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Contents
Latin-American Democracy and Freedom of Worship
“Inter-American Seminar for Social
■Statement on 'Victory and Peace’
defeat of Persecution in West Africa
“Thy Word Is Truth”
What Destroyed the French Republic!
Too Much Venality—as Elsewhere
Some Judges as Bad as—Elsewhere
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom” Gruden’s Concordance
Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC. 117 Adarnfi St., Brooklyn, N. Y.d L\ S.A.
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Notanda
Just Beginning to Learn
♦ The human family is just beginning to learn something' about The treasure house, the earth, in which, by the kind providences of God, they now find themselves. The statement is made by those who ought to know that in the year 1941 Americans consumed $10,000,000,000 worth of products that were unknown before World War I.
You know some of these things. Maybe you are wearing some of them right now, as underwear, stockings, dresses, suits, hats, shoes, or what not. You call them nylon, rayon, vinyon, or something else, and all you know or care about them is that they are made of such things as milk, beans, peanuts, bark, and that they don’t wear quite as well as the things for which they act as substitutes. .
It was a big surprise to most people to learn that rubber can be made from -petroleum, yet that will probably be the principal source from which future supplies come. It is claimed that there are now about 6,000 research workers spending their time studying petroleum, to get out of it some of the things it evidently contains.
Lined Squarely Up with the Devil
♦ Arrested in Charleston, S. C., for circulating the^ gospel of Jehovah’s Kingdom in printed form, three women, with their children, summoned two clergymen to speak for them, but the clergymen, “Rev.” W. O. Kersey and “Kev.” Henry F. Wolfe, entered a plea against the innocent, instead; and, though these two men make their living by circulating what they falsely claim to be the gospel, they were delighted when these women were fined for preaching in this manner without first obtaining peddlers’ licenses. The Supreme Court of South Carolina had previously decided that circulating God’s Word and explanations thereof by books not sold for gain is doing the work of an evangelist and not taxable.
CONSOLATION
»
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
VolumeXXIV Brooklyn, N.Y,, Wednesday, March 3, 1943 Number 612
Latin-American Democracy and Freedom of Worship
SOUTH AMERICAN and Central
American lands are generally, for the sake of convenience, grouped together and called “Latin America”. They speak mainly the two Latin-European languages Spanish and Portuguese, although there are millions of their inhabitants that speak one of the aboriginal tongues that were spoken when the Americas were first discovered. ~ The west coast of South America is straight south of New York city, a small portion of its western bulge being the exception. The largest South American country, Brazil, extends east of that line twenty-six hundred miles. Latin America, most of it, is in the tropics. People in the tropical climes live at a pace different from that of those who live in temperate zones. They are neither worse nor better on that account, but would naturally prove somewhat difficult to understand unless one keeps that fact in mind. The bulk of Mexico and everything between it and Buenos Aires, Argentina, to the south, is subject to the effect of direct solar rays and all that is implied by that fact.
Yet, because altitude has an important bearing upon the climate of Latin America, there are places where the temperature, even in the torrid zone, is moder-. ate and sometimes chilly. Each ascent of 330 feet results in a variation of one degree Fahrenheit in temperature. A point 5,000 feet above sea, level at the equator has the same climate as one . at sea level 1,500 miles nqrth or south. Mexico city, although in the torrid zone, is situated 7,500 feet above sea level, and has a climate described as that of an eternal spring. Plateaus and mountainous terrain in other parts of Latin America have similarly affected the climate, though not to the same degree. The capital of Equador is situated 9,371 feet above sea level, and has as a consequence a climate unusual in that torrid zone.
There is still a considerable measure of illiteracy in Latin America, a condition that is being slowly remedied. Theoretically, and in a measure actually, education is free all over South America, and in some parts it is compulsory. Whites and Indians, and also Negroes, have intermarried to a surprising extent. In Brazil only a tenth of the population is wholly white. The color line is almost entirely ignored. Similar conditions, though in different proportion, exist in many other South American countries.
A general survey of Latin America is difficult because there are such wide differences between the countries and peoples of which it is composed. Asia is more easily comprehended in a homogeneous whole than is South America. A separate visit to each country of.this part of the Western Hemisphere is therefore desirable, and it is hoped that such visits (on paper) can be arranged for the readers of Consolation from time to time. It will be well worth while to become better acquainted with our neighbors to the south. For the present, however, consideration is given to Latin America as a whole, representing a population of some 130,000,000.
Every country and every colony of Latin America is unlike the '.others. Although part, in the main, of one continent, they are all different; surprisingly so. -Each claims a republican form of government. Yet some of them have been ruled by dictators for long periods of tipe. One has an enviable record of orderly and constitutional government that has had but one interruption in a period of well over a century. Others have had frequent “revolution s” and consequent changes of government.
In some of the countries of South America there is as complete freedom of the press and speech as there is in the United States (although that is not as complete as some may think). In others there is practically no such freedom. Politicians who oppose or criticize the government are sent into exile, and critical newspapers are put out of business. In such lands the dictator or other ruling element brooks no opposition.
Early in the nineteenth century all the South American and Central American countries revolted and threw off the yoke of Spanish domination that had held them. Brazil also gained her independence (from Portugal). The revolts were largely inspired by the American and French revolutions. Conditions that existed until these revolts changed them are summarized as follows by John Gunther in his best-seller Inside Latin America:
Latin America was, it happened, colonized by two countries, Spain and Portugal, that never experienced the Reformation. Thus Catholicism in peculiarly undiluted form dominated it from the earliest days and remains today a profound and tenacious influence. The early ‘Conqui st adores’ fought in the name of the cross, and baptized Indians by the tens of thousands. In every new settlement the clergy took a large share of the best land, and achieved an important vested interest in the community, socially, politically, economically. The great archbishops admitted allegiance only to the king of Spain. They ruled like princes. The clergy were their troops and the Inquisition their Gestapo. The church had no competition, since no other religion but Catholicism was permitted. It grew fabulously rich and fabulously decadent. In several countries the church owned as much as one-half the total land; Paraguay, for instance, became practically a Jesuit colony. Nowhere did the clergy, secular or regular, bestow upon the people anything like proper recompense for their inordinate position, though an effort was made in education.
In Jesuit-colonized Paraguay today from 60 percent to 70 percent of the people are illegitimate and Catholic. The claim that South America as a whole is Catholic is, of course, a very broad generalization. The Indians, Incas and others, who were baptized by the tens of thousands several centuries ago, evidently did not get very far beyond the starting point, nor did they bring up their offspring as “good Catholics”, willingly subservient to the “Church” and loyal to Spain as the instrument of the church in reducing them to bondage. As the Roman Catholic church retains its control of the men through its control of the women, every effort was made to keep the people, and particularly the women, in ignorance. This helps to keep the people at least nominally Catholic.
A large number of Latin Americans, and particularly the men, are indifferent to Catholicism. Yet the teaching and example of the priests have had their effect. In this connection an item is quoted from The Christian Century of September 2, 1942.
The legend that South America is a Catholic continent Still persists. But it is hard for its supporters to make a clear case. It was not so many decades ago that a recommendation went to the Vatican that South America be declared a mission field, moral and spiritual conditions were that bad. But, of course, it was -ftnpossible to do that and not lose face. All churches and convents, however, in Ecuador were closed, and a group of German priests were put in charge to reorganize and reopen the Work of the church. Last year the theological seminary in one of the most Roman Catholic of South American countries was closed because of moral conditions and a group of Mexican priests were brought down to reorganize that institution. In that country-no priests will be graduated from the seminary for the next three years. . . . the first group of missionaries has gone out from the Maryknoll institution to do missionary work in Bolivia. A second group of fifteen missionaries is to follow soon.
Of course, the status of the Roman Catholic church in Latin America differs in each country. In some sections it has a strong hold upon the superstitious susceptibilities of the people, while in others it occupies a position more nearly like the one held in the United States. In either case, there are large numbers of the population that have no attachment for the church and there is a considerable number of Protestants. Protestant church organizations in the United States have also sent mission-, aries into Latin America; which, in every country, claims to adhere to complete religious toleration, though the Roman Catholic religion is generally said to be “dominant”. Whatever may be said of Protestantism’s'too obvious failings, the missionaries have brought the Bible with them. This fact, together with the further fact that these missionaries have met with some success, has greatly disturbed the Catholic Hierarchy.
In an effort to stop the introduction of the Bible and its teachings into Latin America the “princes of the church”, such as bishops and archbishops, have gotten together with United States clergy of the same general rank in a so-called Pan-American “seminar” ostensibly to further “social studies”. The pronouncements of the “seminar” and of the bishops of the Roman Church in the United States enable one to see just what the Hierarchy and its head mean when they speak of the triumph of “Christian; principles”, and of the necessity of seejpg to it that these principles shall be given first consideration in the building of a “new world”. There is no real , intention to extend liberty of worship and speech to all. The Bible, and those who sponsor its circulation, are not wanted. What the Hierarchy has done and is doing in South America or Latin America it will attempt to do wherever it can. One of the pronouncements of the seminar in its “studies” last year was as follows:
Democracy, whatever its deficiencies may have been in the past, is certainly opposed to totalitarianism, and when it is directed by Christian principles constitutes a system under which Christian living can be best achieved.
Interpreting that in harmony with what the Hierarchy are trying to do in Latin America, it is just saying that everybody must be brought around to accepting the pope as “God on earth” and Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a virtual goddess. These are the main tenets of Catholicism, and when Catholic bishops speak of Christian “principles” they certainly have in mind these fundamental doctrines of the Hierarchy. That the four freedoms are not a part of them is apparent from the pronouncements of the popes on democracy. None of them has done other than condemn it. The “essential rights” of the individual are to knuckle down to the “princes” of the “church”. According to the bishops, that is supposed to be the way Latin America accepts the Catholic idea. Actually Latin Americans assert in large and increasing numbers as much freedom of thought and action as do North Americans.
