The Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

IIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

in this issue

LAWLESSNESS BY OFFICERS OF THE LAW

ON THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC FRONT

ON THE METHODIST FRONT

"APRIL SHOWERS”
LEARNING OBEDIENCE

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Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XIII - No. 329

April 27, 1932

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Not a Passing Depression . . . 470

Two-Thirds Sought Work . . .470

One New Locomotive.....471

Arkansas Schools Closed in

February........471

How the Incomes Are Distributed 472

Without a Parallel in History . 473

Florence and Muscle Shoals . . 473

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

“April Showers"

How Nice Cleans Its Sewers . . -170

More People Are Walking . . . 471

What America Received from

Europe

Canada Unarmed and Unafraid . 473

The Plumbers of “Christendom'’ 470

No War in Asia

Good-bye to the League . . . 471

Boys Whipped in Court . . . 472

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

New Type of Cotton

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Twenty Substances from Air . . 470

New Felt-Coated Steel . . . .471

More Beautiful Bricks .... 473

HOME AND HEALTH

Cough Syrup on Pancakes . .471

Cutting Fourth Set of Teeth . .471

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Postal Savings Deposits Quadrupled.......470

British Speeding Up Trains . . 470

Munitions Stocks Coming Up . . 471

Lower Light Rates for Churches 473

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Lawlessness by OFFICERS of the Law........451

On the Roman Catholic Front 431

On the Methodist Front . . . 467

Some Military Statistics .... 470

$1 5,000,000 from Mexico to

Vatican .........470

The Survivors of Chapei . . . 470

Five and a Half Months’ Fast . 470

Some. Features of Sydney’s Bridge 471

Suicides of Kreuger and Eastman 472

Rains in Rainless Peru .... 472

Japan’s Puppet-President of

Manchuria

Viva il Papa

At Geneva and at Shanghai . . 473

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Looks like More Trouble . . . 472

Must Hang Together er Separately

Learning the Lesson of Obedience 474

Published every other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

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Ihiteied as second cla-s matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1S79.

Golden Age

Volume XIII                       Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, April 27, 1932                       Number 329

Lawlessness by Officers of the Law

ONE of the principal reasons why the United States is the crime center of the world is that so many of its servants, paid to uphold the law, do so many lawless acts. Section 1.1 of the 'Wickersham Commission report, 347 pages, 60 cents, can be had from the United States Government Printing Office at Washington, and contains enough evidence to make every American hang his head for shame, and to keep it thus hung until the infamous abuses therein complained of have been corrected.

In England, and probably in other civilized countries, public opinion is against the torture of prisoners, but in this country we have so many that have been indoctrinated with the theory of longer or shorter terms of suffering in purgatory, and so many of these have secured positions as guardians of the law, that torture of the helpless is quite common, law or no law.

It got a good start just after the Civil War, with the “sweat box”. This was a cell in close proximity to a stove, in which a scorching fire was built and fed with old bones, pieces of rubber shoes, etc., all to make great heat and offensive smells, until the sickened and perspiring inmate of the cell confessed in order to get released.

The Inquisition in Texas

Judge Morrow, of Texas, describes the recent treatment at Harrison in that state, of an eighteen-year-old Negro youth:

After appellant was arrested by officers he was struck by one of them in the mouth. The officer then said: “I think I hit him with my fist once and slapped him once. I struck him in the mouth as hard as I could hit him.” This officer also testified that the appellant was laid across a log, that his clothes were removed, and that he was whipped by the officers with a switch, which one of them described as being “about the size of my little finger or a little larger than my little finger; it was as big as my biggest finger and was green. I didn't count the times I hit Robert.”

Probably the illegal conduct of these particular Texas “officers” cannot be traced to a belief in purgatory. Quite probably they are the victims of a still worse teaching, which would consign almost all the human family to eternal torture without any respite or relief at any time whatsoever.

As officers of the law they are worse than useless. They promote the very thing they are hired to prevent. Who could have any respect for a servant that would maltreat a member of his master’s family merely because he happened to have him for a short time within his power ?

Judge Morrow also reversed the conviction of another Texas Negro, 26 years of age, and tells of the way this man was treated. He says that after he had been brought to the jail in Marlin, and had denied any connection with the crime for which he was arrested, he was then whipped by the sheriff, who used a leather strap about 2¹/, feet long with some strips of leather sewed on the end of it; that he was whipped all over the head, shoulders, and neck, and that there remained scars on his body and head. These scars were exhibited, and testimony relating to them was given by a doctor and another witness. Appellant testified further that the injuries to his arm prevented its use for a month and caused him to swell up so that he could not lie on his side for several months; that he was whipped with the side of the strap and the butt end of it and nearly killed; that when he came to, they were kicking him in the side; that his head still gave pain and swelled up. The swelling was verified by other witnesses. He testified to subsequent whippings in the jail at Marlin and that on one occasion a stick was used by the sheriff which cut to the blood and caused an injury from which he had not yet recovered; that he was told by the sheriff to go before the grand jury and make the same statement that he had made to him, otherwise he

would be mobbed, and if he did make the same statement he would be discharged after certain white men against whom suspicion rested had been dealt with. In the jail other witnesses, Negroes, were severely and cruelly whipped by the sheriff. One of them was put in water and his head held in water until he was almost drowned. Another, a woman, was stripped of her clothes, laid on the floor, and severely whipped and strapped.

Todhunter of Lillie Rock

Judge Butler, of Arkansas, released two Negro boys who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for tin* drowning of two other boys. There was no evidence that the drowned boys had been drowned by anybody. Judge Butler tells of the means that were taken to force one of these boys, an exemplary young Negro named Bell, to confess to this crime of which he was innocent :

Be told how he was made to lie upon the floor, dad only in a thin shirt and trousers, and was whipped with a leathern strap attached to a handle; the strap was 3^J h feet long and 3 inches wide. Here we have a. Negro boy, whom the testimony of Mrs. McCullom, the mother of the unfortunate little Julius, characterizes as “a good Christian boy, if ever there was one". Iler testimony showed that he had been the humble friend and companion of her children for six years; that hi' was obedient, kind, and helpful; that he shared his horse, the pride of his heart, with Julius, whom he loved like a brother; that he would carry the little children around on his horse and in every way manifested a gentle and affectionate spirit. This is the “mean, hard-headed nigger” of whom Air. Todhunter spoke. This Negro boy was taken, on the day after the discovery of the homicide while he was at his usual work, and placed in jail. He had heard them whipping Swain in the jail; he was taken from the jail to the penitentiary at Little Rock and turned over to the warden, Captain Todhunter, who was re-<|Uested by the sheriff to question him. This Todhunter proceeded to do day after day, an hour at a time. There Bell was, an ignorant country Negro boy surrounded by all of those things that strike terror to the Negro heart; he vas told that he had drowned Julius McCullom and that he must admit it, and asked if he had not done so; when he denied it, he v,as whipped by the warden, who “usually conquered when he began”, according to the warden’s testimony.

One wonders if Todhunter is still warden at Little Bock. Such a man is not fit to hold any job whatever in which he comes in contact with his fellow men. We hate to have our British readers see what they will see in this article, but this thing is up for an airing now, and up it comes.

No Need for Laws in Kansas City

Commissioner Henwood, Kansas City, Alo., reversed the conviction of a man whose automobile was used in a bank robbery. As reasons for the reversal he gave the following, which leads to the obvious conclusion that a civilization which has enough Thurmans and Kellerstrauss-es needs no laws, judges, juries nor citizens:

The defendant offered to testify that from about 8: 30 in the evening of June 1-1, when he was arrested, until about noon on June 16, when he was taken to the prosecuting attorney's office, he was sweated almost continuously by various police officers and detectives, who kicked him, beat him with a rubber hos>‘, struck him with a revolver, a chair, and a blackjack, and squeezed and twisted his testicles, and refused to let him sleep and to let him have anything to eat or drink, and threatened to kill him, in their efforts to force, him to admit that he actually participated in the robbery and the killing of Officer Smith and to inform them as to others who participated in the perpetration of said crimes; that by means of such mistreatment, torture, threats, and coercion, he was forced, at police headquarters on June 15, to sign the first statement about 9 o’clock in the morning of June 15, and to sign the additional statement some time in the afternoon of that day, without first having an opportunity to read said statements and without having said statements read to him; that, about noon on June 16, he was taken from police headquarters to the prosecuting attorney's office by two detectives, Thurman and Kellerstrauss, who had actively participated in the mistreatment, torture, threats, and coercion to which he had been subjected at police headquarters; that immediately before he was taken into the office of the prosecuting attorney he was told by Thurman that unless, when questioned by the prosecuting attorney, he confirmed the statements signed by him at police headquarters, they (the detectives' would take him back to police headquarters and “finish” him.

The Shame of Kenosha

Judge Jones, of Illinois, was unable to see the value of a so-called “confession'’ of Frank Lang, held tight against a wall by Kenosha officers and repeatedly pounded on the back and kidneys. In reversing his conviction Judge Jones endorsed the testimony of two physicians one of whom said:

I examined the defendant, Frank Lang, at the county jail. He was stripped and an examination made of his physical condition. There were marks

The GOLDEN AGE

on the right arm; also marks on the left side—left back—extending from the shoulder down to the edge of the ribs. This extended around on the side to a line that might be drawn from the interior portion of the axilla. The left arm was also bruised, black and blue to the elbow; and there was a discoloration, greenish yellow, from the elbow down toward the wrist. The left arm was swollen, also the forearm. The tissues of the back were somewhat swollen. There were also bruises on the buttocks, as I remember, especially on the right. I should judge that the injuries observed by us were caused by violence of some kind which extended into the tissues and muscles, breaking the blood vessels under the skin, so that it caused discoloration, and also breaking the skin in spots. We took an X-ray to determine whether oi¹ not the left arm was fractured.

Maybe you didn't know that when you pay taxes you pay your servants to club suspected persons on both arms and all the way down their backs until they arc black and blue with broken blood vessels, and their lives are shortened by having their kidneys bruised! And you may get it next, yourself.

Belzoni’s Negro Familiaire

Judge Anderson, of Mississippi, was not pleased when he learned that a sheriff at Belzoni had had a Negro suspect beaten by a fellow convict in the effort to force a confession. Reversing the conviction Judge Anderson called attention to the fact that at the time this beating took place, shortly before midnight, the prisoner had no clothing on except his underwear; it took place in the presence of a white prisoner in the same jail and a deputy sheriff of the county. The prisoner* who did the beating was let into the cell and provided with a leather strap for the purpose of administering it. What do you Britishers think of that ? But hold! More is coming.

Most of us feel rather sorry for boys of seventeen when they get into trouble. But in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, two youths of that age, arrested for the theft of an automobile, were taken to a private room in the police station, where they were struck in the face, threatened with death, and one of them was caught by the hair and hit until the desired “confession'" was secured. Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition?

The “Water Cure” in Clarksdale

On a night in 1925, in the jail at Clarksdale, Miss., a Negro charged with murdering a man was placed on his back on the floor, and tied, and water was slowly poured into his nostrils until he. “confessed”. Acquitted at the trial, the poor Negro was lynched anyway. Do you think Jehovah God is going to let a thing like that go unpunished ?

At West Allis, Wis., a prisoner emerged from jail with two black eyes, and explained that, besides his bruises, he had been made to occupy a. cell which was subjected to sudden changes of temperature, from insufferable heat to extreme cold. Wonder if the tormentors of Seville ever thought of that one.

In Manistee, Mich., an illiterate Polish woman, charged with the murder of a nun, was put into a cell lighted with candles where a skeleton was strung up so that it could be manipulated. She was told the skeleton was that of her victim, and was compelled to stay there two hours. Entertaining, isn't it?

Has America Fallen This Low?

If we feel sorry for a couple of boys, only seventeen, that get into trouble, how ought we to feel for a poor Negro girl, only fifteen, charged with murdering her own baby? The conviction of this girl was reversed, but read what the county attorney has to say of how he bulldozed her into making a confession which she always insisted was only a lie.

