Contents

Flag-Salute Dissenters Vindicated

In the Open Forum of Public Opinion 4

' .Flag-Salute Decision Reversed

" Separate Concurrent Opinions

Sedition Charges Ruled False •

In Further Support of Free Press

. and Worship

I    Round the World

*    Concurrent with Australian Victory 13

Where There’s a Will (Picture page) 14

Teaching the Deaf-Blind

No Need to Go So Far

Russians Standing Up to It

Grabbing the United States             (

“It Required Special Permission”

Ku KIux Too Little and Too Late

Mgr. Sheen Orates for Fascism

The Flag of “Christendom”

Would “Compel” Obedience to Whom?

No Union Except Surrender

Insist on Absolute Control

Addenda

Public Aid for Parochial Schools

Life Article Peeves Hierarchy

Five Years of War in China

Presenting, “This Gospel of the Kingdom”

Impromptu Speaking

Transportation Items

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CONSOLATION

“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.

Volumo XXIV                   Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, July 21, 1043                     Number 622

Flag-Salute Dissenters Vindicated

LAG DAY of 1943 and Flag Day of 1940—what a contrast in the minds of all liberty-lovers! On that national holiday three years ago the “land of the free and the home of the brave” was being swept with a wave of violence, mobocracy and contempt for the principles for which the American flag stands. It hurled its fury against the small band of citizens whose consciences would not permit them to salute any flag, and it quickly rolled across 44 states of the Union, leaving in its wake wrecked civil liberties due to shocking depredations by pseudo patriots and religious inquisitors. What was the boasted justification of the terrorists for all such open lawlessness and disrespect for the national emblem? The Supreme Court flag-salute decision of eleven days previous against Jehovah’s witnesses. Then, to top off this fateful June 14, 1940, Paris, the capital of the French republic of “liberty, equality and fraternity”, fell before the blitzkrieg of the onrushing Nazi hordes. The republic was betrayed, sold out to the enemy by an official and religious Fifth Column. It then seemed to foreshadow what was destined to happen to America by a like totalitarian-minded element hiding under the drapery of the flag. The entire. bloc of democratic nations was deeply disturbed and cast into black gloom.

, Comes the same day in 1943. A far different event takes place, and those who cherish democracy rejoice. The American nation is then at war, yet the event here observed is not the military reverses dealt the Nazi-Fascist powers that day, but reverses against their ideology by democratic victories in the field of civil rights. These were victories scored by those who have tenaciously fought for liberty on the home front, and were announced by the nation’s highest tribunal within the stately white marble walls of the Supreme Court building at Washington, D. C. Of such victories the most outstanding was the court’s reversal of its former judgment and thereby declaring void the compulsory flag-salute as applied to Jehovah’s witnesses who conscientiously object to participating therein because of their worship of and obedience to Almighty God, Jehovah.

That the decision should come on such a day was no mere coincidence. The court could have chosen no better time on which to honor the principles of “liberty and justice for all” for which the flag stands. All believers in those principles throughout all democratic lands are grateful. The court which the late Judge Rutherford described as the “last bulwark in America against totalitarian rule” still stands. Were it otherwise, it would mock all hope of any establishment of the “Four. Freedoms” after global war.

Today the two articles of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights gleam with greater luster and assurance than ever, namely:

“ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

“ARTICLE XIV. ... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall i any State deprive any person of life, ⁴ liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. ...”

' The Supreme Court’s own decision of June 3, 1940, had greatly dimmed those fundamental principles of the Constitution. On that occasion, by a vote of 8 to 1 on the notable Minersville School District v, Gobitis case the court overruled the Federal District Court below and ruled that sehoolboards may require public school students to join in the flag’ salute exercises as a condition of attendance at school. Justice Frankfurter was the writer of that decision, and Justice Harlan F. Stone had the honor of being the courageous lone dissenter to compulsory flag-saluting. The majority' decision declared the court’s incompetence to act as the schoolboard for the nation in determining the best means for inculcating patriotism in the school children; it dodged the real fundamental issue of freedom of the worship of God by throwing the burden of rendering judgment into the lap of the open forum to let public opinion decide. It was clearly a case of evasion of responsibility and of non-fulfillment of the judicial commissions of the court. The weakness, unwisdom and error of the decision were early^r demonstrated by the grave results that followed.

In the Open Forum of Public Opinion

The decision evoked unfavorable editorial comment from newspapers .all over the .land. The decisionj was greedily snapped pp as wayrapt fog mynand organizations with a religious' grudge and. designs against democracy to indulge in violent persecution and other unconstitutional disorders against Jehovah’s vjvitncsses. Expulsion of children, instructed in the Bible, from free schools for refusal to violate their covenant with God by flag-saluting increased; and such were then treated as truants for not being able to take advantage of public schooling. Their parents were either prosecuted or threatened as contributing to the delinquency of their offspring. Children were taken from the parental care and family circle and put in reformatories for juveniles with criminal tendencies. Jehovah’s witnesses generally in carrying on their peaceable and orderly work of preaching the good news of God’s ^kingdom were abused, assaulted, mobbed, run out of town. Their places of worship were invaded, broken up and burned, and their properties destroyed* Boycotts against their privilege of assembly w’ere applied; free exercise of the right to petition for redress of grievances was denied them. Weak or willful breakdown of official enforcement ’ of law and order and the equal protection of the law showed itself glaringly.