Kindred Nations
Ever since the Latin-American revolutions there has been a kindred love of freedom and democracy common to them and the people of North America. The constitutions of the Latin-American nations are patterned in considerable degree after the Constitution of the United States. True, there have been failures in living up to the implications of these constitutions, yet they are there, and .exert their influence upon the populations. Outstanding in all these constitu-
tions is the constantly reiterated tolerance in the matter of worship. In this respect the constitutions express the attitude of the people. A different thing, of course, is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
Recently Latin-American representatives of the Hierarchy met with some of their fellow clergy in the United States, under the auspices of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and took occasion to invite representatives of religious groups other than the Hierarchy to keep out of Latin America. These hated “heretics’" have gotten under the skin of the Hierarchy, particularly in view of the fact that quite a number of Latin Americans have shown an inclination to exercise the right of freedom of worship in a manner that the Hierarchy does not approve.
The Roman Hierarchy is alarmed. It proposes to change, if not the constitutions of Latin-American countries, at least the effect of them. Having made a had botch of instructing the people in morality and religion, they propose that no one else shall do. so. They intend to keep the field for themselves, to rule or ruin as may suit their purpose.
With an eye to their own advantage, the Hierarchy are turning the “good neighbor” policy to account. This policy was in reality begun by President Hoover. He visited Central America and South America with the thought in mind of closer co-operation between the two divisions of the Western Hemisphere. Before Hoover diplomatic service of the United States in Latin America left much to be desired. Each new president had, as a rule, appointed his supporters to diplomatic posts, and gave Latin-American countries to those political favorites that were least competent. Hoover appointed men better equipped intellectually and more competent from the standpoint of education. The result was generally beneficial. American diplomats in the lands below the Rio Grande were worthy of the name. As a result the Americas have been drawn closer together. Conferences of various kinds have also served the purpose of acquainting nominally Catholic Latin America with nominally Protestant North America. It has also tended to show that North American Protestants were not what Rome pictured them to be, even though admittedly not perfect.
The “good neighbor” policy was resulting favorably in many respects, furthering collaboration between the countries of Latin America and the United States and opening up new fields of commerce and mutual profit. A concrete example of the effectiveness of the policy of cooperation is the opening up of the PanAmerican highway system. Linked with United States highways at Nuevo Laredo, it runs through all of Central America to Panama and continues to Bogota, Colombia, whence it branches out to Caracas, in Venezuela, and Quito, Ecuador. Thence it continues to Vitor, Peru, branching again to Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile, and La Paz, in Bolivia. Continuing thence to Rosario, it divides into three branches, one going to Buenos Aires, Argentina, another to Asuncion, Paraguay, and a third to Porto Alegre, Brazil. Thence it branches once more with Montevideo, Uruguay, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as termini. There is also a connecting road between Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires. At least a part of the work in linking various highways together to constitute this international system has been financed by funds supplied by the United States. Only the Guianas remain to be reached, and an extension from Caracas, in Venezuela, to accomplish that end is not hard to visualize.
These various inter-American transactions and relations have resulted in greater understanding between Latin America and North America. Missionary. activity has also played a part. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy, fearful of the results of this better understanding of “Catholic” Latin America and “Prot-
estant” North America, proposes to do what it can to keep out the Bible and those who. whatever their motive, play a considerable part in its circulation.
“Inter-American Seminar
for Social Studies”
The “Inter-American Seminar for Social Studies”, already alluded to, is one of the instruments which the Hierarchy uses to consolidate its own interests in the Americas. In its August (1942) meetings in North America it visited various cities in the- United States. According to press reports it was then composed of some 'thirty Latin American and North American leaders of social thought and action’. When the “seminar'''' came to Washington, D. C., Archbishop Michael J. Curley extended a welcome by letter, saying, in part:
I will pray that the good God may bless the deliberations of the delegates and that both" clergy and laity will go back to their homes with a feeling that the 25,000,000 (?) Catholies in this country have a profound interest In the faith and welfare of every republic in Latin America. [The Catholic population is growing by leaps and bounds— on paper.—-Ed.]
The idea of this welcome was mainly to impress South American Catholics, and particularly the lukewarm ones, that North America is strongly Catholic, and that there the Catholics are the ones that really count. The seminar is bound to do what it can to further the aims of the Roman Hierarchy. “Rev.'’ Alfonso Castiello, of Mexico city, addressing the seminar, urged closer co-operation between the United States and Mexican Catholics in developing and applying a social action program to improve living conditions in Mexico. He charged that the “Catholic program of social reform in Mexico” had been impeded by the foreign owners of capital. Just what he means does not matter. It is well known that the Catholic Hierarchy has fought the social reform program in Mexico tooth and nail, and is still lighting it as far as possible, and especially in the field of education. One wonders whom the Hierarchy thinks it is kidding.
Another Mexican bishop attending the seminar, the “Most Bev.” Miguel Dario Miranda, bishop of Tulancingo, said that the “providential destiny” of the Americas was to return Christ to a world which has forgotten Him. Just where the Vatican comes in here is not too clear. But one feels that, viewing what the Hierarchy have accomplished in South America and Central America and the way the Indians have been treated, America is not too well fitted for the job at the moment.
The seminar also issued a statement, which said, in part: “Even when not totalitarian, any government that suppresses the individual or persecutes him in his essential rights deserves a complete condemnation.” It also opined that “the totalitarian state betrays the common good and must suffer the condemnation of every civilised and Christian conscience”. .
It would be more significant, however, ■ if such a statement issued from the Vati- ' can. Statements of the “lesser fry” of clergy are contradictory. Even though it is made to appear that the clergy of Germany are persecuted, it is well known that they fully7 backed Hitler in his program of conquest and pillage. What American clergy say is spoken to the galleries. Is the Catholic Hierarchy catholic, or what? Note what the German bishops said, as reported in the New York Times of September 25, 1939:
In this decisive hour we admonish our Catholic soldiers to do their duty in obedience to the Fuehrer and be ready to sacrifice their whole individuality.
Statement on ‘Victory and Peace’
It is at this point that a consideration of the .recent statement of American bishops and archbishops on ‘Victory and Peace’ should be examined, particularly in its bearing on Latin America. In this statement, after the customary endorse-
ment of America and its allies in the war, the Hierarchy state:
We send our cordial greetings to our brother bishops of Latin America. We have been consoled by recent events, which give a sincere promise of a better understanding by our country of the peoples of Mexico, Central and South America.
Citizens of these countries are bound to us by the closest bonds of religion. They are not merely our neighbors; they are our brothers professing the same faith. Every effort made to rob them of the Catholic religion or to ridicule it or to offer them a substitute for it is deeply resented by the peoples of these countries and by American Catholics. These efforts prove to be a disturbing factor in our international relations.
Commenting on this statement the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America said:
... we deplore the pretension of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to circumscribe the religious freedom of Protestant Christians in the proclamation of their faith, while by implication reserving for themselves the right to the universal proclamation of their own.
The council also said, significantly, that the bishops of the Roman Communion had “set the relation of Protestant Christianity to Hispanic America in a perspective which does violence both to historical truth and contemporary fact”. In plain phrase that means that the bishops did not tell the truth. The council continues:
We affirm, with full and first-hand knowledge of the facts, that, so far from Protestant institutions and the representatives of Protestant Christianity being a peril to good relations between the Americas, they are . . . regarded with extreme favor by governments and peoples in the countries where they are located.
It is obvious, in any event, that the Hierarchy’s bishops, although professing support of the fight for freedom of speech, worship, press and assembly on the one hand, do all within their power to obstruct those very freedoms in their subtle attack on other religions in their statement on ‘Victory and Peace’. It offers an example of how little stock should be taken in the pronouncements of the Hierarchy at any time, which vary according to the lands in which they are made, while the Vatican maintains a fictitious neutrality. Among other things the American bishops say:
Since the murderous assault on Poland, utterly devoid of every semblance of humanity, there has been a premeditated and systematic extermination of the people of this nation. The same Satanic technique is being applied to many other peoples.
Yet the German bishops, exhorting German soldiers to obey the fuehrer, sacrificing their whole individuality, said:
We appeal to the faithful to join in ardent prayers that the Divine Providence of God Almighty may lead this war to blessed success and peace for our fatherland and nation.
And so the German bishops endorsed what the American bishops characterize as utterly devoid of every semblance of humanity. Are not all bishops subject to the pope?
Commenting on this aspect of the ‘Victory and Peace’ statement The Christian Century says, under date of December 2, 1942:
But there is at the top of the hierarchy an authority which symbolizes the whole church, which is slow to take sides in an international war, which deplores the war and works for peace, and which waits until its own ecclesiastical interest is clearly known to be involved on one side or the other before it surrenders its catholic position. . . . Thus the Catholic Church is able to maintain the fiction of catholicity or ecumenicity while its national branches are allowed to fight on both sides of the conflict. What would not the United Nations give for a statement from the Vatican like that of the American prelates! How can these prelates make such a decisive declaration as, “This conflict of principles makes compromise impossible,” while the Holy Father [sic] himself is vacillating and will continue to vacillate until he is satisfied which side is going to win?
But The Christian Century realizes that the real purpose of the bishops’ manifesto is to suppress freedom of worship in Latin America and to keep the Bible out. It continues:
The bishops and archbishops could not refrain from revealing their strategic motivation even in the text of their manifesto. The document reaches its climax in an implied but unconcealed reference to Protestant mission work in Latin America. On this subject the resentment of the hierarchy has been gaining in frankness of expression in recent years. . . . But in the prelates' manifesto it is brought to focus in a fashion which clearly bids for government favor in return for the hierarchy’s [verbal] support of the war. . . . the church now hopes to win the good offices of the American government in support of its claims to exclusive religious rights in Latin America.
While grossly exaggerating the loyalty of the peoples of these countries to the Catholic Church, . . . the prelates decry “every effort to rob them of their Catholic religion or to ridicule it or to offer them a substitute for it”. This caricature of Protestant missionary effort among a people millions of whom in disillusionment have left the church, is made the basis of an assertion that “these efforts are a disturbing factor in our international relation.” . . .
The bishops are quite frank about it. . . . they boldly suggest action by the national government to restrain Protestant activity in Latin America because it is “disturbing international relations”.
Meanwhile the Hierarchy, through its Latin-American Catholic press, shows its real sympathy as being for the Axis cause. The London Catholic Herald says:
While the popular press has a marked leaning to the left and is pro-Allies, the Catholic papers [which the pope calls his very own voice] react in the contrary direction, sympathizing with Germany and her friends.
Indicative of the same trend is a report from Rio de Janeiro; which states:
Brazilian police have uncovered evidence of subversive activity in a German Franciscan Convent at Sao Pessoa in the Northern State of Parahyba. Nazi propaganda, insignia, maps and Brazilian Army uniforms were found.