“The sheriff, the deputy sheriff, and myself brought Joe Stella up to the courthouse and to the sheriff’s office again, and after much persuasion could not get her to make any statement that would involve her in the killing. I believe we did tell her that we already had sufficient evidence to justify a jury in breaking her neck, and if she would confess and tell the truth about it we would try to make it light on her; we possibly told her that we would see that she got a light sentence; in fact, we told her ’most anything, trying to get her to make a confession. We possibly interrogated her something like an hour and a half or two hours, but she maintained that she was innocent and would not make any statement implicating her in the killing. But, anyway, one of us suggested that the white folks were getting wrought up over the killing of this baby, and unless she told a different story they might come in and take charge of her. Something was said about a mob. She begged us to protect her from a mob, but the sheriff told her that unless she would come clean and tell a different story, he did not feel inclined to give her any protection, so far as he was concerned. It was after many threats were made before we were able to get her to tell anything. The statement was written and read over to the appellant, and she said: ‘White folks, that’s the biggest lie.’ We then took time about trying to get her to sign the statement, but nearly every time we would ask her to sign it, she would say there was not a word of truth in it. Finally our patience was about exhausted and the sheriff took her to the window and pointed out the water tower and asked her if she knew what it eould be used for. There was something ('Ise said about a mob at that time, too. It was soon after that time or about that time she signed it and we sent her on back to jail.”

Terrorism ’mid Rats and Scalps

A man charged as accomplice in a New Orleans murder case was obliged to take o If his own clothes and put on a ragged pair of trousers and shirt which the police gave him. He was taken to another police station several miles from where he belonged. Here he was kept four days, including December 25. The chief of detectives admitted that it was an antiquated jail, with brick cells, without heating, with the glass broken out of the windows, and said to be inhabited by rats. The defendant, who was ill with a sore throat, testified without contradiction from the police that during his four days and nights of confinement in such surroundings he was given no food except one sandwich a day, no drinking water except what he found in the reservoir above the toilet, and no bedclothes except one blanket, which he received only on the last day; and that several policemen came into the cell every hour of the night and prodded him with questions.

At Miami, Fla., a prisoner accused of murdering his wile was chained overnight to the floor of a cell without a bed, which was so infested with mosquitoes that he could not sleep. Next day he was subjected to a “grueling examination” by the chief of police, the State attorney, his assistant, and the deputy sheriff throughout the morning and until 4 p.m., with the scalp of his dead wife at his feet.

The Horrid Tortures of Wan

One of the most terrible acts of oppression ever committed in the world took place in the national capitai. Wo have before made reference to this in our columns. Three Chinamen had been found dead in tin; Chinese Educational Mission in Washington, D. C. Wan was suspected. He was found in New York, where he was ill in bed, searched without a search warrant, and brought to Washington. There he was held incommunicado in a hotel room eight days, all of the time acutely ill so that a police surgeon was repeatedly called. He was questioned almost continuously night and day and guarded by policemen at all times. The examinations sometimes lasted until 5 in the morning. On the eighth day, 7 p.m. to 10 a.m., he was questioned at the scene of the crime. On the ninth day he was at last formally arrested and taken to a police station, where investigation was immediately resumed. On the eleventh day he was again questioned at the scene of the crime for hours. A stenographic report of the interrogation was then written out, which he signed on the twelfth day. Four- oral confessions were also made after the seventh day. On the thirteenth day he was for the first time examined by the jail physician, who found him very ill and under the circumstances not responsible for anything he had signed. He lay ill for a month in bed. Three Washington detectives and the superintendent of police participated in this process, which all took place before production in court. Wan’s conviction was reversed and these confessions excluded by the Supreme Court. After two subsequent juries had disagreed as to his guilt, the district attorney stated to the judge that it would be impossible to find a jury which would declare Wan either innocent or guilty. The accused was thereupon released, seven years after his arrest.

A Woman Prisoner in Oakland

In Oakland, Calif., a woman charged with murdering her husband was cross-examined by two or more police officers for two weeks after her arrest, when she was in such low physical and mental condition that she had to be assisted into the room by matrons and have her head covered with wet towels in order to be able to answer questions. She had no counsel and was not warned of her constitutional rights. The examination lasted for hours at a time, during which she was denied food.

Commissioner Reeves of Missouri reversed the conviction of a man from whom a ‘‘confession” was extracted under the following circumstances :

Appellant was questioned almost continuously from Il o'clock Saturday morning until 1 lie time of his confession at 7 o’clock the next morning. He agreed to confess at 6 o’clock a.m.. so he was subjected to a rigid examination for a period of 18 hours. During that time he was interrogated in relays by the police and was not permitted to sleep, nor was he given food. Police Officer Gcrk, who was a large man, slapped him during the inquisition, because he said that appellant was disrespectful, and Officer Sweetin again slapped him, because he called said officer a liar. Sweetin was also a large man. Appellant’s shoes were taken from him. At one time he was stripped of his clothing, lie was required to look at two bright reflectors, so that the light fell on his face, and was forbidden to turn his face away, so as to rest his eyes. He was taken to his cell for a few minutes at a time during the night and then brought back for further interrogation. He was compelled on Saturday afternoon, and again before daylight on Sunday morning, to go with the police officers to the vacant lot where deceased was murdered, and then, while it was yet night, to go to the undertaker’s, and there stand before the body of the deceased, while a light was flashed on her face. He was required to put his hand on the corpse.

Questioned in Relays

In New Orleans a man who had been drinking hard before he was arrested was persistently questioned by the superintendent of police and reporters, during live interviews which aggregated possibly 40 hours out of the 53 which elapsed before the “confession” was secured. One of the members of the court in which the man was afterwards tried remarked that he himself might make a false confession of having murdered his own father if he were kept awake and prodded with questions as long as this man Doyle was kept awake and prodded with questions. It is a good thing that we have some honest judges in this country or it would be the annex to Hades.

A St. Joseph (Mo.) judge reversed the conviction of a woman, a hotel cook, who had been ill for a week, mostly in bed, who had been arrested for the murder of her husband and held incommunicado at the station house for two days without a warrant and without any charges being filed against her. Iler own friends and her husband's relatives were excluded. She was questioned by different members of the police force in relays until after midnight on both nights, besides two long questionings by the prosecuting attorney. The examinations were not stopped for supper; she had nothing to eat during the period; she was not allowed to lie down.

Other Protracted Interrogations

Other instances of protracted interrogations by the police were in Fresno county, Calif., where an Armenian woman was subjected to a bombardment of questions by official after official for about eight hours, when she had been without food all day; in San Francisco three men questioned, in handcuffs, from midnight until 5 a.m.; in Teller county, Colo., a “long conversation” during which the defendant was verbally abused by the deputy district attorney; at Ottawa, 111., a farm hand questioned from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.; at Covington, Ky., two laborers questioned separately from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m. in a very menacing manner and informed that their co-defendant had been badly beaten; at Baltimore a man questioned while in the hospital, having been shot twice; at Pottsville, Pa., a 14-year-old boy questioned for four hours after midnight; at Doylestown, in the same state, a defendant questioned for a considerable period of time while confined in the barracks of the state police; at Butler, also in Pennsylvania, a garage owner with a criminal record taken at 9 p.m., after 24 hours’ detention in the county jail, to the barracks of the state police and questioned throughout the night until about 6 a.m., seated all this time on a stool under a strong electric light; at Kennewick, Wash., a Croatian woman of low mentality, who could not speak or understand English readily, questioned six or seven hours by the prosecuting attorney and a police officer; at Clarksburg, W. Ya., three men questioned repeatedly over a period of three weeks by a private detective and by two private citizens who participated in the investigation pro bono publico. At Swartz, La., two men were held in jail, sequestered from all communication with friends, for 38 days.

Conditions in New York City

You wonder what are the conditions in New York city, and you cease to wonder when you learn that the mayor of the city, Jimmie Walker, recently issued for publication a statement that for successful police work the old-fashioned night stick was far more effective than the new scientific ideas. This is about what might be expected of Mr. Walker, who was lionized all over Europe, but is not held in such high esteem here in his home city.

Commissioner Whalen, in a public address, told how a suspect was stripped of his clothing and put in a cold room until he gave the information the police wanted. A total of 1,235 cases taken from the files of the Legal Aid Society showed that 23.4 percent of the defendants claimed to have been beaten by the police. It is said that every police station in the city is equipped with the instruments to administer the tortures now recognized as pertinent to the third degree.

Arrested persons come to station houses or headquarters in good shape and are seen shortly afterwards in the Tombs with swollen faces, all sorts of bruises and cuts, and often with blood spots scattered over them. An observer with exceptional opportunities has seen many cases of face and body bruises and broken ribs.

A distinguished magistrate reported that, when several Italians were brought before him for alleged violence, he looked at their backs and there was hardly a spot that was not raw from recent beating. Two men brought before Federal Judge Woolsey, at his direction removed their clothes, displaying welts and bruises which they said they had received as a result of beating with a rubber hose at the hands of the city police and of the Federal secret service agents.

Here is what the papers reported in a few successive days: Herald-Tribune, Dec. 23, 1930 (Officer Hollander suspended; charged with striking woman during course of arrest); Times, Dec. 27, 1930 (policeman sued for $50,000 when victim of his beating loses eye); Sun, Dec. 29, 1930 (Patrolman Johnson held on charge of felonious assault); Telegram, Jan. 20, 1931 (letter alleges writer saw police sergeant knock down and kick beggar); Post, Jan. 21, 1931 (Bogusoloff, communist, charges beating of two hours by police; appeared in court with head bandaged and shirt streaked with blood); Times, March 6. 1931 (girl swears before Seabury's investigation that police broke arm in raid).

Some of the Methods

Third-degree methods, authoritatively reported as recently employed include: Punching in the face, especially a hard slap on the jaw; hitting with a billy; whipping with a rubber hose; kicking in the abdomen; tightening the necktie almost up to the choking point; squeezing the testicles. Methods are favored which do not leave visible marks, because these attract the attention of the courts and sometimes lead district attorneys not to use the confession. There is said to be a practice that the arresting-officer does not commonly do the beating; another man will do it, so that when the arresting officer takes the stand it cannot be charged that he used force.

Among the methods are: A sharp, but not heavy, regular blow of a club on the skull, repeated at regular intervals, so that the regularity of the blows arouses anticipation which increases the torture; assuring suspects that they would not be hurt, then suddenly felling them unconscious by a blow from behind with a club or a slab of wood, followed by further sympathy and reassurance when the man revives, only to have the same thing suddenly happen again, the man never seeing who strikes him.

Fiaschetti, a former head of the Italian squad, says of one case, “I went to the Tombs and got myself a sawed-off baseball bat and walked in on all those dogs. Yes; they came through with everything they knew.”

A milder method, coming into increasing use, is to exhaust the prisoner by keeping him awake or constantly awakening him after a brief sleep. Or a man may be exhausted by long relays of questioning. Sometimes the questioning takes place in the presence of several burly officers, who rap the table sharply with their night sticks to terrorize the suspect. Deprivation of food is also practiced. These methods are called the mental third degree.

The Case of Barbato

Judge Pound of New York city reversed the conviction of one Barbato obtained under the following circumstances:

Defendant testified that one of the police officers struck him on the jaw and knocked him to the floor; that the other two pulled his hair and knocked him about with blackjacks, kicked him, cursed him, threatened to kill him, and made, him write, “I kill Julia Museo,” because they menaced him with further abuse if he refused; that he was still under the influence of fear when he made the later statements, so that he made no complaint to the assistant district attorney or the district attorney.

On Tuesday, September 17, he was arraigned before the magistrate in the Bronx Homicide Court. He then seems to have had a black eye or two black eyes, although the evidence on this point is not as conclusive as it might be. he claimed protection, saying that he was broken to pieces and could not talk. lie was then committed to the Bronx County jail. On September IS he complained of pain to the warden. He then had a black eye. The warden called Doctor Radin, the attending jail physician, to examine him. he was stripped. Doctor Radin testified as follows:

“Q. Now, doctor, will you tell this jury what your examination disclosed?—A. I found echymoses, that means black and blue marks, over the right arm, with some swelling of the arm, with a hemetoma over the middle of the aim. A hemetoma is a little collection or tumor of the blood. There were several abrasions over the right elbow and right forearm. Abrasions are superficial scratches. There are livid stripes over the right forearm and back of the right hand. There are echymoses black and blue marks, over the left arm, also over both eyelids on the left eye; over the left malar bone, that means cheek bone here [indicating] ; there were some abrasions in the right temporal region, that is, up here | indicating] —

"The Court. Witness indicates by placing his hand on the left temple.

“A. (Continuing.) There were a few echymoses over the back of the neck, and he complained of pain on manipulation of the head. There are some echymoses over the right scapula; that is, the shoulder blade. There were echymoses over both sides of the back and in the left lumbar region; that is, the left loin, in the left lower axillary region—the axillary region is the sidu of the chest, and the left lower axillary region would be the lower part of the side of the chest—there ’were echymoses over the right buttock and over the front of the right thigh and over the front of the left thigh and over the back of both thighs; there were some abrasions of the right leg.”