As the evidence clearly' establishes, religious conspirators against democracy', egged on by the spirit of intolerance toward the general education of the people in the Bible, wrapped themselves in the folds of the flag and hypocritically' expressed their venom against Jehovah’s witnesses who exposed them. School boards and boards of education made it their special business now to pass flag-salute regulations and ordinances so as to coerce the conscientious children under threat of punishment.

On January 9, 1942, the West Virginia State Board of Education adopted a resolution ordering the flag salute with oath of allegiance in all public schools and providing that refusal to take part therein be “regarded as an act of insubordination” and be “dealt with accordingly”.                                   •'

State legislatures passed laws, ostensibly' for the purpose of detecting and punishing sedition, but the wording thereof shows that the real reason was to get Jehovah’s witnesses on the grounds of their refusal to do obeisance to the flag and their persistent proclamation of Jehovah’s kingdom as the only hope of humanity. And it got them! On March 20, 1942, the State of Mississippi enacted a statute of such kind specifically mentioning refusal to salute the national and state emblems, and also phonographs, which Jehovah’s witnesses are known to use from house to house and in home Bible studies; and branding preaching activities such as theirs a “felony”, to be “punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary until treaty of peace be declared by the United States but such imprisonment shall nbt exceed ten years”. The real target of such statute is unmistakably identified in that the only ones who have been prosecuted and imprisoned under that sedition law to this date have been Jehovah’s witnesses, of whom more than a hundred have been thus incarcerated and deprived of freedom for their missionary work. Louisiana and Arkansas followed the example of the- Magnolia State in such legislation.

All the foregoing excesses were the outcome of carrying the issue into the open forum ot public opinion and yielding to the pressures of the day. And three Supreme Court justices, who had concurred in the Gobitis decision, stood by and watched the parade of consequences and began to understand. .

Jehovah’s witnesses, however, demonstrated that they have a more reliable guide than shifting popular opinion and do not yield to the pressures of the day, and that they abide by a higher law than that of imperfect men. So their children refused to play the hypocrite (which is the resort of traitors and fifth columnists) by outwardly conforming but in the expectation of afterward disavowing “as publicly as they choose to do so the meaning that others attach to the

gesture bf salute”, a la Frankfurter. Such might go with men; not so with Almighty God, who despises hypocrites and favors and approves only those who faithfully keep their integrity toward Him and obey His commandments without double-dealing. For such cause they openly obeyed the law of Jehovah God: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1. John 5:21) “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, ilee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthians 10:14) “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:10) “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shaft not bow down thyself to them', nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hatu me.”—Exodus 20: 3-5.                 '

The children held to their integrity toward the Great Judge, and the parents continued to teach them in the Word and law of the Supreme Lawgiver. They took the punishment for their adherence to the divine rule. They established Kingdom schools of their own to which to send their children for basic education. Resolutely all of Jehovah’s witnesses pressed forward in spreading the Kingdom gospel and braved arrest, dragging into court and jailing. They did not show the un-American spirit of their persecutors and lower themselves to acts of aggressive violence, but showed respect for law’, order and the principles of the flag by using their rights and privileges as American citizens and carrying their grievances into the courts and defending themselves there. Freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, and of worship were at stake; and no time or expense was spared in behalf of these rights and privileges, to the end that God’s name might be honored and the people at large might be enlightened and comforted by the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom by Christ Jesus. Hence it was that cases worked their way through orderly legal processes up to the nation’s supreme tribunal for adjudication,

* First Court Reversal

June 8, 1942, was a dark day for civil liberties in the court’s annals. By a majority of just one its decision in the Opelika (Ala.) v. Jones ease went against Jehovah’s witnesses. The opinion as prepared and read by Justice Reed declared that the gospel-preaching of these Christians from house to house accompanied with the distribution of literature fell under a commercial classification and was therefore subject to license-tax ordinances. Chief Justice Stone and Justices Murphy, Black and Douglas dissented. More than this, these last three justices took occasion to announce that they now believed the Gobitis case had been wrongly decided. The adverse majority ruling raised a great furore among publishing circles throughout the nation as being an encroachment upon freedom of press as well as the worship of God. Since then one new justice took his place on the high bench, to wit, Justice Rutledge. >

An appeal was now made for a rehearing of the Opelika v. Jones ease,, On May 3, 1943, the newly constituted court handed down a 5-to-4 decision reversing itself on that case and vacating its previous judgment thereon. Such a reversal of itself, and that within so brief a time, was most exceptional, but it was hailed far and wide as a grand victory for civil rights and notably for the freedom of the press in America.