In Argentina it was reported that members of the Catholic Order of the Divine Word, a missionary organization, were conducting a Nazi propaganda agency. The order exercises a virtual monopoly of religious teaching throughout the territories of missions and the Chaco.
Reports from other sources in Latin America show the same “leanings” on the part of the Hierarchy, contrary to the attitude of the people generally. These are not in favor of the Axis or totalitarianism. They love liberty and are aware that after more than four hundred years of Hierarchy domination the Indians are no farther advanced than in the days of Cortez and Pizarro, and in some respects they have retrograded. They feel, too, that they have been held back from advantages and advancements which they have noted in other lands, and particularly the United States. Hence they are not likely to allow the Hierarchy to hinder amicable relations with the northern neighbor while professing to promote them. North Americans, including a good many Catholics, are aware of the insult gratuitously handed out in the bishops’ statement on ‘Victory and Peace’ and note the very evident effort to interfere with freedom of worship. If some Latin Americans do not want the Bible or those who bring it, that is up to them. They do not have to accept it or even to listen. Generally the purpose of restrictions of the kind favored by the Hierarchy is to keep people who wish to know from learning the facts. To close Latin America to the entry of reputable and non-seditious persons active in some non-Catholic religious work is not likely to promote the friendship between the South American and North American republics. The fact that this effort to exclude these nonCatholic workers is coming to the fore in every one of these South American countries indicates that the international influence of the Hierarchy is back of it. Whether Latin-American peoples will be long deceived and influenced by these manipulations is another question. Unquestionably many Latin Americans will see the obvious inconsistency of fighting for freedom of religion or worship, on the one hand, and denying it on the other.
It will, doubtless, show in due time whether the seminar and the bishops represent its real sentiments in the matter or not. It is not likely that the Hierarchy is the official spokesman for the Latin-American peoples, though for the moment it may have succeeded in pulling the strings to its own advantage.
Defeat of Persecution in West Africa
THAT was a big order that Jesus gave to His faithful apostles, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them,” and it was a big prophecy that, in “the time of the end" “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations” and then shall the final end come. But all the resources of the Creator are back of the command and of the prophecy.
Strung along the west coast of Africa are seventeen countries between Morocco and the Belgian Congo. Seven of these are French, two are Portuguese, one is Belgian, one is independent, two are Spanish, and four are British. If you agree with the politicians that what the world needs is more religion, you should go to any of these west coast countries and see in what a flourishing condition the religious business is as there carried on.
The natives have the same ancestors as the 11,000,000 Negroes in the United States. For the most part they are intelligent, simple-hearted and inoffensive. But when they get religious they lose all the common sense they ever had. The native gods (demons) put them up to killing and eating one another, either to square the account or to assimilate the good qualities of those that were bumped off. Some of them are devil-worshipers, but none are so fallen that they could imagine a devil so hideous that he would stand up in a pulpit and warn the people not to read any books that tell anything about God’s kingdom.
One has to be educated to be that kind of devil. And so along the West African coast there are altogether too many European educated missionaries whose business on arrival is to confirm the heathen in their pagan beliefs that the dead are more alive than ever, and that what they really need is—not the truth, that would never do at all—but that what they need is- more religion.
The European missionaries train the native clergy, who thereafter are twice as useless as they were in the first place. One idea goes over big with them, however, and that is to get out of the common people, on one pretext or another, every last nickel that can be extracted. On account of the customs of humanity, to get married, and to die, the native clergy work the marriage and funeral rackets to a finish. Especially do they foster the idea that without a church funeral there is no salvation. One wouldn't think that the common people would fall for such a line of foolishness; now, would one? Have you ever heard about the mass racket?
The Great State of Nigeria
When looking at the map of Africa one readily discerns that Nigeria is one of the great states of a vast continent, but it is hard to realize that it is in itself as large as all of the United States between the Hudson and Mississippi rivers and north of the Potomac and Ohio. The real ruler of Nigeria is not the British Empire, but is actually The Niger Company, which has the exclusive right of importing rum and missionaries
and exporting the host of equatorial products for which the country is famous. Its tin, lead and iron ore industries are old and valuable. There are more than 12,000 miles of railways.
" “God hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and the Negroes of Nigeria are as bright as the Negroes of North America, or the whites either, for that matter. And as the Kingdom message has found many hearing ears among the colored of the United States, and thereby offended those in the religious business, so in Africa. And if, to protect his bread ticket, a missionary is willing to lie about Jehovah, what is more natural than that the stigma attaching to Him should attach also to His faithful witnesses?
So it was in the regular way of business that, about two years ago, the publications of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society were banned in Nigeria and the importation thereof was strictly prohibited. There it is now a ‘‘crime” to even have one of the publications of the Society in one’s possession. So strict is the censorship, and so dreadful the fear I that some of the natives of Nigeria might get to learn of the Kingdom message, that all mail is withheld from Jehovah’s witnesses.
For example, Lagos, Nigeria, was at one time one of the principal slave markets of the world, and the authorities there are still so terror-smitten about the four freedoms that Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt talked about, at the time they got up the “Atlantic Charter”, that the Branch servant of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society at Lagos has not been permitted to receive even one piece of mail (not even personal mail from his relatives) for two full years.
What lies back of this persecution? The answer is simple. It is just religion. Those that are operating the religious prison-houses cannot endure the thought that knowledge of the way to life should come to the common people; that they should learn that the dead are dead; that the only hope of humankind is in the resurrection and in The Theocracy which Jehovah’s witnesses in Nigeria, as elsewhere, so boldly proclaim. But has the estoppage of entry of books explaining the Bible, and the cutting-off of all correspondence regarding The Theocracy, achieved its desired end of disorganizing the work? The answer might reasonably be Yes, but actually is No.
‘The Increase of His Kingdom’
‘Of the increase of His Kingdom there shall be no end.’ What is true of Jehovah’s kingdom as a whole is true even of Nigeria. To be sure, some have been sent to jail for having the Kingdom literature in their possession, but that merely makes a good advertisement for the truth. Many are constantly watched, and it is often true that if one of the Lord’s people makes a call he is followed up by one of the authorities who is fearful that he may have left some literature behind him. This also is an advertisement. The Devil cannot make a single move without sticking his foot into it clear up to his thigh. Many people are afraid to receive a Kingdom publisher, but they are not afraid to discuss the whole phenomenon with their next-door neighbors. The Society’s Branch servant at Lagos is restricted in his travel. Those who wonder why this is will naturally talk about it, and thus the Kingdom is advertised some more.
Under the above conditions, and especially because of the close censorship of the local mails, it would seem impossible for the organized work to continue throughout Nigeria. But, true to His promise, Jehovah has made a provision for His servants there to receive some information from time to time. Jehovah’s witnesses there may not receive this information as quickly as it is received in America or Britain, but eventually the Kingdom message reaches them in a manner which Jehovah directs. This information (and the Bible, which they have) strengthens the witnesses.
What Work Can the Witnesses Do?
Perhaps you wonder what work the witnesses can do. Well, they are permitted to hold study meetings, and in these meetings the message of Jehovah’s kingdom may be proclaimed, despite the fact that the Kingdom literature may not be used openly, on account of spies, who are quick to report if any literature other than the Bible is used. But there is nothing to prevent an attendant at one of the meetings from using typewritten notes, and if he chances to have personal possession of some one of the 400,000,000 copies of the banned publications which have been distributed world-wide, who but he himself can be certain of the facts? Many hundreds attend these Bible studies regularly, and the Lord sees to it that they are fed.
One of the standard methods of preaching the gospel of Jehovah’s kingdom is the back-call method. In Nigeria hundreds of back-calls and model studies, using the Bible, are under way with the people of good-will toward God. As a result of these back-calls and model studies and the regular witness work done by word of mouth, using only the Bible, many honest-hearted ones are taking their stand for the Kingdom.
Recently, and simultaneously with the New World Theocratic Assembly in the United States and other parts of the earth, three assemblies were held in Nigeria. From the one at Abeokuta came this touching report:
All activity was carried out very nicely at the convention. The witness work was done well. All auditoriums being denied, we held the meetings out in the open. The rain we had proved the determination of the brethren and all those of good-will; for the shower was so strong Saturday evening it was almost impossible to finish the program. All were soaked through, but we counted it a privilege to suffer for this cause. This was a witness to the people of the city, who said: “Those people must be of God: even rain cannot stop them”; and, “These people really have the love of Jehovah, or they would not hold the remaining part of their meeting.” Many of them wished more information about the Kingdom because of this.
All were received with kindness in the homes and shops of the city. The police were courteous. A cafeteria was arranged which was like in the days of Israel in the wilderness (held in the open air) and there was food enough for all).
We discussed the important parts of the new work, such as individual territory, back-calls, model studies, house-to-house witnessing, street-corner witnessing, and many more features. We had many demonstrations of the work during the convention so that all might be thoroughly furnished unto all good works upon returning to their homes. The assembly sends their love to the brethren all over the world.
Other conventions were likewise very successful. Many new ones are taking their stand for the Kingdom, proof of which is seen in the fact that during the past three months, including the convention, 542 have been immersed, showing their devotion to Jehovah God.
Convention on the Gold Coast
Another of the seventeen countries on the west coast of Africa is Gold Coast, of about the size of Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia, the cocoa center of the world. The crop, grown entirely by the natives, is of the value of $50,000,000 a year. Gold Coast has a $17,000,000 harbor and 5,000 miles of fine roads. The natives enjoy and freely use the buses, which race from one end of the country to another.
The truth has spread here also, and has aroused the political religionists, as it does everywhere, into measures of attempted repression. These follow the same lines as in Nigeria. But a grand convention of New World publishers was held here at the same time as the three conventions in Nigeria and the 90-odd held elsewhere at the same time, September 18-20, 1942.
A faithful witness who has recently
CONSOLATION
One of the four West African conventions, the Branch office at Lagos, Nigeria, and a group of ' some of those baptized
returned to America after a visit to Jehovah’s witnesses in Nigeria, the Gold Coast, and two other of the West African countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, in which the Kingdom message has been proclaimed, reports all the witnesses standing at full unity in the Kingdom service, recognizing their privilege of bearing each his own burden, and * thankful for the provision Jehovah makes for the -welfare of His people every-where. These West African witnesses have requested that their greetings be conveyed to all of good-will toward Jehovah. God throughout all the earth.