This evidence means that his body was covered with black and blue spots and lumps or swellings, caused by a fusion of blood under the skin, which might result from a beating.

In one instance forty bruises were counted on a prisoner’s body. In this instance a district attorney states that the punishment inflicted was so severe that a police surgeon was called in and stood by and at intervals took the. pulse of the prisoner and gave advice as to whether he could stand more beating. How would you like to have the whole country under the control of Tammany Hall.'

Newark—Philadelphia—Cincinnati

The third degree as practiced in Newark is vhat is called the •‘hard and soft" method. One or two detectives scare a prisoner thoroughly, rough him a hit, and then are "caught in the act" by some captain or superior officer, who enters and severely reprimands the rough workers and sends them out of the room. The superior then is frequently able by a show of friendship to get the man’s confidence and obtain a confession. The men assigned to the "hard” roles make every show of force, put a rubber hose and other weapons on the table, use loud and abusive language, shove the suspect the length of the room, threaten him. They may even go so far as to use the hose or their fists. When the “friendly” officer enters, he may ask the suspect whether he is hungry and would like a good steak and potatoes.

The decision to employ force is made, it is said, only after a protracted period of questioning without violence has failed to “break” a man. This long questioning may involve two or three nights of wakefulness, with more or less constant pressure upon the suspect by relays of detective's. There is reason to believe that food is sometimes denied and that threats are made during the process.

Philadelphia at present is quite civilized, with Boston even more so. The outstanding illegal practice in Philadelphia is that known as “cold storage”. Alen who will not readily confess at the outset are put in cold storage to "think it over". It is not uncommon for men to be so confined for a week, and as much as three weeks has been known.

Conditions are also pretty good in Cincinnati, but there is, too, some holding of men incommunicado. The headquarters cells where these men are held are reported as dark, badly ventilated, infested with vermin, and often damp. It is believed that the Voluntary Defender, as well as the City Manager, is a positive factor in improving the third degree situation in Cincinnati.

Cleveland the Worst of All

Cleveland will have to bear the shame in the Wickersham report of being the worst place in the United States in its treatment of its helpless prisoners. Enter the Devil himself.

Prolonged relay questioning is employed, with loss of sleep and deprivation of food and drink. Sometimes the prisoner is kept standing, clear of a wall, for many hours during the interrogation. If the prisoner starts to fall asleep while on his feet, he is wakened by slaps in the face. The questioning may also be accompanied by violence.

There is evidence of the beating of prisoners over the kidneys and in the soft hollows above the hips with a weapon such as a rubber hose or a sausage-shaped sandbag made of silk, these instruments being chosen because, when properly applied, they leave no marks. It is said that the prisoner is frequently struck from behind so that he may not see the person who hit him, and as a result will be unable to identify him in court.

Six years ago a prisoner by the name of Bush, in a room at the old Cleveland headquarters, was questioned, severely beaten, and finally stripped, laid flat upon the floor, and lifted by his sex organs—not once, but several times. It is doubtful if in their day either Cardinal Ximenes or Nicolas Eymericus of Aragon ever did anything much worse than that. The object was to make him tell where money taken in the robbery was concealed, of which he denied knowledge. Participating in this third degree were a private bank detective, a detective from Lakewood (a suburb vherc the hank was located), and a Cleveland detective who is still on the force.

There is good reason to believe that an Italian youth was murdered at Cleveland headquarters because his attorney was, the next day, to bring out in open court the terrible way he had been abused. His body was found hanging in his cell. The Wickersham report discreetly remarks that the man's fellow prisoners said he committed suicide and let it go at that, but others have claimed that the man was murdered so that he could not squeal on his inquisitors.

Looping the Loop in Detroit

The worst abuse encountered in Detroit is the so-called trip ''around the loop’’. This means shifting a prisoner from one police station to another, leaving him in each station until there is a likelihood of an attorney's finding him, then moving him along to another. The outlying stations are used in preference to headquarters because there art* no outsiders around. The shifts are said to be generally made at midnight in the patrol wagon.

All told, there are fifteen stations. Tn some cases, it is said, men go the entire circuit. In other cases, seven or eight stations are deemed sufficient. As a part of the process, the jailers have been ordered at times to jam as many men as possible into one cell, so thc'y have had to squeeze the door shut with two jailers shoving the door. It has been said that the police order is that these men sent “around the loop” shall not be “overfed”; and that the opportunities for keeping clean or for sleeping are poor. This is accompanied by the additional discomfort that arises from the knowledge that they are, to all intents and purposes, completely lost, for the ordinary “loop” ease is frequently not even booked on any charge and is hold incommunicado during the process. In some instances the police have themselves been unable to find a man for some days because of the absence of records.

Horrible Conditions in Chicago

The methods described as in use in Chicago include the application of rubber hose to the back or the pit of the stomach, kicks in the shins, beating the shins with a club, blows struck with a telephone book on the side of the victim’s head. The Chicago telephone book is a heavy one and a swinging blow with it may stun a man without leaving a mark. (The use of this practice is described by a responsible eyewitness of more than one occurrence.) Other methods stated to he used are suspending a prisoner upside down by handcuffs or manacles and the administration of tear gas. Prisoners in the hands of Chicago inquisitors have often been threatened with death unless they give the information wanted.

Illegal detention and detention incommunicado are said to be common. The police are slow about bringing prisoners into court or even booking them. As far as the records show, men are usually produced in court not later than 48 hours after the entry of the arrest; but, in fact, the true date of the arrest is often not entered on the police blotter. An advance period of kidnaping “prior to arrest” makes the records wholly untrustworthy. JIen are frequently not booked at all and there is no record of their being in custody. “Losing” men for days at a time is common. This absence of record blocks attorneys when they go to the police demanding to see their clients.

In most of the stations the cells are dirty and inaccessible to natural light and ventilation. Neither beds nor bedding is provided (except for women). Classification is either impossible or else unattempted. Mere boys are often detained overnight, sometimes longer, in the same cells with hardened crooks, perverts, alcoholics, dope users, etc. Overcrowding is very common. At the Detective Bureau, for instance, where most felon suspects are detained for a period, a cell capacity of six is often made to care for over a hundred persons for many hours. The condition in the basement lockup of the Chicago Detective Bureau beggars description. It reminds one of the state of the prisons in England and Wales, as described by John Howard in 1777. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune of February 17, 1925, alludes to it thus: “A person with any decency would feel that one night there had defiled him for life.’’

Judge Duncan, of Chicago, reversed a conviction against a prisoner, Berardi, because of the following facts:

he testified to his arrest and imprisonment in the police station by Ilie police officers and to their questioning him day ai'tir day for three or four days, and that tie continually, through all this questioning to the last, denied any and all connection with the robbery or knowledge of it. He also testified that Officer Carroll, after they had questioned him for considerable time, brought a strap into the room where he was confined and beat him with the strap, and that another policeman whom he did not know questioned him about the robbery and kicked him on the shin; that his mother and father were allowed to see him at the police station, and that he showed them his body, which was then black and blue from the beatings given him by the officers. The two policemen who testified to his confession themselves admit that the statements that they say he made to them as a confession were in part untrue.

Judge Dietz, also of Chicago, made the following statements regarding one Hulick:

The plaintiff in error testified that at the time of his arrest he was sick and in a weakened condition; that until a week prior thereto he had been in bed, continuously, for three months with a broken jaw and a couple of fractured ribs, from which he was still suffering; that he told this to the police officers and they told him that they knew it ; that he did not sign the alleged confession until the second night after his arrest; that during all that time he was under the constant surveillance of a number of police officers, who questioned him continuously, except for infrequent half-hour intervals when he was kept in a cell; that he repeatedly professed to them his innocence, and -when he did so they said he was a liar; that they told him he would Inr,e Io make the statement they wanted him to make and that they would force him to to do so if it took a year to get it ; that he did not make the statement, but that it was made by some one else ; 1iiat he did not read it and that it was not read to him; that when he signed it he did not know what it contained: and that they twisted his arms and compelled him to sign it. No ex ideiice was offered in rebuttal. and there was no specific denial of the facts testified to by the plc int i i'f in error.

Zn Dallas and El Paso

Tn Dallas the practice of bolding men incommunicado is said to he so prevalent, despite 1 lie statute, that a certain coll at headquarters is colloquially designated the "incommunicado cell" and was referred to in those words bv one of the Dallas judges. And the incommunicado detention may last for several days or even for a week or more.

In El Paso a young Mexican woman, the mother of three children by different men, was charged with having killed her youngest child by pouring kerosene on the bed and setting it afire. She had been arrested at midnight and was relay-questioned without rest, and perhaps without food, for 35 hours until she confessed. In court she asserted that the infant died by accident, and tried to repudiate her confession, saying that the district attorney and other officials had threatened to take her two remaining children away from her unless she confessed.

Toward the Setting Sun

In Los Angeles arresting and holding men on suspicion is considered legal by the police. Men are reported to have been struck and manhandled in the booking room and in the fingerprinting room. It is said to be usual to hold suspicion cases 48 hours and often 72 hours before they are charged or released, and that suspects are often held incommunicado in spite of the statute allowing access to lawyers.

Investigation by responsible lawyers leads them to believe that third-degree practices are a serious evil in Los Angeles, and the existence of these practices is borne out by independent investigation. It is said that in police headquarters there is an "incommunicado cell" which is also used as a third-degree cell, and that here beatings take place. Screams have been heard and complaints from prisoners are frequent.

Axel Hayrinen is a naturalized Finn with an excellent overseas war record, working in the building trades. Late one evening in March, 1929, as he was starting up his car on the street, he was stopped by two plain-clothes mon who mistook him for somebody else. A verbal altercation followed, during which llayrinen said that he did not like the manner of police arrests. Although the police admitted that he was not the man for whom they were looking, and informed him of no cause for his arrest, they took him to the police station. Thore, according to his circumstantial narrative to the Constitutional Hights Committee, he was brutally pommeled by a. policeman, Homero, who kept saying, “So you don't like the police; I'll make you like the police." llayrinen was covered with blood, blood spurted on the wall, and his iqiper lip was cut clean through by a brass knuckle, so that four stitches were later taken. He did not dare to put up any resistance, because another policeman was present. when Hayrinen at last said, ‘‘I like the police now,"’ he was released, allowed to wash the blood off his face, and went out. This lasted half an hour. No charges had been fded against him.

In San Francisco, it is said, some of the worst beatings take place in the outlying stations. However, arrested persons are not held long, seldom overnight, and then are confined in the Hall of Justice, where the police jail is situated. Most of the beatings occur in the Hall of Justice. There are several places used for the heatings all over the building. At night it is common to use the jail cells upstairs, where outcries and other sounds of beatings have been heard by the police reporters in the pressroom across the central lightwell. In the daytime various rooms in the basement have been used, and the police garage downstairs at the rear. Outsiders have been witnesses. The beatings are, in general, administered by detectives.

In Seattle the severe beating of men on arrest is reported by reliable informants to be a usual practice. Men have also been beaten in (he patrol wagons and sometimes ridden around the city in police automobiles and beaten therein. After arrival at the police station prisoners have been assaulted in the booking room, when they are handcuffed and consequently incapable of any action that could excuse the use of force by the officers.

Forced Confessions Are Valueless

In England the police are deprived of the power to question persons under arrest. One of England's kings, William III, tried the thumbscrews on his own thumbs anti said another turn would make him confess anything. Wonder how some of our illegal officers of the law would like to have done to them the things they have done to some of the poor and defenseless that were in their grasp, as related in the Wickersham report. Jehovah God will require it at their hands.

In England, under promise of a pardon, a prisoner confessed to a murder; the victim later turned up alive. Tn 1819, in Vermont, the two Boom brothers, after much pressure, made detailed confessions of murder; the “murdered" man was discovered in New Jersey, wandering around in a fit of amnesia.

In some unnamed American city an honest prosecuting attorney found detectives in a jail almost killing an Italian boy in the effort to make him confess to killing a girl who was slain while the boy was still in another prison and thus had a perfect alibi, and the detectives knew it. The girl had been used by one of the detectives for his own purposes, and was probably killed by him.