Flag-Salute Decision Reversed

. Just six weeks later the most brilliant victory for civil rights followed, and on a most tender issue. The West Virginia State Board of Education had appealed from the ruling of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, which ruling was in favor of the appellees, Barnette, Stull and-McClure, these being Jehovah’s witnesses whose children had been expelled from school for non-compliance with the state board’s flag-salute regulation, and who, as their parents, were prosecuted therefor. Now by a split decision of 6 to 3 the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling of the lower court which forbade enforcement of the board’s flag-salute ordinance against Jehovah’s witnesses. Thereby the Supreme Court reversed itself again, and this time as to its position taken in the precedent-making Gobitis case. .

Mr. Justice Jackson, the second-last of the newcomers to the bench, delivered the court’s opinion. It cut through the confusion of precedent and went right to the heart of the issue, the fundamentals of the Bill of Rights. Reading the opinion, Justice Jackson said, in part:

This case calls upon us to reconsider a precedent decision, as the Court throughout its history often has been required to do. Before turning to the' Gobitis case, however, it is desirable to notice certain characteristics by which this controversy is distinguished.

The freedom asserted by these respondents does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. But the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. The State asserts power to condition access to public education on making a prescribed sign and profession and at the same time to coerce, attendance by punishing both_: parent and child. The latter stand on a right of selfdetermination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal attitude. ...

There is ho doubt that, in connection. with the pledges, the flag salute is a form of utterance. Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas. The use .of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a short cut from mind to mind. Causes and nations, political parties, lodges and ecclesiastical groups seek to knit the loyalty of their followings to a flag or banner, a color or design. The State announces rank, function, and authority through crowns and maces, uniforms and black robes; the church speaks through the cross, the crucifix, the altar and shrine, and clerical raiment. Symbols of State often convey political ideas just as religious symbols come to convey theological ones. Associated with many of these symbols are appropriate gestures of acceptance or respect: a salute, a bowed or bared head, a bended knee. A person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man’s comfort and inspiration is another’s jest and scorn.

Over a decade ago Chief 'justice Hughes led this court in holding that the display of a red flag as a symbol of opposition by peaceful ’ and legal means to organized government was protected by the free speech guaranties of the ' Constitution. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359. Here it is the State that-employs a flag as a symbol of adherence to government as presently organized. It requires the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas it thus bespeaks. Objection to this form of communication- when coerced is an old one, well known to the framers of the Bill of Rights.

It is also to be noted that the compulsory flag salute and pledge requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind. . . . But here the power of compulsion is invoked without any allegation that remaining passive during a flag salute ritual creates a clear and present danger that would justify an effort even to muffle expression. To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind. . . .

1. It was said that the flag-salute controversy confronted the Court with “the problem which Lincoln cast in memorable dilemma: 'Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people,' or too weak to maintain its own existence and that the answer must be in favor of strength. Minersville School District v. Gobitis, supra, at 596. . . .

Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support. Without promise of a limiting Bill of Rights it is doubtful if our Constitution could have mustered enough strength to enable its ratification. To enforce those rights today is not to choose weak government over strong government. It is only to adhere as a means of strength to individual freedom of mind in preference to officially disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end.

The subject now before us exemplifies this principle. Free public education, if faithful to the ideal of secular instruction and political neutrality, will not be partisan or enemy of any class, ereed, party, or faction. If it is to impose any ideological discipline, however, each party or denomination must seek to control, or, failing that, to weaken the influence of the educational system. Observance of the limitations of the Constitution will not weaken government in the field appropriate for its exercise. . . .

The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures—boards of education not excepted. These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights. That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of constitutional freedoms of the individual, if We are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of pur government as mere platitudes.

Such boards are numerous and their terri' torial jurisdiction, often small. But small and local authority may feel less sense of responsibility to the Constitution, and agencies of publicity may be less vigilant in calling it to account, The action of Congress in making dag observance voluntary and respecting the । conscience of the objector in a matter so vital A as raising the Army contrasts sharply with these local regulations in matters relatively trivial to the welfare of the nation. There are village tyrants as well as village Hampdens, but none who acts under color of law is beyond reach of the Constitution. . . .

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

In weighing arguments of the parties it is important to distinguish between the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an instrument for transmitting the principles of the First Amendment and those eases in which it is applied for its own sake. The test of legislation which collides with the Fourteenth Amendment, because it also collides with the principles of the First, is much more definite than the test when only the Fourteenth is involved. Much of the vagueness of the due process clause disappears when the specific prohibitions of the First become its standard. The right of a state to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to imposc all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a “rational basis” for adopting. But freedoms of speech and of press, .of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed on such slender grounds. They are susceptible of restriction only to prevent grave and" immediate danger to ‘interests. 'vh'e.r. the state may lawfully ^protect. It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears dircetly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case. ...

Conditions have changed vastly since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, and the federal government has concentrated greater regulatory power into its own hands. Remarking this, Justice Jackson continued:

We must transplant these rights to a soil in which the laissez-faire, concept or principle of non-interference has withered at least as to economic affairs, and social advancements are increasingly sought through closer integration of society and through expanded and strengthened governmental controls. These changed conditions often deprive precedents of reliability and cast us more than we ■would choose upon our own judgment. But we act in these matters not.by authority of our competence but by force of our commissions. We cannot, because of modest estimates of our competence ih such specialties as public education, withhold the judgment that history authenticates as the function of this Court when liberty is infringed.