This news from West Africa brings joy to the people of good-will everywhere and shows clearly that none can fight successfully against Jehovah God. Jehovah is permitting His people to maintain their integrity under test and is blessing their faithful efforts. As hundreds more rally to the standard of The Theocracy, the religionists of West Africa are at their wits’ end. Persecution is being defeated ' in West Africa. Christianity shall triumph. —Isaiah 54:17.
All
One of the four West African conventions, the Branch office at Lagos, Nigeria, and a group of some of those baptized
A Free Judiciary
AVERY recent opinion by the New York Court of Appeals calls to mind that a free people must have a free judiciary to remain free from fear, free, from want, and free from oppression. 1 Failure to interpret the law fearlessly * and impartially impairs justice, breaks down public confidence in the state and destroys the spirit and welfare of the people, and invites destruction, of the institutions of democracy.
On June 8, 1942, the United States Supreme Court took another step in the direction of destroying the “self-confidence of a free people” by sustaining the validity of the license tax as applied to the-Christian activity of Jehovah’s witnesses. In this that court blindly declared legal and sanctioned the resurrection of the ancient “stamp taxes” against publication of literature which were the cause of the American Revolution.
' It was thought and hoped by some that such decision by the “high court” would smother out the activity of Jehovah’s witnesses in this country. In spite of the five to four decision Jehovah’s witnesses have continued to push on with the apostolic house-to-house preaching and at the same time carried more like cases to the higher courts of the states of the Union for their decision. Many thought that all the state courts would follow the lead of the high court and do likewise; but in this they were wrong. Why? What has since happened?
More than one hundred fifty years ago, when the fearless and thinking forefathers of this country began deliberation over the ratification of the Constitution in the various free states of the confederation they became very jealous as to a repetition of the condition against which they had just revolted. The issue that was a topic of heated discussion, along with centralized power of government and state rights, during that hectic creative period of this nation, was the failure of the writers of the Constitution to provide for freedom of speech, of press, and of worship of Almighty God.
The failure of the federal constitution at the time of adoption caused all states (that -did not have specific guarantees of the fundamental freedom of worship, speech and press in their own constitutions) to adopt and write into their constitutions that guarantee, to make up for deficiencies of the federal constitution, The State of Virginia went farther than the other states and passed a special statute on “religious freedom”. Many of the states would not ratify the federal constitution until it had been amended providing for guarantee of these freedoms. The first .ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the ‘‘Bill of Rights”, were proposed and adopted; then followed the ratification of the Constitution by the original thirteen states.
The “Bill of Rights” as originally adopted in 1791 was a restraint only upon the federal government against encroachment, and not against the action by states. The later passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, in 1868, made the First Amendment of the “Bill of Rights” an injunction against invasion by the states as well as against encroachment by the national government.
For almost seventy-five years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment the people of the United States enjoyed a double wall of protection around their sacred liberties of speech, of press and of worship of Almighty God by having the restraint against abridgment by government in the state constitutions as well as in the national compact and its amendments.
This double protection did not appear to be actually needed until the spirit of totalitarian aggression began to spread over the face of the earth and terrified state and federal judges lost their judical balance. When the invasion of the precious liberties began in the Supreme Court of the United States in June 1940
and reached its climax in June 1942 it became clearly manifest that there was great need to fall back behind the shield of protection contained in the various state constitutions. ■
New York was one of the original states to adopt the federal constitution without the Bill of Rights, on July 26, 1788. At that time it had a strong guarantee of freedoms of speech, press and worship in its own state constitution, to protect its people against internal* aggression upon these rights.
This old and faithful shield of guarantees of that state.was recently pulled out from the shelf and used as a strong instrument of protection from the totalitarian suppression of liberty approved by the Supreme Court in 'the notorious license tax decision of June 8, 1942.
On January 7, 1943, Judge Lehman, writing for the New York Court of Appeals in the case of People of New York against Carmen Barber, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, declared that such highest court of New York was not obliged To follow, the path of error made by the United States Supreme Court, and specifically held that the constitution of that state would not allow the application of the license tax laws to the activity of Jehovah’s witnesses in New York.
The case originated in the town of Irondequoit, before a justice of the peace. It was charged that Carmen Barber committed the unlawful act of “selling” a Bible and “offering to sell” Watchtower literature without applying for and obtaining a license, obtainable upon payment of a tax fee in money. The witness. Barber, refused to do either, on the authority of the perfect word of God recorded in Acts 20:20; 1 Peter 2: 21; Matthew 24:14; and Acts 5: 29, which reads, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Although it was plainly shown that Jehovah’s witnesses did not and do not sell anything, but preach and receive contributions, the police officer testified that the witness MARCH 3, 1943 ’ offered to “sell” him a Bible for twenty-five cents. (Psalm 94: 20) Upon the testimony of the police officer the defendant was convicted, and on appeal to the County Court of Monroe County the judgment was affirmed.' An appeal was allowed, and the case was argued before the Court of Appeals in October, 1942.
In that case Chief Judge Lehman said:
In the case of Jones v. Opelika, decided June 8, 1942, the Supreme Court of the United States sustained the power of a state to impose by statute or ordinance a tax upon the sale of all merchandise, without discrimination between religious books and tracts and other articles or merchandise, and sustained the power of the state to require a license for the exercise of . . , Four justices of the court dissented from that decision on the ground that taxing or licensing statutes or ordinances “could—when applied to the dissemination of ideas—be made a ready instrument for destruction of that right” and “place -a burden on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the exercise of religion” in violation of the guarantees of those freedoms contained in the Constitution of the United States . . . Parenthetically we may point out that in determining the scope and effect of the guarantees of fundamental rights of the individual in the Constitution of the State of New York, this court is bound to exercise Its independent judgment and is not bound by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States limiting the scope of similar guarantees in the Constitution of the United States. ...
The Bill of Kights embodied in the Constitutions of the state and nation is not an arbitrary restriction upon the powers of government. It is a guarantee of those rights which are essential to the preservation of the freedom of the individual—rights which are part of our democratic traditions and which no government may invade. Where a legislative body has sought to invade a field from which under the Bill of Rights the government is excluded, and has violated rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the courts must refuse to recognize or sanction the legislative decree—but legislative bodies are no less responsible than
the courts for the preservation of the liberties of the individual, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and legislative bodies, as a general rule, accept no less sincerely the democratic traditions and principles which the Bill of ' Rights expresses. We may not impute to a legislative body an intent to adopt a statute or ordinance which might be used as an t instrument for the destruction of a right guar-1 anteed by the Constitution which executive and legislative officers of government, no less than judges, are sworn to maintain. For that reason an ordinance or statute should be construed when possible in manner which would remove doubt of its constitutionality, and possible danger that it might be used to restrain or burden freedom of worship or freedom of speech and press.. . . We conclude this opinion by a quotation from that brief: “It may seem to some that appellant’s activities were of such a character that, at this critical period in world history, the Courts and the Bar need not be particularly concerned with their repression. But, if appellant’s activities involved the exercise by him of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Federal and State Constitutions, the violation of those rights cannot be disregarded as of trivial consequence. Each case of denial of rights to an individual or to a small minority may seem to be relatively unimportant, but we know now, more surely than ever before, that callousness to the rights of individuals and minorities leads to barbarism and the destruction of the essential values of civilized life.” We can find no reason to doubt that the ordinance was not intended to furnish an instrument by which the right of any group to spread its religious beliefs, or even social opinions, could be curbed. We are bound to construe the statute in manner which would exclude possibility that the ordinance might be given such effect.
This decision received wide publicity through the large newspapers throughout the east, which was followed up by a number of editorials; from two we quote. The Washington Post of January 9, 1943, says, among other things, New York’s Court of Appeals has courageously reasserted that religious freedom is a right which must be respected and preserved by governments, even though it had to fly in the face of the United States Supreme Court to do so.
The New York Daily Mirror says:
The New York State Court of Appeals has taken an enlightened stand on a far-reaching question of civil liberties which has unusual interest because the decision ignores and, in effect, overrules, a decision taken in a similar case by the United States Supreme Court. . . . With all who regard Constitutional guarantees sacred, never to be infringed or abridged, this newspaper congratulates Judge Lehman and his colleagues.
We too congratulate such judges and give praise to the great Creator for endowing the judges and honest men, who wrote the provisions of the New York constitution, with the quality of justice and liberty that resulted in this decision of rebellion against oppression approved by the highest court of the land. In thus taking their stand the judges have held up the barrier of protection against the “Ammonite” aggression and invasion of the “land” of worship of Jehovah. We recognize this victory, therefore, as from Jehovah God, the Almighty Judge.
It is therefore the persistent pushing on with the house-to-house and street witnessing to the name and power of Almighty God regardless of the impotent adverse decrees of men to the contrary, and following in the footsteps of Jesus and His apostles by obeying God rather than men, that causes ,the victory to be given by Jehovah. It takes a miracle to cause a loWer court to willingly and knowingly rule contrary to a higher court as was done here. This is' solely because Jehovah gave the victory. Although persistent fighting in the courts is necessary to give the courts the opportunity to take their stand, nevertheless the victory has been given solely because of the continued and faithful proclamation of the Kingdom message by Jehovah’s witnesses in the manner commanded by Jehovah, and not as commanded by man.—iPsalm 37:39,40.
TiiyWoitD
Humility Rewarded
HUMILITY'S path the Son of God himself faithfully walked. Born in h manger, He said of himself: “I am meek and lowly in heart.” His humility is a model of perfect deportment. (See Luke 2:7; Matthew 11: 29; Zechariah 9:9.) It is therefore with interest that we are privileged to observe the results or reward of blameless obedience in this particular. The record states that He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name”. (Philippians 2: 7-9; Acts 2:33; 5: 31) The lowly and humble Jesus now has pre-eminence in all things, and all power in heaven and in earth.—Colos-sians 1:18; Matthew 28:18,.