Judges and Prosecutors Involved

The Report shows that in many places the prosecuting attorneys and the judges themselves are as unfair and as illegal in their conduct as the police. Delayed trial, hasty trial, deprivation of counsel, deprivation of witnesses, mistreatment of witnesses, inducement of false testimony, failure to furnish list of State's witnesses, improper jury lists, inexcusable use of inadmissible evidence, condemnation of the defendant for his criminal record, unfair and inflammatory comment on evidence and on events during the trial, attacks on the counsel for the defense, attacks on witnesses for the defense, references to the defendant's failure to testify, appeals for conviction on improper grounds, appeals to racial or national or religious prejudice, unfairness of the trial judge during trial, trials conducted wholly or partially in the absence of the defendant, mishandling of the jury, and payment of judges, prosecutors and court officials on the basis of convictions, are some of the kinds of lawlessness in law enforcement that are treated in the Wickersham report which we have not even had time to glance at.

The World’s Only Hope

All this sounds to us like the Dark Ages; it sounds like the reign of the Devil himself, and that is what it is. Every one of the acts mentioned in this article is illegal, and is an incitement to crime. as it is itself a crime. The only possible relief from this state of affairs is God's kingdom, the hope of the world. O God, Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is done In heaven. Men make a wreck of everything they touch, because they are controlled by the Devil, and are his children in deed and in truth. The Lord God Jehovah has promised that there will be a great cleaning out soon of those that are steeped in iniquity; and it can’t come too soon.

On the Roman Catholic Front—Illegalities at Pittston and Swoyersville

Every God-fearing, law-abiding citizen of Pittston and Swoyersville will read this with profonndest concern.

IX AMERICA the priests and preachers have the same rights before the law as do other people; no more, and no less. With some two hundred kinds of churches, everybody is supposed to be free to teach what he believes, without hindrance from the one hundred and ninety-nine that differ. Some people in Pittston and Swoyersville seem to think that because there are Roman Catholic churches and Roman Catholic officials in those two cities the rest of us here in the United States must keep out and keep still, and allow a rule without law and in disregard of the Constitution. Nix! The attempt to rule in defiance of the law is ruining the country ; it must stop, and it is going to stop in Pittston and Swoyersville. This is a legal notice.

In Swoyersville, in May, 1931, Roman Catholic officials, contrary to the law, caused the arrest of four persons engaged in giving the message of Cod’s kingdom to the Russian and Polish people. They were giving the people an opportunity to obtain at their own doors some of Judge Rutherford’s wonderful lectures on the Scriptures. This they have a right to do, which is guaranteed by the fundamental law of the United States, as well as of the State of Pennsylvania. Moreover, they were obeying God’s law, doing His work, the right of all.

When the case got up to the higher court at Wilkes-Barre the judgment of the magistrate at Swoyersville was reversed, as it would have to be, unless we are to have in the United States a repetition of what was brought about in Mexico and Spain. Do the Roman Catholic clergy really want that? We do not believe they do; nor do we. It is better to give everybody a fair deal all around than it is to try to pretend to a control of things that does not exist and cannot be made to exist without the total ruin of the Roman Catholic church in the United States. When a priest tries to order police oflicials and magistrates around he has bittern off more than he can chew; and those with any common sense will not try it often.

Of course a priest can stir up a mob, and that has often been done; but that is a dangerous business. No one can ever tell where mob spirit once started will end. It cannot be trusted. The mob that shouted ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ was the same mob that five days before had strewn their garments in the way. Mobs do not reason. Come. Let us reason.

Of all countries in the world, Spain was the most Catholic until it suddenly became convinced that it had been misled, when it turned completely. Mexico was docile for four hundred years, but when it became convinced that the $15,000,000 sent every year to the¹ Vatican could much better be used at home for educational purposes it passed laws limiting the priests to one for every one hundred thousand people. That practically kills the church in that country. Who is to blame for it ? The priests themselves. If they had not tric'd to grab so much they would not have lost so much. Now the question is: Do the priests of Pittston and Swoyersville want to duplicate the experience of their fellow priests in Spain and Mexico ? It looks as if they did. We are trying to show them a better way.

Swoyersville Slow to Learn

One would think that when the burgess of Swoyersville, and the police, had been rebuked in a higher court for attempting to interfere with the free exercise of religion, they would know better than to try it a second time; but some people are slow to learn.

Having the best interests of this burgess and his officers, and especially of the well meaning citizens of Swoyersville, at heart, a company of Jehovah’s witnesses visited that community on the morning of September 20, 1931, and placed in each home a copy of The Golden Age containing a reproduction of Judge Valentine’s overruling of their previous illegal conduct. There were seventeen cars of workers in the party.

The people of Swoyersville were well pleased to get the papers, but about the time it was done the chief of police came up to W. A. Barrett, a reputable citizen of Nanticoke, and used the following language: “What in the hell are you doing here? (let to hell out of this town, and do it quick!” Pennsylvania has a law against the use of profanity in public places, or by public officials. Mr. Barrett was reared a Catholic.

When Mr. Barrett protested the use of such language, and insisted on his rights as a citizen, he was, without warrant, and without charges, illegally “arrested" and, along with five carloads of other workers, was detained at the magistrate’s home. While in the home, waiting for the burgess to return from church, one of the police officers snatched personal papers from

Mr. Barrett’s possession. In due time all those illegal acts will be brought out in court and the malefactors must suffer for it.

Among the ladies illegally “arrested'’ at Swoyersville was a refined Christian woman of Luzerne, Pa., Mrs. S. L. Stull. She waited with another lady in her car while the men were in the burgess’ office, knowing full well that she had violated no law of God or man. As she sat there talking to the other lady, and discussing something entirely foreign to the “arrests”, the Swoyersville chief of police glared at her savagely and said, “Don't you laugh. If you got what you deserved, you would be stoned.” Can you imagine a man like that as being a police officer ! AVhat an asset to the “church” he would have been back in the days of the Inquisition!

Among those “arrested” at Swoyersville was S. Al artin Peterson, a man of large business experience, for many years superintendent of huge textile establishments in various parts of the country. AVhen accosted by the Swoyersville police he was cursed, was accused of selling things on Sunday, which was untrue, and was told. “You are nothing but sneaks,” and anybody who knows Martin Peterson knows that that is not true. It is not the duty or the right of police officials to do illegal and offensive things.

Plot to Murder Five Carloads

Among those also “arrested” at Swoyersville was Daniel E. Morgan, pioneer witness, ex-United States Marine, in seven major engagements of the World War, including Chateau-Thierry and Soissons. His story appeared in The Golden Age in the nine issues from May 14, 1930, to September 3, 1930, inclusive. His hook containing the same story is published by the Christopher Publishing Company, Boston, Mass. Knowing his rights, Morgan objected to being arrested without a warrant, or without being told of the charges preferred against him, whereupon the police officers forced his car door open and dragged him out of it into the street. Mr. Morgan, referring to this incident, says: “As a result of the unlawful force exercised, and the methods of the officers, they soon attracted a crowd, and their conduct put the crowd in a riotous mood.” Police have no right to start a riot, under any pretext.

As the burgess was slow in returning from church, Morgan got back into his car; and his statement of the matter continues: “Several of the mob that had been gathered by the riotous conduct of the officers repeatedly said in their hearing and in mine, ‘We ought to turn the machine guns on the whole crowd,’ and there was no protest from the officers. These men tried to engage us in conversation, evidently in the hope of getting us in the same riotous attitude as themselves.”

After the burgess returned from church fifteen minutes elapsed. Morgan went in to see why the delay and overheard persons in an adjoining room say, “We cannot waylay them until they get outside the borough limits.” With that, one of the officers stepped out from the room, and in a ringing voice Morgan wanted to know of him if he was a party to the conspiracy to murder five carloads of workers, that he had just overheard. The officer replied that he could not he responsible for what other men said, but he could not deny and did not deny that he was present in the room while the conspiracy was being formed.

So that is what we have come to in America, is it? AVhen the entire nation, all its police officials and all its newspapers and detectives cannot find a baby that is stolen from its crib, a police force can show its prowess by gatheringin the home of a magistrate and plotting to murder wholesale Jehovah’s witnesses who alone today have the courage to stand up for law and order! It never seems to occur to the minds of some police officers that they themselves have to obey the law. Nevertheless, they must.

As a matter of fact the “arrests” at Swoyersville were one continuous illegal bluff from beginning to end, excepting that the plot to murder was not a bluff, but a stern reality. No formal charges were ever preferred by the Swoyersville administration; they could not be, for no offense against the laws was committed. In due time those that were involved in the Swoyersville breaches of the peace will be called upon to explain their conduct.

Some Unpalatable Truths

It so happened that the particular issue of The Golden Age which was distributed at Swoyersville contained other items of real value but which, because they are true, might seem unpalatable to some. There was an article on “Racketeering—The Devil's Civilization” which contained a few paragraphs which we herewith reproduce:

AVhen the Russian people overthrew the czarist regime they found that they had been worshiping bogus saints. Their highest priests pretended that the bodies of some of the saints had not decomposed. They were kept under glass as objects of adoration by the common people. When examined, it was found that they were made of cotton; and now some wonder why the Russian people have no use for “religion”. What respect could anybody have for a racketeer?

The “Mass” Racket

A step farther west and we have a system of “religion” that for 1500 years or thereabouts has been collecting money from people under the pretense that it can do something for their loved ones after they are dead. This is a lie, a fraud, as wretched a humbug and as conscienceless a piece of racketeering against the poor and ignorant by the sleek and fat and prosperous as was ever pulled off on this planet. Every cent that was ever received for masses was money obtained under false pretense.

In the same class with Sir. Ratti and his black-garbed bunch of parasites are the long-robed, longfaced hell-howlers of “evangelism” and the Protestant ministry. How shocking to a sense of decency is the suggestion that any man, Catholic or Protestant, has influence with Almighty God whereby, for a money consideration, he can extract favors from the Creator of the universe on behalf of some poor man or woman whom by racketeering methods he has persuaded to part with his hard-earned cash, giving him in return therefor absolutely nothing, not even comfort.

When did these clerical racketeers ever really do anything for anybody? They could have kept mankind out of the World War had they been willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake, or even for principle, but, having neither, they turned their churches into recruiting stations and hounded the young men of two hemispheres into the war, meantime seeking to secure the death penalty for the few true Christians who dared stand by the teachings of the Scriptures.

Today these same clerical racketeers are doing all that lies in their power to prevent the people from learning that “a better day is coming, a morning promised long, when truth and right, with holy might, shall overthrow the wrong; when Christ the Lord will listen to every plaintive sigh, and stretch his hand o’er sea and land, with justice, by and by”.

The Marriage Racket

These same roosters in black feathers want to collect money for every baby that comes into the world. They do not want a young couple to get married without “soaking” them $10.00 for the. performance of a civil ceremony which could be as well performed in a magistrate's office and for which a reasonable price would be 50c. They will not even allow the people to die without expecting the relatives to pay them up to $25.00 for offering a prayer that never gets to the rafters.

They are back of every “philanthropic” scheme to collect money from the people for some supposed benefit, but when the money is counted afterwards it is often found that half of it has stuck to their clothes and that meantime they have treated themselves to swell feeds at the public expense. If this is not racketeering, what is it?

Claiming to teach the truth, these sanctimonious racketeers have 200-odd denominations all teaching different doctrines, and are united in but one thing, and that is in their haired of the pure truth. They encourage teachers of both sexes who do not understand the first tenets of Christianity to teach Sunday school classes. They deliberately and wilfully lie to the people about eternal torture, even after overwhelming proof of the satanic origin of this doctrine has been brought to their attention.

During the World War some of these men not only preached the boys into the trenches, but when they were wounded and had recovered, they ‘‘sicked’’ them back in again. One of them even assured King George’s redcoats that though filled with liquor, with profanity on their lips and murder in their hearts and freshly contracted social diseases in their veins, if they died on the battlefield, God himself could not keep them out of heaven. Some of these roosters even assured such soldiers that they formed part of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ.

The “Church” Racket

Does anybody believe for a moment that any full-grown man in his right mind really thinks that Mary or any other woman is the mother of Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth? Does any sensible man believe that the hundreds of thousands of costly church edifices were really erected to the glory of God, while the poor people are, saddled with debt to maintain institutions which have kept them in bondage ?

Can anybody have any respect for a man who, while knowing that the Scriptures plainly teach that the wages of sin is death and the dead know not anything, tries to make everybody believe that the dead are not dead and that they really know everything?

How can people have any respect for the racketeers that created the Spanish Inquisition and have soaked the earth in blood, burnt people at the stake, and done every other kind of deviltry under the sun whenever they could get the chance?