4. Lastly, and this is the very heart of the Gobitis opinion, it reasons that “National unity is the basis of national security,” that the authorities have “the right to select appropriate means for its attainment,” and hence reaches the conclusion that such compulsory measures toward “national unity” are constitutional. Id. at .595. Upon the verity of this assumption depends our answer in this case.

National unity as an end ■which officials may foster by "persuasion and example is not in question. The problem is whether under our Constitution compulsion as here employed is a permissible means for its achievement.

... As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing.- Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a, disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

It seems trite but necessary to say that the . First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. . . .

■     ... To believe that patriotism will not

flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ ak to things that touch the heart of the existing order..                                  _t

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to. reserve from all official control.                    ■

The decision of this Court in Minersville < School District v. Gobitis and the holdings of those few per curiam decisions which preceded and foreshadowed it are overruled, and the judgment enjoining enforcement of the West Virginia Regulation is

Affirmed.

Separate Concurrent Opinions

■ Justices Murphy, Douglas and Black, up harmony with their courageous confession of 1942 regarding the Gobitis decision, not only concurred in the above, but rendered separate opinions of their own. In his added opinion Justice Murphy said, in part:

. . . But there is before us the right of freedom to believe, freedom to worship one’s Maker according to the dictates of one’s conscience, a right which the Constitution specifically shelters. Reflection has convinced me that as a judge I have no loftier duty or responsibility than to uphold that spiritual freedom to its farthest reaches.

The right of freedom of thought and of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution against State action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all except insofar as essential operations of government may require it for the preservation of an orderly society,—as in the case of compulsion to give evidence in court. Without wishing to disparage the purposes and intentions of those who hope to inculcate sentiments of loyalty and patriotism by requiring a declaration of allegiance as a feature of public education, or unduly belittle the benefits that may accrue therefrom, I am impelled to conclude that such a requirement is not essential to the maintenance of effective government and orderly society. To many it. is deeply distasteful to join in a public chorus of affirmation of private belief. By some, including the members of this sect, it is apparently regarded as incompatible with a primary religious obligation and therefore a restriction on religious freedom. Official compulsion to affirm what is contrary to one’s religious beliefs is-the antithesis of freedom of worship, which, it is well to recall, was achieved in'this country only after what Jefferson characterized as the “severest contests in which I have ever been engaged.”

I am unable to agree that the benefits that may accrue to society from the compulsory flag salute are sufficiently definite and tangible to justify the invasion of freedom and privacy that is entailed or to compensate for a restraint on the freedom of the individual to be vocal or silent according to his conscience or personal inclination. The trenchant words in th» preamble to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom remain unanswerable: “. . . all attempts to influence [the mind] by temporal punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, ...” Any spark of love for ' country which may be generated in a child or his associates by forcing him to make what is to him an empty gesture and recite Words wrung from him contrary to his religious beliefs is overshadowed by the desirability of preserving freedom of conscience to the full. It is in that freedom and the example of persuasion, not in force and compulsion, that the real unity of America lies.

Justices Black and Douglas, in their separate joint opinion, declared, in part:

. . . Long reflection convinced us that although the principle is sound, its application in the particular ease was wrong. Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 623. "We believe that the statute before us fails to accord full scope to the freedom of religion secured to the appellees by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The statute requires the appellees to participate in a ceremony aimed at inculcating respect for the flag and for this country. The Jehovah^Js witnesses, without any desire to show disrespect for either the flag or the country, interpret the Bible as commanding, at the risk of God’s displeasure, that they not go through the form of a pledge of allegiance to any flag. The devoutness of their belief is evidenced by their willingness to suffer persecution and punishment, rather than make the pledge.

. . . Decision as to the constitutionality of particular laws which strike at the substance of religious tenets and practices must be .made by this court. The duty is a solemn one, and in meeting it we cannot say that a failure, because or religious scruples, to assume a particular physical position and to repeat the words of a patriotic formula creates a grave danger to the nation. Such a statutory exaction is a form of test oath, and the test oath has always been abhorrent in the United States.

Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions. These laws must, to be consistent with the First Amendment, permit the widest toleration of conflicting viewpoints consistent with a society of free men.                                    ’

Neither our domestic tranquillity in peace nor our martial effort in war depends on compelling little children to participate in a ceremony which ends in nothing for them but a,fear of spiritual condemnation. If, as we think, their fears are groundless, time and reason are the proper antidotes for their errors. The ceremonial, when enforced against conscientious objectors, more likely to defeat than to serve its high purpose, is a handy implement for disguised religious persecution. As such, it is inconsistent with our Constitution’s plan and purpose.