In addition, Jesus called attention to some notable examples of self-exaltation against the Lord in the past, and did so as a warning to the haughty and high-minded of all times. His words, recalling history more ancient, referred to cities, such as Capernaum, which: refused the message of God’s kingdom-brought to them by the Lord’s seventy commissioned disciples, thus inviting a worse calamity than befell Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. To the wicked of that day, picturing “Chris- • tendom” in her self-exaltation now, Jesus repeated the rule: .“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell [the grave].” —Luke 10:15. i;
Turning back the pages; of history nearly 3,500 years we may read about one of the earliest examples of selfexaltation against Jehovah, Pharaoh of Egypt thought it expedient to hold the Israelites in subjection in spite of God’s frequent 'warnings sent through His servant and witness, Moses. Not even the ten plagues brought Pharaoh to a humbler attitude of mind. He continued his arrogant defiance of the Lord God, with the result that Egypt was wrecked by national disaster, losing first-born children and cattle, armies and wealth, —Exodus, chapters 11-14, inclusive.
About 780 years later, the record of Hezekiah, king of Judah, who humbled himself, and of Sennacherib, the Assyrian invader, who exalted himself, is in point. Concerning the latter’s aggression the Scriptures read: “Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed ? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high ? even against the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 37: 23) The braggart Assyrian lost 185,000 men slain by the Lord and he himself died by the hand of his own sons. (Isaiah 37:36-38) In this connection it is of especial importance to note why Hezekiah was blessed with deliverance: “Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.”—2 Chronicles 32:26.
The reason for God’s favor is repeated at 2 Chronicles 34:27. His mercy was similarly extended to King Rehoboam for the same reason. (2 Chronicles 12: 7, 12) To that effect the Lord had appeared to King Solomon in a vision and given him this message: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray7, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and -will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”— 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Further and abundant expressions of condemnation of the high and mighty, and contrasted approval of the humble,
occur throughout the Scriptures. “And he shall save the humble” (Job 22:29) “He forgetteth not the cry of the humble.” (Psalm 9:12) “The mighty man shall be humbled.” (Isaiah 5:15; 2:11) “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.” (Prov-, erbs 18:12) .“He that exalteth his gate 1 seeketh destruction.” (Proverbs 17:19)
At the overthrow of Zedekiah, last king of Jsrael (606 B. C.), the Lord caused Ezekiel to utter this prophecy: “Thus saith the Lord God'; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn It. and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” (Ezekiel 21:26,27) Twefity-five hundred and twenty years later the crown and kingdom were given to the one who had had neither home nor possession on earth, but whom God later exalted to become the Invisible Ruler in the Theocratic Government, next in authority to Himself,
In current usage “humility" is often ascribed to people of low degree, and it is never considered a proper attribute of rulers or officials. Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary defines it as “the quality or condition of being humble”; and the adjective is defined as “Having or expressing a sense of inferiority, dependence, or unworthiness; meek;... lowly in condition; submissive, deferential.” On the other hand, the Scriptures indicate that humility is the quality to be most sought after by princes and kings, Jesus said: “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant,” (Matthew 23:11; Mark 10: 44, 45) Nor does humility mean to be’abashed before creatures or subservient to them. Applying the word to the crude and witless divests it of the noble qualities which should spring to mind on mention of humility. Few have desired it. So it is commonly applied to the undesirable.
Remembering now the words of the Bible above quoted, it is possible to bring forth a definition from God’s Word. Its Scriptural meaning is not at all according to customary* usage. Humility, it has been observed, does not mean to be abashed or servile in the vassal sense; nor does it indicate timidity, fearfulness, or cowardice. Humility is a recognition of Jehovah as supreme and almighty, and a consequent unwillingness to exalt the creature, including self.
How ruthlessly and scornfully have world officials howled down Jehovah’s admonition to humility! How viciously they have assaulted His humble witnesses and poured on them scorn, contempt and abuse [ How cruelly His meek ones have been dragged from lowly dwellings and meeting-places, even from the field and forests where they sought ' refuge, and been maimed, beaten and shot to satisfy the venom of the religious “high and mighty” I In mockhumility these wear black garbs, and, bloated with opulence, they prate of sacrifice and make long-faced prayers over victims of a thousand wats of their own instigation! ' - <
How does the exalted King regard such action toward Jehovah’s witnesses? His answer rings with as great clarity today as when He announced the rule more than 1900 years ago: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.”—Matthew 25:40; 23:12.
Those humble before the Lord have their reward from Him; and likewise the self-exalting. “the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.”—Psalm 31:23.
“Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting ' all your care upon him; for he 'eareth for you.” (1 Pet. 5:5-7) “By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.”-—Proverbs 22:4.
What Destroyed the French Republic?
THERE came the great day in the lad's life. He had learned something of the Latin grammar, been helped through the First Latin reader, and would next read Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Hallie Wars (because it is the easiest Latin there is to read, and because Caesar’s conquests ended the Roman Republic).
The first sentence was, “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres,” i. e., “Gaul is a whole divided into three parts.” And it is as true today as it was the day it was written. France is always divided, and perhaps more so in the dawn of the year 1943 than in any other year of her history. And there is a reason. '
The French People
The French people are specially dear to the American people, and in days not to long gone by if an American had accumulated some money and wanted to have a good time with it, he headed for Paris as a matter of course. And so did the rest of the world. New York is American, London is British, Berlin is German, and Tokyo is Japanese, but Paris is cosmopolitan. It belongs to mankind.
No one who can read need get lost in Paris. Suppose he wishes to go somewhere by subway. He goes down to the station, where there is a huge map of the subway system with all its branching lines. He knows the name of the station to .which he desires to go. He presses a button opposite the name of that station and immediately a series of small electric lamps lights up showing exactly the way he must take.
Or he is up on the street-surface. At the street corner is a huge map of Paris in a glass case. Next to the case is a winding scroll bearing the name of every avenue, street, boulevard and place in the city. He looks up the name 6f the street to which he wishes to go. He finds its key number. He turns a knob to that number and a rotating arrow instantly reveals the exact location on the map.
Then there is the metric system, “suitable for all peoples and all ages,” and gradually spreading over all the earth. One can hardly imagine its having originated elsewhere than where it did originate, namely, in France. The United States and Canadian and other coinage systems are children of this idea. In the British Commonwealth of Nations and in the United States the metric system is used by scientists.
Personal Traits
“God that made the world and all things therein ... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:24, 26); so there is not so great a difference in human creatures as some would like to believe. Alt are prettymuch alike, yet there are differences which are interesting, amusing, exasperating, between one people and another, and in what follows it is not to be thought that one people are being held up before another either as models or as objects of reproach. Consider these statements and you may get some light on presentday conditions that contain so many perplexing problems.
In the spring of 1937 the Paris Exhibition was opened three weeks after the' scheduled date and it was still in no condition to be opened. On that occasion a distinguished Frenchman, learned and cosmopolitan, painfully taking note of the fact that only the German, Russian and Belgian pavilions were finished, made this angry statement about his own folks:
How I detest these French people. You can do nothing with them. You can’t order them, you can’t appeal to them, you can’t drive them, you .can’t coax them. You have just got to wait until they choose to do what you want and then they insist on doing it their own way. Meanwhile they argue and talk and waste time till one goes crazy. Then suddenly they do things and one forgives them and loves them.
- The newspaperman to whom this was said, P. J. Philip, of the New York Times, topped this peculiarly savage and 1 withal bitter-sweet remark with the 4 philosophical observation:
That is always the trouble. Just as nobody can stay forever angry with a beautiful woman, one eannot stay angry with the French.
The British and the American people can understand this pretty well, because, since the days of William the Conqueror (crowned in Westminster Abbey, December 25, A. D. 1066) there has been plenty of French blood flowing in British and American veins.
As far back as history goes France was inhabited chiefly by Celtic tribes, with Teutonic (Germanic) influences in the north and Mediterranean (Latin) influences in the south. It has made an interesting mixture. ■
A Berlin broadcast finds that the indifference of the average F renchman toward political questions is astounding and marveled at the “wait and see” attitude while matters of life and death are hanging in the balance, but history seems to show7 that the French with their dilatoriness have made about as good a record as the Germans with their blitzkrieg schemes and methods.
A Peculiar Local Patriotism*
■ The French have, in many districts, a form of patriotism that seems peculiar. .It may be styled “local” patriotism, and it is so general throughout France that even in near-by towns the people are called foreigners because their customs are regarded as peculiar. The French
* This view is advanced by “Reverend Father” Ernest Dimnet in his bonk My Old World, and, as he has spent his life as a Catholic priest in France, he should know. However, it may be reasonably suggested that it is the earnest desire of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to break up every republic, and therefore “Father” Dimnet would wink to see a divided France, even locally. word for 'foreigners’ is the same as for ‘strangers’. This implies a large degree of attachment to one place, sometimes called “inhabitiveness”. The French, if they can do so, like to live and die in the same place where their ancestors lived and died. And yet they have an “empire” which is spread over all the globe. This suggests the militaristic aspect, which must be deferred till later in this tale.
The French have been sliding down hill as far as their birth rate is concerned. The suggestion is made that with the French Revolution the peasants each received the land for which they hungered, but they7 wished to remain in that one place, if possible, and knew that in order to do so they must keep the number of little folks down. Hence they’ did so. In any event, few families arc increased to great numbers in these days, either to suit the politicians who would have more voters, or the ecclesiastics who long, for bigger congregations and heavier collections.
The Vichy government is now teaching pupils of 10 and 11 years of age that many7 hands are needed to harvest the crops that the land provides; that a depopulated land is without strength for defense and therefore invites invasion; that the French villages and countryside have become depopulated, and that the empire is in danger of being seized by others because there are so few French colonists The children are also taught by graphs and statistics concerning the rising trend of population in other countries. They7 are shown that in the two centuries of France’s greatest strength she had the most densely populated territory7 in Europe, and in later ybars there.are talks on the dangers of celibacy and the joys for parents of having many happy children.
Too Much Venality—as Elsewhere
As Parisis the center of a world’s civilization, so it is a center of a world’s corruption.-flt has been described by a Frenchman himself, and a capable one too (Pierre Lazareff, in his book Deadline), as having—•
.. . a sodden and venal press; industrialists on the make, corrupt or fooled; politicians in similar case; a few men honest but helpless; an army guided by old men, either defeatists at heart or unable to understand new ideas; a people from whom the truth is hidden, unable to know whom to trust.