Does anybody with any sense take any stock in an apostolic succession, the representatives of which had each others’ concubines and murdered their own fathers, mothers and children? Jesus and the apostles preached free of charge, but these birds never get enough.

It was the Rev. Dr. John Wesley Hill, chancellor of Lincoln Memorial University, Cumberland Gap. Tenn., who, in a time when fear and injustice was on every hand for everybody that dared to think truly, made the statement, “Every Bolshevist and radical in the United States should be deported in a ship of stone with sails of lead, the wrath of God for a gale and hell for the nearest port.” What a spiritual asset such a man must be to the youth who look to him for guidance!

It is known that the pirate, Captain Kidd, assisted in the erection of Trinity Church, New York city. What are you thinking about? Hasn’t a man got a right to help his friends? During the Civil War the clergy at Charleston, S. C., assembled in a body and lent their influence to proslavery meetings. Is not that what you would expect?

During the World War, the Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, Brooklyn pastor, prepared the canned sermons breathing hate and destruction to the Germans which were delivered by the clergy throughout the “churches” of America.

Now v>e leave it to the law-abiding public if there is anything in any of those paragraphs that should seriously disturb anybody except those who are making a living from the rackets named. And they all have it easier in this country than in any other under the sun, for the very reason that here people can say what they think. Conditions here are every way very much more favorable for the Catholic church than in either Alexico or Spain, where for hundreds of years no other religion was even permitted. So, Hurrah for the land of free speech! -where our Catholic friends can say what they like, so long as they do not incite anybody to commit illegal acts.

Pittston Imitates Swoyersville

There is no reason why a city the size of Pittston should imitate a village of the size of Swoyersville in lawlessness, but that is what happened. After The Golden Age. was distributed in Swoyersville, or while it was being distributed there, several hundred were handed out at Pittston. The Pittston party was in charge of Michael Lessun, 19 months in the United States army, and three years United States police at Picatinny Arsenal, Dover, N. J., where his standing is the very best.

Lessun had with him his wife, Anna Lessun, the mother of six children, one of them at that time a nursing baby six months old. She was “arrested’’ as she was coming out of a gate, when, with her friend, Alary Wargo, she was pulled into a car, taken to police headquarters and there locked up without being told why she was arrested. This woman was kept in prison three days before she could get back to her baby.

Meantime Lessun found somebody had removed his car from the place where it was parked. With John Wargo he went to the city hall to inquire its probable -whereabouts. AVhen within about two hundred feet he was ‘‘arrested’’. Every one of these arrests was illegal, and without even the semblance of legality. They -were mere acts of an undisciplined police mob.

Arrived in the city hall the magistrate, William O'Hara, said to this ex-United States police officer, Michael Lessun, that he would like to kick the excrement out of him, but in his haste and excitement he neglected to state the matter genteelly. What he actually said is unprintable. Mr. Lessun, with his young friend, John Wargo, were placed in cells contiguous to those occupied by Mrs. Lessun and Mrs. Wargo. Four absolutely innocent people, arrested for nothing, and each fined $25 for handing to other people free of charge one of the most interesting and instructive magazines in the world. What kind of country would it be where one might not give to another person free of charge reading matter which he had himself found interesting and instructive? Incidentally we remark at this point that, even if uncertain of their own parentage, Pittston police officers should not refer to guests in their civic hotel as bastards. It does not sound refined.

Giving Pittston Further Help

Jehovah's witnesses in the vicinity of Pittston, learning of the incarceration of the two Lessuns and the two Wargos, and recognizing Pittston’s need of further help if it is ever to come over to the right side of law and order, decided to at once put out in that city what papers they had left, amounting to some five hundred. They were warned by their own law-abiding speakers that it might result in ‘‘arrest’’, but all present at the meeting (held in Wilkes-Barre) volunteered to go along.

It so happened that on that particular day C. J. Woodworth, editor of The Golden Age, served as one of the speakers at the convention of Jehovah’s witnesses, held at their regular hall in Wilkes-Barre. AVith J. A. Bogard, also of Brooklyn, he went to the city hall at Pittston, asked to see Mr. Keating, the chief of police, laid a copy of The Golden Age in front of him, pointed to his name on the inside front cover, and said, “This is my name. I sent several people here this morning to give out some of these papers and I understand you have four of them locked up.”

“Yes,” said Keating, “and if you give out any more of them I will lock you up, too.” Woodworth then urged him to come himself, or detail an officer, and to name any person in the city, and he would give him a paper, and then a warrant could he sworn out and an arrest take place in proper form, but there was certainly not a grain of justice in keeping the two Lessuns and the two Wargos locked up, as they had merely obeyed the instructions given to them by Woodworth. This Keating refused to do. Woodworth thereupon asked Bogard to go and put out the rest of the papers while he remained behind to learn what would become of the remainder of the party.

In a few minutes they came trooping in. Two men had jumped on the running board of Norman Parker's car and tried to wrest control of the car from him; they ordered him to get out of his own car, which he refused to do; one of them grabbed two papers in Parker’s inside pocket. Parker, who is a coffee salesman, with a wide acquaintance in the Lackawanna-Wyoming valley, demanded that he keep his hands off.

Illegal arrest is illegal arrest, no matter who makes it, and for standing up for his rights Parker was one of those selected for special punishment. With Woodworth he was taken to the barracks of the state police at Wyoming, mugged, fingerprinted and treated like a criminal generally. The joke of it is that the barracks is one of Parker's coffee customers. Before they get through with that joke the men that played it will be without a dollar’s worth of property in the world. This is not Poland.

Handing Out the Favors

Peterson, who had been “arrested” at Swoyersville earlier in the day, and released in a momentary gleam of intelligence in that municipality, was “arrested” some more at Pittston. At the time of his second “arrest” he was sitting in Parker's ear with his hat in his hand. Just when it became unlawful in the United States to sit in a car with a hat in your hand is known only to William O’Hara and Luke Keating. It may cost them something to unlearn that little lesson.

When Peterson was brought in the second time he was inclined to be peeved. One of the officers undertook to hasten him through a door and he said, “You take your dirty hands off me.” For saying that he was locked up with a common drunk. Narrating his experiences afterward Peterson said:

“I had to roll up my coat of a hundred-and-ten-dollar suit to put my head on. A wooden bench to lie on. This wooden bench was sticky with dirt, at the end where I had to put my coat. I had no vest on, so all night long, when I was lying on my back and my stomach became cold I had to turn and lie on my stomach to try to get that warm. Then in turn, when my back became cold I had to lie on that in order to try to get that warm.” The Roman Catholic officers all got a lot of fun out of this. Who was it said, lie laughs best who does not laugh the first time ?

Dan Morgan, who had been “arrested” at Swoyersville, was also “arrested” at Pittston. Because of his war services and disability he is licensed by the State of Pennsylvania to peddle, vend and hawk goods, wares and merchandise anywhere within the commonwealth, yet he was grabbed while in the act of walking across a street, and dragged toward a car without being told of any reason for the illegal act. Questioned as to his name, the officer who arrested Morgan gave the fictitious name of McGinniss; but that alias won’t save Mr. Reddington.

Arrived at the city hall, Morgan, weak and exhausted, asked for a chair. In a nasty tone of voice O’Hara told him he would get a bed and not a chair. He was never asked if he had any rights, but, along with twenty-two others, was fined $25 for ‘distributing handbills without a license', $4.50 costs, and held under $1,500 bail for ‘conspiracy and inciting to riot’.

Little Courtesies Here and There

The same man who dragged Morgan across the street, several times told Anthony Furman to get out of his own car and let him drive it. He seemed wildly insane. Furman stated that he would drive his own car. He and his wife and daughter Nellie, a beautiful and refined young woman in her teens, were all locked up as common criminals by Mr. O’Hara. These things made Mr. O'Hara a great man pro tern in the eyes of his Catholic friends.

At the time Richard Gronow was arrested he was driving his own car on the street, and had no papers in it or on his person. He was not even told he was arrested, but, of course, none of the arrests were legal anyway, so that little formality did not matter.

When George Thomas, one of the arrested, was on his way to the Luzerne County prison, where most of the prisoners were taken, Mr. Keating, the Pittston chief of police, said to him: ‘‘You are against the priests and against the churches. What the hell would the people do without the churches?'’ George explained that he was brought up a Roman Catholic. His father, a mine worker, left a wife and live small children with so little means that the mother had to sell her two cows to bury him, yet the priest encouraged that poor woman, hardened with sorrow and poverty, to borrow money and give it to him so as to get her husband out of purgatory! That is one mighty good reason why George hates with holy hatred the entire sink of corruption. Mr. Keating did not put his question properly. If he had said, “What the hell of good are the churches to anybody, either in this world or the next ?” George would have answered, “None,” and that would have been the end of the argument. They are a curse and a burden to mankind. Alphonse Capone is a Roman Catholic. It is his “salvation” racket.

Frances Rish was not ordered to go to the police station, but merely went along. When she got there she was ordered by a big stout man to go on in with the rest, and was placed under arrest without any testimony against her. If anybody disagrees with your religion slam him in jail; that is the Pittston rule, but it is not the law of the land, as somebody there will learn before this thing is all over.

The entire Syryca family, father, mother and son, were arrested when they merely came to the city hall to see what had become of those who had been previously arrested. Mr. O’Hara must be dreaming strange things if he thinks he can get away with things like that in the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Zangel were arrested under the same circumstances as the Syryca family. O’Hara's eyes glistened with pride.

Even the Editor Gets in Dutch

We left Mr. Woodworth a little while ago arguing with the chief of police as to his rights. Later he was visiting with the “arrested” ones, and, at length, as the day wore on, went down stairs to see what was delaying the procession. There he first had the pleasure of meeting Mr. O'Hara, when the following conversation ensued :

“If I did as I feel like doing, I would take you out in the back room and kick hell out of you!”

‘‘Who are you?'’

“1 am the magistrate.”

“Are you a Roman Catholic?”

“Yes, and I am proud of it.^-’

“Have you got anybody else besides Catholics in this town ?”

“Yes, but none of them have any such a------

slinking religion as you have. You people are in here criticizing the Catholic religion, and you have criticized other religions.”

Wes, we are criticizing them, and we have a perfect right to criticize them, and Congress itself cannot pass a law that can prevent me from telling what I believe to be the truth on any subject. The right thing to do is to dismiss all of these prisoners except me. I am the one who sent them here. The question as to whether I had a right to send them here can be adjudicated in court; it cannot be adjudicated here.”

“You will get all you are looking for.”

Woodworth got the same as the rest, a sentence of 30 days in jail for ‘distributing handbills without a license’, $4.50 costs, and was held in $1,500 bail for ‘conspiracy and inciting to riot’. Though asked to do so, O'Hara refused to let Mr. AYoodworth see the ordinance under which he was “sentenced". Besides this entertainment, Woodworth had the pleasure of Parker's company in the mugging and fingerprinting party at the Wyoming barracks and, with Parker, killed five bedbugs in Mr. O’Hara’s official home, the Pittston city hall, during the night spent in that caravansary. He was surprised that in a place so near to Mr. O’Hara, and so dirty, only five bedbugs were killed.

Some of the Illegal Acts

One of the illegal acts at Pittston was to allow a drunk man to come in off the streets, go up stairs, go through into the cell house, come around to AYoodworth’s and Parker’s cell, and there threaten to throw a quantity of cold water over AYoodworth while he was helpless behind bars. Only prompt action in pulling his raincoat about his shoulders, and soliciting the friendly cooperation of a decent civilian who was in the place at the time, prevented a drenching.

In this connection we quote AS entence from The Monitor, Aurora, Mo. Referring to illegal abuse of prisoners at WAS hington, D. C., it said: “A day or two later another youth, aged twenty, came forward with the statement that third-precinct police had beaten and abused him, torn off his shirt and thrown more than a dozen glAS ses of cold water on him and then reported to a physician called to dress his injuries that he had tried to hang himself with his shirt.” It seems from this that in our national capital we have police who have learned how to add to the sufferings of a prisoner by drenching him with cold water. The knowledge seems to be more widely spread than we would have supposed.

At the behest of somebody, probably a priest, the Pittston police are reported AS having gone from door to door and demanded the surrender to them of copies of The Golden Age paid for by Jehovah’s witnesses and distributed to the poor prisoners of the Devil's religion, without money and without price.

Of all the people arrested in Pittston, not one single, solitary person wAS arrested in the act of giving out a Golden Age to anyone.