Such reversal of private opinions does not denotp instability on the part of-these three justices. It displays honesty, and proves they had watched the operation of the Gobitis decision and now admitted its iniquitous fruitage to the nation and most painfully to conscientious Christians. The about-face of the Supreme Court is likewise no occasion for alarm because occurring after such a short interval. It gives no reason for fear that the court will henceforth show itself intellectually incapable of rendering decisions that will long stand the test of time and developments. It shows rather that the present court includes men who are prompt to right a wrong and to act in rest6ration of fundamental freedoms and righteousness. Such is the safe and right step for a fallible court to take, regardless of elapsed time for afterthought.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter remained adamant in support of his opinion rendered in the Oobiiis case, and tendered a 19-page opinion of dissent from the reversal of it Justices Reed and Roberts dissented with him.

Sedition Charges Ruled False

Freedom’s bulwarks were further buttressed by the decision immediately following the above. On this, strangely, although the flag-salute issue was involved, there was unanimity of opinion by all nine justices. This dealt with three cases, being appeals from the Supreme Court of the State of Mississippi by three of Jehovah’s witnesses, Taylor, Benoit, and Cummings, who had been prosecuted and imprisoned under the 1942 anti-sedition law of Mississippi. Mr. Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court. The conclusion thereof reads:

, In the West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, No. 591 of the present term, the court has decided that a state may not enforce a regulation requiring children in the public schools to salute the national emblem. The statute .here in question seeks to punish as a criminal one who teaches resistance to governmental compulsion to salute. If the Fourteenth Amendment’ bans enforcement of ' the school regulation, a fortiori it prohibits the imposition of punishment for urging and advising that, on religious grounds, citizens refrain from saluting the flag. If the state cannot constrain one to violate his conscientious religious conviction by saluting the national emblem, then certainly it cannot punish him for imparting his views on the subject to his fellows and exhorting them to accept those views.

Inasmuch as Betty Benoit was charged only with disseminating literature reasonably tending to create an attitude of stubborn refusal to' salute, honor, or respect the national and state flag and government, her conviction denies her the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Her conviction and the convictions of Taylor and Cummings, for advocating and teaching refusal to salute the flag, cannot be sustained.

The last mentioned appellants were also charged with oral teachings and the dissemination of literature calculated to encourage disloyalty to the state and national governments. Their convictions on this charge must also be set aside.

The statute as construed in these eases makes it a criminal offense to communicate to others views and opinions respecting governmental policies, and prophecies concerning the future of our own and other nations. As applied to the appellants it punishes them although what they communicated is not ' claimed or shown to have been done with an evil or sinister purpose, to have advocated or incited subversive action against the nation or state, or to have threatened any clear and present danger to our institutions or our government. What these appellants communicated were their beliefs and opinions concerning domestic measures and trends in national and world affairs.

Under our decisions criminal sanctions cannot be imposed for such communication.

The judgments are reversed.

In Further Support of

Free Press and Worship

Finally, as a sort of anticlimax, Chief Justice Stone announced a per curiam decision on the case of Jehovah’s witnesses who were convicted of “selling, on the streets of the District of Columbia, magazines” without a license or payment of license tax according to the local code. In view of the court’s decision of May 3, 1943, reversing itself in the Jones V. Opelika case, they vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia below and remanded the cause back to that court to enable it to re-examine its rulings As respects Jehovah’s witnesses in the light' of the Supreme Court’s decisions. If the District of Columbia court fails to rule now that the local license and taxation ordi-

nances do not apply to Jehovah’s witnesses, then the Supreme Court will throw out the entire code regulation as unconstitutional. The district attorney for the District of Columbia has already conceded the constitutional infirmity, of . the statute; hence to save face the appeal i court of the District must revise its ¹ application of the statute.

In reality, then, June 14 marked the winning of three cases before the supreme bar of the United States by Jehovah’s witnesses, and that with incalculable benefit to the civil liberties of all Americans.                ’

Decision Hailed

The reaction country-wide to these vital decisions was preponderantly favorable, and news articles and editorials in the leading newspapers and magazines of the nation appeared for days thereafter. A Miami Daily News (June 15) editorial on “The Real Patriotism” says: “The new decision is a victory for the four freedoms right here at home.” Said the New York Times editorial of June 19: “Whether or not Jehovah’s witnesses leave a mark on the religious history of the United States, they are certainly leaving one on its constitutional history. . .. The voluntary principle is the essence of civil rights as of common sense.” On June 20 the Times editor under “Salute to Freedom” said: “The decision was hailed by many, including those unsympathetic to Jehovah’s witnesses, as a triumph of civil liberties in wartime.” An accompanying article was headlined: “Civil Liberties Gfiin by the Flag Decision—Restraint shown by authority is in contrast with first World War.” On June 15 a Times news commentator spoke of it as “The Supreme Court at Its Peak”.

Said the New York Herald Tribune (June 14) editorial .under the heading “Welcome Reversal”: “Three years ago the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in an 8-to-l decision, that state laws requiring school children to salute the American flag were valid. . . . Naturally, therefore, we deplored the surprising decision of the Supreme Court and today welcome its reversal.” Said the Chicago Sun (June 15) editorial “ 'Salute or Else’ Is Out”: “The Supreme Court did what was expected of it Monday when it reversed its previous decision in the Jehovah’s witnesses 'flag salute’ case. . . . Chief credit is due Chief Justice Stone for his dissent three years ago. That won both the public and the three justices.”