It would be well for the reader to commit this description to memory and then see how well every statement it makes is now a matter of history. The militarists arise in the mind at once, and the beastly record they made in the Dreyfus case, the outlines of which are as follows:
In the year 1894 Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, because he chanced to be a Jew, and despite the fact that he was an entirely innocent and patriotic officer in the French army, was double-crossed by two jealous and lying fellow officers, Major Esterhazy and Colonel Henry, who falsely accused him of betraying French military secrets to Germany. It took twelve years for Dreyfus to get justice, but he finally did, and at the end Colonel Henry cut his own throat in prison, after avowing all his falsehoods and forgeries. Esterhazy also confessed, and died a pauper.
To Devil’s Island for Life '
In the meantime, Dreyfus had been sent to Devil’s Island for life and the imaginary "honor of the army” was such, and the military code of the time was such that, as expressed in the Manchester Guardian, “no means proved too base, no expedient, not even systematic forgery, too foul for use in defense of that sacred cause.” The Guardian goes op to explain:
In a century France has had1 some nine or ten changes of political regime. During all these revolutions and counter-revolutions the one stable thing, the red thread in French life, the constant focus of French patriotism, whether clerical, monarchist, or free-thinking Jacobin, has been the army. To the Frenchman as to the citizens of no other country the army is the nation. So faithful are all sections of French opinion, even the Socialist, towards the army that it is safe to say that* there would never have been a Dreyfus case had it not been for the now quite inexplicable anti-Semitic aberration into which the officer caste fell in the early nineties, and of which Dreyfus was the victim. This anti-Semitism is all the more inexplicable as in France, .of all countries, and particularly in southern France, where the Phcenician element has left so strong a mark, it is almost impossible to distinguish physically a Jew from a Frenchman. It is simply because the victimization of Dreyfus and the consequent turmoil were the manifestations of such a passing and meaningless aberration that the hegemony of the military chiefs in France has survived the Dreyfusard storm when all else, the cause of the monarchy and the empire and the church, went under for ever.
The most popular writer in France, Emile Zola, sacrificed himself that Dreyfus might get a square deal. His published denunciation of the crooks in the army shook the world and compelled his own flight to Great Britain. But the reputation he made by his open letter to the president of the French Republic and which was entitled “J’accuse” still reverberates to the ends of the world. One good man at a typewriter can do far more than an Esterhazy or a Henry with a battery of 18-inch guns.
When Dreyfus died, in 1935, the New York Times carried two full pages going into all the’ phases of this greatest military scandal, saying thoughtfully, and with some courage (and one may have to read the paragraph twice to see the point):
The Zola trials brought the iniquities of the Dreyfus case relentlessly before the world. Amazement was mingled with sorrow that such things could be in “the most highly cultured nation”. There the line of demarcation between the two schools of patriotism was being definitely drawn—on one side, the Monarchists, Catholics and super-Nationalists under the spell of anti-Semitism and the
“honor of the army” fetish; on the other, Republicans, Protestants, Jews, and radicals of every persuasion.
When one has clearly understood that paragraph, with all that it implies, one will have smelled a very large rat as to what has been and what is now, in its most aggravated form, the most infamous and most dangerous peril of the French Republic, not even excepting Schicklgruber himself.
What Devil’s Island Is Like
Devil's Island itself lies six miles off the coast of the prison colony of French Guiana, just north of the equator, on the northeastern coast of South America. The idea of making an unpleasant home for his unpleasant subjects first arose in the mind of a gentleman then in the king business, Louis XV of France.,
This wise or otherwise and humane or nihumane ruler in the year A. D. 1763 shipped off 14,000 criminals, and in six months or so they all died of fever, plague, snakes, wild beasts, savages, hunger, or other foes that they found awaiting them, which includes the unhappy combination of tropical storms with torrid heat.
Being in the king business, and therefore not pressed with either necessities or thoughts for those who had become victims of misgovernment or folly, Louis tried the same stunt three years.later, with the same result. After he had tried it twice and learned nothing, the policy was adopted, and has been practiced ever since.
History shows that where seemingly bad men have been sent to a decent climate, they readily clean up, with excellent results to themselves and their friends and governors. Both America ■ and Australia were once penal colonies for Great Britain.
But take a group of perhaps inferior men; mix in a few that are half insane; add on a generous installment of those afflicted with loathsome diseases; top it off with some lepers and here and there
22 ■ an innocent man; deprive the expedition of thermometers, iodine, quinine, and send it to a land of mosquitoes, snakes, venomous spider crabs, vultures, pumas, wild pigs, scorpions, sloths, vermin, and put sharks in the surrounding waters, and you have a fair idea of this prison camp.
The natural result is that out of 800 annual arrivals at the camp, 200 are dead in six months. In 1901 there were 6,290 inhabitants of this penal colony. In the next fourteen years more than 10,000 arrived there from France. Yet when the fourteen years were up there were only 6,415 in the camp. Dreyfus had four years of this.
The convicts are carried in a prison ship fitted with steel cages equipped with steampipes. In case of mutiny the steam can be turned on, thus emulating results obtained in one of the Pennsylvania prisons in recent years, where four were baked to order. (Nothing was done with the Pennsylvania-baked prisoners, nor with those that had charge of the culinary details. No prisoners were eaten.)
Occasionally, but rarely, some prisoners have escaped via Trinidad to America, the land of the brave, where even little children have taken their stand on the side of Almighty God and His Word when it cost them everything a little child holds dear. The use of Devil’s Island is on the way out.
Some Judges as Bad as—Elsewhere
The Stavisky scandal, which broke in 1934, is one that puts French officials and judges in about the same light in which some shone in Chicago in the days of Al Capone. Stavisky, it seems, was a clever swindler, concerning whom it was admitted in the Chamber of Deputies that he was under arrest on a criminal charge and.yet was released without being brought to trial.
When the storm broke Stavisky committed suicide, and fifteen people, including his wife, were jailed, but the French Republic, not even expecting
' consideration whole truth was revealed and that some of the really big men in France were not involved. The magistrate who knew the facts was lured from home and murdered. At the time of the partial expose of this man the London Observer said:
Magistrates are accused of being at the beck and call of barristers who are also Deputies and can bring political pressure to bear, Rival newspapers are alleged not only to have drawn subsidies from Secret Service funds, but to have been in the pay of Stavisky himself, who either bought them off when they began to attack him or engaged their editors or contributors as touts for the placing of his valueless bonds. Lastly, there are the suspicious protections and condonations which enabled Stavisky, convicted forger, cardsharper and impostor, awaiting trial on a new charge, freely to continue his fraudulent operations.
Eight months later, under the title “The Stavisky Mystery Grows Still Deeper”,1 the Paris correspondent of the New York Times said:
There has been so much lying, so much camouflaging of the truth, such violence of accusation, such insidious insinuation that very few people any longer believe anything that emanates from any quarter in which the hand of polities can be suspected; and the hand of politics is seen everywhere.
Too Many Politicians
In sixty-five years of the Third Republic France had eighty-eight different cabinets. That is a new government every nine months, and it is just, too much of a good thing. It is not a half bad idea to have a housecleaning once in a while, and. get in some new blood; but what would the people of the United States say to the idea of having a brand new administration at Washington four times in every three years? They would say, and rightly, that nobody could accomplish anything worth while in so short a time, and probably wind up with “Let him alone and give him a chance”. .
But in France it is different. One can do a Finnegan in French polities every year for many years and nobody thinks anything of it. And the statesmen have to take the sudden changes along with the mere politicians. Thus, take the case of Aristide Briand. It is generally agreed that he was one of the most sincere and capable men France produced in the last century. His life shows that he was interested in the French people, in democracy, and-in the pursuit of the joys of peace. In a period of a third of a century he served in twenty-three cabinets and was France’s premier no less than eleven times. Like every real statesman, Briand was a gentleman of the Left, always fighting the bloodthirsty and infinitely selfish groups that go to make up the Big Church crowd and its satellites. In a review of his life the New York Times said:
The French Chamber was split into a dozen little parties at that time and no Ministry lasted more than a few months. Briand set out at once to secure a union of the radical elements, and he soon became a leader of the Left in the constant fight to check the reactionary Deputies of the Right. The question of Church and State was agitating France. Catholic, Protestant and Jewish religious organizations were recognized by the government and were supported out of the State treasury. The Roman Catholic Church was the dominant one, of course, and the issue became the Church of Rome against the French state. The Clerical party was also the Royalist party, and for the most part those who supported the claims of the church were also advocating overthrow of the republic.
Briand interested himself in this controversy from the first, taking the anti-clerical viewpoint. A. commission was appointed to prepare a. separation law and Briand became a reporter of the commission. His report did much to insure the Ultimate adoption of the law. He succeeded in carrying the measure through with the united support of the groups which he had brought together. Although he was widely condemned as an enemy of religion, his own mild but firm arguments for separation won over many who had taken the opposite view. In the ensuing elections all of the Deputies who had voted for separation were returned.
- Who Are France's Enemies?
It ought to be plain enough, even to a blind man, what kind of polities it is that has been ruining France. It is the same kind of politics that aims at the destruction of every democracy and the seating back in power of the incompetent, empty-headed, empty-hearted, strutting, vicious titled aristocracy whose only real objective in life is to see that they themselves receive as much as they can carry in the way of wealth and honors, while the common people slave from year’s end to year’s end for just enough to keep their physical machinery working. Notice again now that last sentence at the end of paragraph one above quoted:
The Clerical party was also the Royalist party, and for the most part those who supported the claims of the church were also advocating the overthrow of the republic.
It is easy enough from the foregoing to see who France’s real enemies were and who they are now. Briand and Clemenceau are both dead. Neither of them would trust any churchman farther than you could throw a live bull by the tail. That is one reason why the pope .was not even invited to a gallery ticket in the League of Nations. Clemenceau would not have him around. He thought it would be hard-enough going without loading up with a lot of sanctified hypocrites that hate nothing on earth so much as a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”.
Their own repeatedly published statements prove that the Hierarchy abominates and hates above all things freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And when they speak of “freedom' of religion”, what they mean, and only that, is freedom of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to practice its tomfoolery and teach its blasphemies without competition and at State expense. Some colossal nerve!
Briand was an ardent striver for peace. He believed in the League of Nations, and when Germany joined, in September, 1926, he welcomed her in these words:
No more war! No more shall we resort to brutal and sanguinary methods of settling our disputes, even though differences between us still exist. Henceforth it will be for the judge to declare the law. Just as individual citizens take their difficulties to be settled by a magistrate, so shall we bring ours to be settled by pacific procedure.