Of the persons arrested in Pittston, at leAS t one person, Mr. Woodworth, did not give out a copy of The Golden Age in Pittston to anybody.

In two instances three ladies were arrested while seated in their cars, without even having any Golden Ages in their possession.

Of the persons arrested in Pittston, not one wAS served with a warrant.

The official excuse for the arrest wAS made over the telephone: “All the priests in Pittston were calling up, and we had to do something.”

Government by telephone is a new form of government. It won’t work.

Legal Proceedings

First came habeAS corpus proceedings. At the first hearing the bail of the twenty-three wAS reduced from $34,500 to a grand total of $600, and the charges of riot and conspiracy were withdrawn. The only riotous conduct in Pittston at any time wAS by Mr. O’Hara and the police; there wAS absolutely no disorder by anybody else.

After a time the city of Pittston moved to nolle pros the charge of ‘distributing handbills without a license’, which wAS the silliest and flimsiest excuse under which anybody wAS ever jailed. To suppose you can jail a person forgiving away a magazine is the height of absurdity. But you can jail the jailer for doing a thing like that.

AS we go to press, Woodworth and Morgan are each suing O’Hara and Keating for $50,000, and McGinniss, aliAS Reddington. Men who love righteousness are paying the bills, and the proceeds, if any, will go to the spread of liberty, light and truth in Pittston, Swoyersville and elsewhere. Just what will be done about the other twenty-one who were imprisoned at Pittston, and the five carloads of workers who were to have been murdered at Swoyersville, we do not yet know. But we should not like to be in the shoes of any of the Devil's crowd in Pittston or Swoyersville.

O:i the Methodist Front—AS bury Park and Jehovah God

( Kepiiut of a radio imitation placed in ten thousand homes of AS bury Park and vicinity.)

ASBURY PARK and everybody and everything in it amount to very little in the eyes of Jehovah God. Let us get the matter straight. The United States and everything in it is of scant importance in His sight, and He, for our own good, hAS given us His own word on the subject. Now listen :

Who hath directed the spirit of Jehovah, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took ho counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations [all of them, put together] arc AS a drop of a bucket, and are counted AS the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles AS a very little thing. All nations before him are AS nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. —Isa. 40:13-17.

Nevertheless, while Jehovah God can get along perfectly without AS bury Park or the United States, yet neither AS bury Park nor the United States can get along without Him. In the present condition of the world, and of the United States, and of AS bury Park, it is a time to think deeply and reverently, and not to think and act less, wisely than did the steed upon which Balaam wAS wont to ride, AS the civic administration now seems determined to do.

It requires no intelligence to guffaw loudly. A jackAS s can do that more effectively than a man. It is a matter of utmost concern to the God-fearing and order-loving people of AS bury Park that their civic leaders should be so willfully ignorant of the truth that they would actually dare to speak irreverently of the One who holds the lives and the welfare of all in the palm of His hand. Ridicule of Jehovah God is unseemly in a magistrate of Jewish ancestry.

Jehovah God, Creator of heaven and earth, hAS a message that is to be delivered at this time to the people of AS bury Park, and the message will be delivered. Make no mistake about that. All the blundering “decisions” in the world mean absolutely nothing if they are in plain and direct violation of the laws of God, to say nothing of both the letter and the spirit of the manmade constitutions of the United States and the State of New Jersey.

God hAS laid it upon His witnesses in this, our day, to go from door to door, comforting those that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in the land, AS suring them that God’s kingdom, now taking control throughout all the earth, will bring life, liberty, peace, prosperity, health, happiness, and even youth, to all who obey the law of God. The work of Jehovah's witnesses is also to warn the unruly and the opposers, that they interfere at their peril, for God will have His work done, and all opposers shall perish at His own band, or the hands of His holy angels, in the Battle of Armageddon which is at the door.

Without “Benefit” of Clergy

In October lAS t the city clerk of AS bury Park undertook, on some person's responsibility, to say to those whom Jehovah is using for His work in AS bury Park that before they could continue their work it would be necessary for each worker to have AS pecial permit, duly approved by all the local clergy. This young lady evidently had not yet been informed that in America there are supposed to be no open nor clandestine unions of church and state. Her advice wAS , by the Lord's grace, ignored by Jehovah’s witnesses, AS it should have been, AS they respectfully notified her it would be, and AS it will be. Did Jesus ever AS k the priests and scribes and Pharisees or the agents of Herod or Caesar whether He might do the work His Father, Jehovah, had entrusted to Him to do

Jehovah’s witnesses in AS bury Park have been repeatedly annoyed by the police and the clergy while engaged in doing their benevolent and lawful work in behalf of Jehovah's name, in obedience to His command, and in behalf of the people. On Sunday, February 21, four of these witnesses (one a cripple), while so working, were arrested. On March 4 they were haled before one Louis Tumen, city recorder, for trial. He is of Hebrew ancestry.

A verbatim report of the trial wAS taken. So AS tounding, unusual and presumptuous were the proceedings, especially on the part of the recorder, that the whole trial wAS reenacted in the public interest AS a drama, which wAS broadcAS t by Watchtower station WBBR of New York at nine o'clock Sunday morning, March 13.

That same day Jehovah's witnesses made ten thousand calls at homes in AS bury Park and vicinity and personally delivered to each householder a printed report of their recent experiences at Bergenfield, New Jersey; also an invitation to tune in AS bury Park station WCAP at four o'clock that afternoon, when the dramatized trial would be repeated. Thousands were waiting to tune in. Many waited and waited, long after four. Why?

Hypocritical Conspiracy

By a cowardly and unlawful secret agreement among several persons, arranged in advance, the power of WCAP wAS shut off at 3:57 p.m. so that the people might not know how foolish their civic leaders had been. Complete authentic evidence is in our possession of the conspiracy to suppress this broadcAS t, how it wAS deliberately arranged in advance and then hypocritically carried out by a number of persons who also are known. All of this wAS done in direct violation of a full-rate commercial contract duly signed several days before on behalf of WCAP by some of those who had part in the conspiracy.

PPG BroadcAS t Today in the Public Interest

However, the people of AS bury Park will yet have opportunity io know what took place in the presence of their recorder and more than a dozen of his official colleagues on March 4. Guilty hands fumble, and so did those that suppressed the WCAP broadcAS t widely advertised for March 13.

The complete one-hour presentation of the dramatic trial will be broadcAS t in the public interest and free of all expense by super-power station WPG, Atlantic City, at 1: 00 p.m., Sunday, March 20. And so it will be heard all over New’ Jersey, AS well AS in AS bury Park.

Since the appeal of the four men sent to jail by the recorder will be heard on March 24 in Monmouth County Court of Common PleAS at Freehold, it is desirable and important that all the people of AS bury Park and vicinity should know in advance of the paramount issue involved in this cAS e. Is anyone so foolish AS to think any other law can stand now against the law of Jehovah, Maker of heaven and earth?

End of Hypocrisy Soon

And, anyway, have we not had in AS bury Park and everywhere else enough of hypocrisy? Honest people can answer. Only a few days ago a prominent Baptist clergyman of AS bury Park protested against The Watchtower programs now being broadcAS t over WCAP Sunday morning and Wednesday evening each week:, because, forsooth, one of the talks broadcAS t had contained the statement of fact authorized by Jesus’ own words, that “the clergy are the sons of the Devil ’. (See John 8: 42-45.) One thing is sure: “We cannot imagine any of them being locked up for going from door^- to door, unselfishly seeking to comfort the people in these distressing times with the good news of God's kingdom, the hope of the world. When they come to the people, if they come at all, it is to beg for funds to carry on a work that is never performed. Jesus said of them: “They bind heavy burdens [hell-fire and purgatory, for example], and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”— Matt. 23: 4.

The judgments written in the Word of Jehovah and which He will shortly execute against the hypocritical shepherds and the principal ones of their docks are fully quoted and explained for the encouragement of the people in Vindication (by Judge Rutherford), one of the books brought to the people at their homes by Jehovah's witnesses.

« # * *

The drama referred to in the foregoing is rather too long to be reproduced here, but we give two extracts from the statements of the city recorder (magistrate), AS given in court and in the drama:

“Aw! You better get Jehovah out of your mind! Jehovah hAS nothing to do with the city. This ordinance wAS pAS sed by the board of commissioners and we are Jehovah here!” (arrogantly slapping his chest AS he utters lAS t statement)

(BoAS tful) “When I put them in jail Jehovah will not deliver them!”

At this -writing the drama hAS been given over stations in Brooklyn, Atlantic City, Paterson, and Philadelphia, and will be given over Binghamton’s station in a few days.

The following leading editorial in the AS bury Park Evening Press of March 22 shows that the more intelligent business men of AS bury Park realize that in trying to champion the clergy racket and in supinely submitting to take orders from that racket, the civic administration of AS bury Park hAS been revealed AS extremely indiscreet, incompetent and out of date.

With the aid of weird laws, indiscretion, and a remarkable coincidence, the city authorities have made themselves excellent material for a burlesque. Sunday radio station WPG, of Atlantic City, presented the sketch, and today thousands of listeners are still chirping at AS bury Park. With no expense save their own reputation for common sense the city authorities have made AS bury Park a great amusement center. Their latest contribution cost less but proved more enjoyable to the radio audience than a dozen concerts from the Convention hall. Hereafter we suggest that when the city advertises its amusements it include those who were responsible for the “Who Is Jehovah” incident.

So mysterious is the interpretation of the regulations which govern AS bury Park that it is useless to question the legality of what took place. At any rate, it seems that four men soliciting the sale of religious literature were arrested for peddling without a license. They reply that when they sought a permit they were informed by the city clerk that licenses for the sale of religious material must first be approved by local clergymen. If such a regulation exists it is undoubtedly unconstitutional and obviously ridiculous. What justification there is for permitting a group of clergymen to sit AS a board of censors over the sides of religious literature we cannot imagine. However, if the precedent hAS been established, local news dealers should be granted AS imilar privilege in deciding what newspapers can be peddled in AS bury Park. Many local merchants, too, would appreciate the right to censor the solicitation of merchandising. Why not let everyone in on the racket ?

(Continued on page 179)

“April Showers”

Postal Savings Deposits Quadrupled

IN BUT little more than a year the deposits in postal savings banks have increAS ed fourfold, being now over $600,000,000. The people like to deposit their savings in banks where their deposits are guaranteed; and who can blame them ?

Not a PAS sing Depression

COMMENTING on the fact that a vAS tly increAS ed power of production hAS piled the markets high with goods and services which the people cannot buy, the periodical Labor says, very truthfully, “This is not a pAS sing depression. It is the stormy dawn of a new age.”

British Speeding Up Trains

TILE British are speeding up their trains. The crack trains between London and Scotland now travel at AS chedule of seventy miles per hour. American fAS t trains have also been speeded up, to offset increAS ing facilities for fAS t travel by air.

A New Type of Cotton

AS A RESULT of experiments at the University of North Carolina a new type of cotton hAS been produced which it is claimed can be sown and mown like grAS s and readily converted into cellulose. The bolls of the new plant are said to be 90 percent pure cellulose.

Two Thirds Sought Work

KIOWA COUNTY, Oklahoma, decided to do some relief work graveling highways, and when the announcement wAS made that the work would be done two-thirds of all the heads of families in the county applied for employment. The county is one of the richest agricultural counties in the state.

The Survivors of Chapei

WHEN the survivors of Chapei found their way hack to their ruined city the Japanese had made such a complete wreck of the place that many of them were unable to find even the streets where their homes used to be. They are reAS onably reported AS having been stunned by their losses, but ere long were probing in the ruins, trying to find something wherewith to make a new start in lite. What AS ad thing, and what a devilish thing, is the “disturbed condition in eAS tern AS ia”, Japan's new name for war?

Some of the Military Statistics

FRANCE hAS 2,849 war planes; Japan hAS 1,929; United States, 1,742; Britain, 1,434.

Britain still rules the waves. Military expenditures of the world in 1925 were $3,497,000,000: in 1930 they were more than that vAS t sum by $629,000,000. These statistics are by the League of Nations.

Fifteen Million Dollars from Mexico to Vatican

DO YOU wish to know why Mexico is standing by her law of one priest for every 100,000 inhabitants? It is because Mexico is tired of seeing the poor, illiterate people of their land send $15,000,000 every year to the Vatican, when it might better be used in erecting schools or in helping in the present economic crisis.