Said the Pittsburgh Press (June 15) editorial under “A Freedom. Is Reinstated” (as also repeated in the Cincinnati Post): “It is a healthy thing, especially at a time when we are fighting for the-four freedoms, that the judiciary should revoke its unwise and ill-seasoned acquiescence in local infringements of the freedom of religion.” The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (June 16) expressed itself editorially as “proud that we have a court so anxious to preserve the fundamental liberties that it will run the risk of reproach of inconsistency and instability in seeking to maintain them”. The Philadelphia Record (June 16), editorialising under the heading “The Flag Salute Decision: An Example to the World”, stated that the reversed decision “offers the most dramatic example of legal protection for minorities that has occurred in our lifetime”. The Baltimore Sun (June 15) editor put it this way: '^The Supreme Court Strikes a Blow for Religious Freedom,” under which he says: “Certainly this solution is to be applauded—all the more in times like these, when we are reasserting our faith in the civil liberties by force of arms all over the world.”

Only one sour note has thus far been heard, and that is from New Jersey, concerning which the New York "Herald Tribune carried an article (June 15) under the headlines: “New Jersey Advised to Ignore Supreme Court on Flag Salute”; also the New York Journal-

American .(June 16): “Schools in N. J. to Insist upon Flag Salute.”

Round the World

_ Like the shot at Concord fired for liberty in 1775, the report of the Supreme Court decisions was heard round the world. The following are. cablegrams received within that week by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, at Brooklyn, N. Y., under whose supervision the instant cases of Jehovah's witnesses were fought even to the highest court:

London, England: “Thankful for flagsalute victory reported British press.”

Stockholm, Sweden : “Rejoicing in Jehovah's act of deliverance through Supreme Court ruling reported in press. Family sends warm love.”

Cape Town, South Africa: “Rejoice exceedingly in Supreme Court decision.”

Sydney, Australia: “Joy at High Court victory overflows on receiving news American triumphs. Jehovah’s praises resound as Australian witnesses inarch forth under all-conquering King Christ Jesus. Have cabled British, Canadian, New Zealand governments urging similar recognition and freedom.”

Concurrent with Australian Victory

The joy and eventfulness of the day were further heightened by the news transmitted by the Associated Press from the “land down under”, the island _; continent where Jehovah’s witnesses have been decreed an “illegal organization” and suppressed as “subversive” since January 16, 1941. Nevertheless, those Christians, in faithfulness to their commission from on high, kept on preaching 'the glad tidings of the divine Government of the New World, though permitted only to use the Bible without Watchtower helps, They carried their case into the court, in a like fighLfor: freedom of worship. The results _:of the., fight of-almost two years, and a half were reported in the New York Sun on Flag Day, in an article headed: “Jehovah’s witnesses Win in Australia”:

Melbourne, June 14 (A.P.).—Suppression of the Jehovah’s witnesses, religious organization, under the National Security Subversive Association’s regulation, was declared invalid' today by Australia’s highest court. The 3. to 2 decision, handed down by the full court, in effect set aside the entire set of regulations relating to subversive associations under the national security act.

In delivering the majority decision, Justice Starke characterized the regulations as “arbitrary, capricious and oppressive” and held that corporate and unincorporate bodies were wiped out of existence on the mere declaration of the executive branch of the commonwealth government without due process of law.

This hard-fought victory was further confirmed by cablegrams received shortly thereafter by the Watchtower headquarters at Brooklyn, N. Y., as follows:

Sydney, Australia : “High Court action successful. Regulations invalid. Three judges wholly with us. Two partly. Mailing copy sixty-page judgment. Grateful Most High this victory for freedom.”

London, England: “Daily Express news service quote Melbourne correspondent June 14th Australia High Court decides suppression Jehovah’s witnesses under National Security Subversive Associations Regulations is illegal. Decision means whole of regulations relating to subversive associations are invalid.”

With gratitude to the Right One for all these victories gained by the operation of faith and obedience, Jehovah’s witnesses say: “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Quoting from 1 Corinthians 15:57) They will more practically express their thankfulness by increased zeal in fulfillment of their divine com-ini^sj^m All persons of .good-wiji toward, ,rO_;;Gv;di, ,GQd .an<i <he kingdom -of illjs Chiust are- certain to reap lasting bene-* fit therefrom, unto life eternal in the New World.

