By Jason Sibert
John Mott’s faith provided a map for his accomplishments.
He spent his life working toward the goal of peace, always with the idea that men and women were connected in some way. Mott was born in Sullivan Country New York in 1865. He attended Upper Iowa University where he studied history and was an award-winning debater. Mott later transferred to Cornell University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1888.
He married Leila Ada White in 1891. They had two sons and two daughters. In 1910, Mott – as a Methodist layperson – presided over the 1910 World Missionary Conference, which some say was the beginnings of the ecumenical movement, or cooperation amongst various forms of Christianity.
The religious leader won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his leadership in the Y.M.C.A. (Young Men’s Christian Association), an organization that crosses national boundaries. Mott worked with the Y.M.C.A. for many years. In the summer of 1886, he represented Cornell University’s Y.M.C.A. at the first international, interdenominational student Christian conference ever held. At that conference, which gathered 251 men from eighty-nine colleges and universities, one hundred men – including Mott – pledged themselves to work in foreign missions. From this, two years later, sprang the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. From 1915 to 1928, Mott was general-secretary of the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A. and from 1926 to 1937 president of the Y.M.C.A.’s World Committee. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee stated Mott won the prize for leading “a peace-promoting religious brotherhood across national boundaries.”
John Mott racked up an impressive list of accomplishments before ending his journey on this earth in 1955. He wrote sixteen books in his chosen field, crossed the Atlantic over one hundred times and the Pacific fourteen times, delivered thousands of speeches, and chaired innumerable conferences. Among the honorary awards which he received are: decorations from China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jerusalem, Poland, Portugal, Siam, Sweden, and the United States; six honorary degrees from the universities of Brown, Edinburgh, Princeton, Toronto, Yale, and Upper Iowa; and an honorary degree from the Russian Orthodox Church of Paris.
Weather or not one agrees with Mott’s religious ideas, his ideas on the connectivity of all people are appealing to those in the struggle for peace. Mott shared his Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 with Emily Greene Balch, as they were just two of 21 Americans to win the prize. Balch was a member of Women’s International League for Freedom and a dedicated pacifist. She was given the prize for her lifelong struggle against war.
Jason Sibert is Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project.