Poor man! How little he knew of the long memories and the infinite vicious-ness of the Jesuits! Along with Mr. Kellogg, he was responsible for the so-called “Kellogg Peace Pact”. You heard about that pact, which outlawed war between nations. But in almost no time the pope was using Adolf Cardinal Schicklgruber and Benito Cardinal Mussolini to blow the Spanish Republic to pieces on the false ground that it was “Red”, i e., had Russia’s aid.
Dodging the Vital Truth
It is hard for a blind man to see anything, and so not much should be expected from the otherwise bright men and women that act as columnists. Few of the daily papers would have the courage to.,' mention that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is directly and squarely behind and responsible for present conditions in France, even if they knew such to be the case. But they do not know, and have not the courage to know the truth on this subject. And why? Because “the god of this world hath blinded the minds” (2 Cor. 4:4) of almost all'the people on earth. The people, who “love to have it so”, are carried away with the bluff, the pretense, the absurd titles, the peculiar dress, the horsecollars, the processions, and the smells, which they mistake to be the smells of sanctity, and so most of them never learn much more than mother taught them; and that wasn’t much.
Now there is the columnist William Philip Simms. He has yet to learn that it is better to die for the truth than to live without it. On last Bastile Day (July 14, 1942) he made the following statement as to the causes for France’s fall at the hands of Germany, which skillfully avoids any mention of the Jesuit forces that were and are at the bottom of the whole deviltry now on in Europe:
The fact is the Frenchman is the world’s greatest individualist. He is its greatest grouch. He freely criticizes his .government, his books, his theater, his art, his food— everything. He prizes his independence of soul and body no whit less than we do ours. Certainly he is no less interested in preserving his own way of life, free from all the “isms”. Certain observers abroad say France fell because of “treason” in high places. Or because the French people or somebody or other preferred Hitler to democracy. They hint at all sorts of dark things. France fell because of weakness and lack of ability in high place, not treason. She fell because she had too many politicians and too few statesmen. She fell because her politicians thought about votes first and country afterward.
Another Real Statesman
Referring again to the truthful statement in the New York Times, "The Clerical party was also the Royalist party, and for the most pari those who supported the claims of the church were also advocating the overthrow of the republic," it is in order to notice another real statesman, Leon Blum,, who dared to follow in Aristide Briand’s footsteps, ■to seek the paths of peace, to try to do something for the common people, and who thereby brought upon His head the wrath of the “Clerical party.’(that) was also the Royalist party”, as it is everywhere.
Briand had been dead but a few months when representatives of this group (that even in these United States is even at this moment conspiring to put Otto Habsburg on the throne of the “Holy” Roman Empire) attacked Blum outside of the Chamber of Deputies and tried to kill him. Three of their “fronts”, the Action Francaise League, the National Confederation of Royalist Students, and the Camelots du Roi, were immediately disbanded by the government, but all the gang had to do was to adopt a new name, move across the street, or up to the next floor, and start all over ' again their life job in every land of “advocating the overthrow of the republic” if they chance to live where there is one.
Within a month Blum was back in the Chamber of Deputies and as premier was presenting a $1,000,000,000 defense bill to try to give France adequate protection against the aggression which even then (March 13, 1937) was foreseen as liable to come from the Jesuit front of the “Holy’ Roman Empire at the hands of Adolf Hitler, then getting into his stride on money put up for him by Thyssen and other financial backers of the brains of the Empire located at Vatican City.
Up in the gallery chic Mme. Blum was listening to her man’s eloquent speech with rapt attention. Near her sat the wife of one of the advocates of the “Holy” Roman Empire (now slowly lifting its “seven heads and ten horns” and getting ready to be the saddle horse for the Old Lady styled in the Scriptures as the “Mother of Harlots”). The other femme made a derogatory remark. Mme. Blum went to bat and in a voice that could be heard far and wide shouted, “Shut up. This is no place to make remarks like that.” In a moment the * gallery was in an uproar, and both women, and all the rest of the listeners, were ejected. But Blum’s defense bill was passed. It was a typical French scene.
In the same year, five months later (and that is a long time in the political history of a French premier) the same man made a defense of the democratic
system, from which a few expressions are taken which ought to be of interest to every person who has confidence in the principles that have made the French people and the American people fast friends. He said:
France believes in political liberty. She believes in civic equality. She believes in human fraternity. She professes that all citizens are born free and equal before the law. Aiming the fundamental rights of the individual she places liberty of thought and conscience in first rank.
Without the civil liberty that the French Revolution proclaimed, the authoritarian states of Europe would not today have at their heads men risen from the depths of the people and drawing from that origin their titles and their pride.
France can cite her own example. For three months the government has been carrying out important social reforms. It has done so with the widest popular movement of expectation and hope. But it has done so without a single elash between citizens, without order having been disturbed in the street a single time, without a single institut ion having been overthrown, without a single, citizen having been despoiled.
Is it not thanks to democracy that the United States has been able to bring about a prodigious economic renewal in a few years without compromising legal order for a single instant, without, going outside the framework of the Constitution elaborated just after the War of Independence by American disciples of Montesquieu and Rousseau?
France remains faithful to democracy. Although she keeps her full confidence in the age-old power to spread her influence, France does not claim to impose on any people the principles of government that she believes wisest and most just. She respects their sovereignty as she expects them to respect hers.
France rejeels utterly the idea of wars of propaganda and wars of reprisal. The causes of war that weigh on the world are already heavy enough without her wanting to add to them with a doctrinal crusade, even for ideas that she believes right and just, even against systems that she believes false and evil. She wants to live in peace with all the nations of the world, whatever may be their internal regime.
You Americans outside of Little Rock, Klamath Falls, and a few other places, I who claim to believe in democracy, what do you think of these words by this Socialist who tried to steer France in the right way at the very moment that in Germany “the Clerical party (which is also) the Royalist party” was running the munition plants day and night with the ultimate object in view of planting Otto Hapshurg (descendant of a tax collector) back on the throne of the “Holy” Roman Empire? Within less than three years from the time Blum said these things "the Clerical party (which is) the Royalist party” and which was at that moment, “advocating the overthrow of the republic” of which he was premier was in control of Franco and Hitler and Iris generals were in Paris, depriving the French people of every single one of the liberties which they gained in the French Revolution and which Leon Blum so much admired. Blum, often twitted with being a “millionaire socialist”, came ( from a Jewish family of Alsatian origin. What is wrong about that?
Nothing much. But this would be a good time to recall the statement quoted regarding the Zola trials and the Dreyfus case, that, according to the New York Times, there the line of demarcation between the two schools of patriotism was being definitely drawn—on the one side, the Monarchists, Catholics and super-Nationalists under the spell of anti-Semitism and the “honor of the Army” fetish; on the other, Republicans, Protestants, Jews, and radicals of every persuasion.
The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has steadfastly and consistently and successfully worked for the destruction of the French Republic. It soon ousted Blum. And the pope rejoiced inordinately when the republic went out and Hitler arid Petain took over.
Dove or Raven, Which?
<<rPHOSE only bear the title of Mon-
J-signor who are familiares summi pontificis, those, who, by virtue of some distinction bestowed upon them, belong as it were to the family and the retinue of the ‘Holy Father’. These familiares are entitled to be present in the cappella pontificia (when the pope celebrates solemn mass), and to participate in all public celebrations purely religious or ecclesiastical in character, at which the pope, the cardinals, and the papal retinue assist. It is assumed that they will appear in the robes corresponding to their respective offices.”
This quotation from The Catholic Encyclopedia aids us in recognizing the fact that the “Rt. Bev. Msgr.” Fulton J. Sheen occupies a favored.and important position in the Catholic Hierarchy. The monsignor recently delivered a series of addresses on peace. He said, significantly, in the .eighth of the series:
I profoundly believe that he [Paeelli] whose name is rooted in peace will be the one who' will restore peace to the world, for when peace does come it will come not in the way the world expects or plans it, but in an utterly unsuspected way. And, perhaps this very pontiff who was the first pontiff in th'e long line of pontiffs ever to fly, may be the one, who, in the midst of the deluge of blood of this awful war which has drowned millions and devastated homes and ruined the world, will himself, like a dove, fly out from the ark of St. Peter over devastated areas and come back bearing, for a weary world, the olive branch of peace, as the rainbow appears in the sky attesting to a new covenant of man with God. We' shall see!! I
In the same discourse he said:
. . . a day will come when the “Church” will sing a requiem over the graves of her persecutors as her children once more climb out of catacombs to preach Christ and Him crucified.
Mr. Sheen does not say so, but he knows that the Roman Church is back of the present world-wide scheme to reinstate coercive totalitarianism, and to wipe out every form of freedom the world ovter. The thing is known. Positively, Mr. Sheen.
“Blessed Are
MAN was intended by the Creator to exercise mercy toward even the lower animals, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has the good wishes of all the best citizens in the countries where it is domiciled. The black sheep of any farming community is any man who does not properly look after the welfare of his livestock. Many a man has been fined or jailed, or both, for cruelty to horses, dogs or other of the animal creation that chanced to be in his care.
It is with a good deal of astonishment, therefore, that one learns 'that one of the principles of Nazism is that mercy should be withheld, not merely from, the lower animals, but from fellow creatures, made in the image and likeness of God.
MARCH 3, 1943
the Merciful”
Thus, after Hitler entered Poland, in September, 1939, an official Nazi spokesman, Gauleiter Forster, issued this diabolical manifesto:
The German cause has been entrusted to our keeping by the Fuehrer, with the very dear mission to reorganize this country. It will be our highest and most honorable task to do whatsoever lies in our power so that in a few years everything that can in any way be reminiscent of Poland shall have disappeared. This applies most particularly to the racial cleansing of this country. Whosoever belongs to the Polish people must leave this land. We trust that in this struggle for the triumph of our German cause we shall never become merciful.
All Poland was divided into two parts, the “Incorporated Territories” and the
' 27
"Government-General”. In the-first and choicest of these two areas there were, at the start, 9,000,000 Poles and 600,000 Germans. It was decided to dispose of . the 9,000,000 Poles (and of their property) by moving them all over into the second and least fertile and least desir-• able area. In the first year after the 4 overrunning of the country about one
sixth of these Poles were shifted.