DOUBTLESS every one taking part in the work of advertising the Theocratic Kingdom of Jehovah God has some difficulties to overcome. Some have more, some less. Here is a page of pictures of some who have more to overcome than most others. (1) Lester Wolf, war veteran more than 50 percent disabled, puts in 150 hours a month regularly, making good use of his display case, shown in the picture. (2) Deaf-mutes at a recent assembly found a way to take part in the witnessing. (3) J. Nordaune, witness of Williston, N, Dak., lost a limb just recently, but is back in the work. (4) This worker, Sarah Blake, Welasco, Texas, has not put foot on the ground for over twenty years, but manages to devote sixty hours a month to, Kingdom activity.. (5) This lady, of Knoxville, Tenn., entirely deaf, manages to ‘‘hear” the good news by placing her hand on the phonograph. (6) O. C. Frazier, witness shot by “Little Reich”, Ark., mob last September, is recovering and is still putting the Kingdom interests first. (7) Witness of National City, Calif., had a stroke (before she became a witness ),■ reads with difficulty, due to impaired eyesight, and is opposed by all ' the family, but witnesses to the Kingdom nonetheless. (8) And this crippled witness, Charlotte, N. C., manages to place many a magazine explaining The Theocratic Government.

Teaching the Deaf-Blind

IF IT is a misfortune to be either blind or deaf, it is a double misfortune, and more, to be both blind and deaf. One’may well suppose that persons so afflicted would be better off dead, and yet there hre cases on record where such have accomplished wonders; and here the word “wonders” can be used without misgiving or fear of exaggeration. The two outstanding cases on record are those of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. Almost everyone knows something about Helen Keller, or has heard the name. Laura Bridgmah is perhaps less famous, and that possibly because she belongs to a previous generation. Helen Keller has made herself a notable influence in the present one.

Laura Bridgman was born in Hanover, N. H., Dec. 21, 1829. She was a bright and intelligent child but had her hearing and sight, and her sense of smell as well, destroyed by a terrible sickness when she was but two years of age. Thereafter she followed her mother about the house, and learned to identify things to her own satisfaction by feeling of everything and determining in this manner what things were and what purpose they served. She even learned to find her way about the neighborhood, and could do some simple tasks. When she was eight years of age she was taken to the Perkins institution for the blind, at Watertown, M.ass., at the invitation of Dr. Howe, who gave his personal attention to her training. He was faced with the problem of instructing her to identify things and actions so as to bring her more completely into contact with the world with which she was so remotely connected. She knew certain things and indicated them by signs which those near and dear to her understood, but which others not of her immediate circle of acquaintances would not be able. to recognize. She must learn the common language of the world in which she lived, but how could this be conveyed to her mind when she could neither hear nor see and had only the sense of touch to guide her?

The teacher decided that the thing to do was to paste on various articles labels (with raised letters) which identified them. “K-n-i-f-e” on a knife, “b-o-o-k” on a book, and so on. It did not take Laura long to match labels, laying labels marked “book” on the article similarly marked, but she still did not understand . that the printed word stood for the name of the article. She also learned the different letters separately and could combine them into words, but without thinking of it as more than merely a game which had no practical significance. This continued for many weeks.

Then, one day, Laura suddenly realized that she could combine letters and spell out something in her own mind and let somebody else 'know about it, by conveying the letters to them in the order in which she had arranged • them.: This made all the difference in the world, and her face lighted up not only with pleasure but with understanding. It now lost its formerly blank look and took on the expression that is characteristic only of the human soul. Laura had, as it were, found herself.

‘ But there was a great deal more to learn. She knew the names of concrete , objects, or learned them readily, but had 1 to learn also the terms used to express ⁴ abstract ideas, such as “height”, “courage,” “beauty,” etc. This she learned readily enough, as time went on, just as other children learn, imperceptibly, marvelously through the ability that “God giveth”, we know not how. Yet at first Laura’s progress was seemingly slow. At the end of the first year of instruction her doctor or teacher wrote, “She is nine years of age, and yet her knowledge of language is not greater than a common child of three years. There has been no difficulty in communicating knowledge of facts, positive qualities of bodies, numbers, etc.; but the words expressive of them, which other children learn by hearing, as they learn to talk, must all be communicated to Laura by a circui-tons and tedious method.”

Laura was very eager to learn, ever reaching out for ways to put herself in mental touch with the world that surrounded her, and which she knew more or less by physical touch. She made steady progress.

Then came a very happy day of her 'life; for another child, Oliver Caswell, also deaf, dumb and blind as she was, came to the institution, and Laura had the joy of helping him as she had herself been helped by kind friends. And as she helped him she profited herself, for Tie that watereth others, shall himself also be watered [blessed]’.—Proverbs 11:25.

As she grew older she learned to sew and knit and even do fancy work; for what other blind people had learned, she could learn also, now that the great additional obstacle of her deafness had been overcome. In the course of an active and happy life she met many notable persons who were interested in her accomplishments, and was able to aid and encourage many who w'ere less handicapped than herself.

Helen Keller’s case followed that of Laura Bridgman, who died May 24,1889. Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880, and lost her sight and hearing, and also her sense of smell, when she was less than two years of age, by illness. Like Laura Bridgman, she continued active and interested in things about her, expressing her wants and hemmed-in thoughts through little signs and tokens which her mother readily learned to understand. When she was just about seven, arrangements were made for her education, her parents having heard of the case of Laura Bridgman and sending to the Perkins institution at Watertown for someone to come and instruct Helen. The institution sent Miss AnnieM. Sullivan (who subsequently became Mrs. John A. Macy). She continued with her charge and friend until the day of her death, in 1936, after which Helen continued bravely on with the helpful association of other friends.