The Plumbers of “Christendom”

A CANADIAN writer recently said: ■‘The pol-■*A. iticians and financiers seem to me to be the plumbers of the modern world: always going back to the country for something they haven’t got and always pretending that it is only the absence of that particular implement which prevents them from doing their job.”

Twenty Substances Extracted from Air

A CHEMIST, Wallace Carothers, hAS succeeded in extracting twenty substances from the air. One of these wAS a material very much like silk, from which a very nice pair of “silk” stockings were made, but the stockings had the disadvantage that they melted in hot water.

Five and a Half Months' FAS t Ended

NEAR Warsaw, Indiana, July 15, 1931, a 500-pound hog wAS accidentally covered with straw while threshing. After five and a half months the stack wAS taken down, and AS it wAS being removed out walked the hog, alive and well. AS a result of its fAS t its weight had been reduced by one-half.

A New Felt-Coated Steel

A PITTSBURGH man hAS developed an invention for coating steel with AS bestos and cellulose, thereby providing a new material for pipe line protection, fire doors and novelties. The new combination of steel and cellulose may be corrugated, rolled into a pipe, and even drawn. The coatings can be lacquered or painted.

Some Features of Sydney’s Great Bridge

SOME features of Sydney's $50,000,000 bridge, opened March 19, are that despite its great size it is AS tructure of grace and beauty. It carries four railway tracks, two ten-foot walks, and AS ixty-foot roadway. Eighty trains, 6,000 vehicles and 40,000 pedestrians may pAS s in each direction in an hour.

Cough Syrup on His Pancakes

A WISCONSIN druggist wAS startled when an Indian came in and ordered a dozen bottles of cough syrup. Fearing there wAS an epidemic of some kind on the reservation he made inquiries, and wAS rewarded with the information that the noble red man wanted to use the cough syrup on his morning pancakes. Ue liked the tAS te 1

No War in AS ia

fTlIIE ARBITRATOR points out, sarcAS tical--L ly enough, that there is no war in AS ia, and that is why it is perfectly proper for the United States, the nation responsible for the Kellogg Peace Pact, to sell war materials to both Japan and China, to the tune of $300,000,000 a year. The reAS on 'there is no war’ is that Japan claims that all she hAS done and is doing is on the defensive.

Munitions Stocks Going Up

THE Kellogg Peace Pact lets all the world know that Uncle Sam considers war absolutely illegal, yet the Supreme Court decides that if you don't believe in it you cannot become a citizen. Meantime, AS the Japanese continue to murder the Chinese, those who have stocks in Savage Arms, Colt Firearms, United States Steel, Bethlehem Steel, oil companies and clothing companies note with peculiar pleAS ure that business is improving in all the murderspecialties and solemnly return thanks that the murders are far enough away that it does not bother their consciences any.

Cutting Her Fourth Set of Teeth

"IY/Trs. Malvixa F. Sxierwin, 90 years of age, fifty-eight years a resident of Keene, N. H., is now cutting her fourth set of teeth, if her milk teeth are counted AS one of the four sets. Evidently these frequently recurring illustrations furnish evidence that man wAS designed to live everlAS tingly, and show the methods by which eternal youth will be retained.

One New Locomotive

IN JANUARY the ClAS s I railroads of the country put into service a grand total of one new locomotive. That is about AS good an indication AS anybody could wish AS to where business in the United States hAS gone. Imagine how the employees of the big locomotive building concerns must be faring when such conditions prevail.

ArkansAS Schools Closed in February

A S EARLY AS February school funds in ArkansAS were so low that 756 public schools had closed until fall, and 1,200 more were expected to close earlier than usual. In some communities the schools were kept open by determined parents who supplied the teachers with food and contributed to their support by popular subscription.

More People Are Walking

IN THE year 1930 there were produced in the

United States 304,000,000 pairs of shoes, but in the year 1931 this number wAS increAS ed by almost 12,000,000 pairs. It is certain that some of this increAS e is due to the fact that there hAS been an increAS ed demand for cheaper shoes, but it is also certain that more people are walking and more shoes are being needed.

Good-bye to the League

George Laxsbury, Lahorite leader in Parliament, does not think much of Japan. He said recently: “If the League of Nations is unable to restrain one of its members from the sort of conduct that Japan is guilty of, then you can say good-bye to the League of Nations. If ever there wAS a cynical and brutal defiance of one's own signature by a nation, it is this by Japan of its signature to the Kellogg Pact, the covenant of the League and the Pacific (nine-power) treaty. There hAS never been in my lifetime such blatant disregard of public morality and right.”

Viva il Papa

WHEN the pope celebrated his tenth year on the papal throne he was brought in and carried out in a sort of glorified baby-carriage borne on the shoulders of sixteen men. Too bad he couldn’t walk. He had on his white cassock, him’s red mantle and him’s nice, pretty three-story crown, and when a poor aged man wanted some kind of a favor from him he was promptly grabbed and thrown out. Some Peter!

Lower Electric Light Rates for Churches

CHURCHES and charitable institutions have been given discounts off the prevailing electric light rates in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Denver, Scranton and Dallas, and an effort will be made this summer to fix up a similar deal in Brooklyn and New York. An arrangement of this kind closes the mouths of the preachers so that they dare not call attention to the robberies of their flocks by the outrageous service charges and other excessive charges levied.

Canada Unarmed and Unafraid

Str George Perley, minister for Canada, in an address at the Anns Conference said: ‘'We are more than ten millions of people, and the fifth trading nation in the world, but our armaments are calculated only for the preservation of internal order and for the performance of the obligations imposed upon us by international law. In no conceivable sense could they be considered a menace to any state. Nevertheless we feel secure.”

At Geneva and at Shanghai

AT GENEVA the Japanese delegate to the

Armament Conference urged the abolition of air bombing and at Shanghai Japanese air bombs killed 40 refugees in the Flood Relief camp. Other people were willing to try to save the poor sufferers; Japan was willing to kill them. When the Japanese spokesman at the League of Nations made a speech in which he said Japan is as eager as ever to further the cause of disarmaments he was received in stony silence, the first time a speaker has had such a chilly reception. Mr. Matsudaira attempted to gloss over the rape of Manchuria and China by referring to it as “a disturbed condition in Eastern Asia”. Almost anybody would be disturbed to look down the muzzle of a gun held in the hands of a crazv man.

Without a Parallel in History

TAr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of

Columbia University, recently said:

The economic, the social and the political convulsions which are shaking the whole world are without a parallel in history. It is quite futile to draw curves and to make charts of how earlier depressions and economic crises in the United States have developed and how they have led the way to recovery. This procedure is wholly futile because conditions are entirely without precedent and the remedies for these conditions will have to be without precedent as well.

Still More Beautiful Bricks

IT IS not so long since a Denver boy, born blind, but by a wonderful surgical operation given sight, stirred the whole world by his enraptured words, “Oh, the bricks! the beautiful bricks!” when he first beheld the city in which he lives. Now he may raise a cry of “the still more beautiful bricks!” or “the still more wonderful bricks!” when he comes in contact with the new marvels that are so light they will float, and yet have sufficient crushing strength to support the weight of a tower a mile high. It is believed that the new bricks will remake the occupation of bricklaying, as they are only one-fifth the weight of ordinary bricks. They are said to be of high heat-insulating quality, porous, and yet resistant to the entrance of water.

Florence, Ala., and Muscle Shoals

DESPITE the fact that the big financiers have ruined America by their peculiar methods of finance, it is still the Government’s theory that the people themselves should own nothing, but that everything should be left in the hands of the Big Money crowd. Among the things the Government wishes to see placed exclusively in the hands of Big Business is the people's great plant at Muscle Shoals. ITow it works 1o have a Big Business intermediary between the people and the things they rightfully own is shown in the ease of Florence, Alabama. Here is a town almost within sight of Muscle Shoals, and because the city cannot buy from the Government direct, hut has to buy through a branch of the Trust, it pays $10,000 for current that costs the Alabama Power Company but $385. How the American people love to be robbed! When we say that Mr. Hoover is faithful to his trust, we believe it will be understood what Trust we mean.

Learning the Lesson of Obedience

ETERNAL life Will not be thrust upon any.

In the Scriptures we find that certain conditions have to be complied with before it will be granted to any. We summarize these. One must give God the first place in his heart; obey God's commandments to the best of his ability; get a knowledge of Jesus Christ, God’s Son; accept Jesus as the bread from heaven; hear and listen to His voice; become one of His sheep; do the work Jesus gives him to do; give earthly possessions a secondary place in his heart; and show love and mercy toward all.

We do not stress the matter too much when we say that even Jesus himself would not have been saved if He had been disobedient; for do we not read of Him that ‘‘though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered"? (Heb. 5:8) Surely this lesson of obedience is a hard one for us all. It was the heavenly Father's will “in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings". (Heb. 2:10) It was the way that was chosen to perfect His obedience. And the same way is chosen for us.

God the Leader of His People

By a very remarkable continuous miracle extending over a period of forty years, Jehovah God instructed the people of Israel that it was He, and not Moses, that was their’ real Leader and Deliverer, and at the same time He taught them that lesson He was also providing them with a perfect series of lessons in obedience. We take the story just as it reads:

And on tlie day that the tabernacle was reared up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning. So it was alway: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. At the commandment of Jehovah the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of Jehovah they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle, they rested in their tents. And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of Jehovah, and journeyed not. And so it was, when the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle; according to the commandment of Jehovah they abode in their tents, and according to the commandment of Jehovah they journeyed. And so it was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed; whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed. Or whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of Jehovah they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of Jehovah they journeyed: they kept the charge of Jehovah, at the commandment of Jehovah by the hand of Moses.—Num. 9:15-23.

The Watch of Jehovah

Let us think about this a little. In this one short historical sketch we have the words “the commandment of Jehovah” seven times. We may be sure that it is not an accident that these words are mentioned so many times, nor that the number is seven. The words “the charge of Jehovah”, which occur twice, would be better translated “the watch of Jehovah”. They signify that the people were to watch for His leadings, and to be quickly responsive thereto. Watchfulness is an integral part of real obedience.

The decision as to when they were to be on the march was taken entirely out of the hands of the people; it was left entirely in the hands of God. The people had nothing to say about where they were to pitch their tents, or when they were to pitch them; that also was entirely in the hands of their invisible Leader and Commander.

The commandment to leave their place of rest might come in the middle of the night; it made no difference. They were not to wait for the morning light. They were to pack up and move during the night. The commandment to rest might leave them in one place for a year or more at a time, and did so, but they were to be ready to move at any minute, night or day.

The Signal to the People

One can imagine the scene in the camp of Israel when, in the midst of the night, the fiery cloud would rise from over the tabernacle and majestically take its way from the place v’here they were encamped to the north, or south or east or west, as the case might be.

Here were at least two million people, counting men, women and children, for there w’ere six hundred thousand armed men. And there was

-with them a mixed company of friendly Gentiles, of whom Caleb was one. Besides the people, there were a great number of cattle. We know that on one occasion there were in the camp 810,500 head of live stock: for we have the account of them in the thirty-first chapter of the book of Numbers.

We know that they broke camp at least forty-two times; for we have a list of their encampments in the thirty-third chapter of Numbers. We may he certain that some of their moves were begun at night, else there would have been no reason for the historical bit of information that “whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed'’.—Vs. 21.

So, then, here is a great city of perhaps three million creatures, men, women, children, sheep, cattle, asses; it is midnight, and all but the watchmen are sound asleep. Their eyes are fixed, not upon possible enemies; there is no need of that, for God is their Caretaker, their Protector, their Rereward, and they have no need to fear, except just one thing.

And what is that¹? That is that when that bright shining cloud that covers the tabernacle starts to move they must be quick to detect its movement and get the camp under way. Not only is it their source of light, except such as they may get from the moon and the stars, but if it should leave them they would be left in utter darkness, in a hostile land, with enemies on all sides. Leadership would be gone, confidence would be gone, panic would reign; for nobody would know what to do.

The General Alarm

The camp is hushed in slumber. Suddenly, after a year of encampment in one spot, the shrill notes of the silver trumpet cleave the air. After a brief interval, in which the congregation waits to see if this is merely the summoning to the tabernacle of the heads of the tribes, the call with the first trumpet is followed by the call with the second one. This is the general alarm, and in a moment the whole camp is astir. (See Numbers 10:1-0.)

The watchmen have seen that the fiery cloud has lifted up from the tabernacle and is pointing toward the north. That means that the whole camp of Israel must change its position, and the beginning of the change must be made at once. The cloud furnishes light enough so that one can see what to do, but there is no time to lose. The change of position must be made while the light is still shining in the camp.