When the farmers saw that they would be liable at any time to lose their farms, , they refrained from digging their potatoes and sowing their winter wheat. Cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks and geese were killed. Pillow cases and featherbeds were ripped open and their contents dumped into wells. Windows were broken, ovens were smashed, and doors and . floors were hewn to pieces.
' It still remains true, “Blessed are ther merciful: for they shall obtain mercy”; and the corollary is also true, that ‘Cursed are the merciless; for they shall reap as they sow.’ Just now it would suit Hitler and his comrades very well to have a high agricultural production in Poland. It would help to feed his armies in Russia. But throughout Poland there has been a 30-percent to 35-percent decrease in the stocks of cattle and pigs and a 35-percent to 40-percent fall in agricultural production.
The result is that slavery and the slave trade have been re-established. Polish farm hands shipped to Germany are treated as if they were slaves. The farmers assemble at the slave markets and select their men, examining their muscles and teeth as if they were animals for sale.
All potential Polish leaders have been executed, but this has brought no benefits to the “New Order”. Polish boys in every land seek to avenge the loss of their fathers and brothers. It seems never to occur to the Nazi leaders that being merciless is a game that two can play. And, also, that in forcing other men into desperation they are destroying all chance of such ever becoming component parts of the “New Order” of cruelty and rapine, which, after all, as the pope admits, is not new.
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Otto the White Hope
IT IS a big job trying to re-establish the “Holy” Roman Empire, and to make it seem both holy and Roman. A favorite suggestion seems to be that, when the due time has come, one of Hitler’s doubles will be bumped off in public, Hitler will disappear in a monastery, and then forth will come some man who had parents or ancestors and be given the nominal job of ruling the empire. The Jesuits will do the actual ruling.
It is argued that Otto Habsburg had both parents and ancestors and this should make him qualified to rule. It seems to be his principal qualification. Bishop Boyle, of Pittsburgh, is pushing this, and with some success. He had a big dinner not long ago at which Otto was put up as the white hope. He can prove that a recent ancestor was Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria, and some centuries back he had ancestors that were tax collectors. And there is a distinct connection between tax collecting and government, as everybody that ever paid any taxes knows full well. So his ancestors’ old job awaits hint.
Dorothy Thompson, able columnist, is considerably disturbed about-Otto. Over the radio on Sunday night, December 13, 1942, she thought millions of Slav workers in American war industries were not enamored of Otto, and drew attention to the fact that, as long ago as last April, 2,500 delegates to the American Slav Congress had protected to the State department about any proposed hookup with Otto. .
They think that Otto has^ never done anything but eat and breathe, while they have done that and a lot of honest work besides. Now there is something to that argument. The Slavs have about as much use for Otto Habsburg asuthe average American has for Hitler or Mussolini. However, the Hierarchy is strong for. Otto. The argument is that, next to the pope, he has the best claim to the right to rule the “Holy” Roman Empire.
Another favorite, but not so much so, is the duke of Guise, one of the many pretenders to the French throne. He claims that he also had a father and mother; and this may be true. He advances that as a reason for condemning the French parliamentary system, and other systems which he names, and sticking to a monarchy as the only solution for internal disorders and foreign dangers. This, he thinks, would give him a nice job and he would not have to do any work or worry about where his meals are to come from. This might appeal to some. These monarchists are not all wrong; maybe not more than 99.44 percent.
Still another is referred to in the London Catholic Herald of September 19, 1941. With true insight into the clerical-military-big business hopes it labels the story “Monarchy: a Focus for French Patriotism”; but if you can see in the following anything that smacks the least bit of patriotism for the French Republic, then you should at once hook up with Bishop Boyle, of Pittsburgh, who has been doing most of the prancing in front of Otto Habsburg, boosting him as the only living heir of the “Holy” Roman Empire:
The baptism of the twin sons of the French Pretender, the Comte de Paris, in the Cathedral of Rabat, Morocco, on July 26, has acted as a convenient inspiration. The Vicar Aposto-late of Morocco, Mgr. Henri Vielle, O. F. M., who officiated, congratulated the parents on having chosen godparents from workers and peasant families to reconcile the alliance between people and monarchy. The godparents were from various French provinces, including, significantly, Alsace, Flanders and Savoy. They included a mother of thirteen children. It was noted that the date of the birth of the Princess was the anniversary of “the grievous armistice”. After the ceremony the crowds shouted “Vive la France 1 Vive le Roi I”
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Cruden’s Concordance
BIBLE concordance is an alphabetical index of the words contained in the Bible and showing the book, chapter and verse where each of such words is found. An exhaustive concordance is one that is thorough in considering all the elements of the Bible, thereby enabling the searcher to locate each of the principal, essential or key words of the Bible either in its original tongue or in the translation thereof into another language, or both.
In the English language, since October, 1737, the Bible concordance produced by Alexander Cruden, of England, was the nearest to an exhaustive concordance for at least one hundred and fifty years, during which time it maintained its ' popularity and was recommended by most eminent Bible scholars. Cruden’s is an alphabetical index of the words in the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures. Being less expensive, it . is doubtless the concordance in most common possession by students of the Bible in the English translation. It is well, therefore, to consider how the possessor thereof can get the most value and help in Bible study from Cruden’s,
The simplest help that should be common to all exhaustive concordances is to . enable the searcher to find in the Bible ' any desired text, one or more words of which text he remembers, not omitting a single text of the Bible or even one occurrence or location of the word dr words remembered. Cruden’s offers several facilities for quickly locating such. The complete edition provides three alphabets: first, an alphabet of the common names or nouns of the Bible; second, an alphabet of the proper names or nouns; and, third, an alphabet of the common .names of the Apocrypha. More recent editions of Cruden’s omit this third alphabetical index. So then, in looking up a text including the name of * any Bible character, one turns directly to the second alphabet, listing all proper nouns of the Bible; and in running down the particular name one does not have to skim over all the common nouns which would come in between if common and proper nouns were all in one general list in consecutive order alphabetically. Furthermore, Cruden’s carries a complete table of all proper names with the meaning of each name according to the original Hebrew or Greek language. The student can refer to this for ascertaining the meaning of the name of any Bible character or place when the Bible helps in the back of the Watchtower edition or other edition of the Bible do not give an exhaustive table of Bible names or no table at all.
Cruden’s provides an aid to quickly locating common names or nouns in that the texts containing a key word are not all listed merely under that word; but where the word occurs frequently or repetitiously in a common expression or combination with another word or words, then all texts containing that expression or combination are listed together under it as a subheading. For example, the word “held” heads first a list of texts including “held” in general settings. Then there is a subheading “held peace”, under which are set out in book, chapter and verse order all texts where the combination- “held peace” occurs. If wanting that combination, look at once in that list. Under “hold” Cruden’s lists first texts in general, then those containing the expression “hold fast”, and then those containing “hold peace”. Under “able” one can locate texts containing that word in general, then those containing “be able”, then “not be able”, and then “not .able”. Under “abominations” one finds texts grouped under the subheadings “their abominations”, “these abominations,” “thine and thy abominations.” Sometimes a word form is both a “noun” and -a “verb”. Hence Cruden’s divides texts under “help” into two groups, one with texts having “help” as a noun or substantive, and all the other texts under “help” as a verb. Likewise texts under “abode” are grouped according to whether “abode” is a noun or a verb. '
Gruden's lists even such pronouns as "him” “me,” “thee,” “them,” etc., where they occur combined with the prepositions “above, about, after, against, at, before, behind, beside(s), between, by, for, from, in, of, on, over, to or unto, toward, under, with, within, without”. It also lists prepositions and adverbs, such as “about”. Hence, to find the text, “Without me ye can do nothing,” one could look up the pronoun “me" and trace the text under the subheading “without me”. Cruden’s also shows the locations of words which do not occur in the regular text of the King James Version, but which do appear in the margin where a Bible edition has the marginal references. These particular verses Cruden’s indicates by an obelisk, a dagger-like sign, before the verse number. For instance, to find those texts where the word “hell” occurs in the text, but the margin says the Hebrew or Greek'word is the word for “grave”, one simply looks up the word “grave”, and the obelisk before the verse numbers show the texts one wants. To find texts which contain the word grave but where the margin says 'hell, merely look up the word hell and trace down the verses marked with an obelisk. When wanting instances where the marginal reading shows the naine “Jehovah”, then hunt for the obelisk-marked verses under the heading “Jehovah”.
There are many parallel’passages in the Bible, that is, verses reading alike. To show these Cruden’s lists the first instance of such passages, quoting part of the passage with the key word, and right thereafter cites the locations of all parallel passages without quoting any part thereof. For instance, under the word “abased”: after listing Matthew 23:12 and quoting part of the text, “whosoever shall exalt himkelf shall be abased,” Cruden’s then follows up this quotation with the citation of Luke 14:11; 18:14. Cruden’s also has cross references to related words. For example, under the word “air”, after listing all the texts containing that key -word, it gives the cross reference, “See fowls”; since fowls are associated with the air.
Cruden’s does not show the original Hebrew, Chaldee, or Greek words from which the English translation is made. It is well known that oftentimes one Hebrew, Chaldee, or Greek word is translated by different words in ’different texts in English. For instance, the Hebrew word Sheol is translated three ways, as “hell”, “grave,” and “pit”; or vice versa, one English word is oftentimes used to translate several individual Hebrew, Chaldee, or Greek words. Cruden’s recognizes this fact, and tries to offer some help in that behalf. In • the case where an English word translates several original words, Cruden’s first cites a number of texts where the key word occurs but where the meanings vary according to the different Hebrew or Greek words from which the one English key word is translated. These citations have the key word explained according to the meaning of the original word, but, in the list of scriptures underneath, Cruden’s does not show in which particular texts the English word is translated from the one or the other original word. Examples of such treatment are the words “abide” and “abomination” ; which see.
Finally, Cruden’s last department is a Compendium of the whole Bible, which gives a brief summary of every chapter of every book or epistle in the Bible. This is more complete than the terse summary which some Bible editions give at the head of each chapter of each book. Cruden’s Bible Compendium might therefore prove useful, especially where the whole Bible is being studied, as an outline or memory aid for the discussion of the contents of a given chapter or book of the Bible. .
MARCH 3, 1943
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The subtitle was, “The scandal that upset one government in France continues to harass another, while the truth, even concerning the death of the man who may have known. all, evades capture.”
