable for the headquarters building was along Big Bend Blvd, and the City of Clayton would not approve the application for the usual reasons: residential character of the site, traffic congestion, and neighbor complaints.
Thus, the real estate issues were a major battle, that turned out contrary to President Bohlmann’s vision for the seminary. Being in the middle, as Planning Director, between President Bohlmann and the Board of Control, I felt the friction and heat personally. The friction that developed over the use of Seminary real estate was no different than political friction experienced in government at all levels.
Fund Raising
The seminary had in place a department for raising money. I believe it was called “Development” and included some PR and promotion activities as well. I don’t remember the exact title. For some arcane reason theological institutions disdain regular business nomenclature. Like the Army they have their own way of describing functional entities that totally baffle civilians. Gladys Suelflow was head of the department until Ralph brought in Rev. Clyde Kaminska to supervise a fundraising campaign for the seminary. President Bohlmann and Clyde Kaminska would make frequent trips visiting congregations, corporations, and wealthy donors. Because of budget constraints, Clyde also coached seminary sports and athletics at the field house on campus. For some inexplicable reason I was not invited to participate in this fundraising campaign other than my involvement in raising money for energy savings. However, it was often rumored on campus that the efficacy of Clyde Kaminska’s fund-raising excursions was the disdain of Gladys Suelflow.
In the meantime, I was introduced to Major General Gerhardt Wilhelm (Will) Hyatt, US Army, retired, and current president of Concordia College, St. Paul, Minnesota. “Will” was living at Mansion house, downtown St. Louis while working at Synod headquarters at 500 N. Broadway on a $30 million campaign to bolster Synod’s finances, called “Forward in Remembrance.” One of the Commissioners on the St. Louis Housing Authority Board of Directors, Monsignor Shockley, mentioned during a private lunch about a convent the Catholic church was selling in Wisconsin. I passed the information on to Will Hyatt. Subsequently, Will and I went to Mequon Wisconsin, met Karl Barth, Wisconsin District president, and examined the property. It was a magnificent property, testimony to Roman Catholic appreciation of stone, mortar, and marble. Immediately Will raised the goal of his financial campaign to 40M.
Back in St. Louis things were coming unraveled at the seminary. One of the secretaries in “Development” office intercepted a letter from a donor, at least that was her assumption when she opened the letter thinking it was a donation. Much to her horror it had no money but a love letter that implicated leaders at the school. She came directly to me to express her indignation at such improper behavior by clergy. Why she didn’t go to Gladys Sueflow, I believe, was to preserve her job. She handed over the letter if I protected her confidentiality. I readily agreed. The seminary could not afford another scandal. I burned the letter in my fireplace, assured that would not inflame the rumor mill on campus. This person’s behavior was reported to his pastor, the Missouri District President, who also sat on the Seminary Board of Control. Gladys Suelflow was also aware of it. It was endeavored to keep things quiet to avoid a potential scandal.
I was getting deeper and deeper into an awkward situation at the seminary. In this case knowing too much was a liability, not an asset. Ralph suspected I was behind the student’s complaints to the Missouri District president. In fact, he called me into his office and examined me like a drill sergeant or a cop, wanting to know what I knew about the rumors. It was a most unpleasant and unprofessional display of red-faced anger when I would not disclose any information about what I knew or whom I knew it from.
Exit and Remembrance
The Bible is a store house of wisdom and poetry, especially “The Handwriting on the Wall.” In my case it pointed to a future outside of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. As it turned out it was out of St. Louis entirely. Will Hyatt extended an invitation to set up a new business program at his school in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I was ready for a move and now was the time since my oldest child was starting Kindergarten.
The seventies were a stressful time in the USA, for our Synod, and for me personally. Yet we get through with prayers and the help of God. Plus, you remember the good more than the bad. For example, I had the good fortune of serving on a committee with John Johnson to select guest lecturers for faculty symposiums. The two I remember most were Ernest Schwiebert, “Luther and his Times” which he autographed and Walter Forster, “Zion on the Mississippi.”
To the end I was loyal to President Bohlmann’s desire to become Synod President, and watched from a distance as the Seminary grew to its pre-walkout prominence as a premier Lutheran Church Missouri Synod school for pastors and teachers. In 1980 was time to say goodbye to St. Louis and its politics, the Bach Society, and Concordia Seminary. Now that I am old enough to look back over fifty years, the only conclusion that makes sense is that our plans were illusive dreams, different from what God intended for the Seminary. I returned to my home in St. Louis thirty years later to find the Seminary thriving and in good hands, a new Synod Headquarters in Kirkwood, and sound Lutheran doctrine in our churches. God is love and He loves the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
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