The tenth chapter of Numbers contains some of the details as to how the camp was to get under way. It was not the flight of a rabble. It was an orderly movement, tribe by tribe. The second chapter of the same book gives further particulars; it shows where they were to pitch their tents when the march had ceased.

There could not have been a better school in which to learn obedience. When the general alarm sounded there would be some who would wish to keep on sleeping; but they would not be allowed to do so. The older members of the family would feel the responsibilities resting upon them of seeing that their part of the caravan should get under way.

Getting Under Way at Night

Mothers would be shaking their half-grown children out of sleep. Daughters would be packing up the few little belongings of the family: a few dishes, a few garments, little else. Sons would be rounding up the family live stock. Fathers would be taking down tents and getting them upon the backs of the cattle. It is surprising how fast one can do a thing when he has done it several times. In an hour or two, or perhaps in less time, the whole camp would be, on the march, and with no idea at all where they would make their next abiding place.

Just here we insert a few more verses from the tenth chapter of Numbers which cover the first move after the tabernacle had been reared:

And it cnnie to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant, of [Jehovah] went before them in the three days’ journey, to search out a resting place for them. And the cloud of [Jehovah] was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp. And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, [Jehovah], and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate 1liee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, (O) [Jehovah], unto the many thousands of Israel.—Num. 10:11, 33-36.

A Great Lesson in Obedience

What an insight this gives us into Jehovah’s watchcare over these people! and what a lesson we get in obedience! The application is so selfevident that we hardly need to mention it. Jehovah lias always had a people in the earth that were really 1 lis, and 1 le has some today. Sometimes they have been very few; they never have been very many.

One may make the error of thinking that they are tower than they are. Elijah thought that he was the only one in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal, but God told him that lie had reserved to himself seven thousand more that as yet Elijah had not met. But those who are God's people are really His; they are not partly His ami partly the Devil's; and that means that they are obedient.

Their obedience is not to man. It is to Jehovah God. But, as we have seen, God's people are an orderly people. They are not a rabble. Probably, among the Israelites, all of whom professed to be God's people, fully obedient to His will, they set their own watchmen. We do not know as to that, for the Record is silent. But it may be that even then the watchmen were selected by the One who directed Israel's going out (of camp) and coming in (to camp) and their journeys in between.

God Appoints His Own Watchmen

In any event, we know that in later days God did select certain individuals to be His watchmen for all Israel. Ezekiel was such a watchman; we have the account of his appointment in Ezekiel 3:17. There were other watchmen. The Prophet Jeremiah is caused to say. ‘‘Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.''—Jer. (i: 17.

We know who some of these watchmen were who were appointed over the whole house of Israel. Their writings of the things that they saw are with us yet in the Holy Scriptures. David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and all the rest of the prophets, were appointed to their work by the power of Almighty God. And lienee we read that ‘‘the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the [holy spirit]".—2 Pet. 1:21.

The coming of the watchmen did not cease with the coming of Messiah; for "the law and the prophets were until John’’ (Luke 16:16), and he was the greatest of them all. Jesus said of him, “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee."— Matt. 11:9, 10.

The Chief Watchman

God's sending of His watchmen did not end with the sending of the prophets. Did not the psalmist say of our Lord Jesus Christ that the mainspring of His every act lies in the fact that He could truthfully say of himself, “I have set Jehovah always before me”?—Ps. 16:8.

It was because of that very watchfulness that our Lord was raised from the dead and given “a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.—Phil. 2: 9-11.

Nor did His watchfulness of the heavenly Father, looking to Him for guidance as to when to move, depart from our Savior “when he had by himself purged our sins, [and had] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3); for the apostle, who was himself also one of the appointed watchmen, went on to say of Jesus that “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool”.—Heb. 10:12,13.

The time in which Jesus was waiting at the Father's right hand in a period of expectancy was not a period of inaction in which nothing was done. It was early in this period that lie received The Revelation "which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass” (Rev. 1:1), which things the watchmen of our own day now discern have but recently been fulfilled or are even now in process of fulfilment.

People Hate to Be Disturbed

Let us take for a moment a very general view of that forty-year journey of the people of Israel from the edge of the Red sea through the Wilderness of Sin until they finally came into the laud that had been promised. They made forty-two separate journeys. The first of these was of three days’ duration; so it is not improbable that they broke camp at least a hundred times on route and had to accommodate themselves to new conditions.

There are people who hate to make a change. Humanity is largely that way. If they have fitted themselves into a position of any kind they want to be let to stay there as long as they live, even though all the time they are there they may be crying out vocally for better conditions. Hut it is not best for them or for God’s cause that they should always have their own way.

God knows what is best for His people, and has known all along what would be the best course for His people to follow to make them really ready for His kingdom. The Israelites wanted to stay in Egypt; they wanted to stay at Mount Sinai; and they wanted to stay at every stopping place along the route to the Promised Land. But it was not best for them to do so. It was best for them to rest when they rested, and best for them to go on when they went on; and so it was that when they finally came into the Promised Land they were really ready for it.

Spurred to Activity

And so it has been with the people of God from the days of righteous Abel down to the present moment. At times they have rested, sometimes for centuries, and then again, spurred into activity by some fresh revelation of God’s interest in them, they have packed up, bag and baggage, and moved into a fresh position.

All who are familiar with the Scriptures, or who know anything of history in general, can see some of these moves. We can trace them in a few words, some of them. We do not need to give more than a few words to indicate the journeys and the camps.

The apostle has done this for us in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. We can trace our way from Abel to Enoch and to Noah and his family before the Flood and during the Flood and afterwards. We can see the careful, tender loading of Abraham from the very hour “when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance’’ (Heb. 11:8); and we can plainly see that, though he wanted to settle down permanently, yet, in obedience to (tod's promises, “by faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city [God’s promised kingdom] which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”—Heb. 11:8-10.

The Ark Often on the Move

We have but to stop and think of the wanderings of Jacob and his posterity into Syria, back to Palestine, into Egypt, and back through their strange trip through the wilderness, to get yet other glimpses of the fact that God has willed to let His people rest ever and anon, but yet has kept them on the march to the Promised Land. The ark was often on the move.

Canaan has come and gone, and come again. In our mind's eye we flit from the days of the theocracy under the judges to those of the kings. We wander by the rivers of Babylon and go back across the deserts to rebuild the temple and restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem. The prophets come one after another and stir us afresh.

Then at length comes the Savior of men and there are mighty changes. Nothing is repudiated, not a jot or a tittle, but it is time to break camp. The cloud is lifted up; Jehovah is on the move. Yet other changes came with the apostles; for did not Jesus say: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” ’—John 16:12,13.

With the death of the apostles there were yet other changes. A great captivity came to God's people. Outwardly the forces of evil seemed to triumph, and for centuries it seemed to all but a few that God had forsaken His people; but far up in the sky (to carry on our figure of speech) was the presence of God watching over those that were really His, and though the ages were really “dark ages”, and are properly so called, yet there were always some who saw the beacon Light and knew that the time would come when again there would be fresh evidences of the coming of the King and the Kingdom for which the watchers were taught to pray.

The Present Tremendous Stir

And now a tremendous stir is on throughout the whole camp of God. For forty years prior to 1918 the cry went up that the Light was being lifted up and was on the move. Millions of people throughout the earth were told to look forward to 1914, when something of greatest import regarding God's kingdom would take place.

The year 1914 came; and what happened’ The answer is that everything happened. It was the year that marked the legal end of Satan's dominion and the beginning of the reign of Jehovah’s Representative, Christ Jesus our Savior and King. Since then, Satan has been cast out of heaven and is now confined to this earth, with the result that the camp is in turmoil. The holy spirit as advocate has been withdrawn. Today there is no safety for anybody or anything in this world except in God's kingdom. Today, as never before, it is essential to the people of God that they break camp and get under way.

Arouse Yourself and Listen

Do not be offended if earnest men and women come to your door and rap and tell you to wake up and listen. Do you hear those cries of ’God's Kingdom, God's Kingdom, God's Kingdom, the Hope of the "World’? Do not be impatient. These are God's messengers to you. They have come to you to save you in this hour. And in saving you they are saving themselves.

Arouse yourself; get up and listen. "When Israel was to break camp one call on the silver trumpet was to call the “princes’’ (principal ones) or leaders, hut if the call was on both trumpets it was a general alarm; and even if it came in the middle of the night it was essential for the safety of each and all that everybody should get up and get dressed and gather his wits about him and get under way; else the Light would go on and leave him.

It is just that way today. This is not an ordinary call. It is a general alarm! God's kingdom is really here, and Satan's kingdom is really falling in ruins. All about us is the night. Can you not see what a mockery Satan's reign has become ?

Listen to this, and then take another look and see it’ you can tell where you are and what all this commotion is about: “Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel: for Jehovah hath a controversy vith the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish.” —Hos. 4:1-3.

The Old Camp Already Wrecked

The old camping place is a wreck and a desolation. Nothing, not even Hoover’s Emergency Loan Corporation, which in sudden fright was made a two-billion-dollar affair instead of a half-billion one, can ever make it again a fit place to live.

Talk about making the world safe for democracy! It isn’t safe for anybody any more, not even for babies in the cradle. Satan cannot do the things he has promised; nor can any of his crowd. He has lied, and they have lied; he has turned men away from God, and they have turned men away from God.

They have built churches to save souls to raise money to build more churches to save more souls to raise more money to build more churches to save more souls, and so on, until there are twice as many churches or four times as many churches as are needed to house those who wish to go to them; and it is a fact that the people in the very shadow of these churches are today without even the necessities of life, and crime stalks alike in pew and cloister. Most clergymen today are without any knowledge of God and without a particle of confidence in His Word or any comprehension of why it was written. The religious business is the only business they know; it is the way by which they make their daily bread. And it is a bad way, because the people think they are watchmen; they are not. They are totally blind to the issues. They do not know that the Messiah has come and that they are blind and naked in His presence.

Awake! Awake! As surely as there was a time when “the holy spirit was not yet given”, so surely there conies a time when it is withdrawn (as advocate). As surely as there was a time when Jesus alone was the Teacher of the people, and there were no apostles nor elders, so surely, as the fiery cloud now lifts, we see that the need of any “clergy” is past.

Listen to the trumpet call! Nobody will be able to halt it, and it gets louder and louder. The watchers are blowing the bugle in every nook and corner of the world, and in every language the same cry is going forth, “The Kingdom is here; break camp! get under way; desert the old organization of things; Satan’s kingdom is falling in ruins before your eyes; awake; awake; the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

(On the Methodist Front—from p. 169.)

But the antics of Asbury Park’s authorities do not end with arbitrary rules on what may and what may not be sold. The four men, after being arrested, were haled before Magistrate Tumen and subjected to his biting wit before being held for the grand jury. Unfortunately, the judge was as indiscreet as he was funny. And with the radio burlesque of his court lie was made to seem even funnier.

The organization supporting the four offenders announced last week that they would stage a radio drama over station WCAP, of this city, controlled by Thomas F. Burley, jr., secretary of the local chamber of commerce. They signed a contract for the station and extensively advertised the broadcast. But a few minutes before they were to take the air the station broke down. A water line clogged at the psychological moment so that the radio drama could not be given. Mr. Burley announces that had he known the nature of the program he would not have permitted it anyway.

But the operators of the Atlantic City station are not so particular. On Sunday they permitted their powerful apparatus to broadcast a burlesque of Asbury Park, presented by the four men arrested here, and aimed at the conduct of city affairs by our authorities. Asbury Park has spent thousands of dollars to attract visitors from Atlantic City, but it remained for the South Jersey resort to tell the world just what a great amusement center Asbury Park is. Indiscretion on the part of local authorities in disposing of four solicitors has informed the radio audience that Asbury Park is a very funny place.

All is not yet quiet on the Methodist front, but will be soon. After the above distribution six more were arrested illegally, and so on the Sunday following, just to show the Devil that his bluff has been called, and that Jehovah's witnesses are sure of their ground, and of the issue of their ease, three hundred of them called at every home in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove and left there two thousand of Judge Rutherford’s books, showing that God's kingdom, and that alone, will give the people life, liberty, peace, prosperity, health, happiness and youth eternal right here in this world, and earth, at Asbury Park and Ocean Grove as also at Pittston and Swoyersville. One of the “300’’ was illegally arrested March 27, but that is another chapter.

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