The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 533

Book Reviews

Committee on Public Relations for the Baptists of the United
States.
The first three chapters of the book deal with Dawson's parents
and their struggle to earn a living by farming in Ellis and Hill
counties. In fact, this section of the volume is a case study in
tenant cotton farming in the blacklands of Texas in the last two
decades of the nineteenth century. Upon graduation from Baylor
in 1904, young Dawson accepted the position of assistant secre-
tary of the Texas Baptist Education Commission. His main re-
sponsibility was to raise money for Texas Baptist schools, and the
scene of his labors was the country west of Fort Worth including
the towns of Albany, Vernon, Childress, and Wichita Falls. The
young minister was not particularly successful in this endeavor
and confessed "growing doubts as to my fitness for money-rais-
ing." He resigned to become a pastor. The next decade found
Joseph Dawson pastor at Lampasas; editor of the Western Evan-
gel, a Baptist religious weekly published at Abilene; editor of
the Baptist Standard, resigning soon over differences as to policies
with the owner of the Standard, J. Frank Norris; pastor at Hills-
boro for four and one-half years; and pastor at Temple for two
years.
"Time Exposure in a World-Minded Church" is the title of
the eighth chapter. In this and subsequent chapters Dawson's
story of his pastorate in Waco from 1914 to 1945 provides the
reader with much local and Baylor history and with vivid char-
acterizations of such men as John S. Tanner, S. P. Brooks, Pat M.
Neff, and A. J. Armstrong, whom Dawson regards as Baylor's
greatest teacher. Dawson was pastor of the church to which most
Baylor professors belonged and he was at the same time a mem-
ber of the Baylor Board of Trustees. Future Baylor historians will
profit from reading his autobiography.
That Dawson was a student and a scholar with broad social
and intellectual interests is evidenced by his writings and by his
participation in national and international organizations. Christ
and Social Change (1937), Separate Church and State Now
(1948), and America's Way in Church, State, and Society (1956),
are representative of his contributions to the struggle for social
justice and to the defense of the principle of separation of church

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