Helen was no ordinary child, it would seem. She had zest and eagerness for learning, and her education once begun progressed rapidly, aided by her capable and resourceful teacher. Miss Sullivan first put Helen in possession of the alphabet, spelling word letters into her hand, and associating them with various objects. First of all a doll was placed in Helen’s lap, and “d-o-1-1” spelled into her hand. She would pour a little water on the child’s hands and then repeatedly spell “w-a-t-e-r” into her palm, until the thought was fixed and the connection understood. It was a fascinating game to Helen to associate the curious markings that she felt made in her hand with definite objects with which she was already acquainted by her own feeling of them. For some reason Helen learned in a week what had penetrated .Laura’s mind only after three months of patient effort. In a few days Helen learned all of the alphabet spelled into her hand, as well as the names of a hundred objects in her immediate environment. She enjoyed it all immensely. Then verbs, and even prepositions, had to be taught. This was done by associating them u'ith action. Helen had no difficulty in mastering these either.

Then came the letters of the raised alphabet, the Braille system, and other accomplishments, such as learning the deaf-and-dumb language by touch, and . to write by using a special typewriter. And, most marvelous of all, Helen was taught to speak with her own lips, though she could neither hear the words that fell from the lips of others nor see the movement of the lips. She learned it all by touch, placing her fingers upon the lips, tongue and throat of her instructor, though she was then but ten years old.

When she was sixteen years old she entered a school for young ladies in order that she might be prepared for college. Her faithful companion, Miss Sullivan, wmnt with her to all classes and repeated the lectures and discussions by touch. Helen graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904, w^Tith honors. She not only had kept up her studies, with the aid of Miss Sullivan, but had taken an active part- in the social life of the school.

Miss Keller now became active as a lecturer and writer. Her book, The Story of My Life, as well as other books she has written, has been translated into several languages. Her lectures, in which she addresses thousands of people, register with telling effect. She has traveled -widely, lecturing in England, Yugoslavia, and Japan. The literature on the life and career of Miss Keller is very extensive, and there are two special libraries devoted to these writings alone, one at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, Watertown, Mass., and the other at Washington, D.C., at what is called the Volta Bureau.

Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman had illustrated in their lives the important fact that with eoilrage and patience even the most disheartening obstacles can be overcome. They have been an example to many others who were either blind or deaf, or both, and who have gained courage and contentment by emulating the example of these afflicted but indomitable women.

, No Need to

THE Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 4, 1942, under the title “’The Shame of Eire”, berates southern Ireland for allowing the Nazis to maintain a legation in Dublin from which to direct espionage and_xto gather vital weather reports, and adds:

There is more than a suspicion that the recently discovered plot of the outlawed Irish Republican Army to attack American and British troops in northern Ireland was inspired and financed by Nazi agents across the border in Eire.

That is all very lovely in what it states and what it covers up, but there-is no need to go so far to learn what is at the bottom of it. The Plain Dealer should send an honest newspaperman to JULY 21, 1943

Go So Far

.                                         t

Detroit. There he will find that Coughlin is using the mailing list of Social Justice to peddle the same stuff through the mails that Attorney General Biddle denounced as violative of the espionage act. lie is doing this after promises both to his bishop and to the government to stop, quit, Cease, and desist from his proNazi political activities. But he can’t stop. Like every other fully-taught representative of the Hierarchy, he is totalitarian in spirit and as long as he can talk or write he will be as alert to do the will offihhs master Paceili as is Hitler himself.

. Qn pA.miey^ki.n^; office r ifi Ir elan d yaffil, “The ERA provides a very good intelligence service for the Nazis.” That is stating it mildly.

Russians Standing Up to It

IF AND when the newspaper glory is handed ont to the victors of this - present war, it is certain that a large part of it must go to the Russians. This will be hard for the capitalist papers to admit, and some of them will follow < Hearst’s example, and cover it up, or hide it; but the facts'stand out like a sore thumb, and some of them are being admitted in advance. The lifting of the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad showed that the Russians were better prepared for this war, in munitions, and especially in morale, than any others that have had to face the German war machine.                ■

Leningrad (once called St. Petersburg, apd afterwards Petrograd) is the ninth-largest city in the world, as shown by the following table of the world’s largest cities:

London    8,700,000  Moscow .  4,137,018

Tokyo      7,904,600  Shanghai   3,489,998

New York  7,454,995  Osaka      3,394,200

Paris       4,933,855  Leningrad  3,191,304

Berlin      4,332,242

It is a big job to keep so many people alive through two terrible winters, and in one of the worst winter climates of the entire earth, and to have the city all that time under siege by the most mili-’ tary power in the world, Germany. But the Soviets did that in the case of Leningrad, though it is estimated that half the population died of starvation, wounds or disease or (in the case of children) were evacuated.

The Great lee Highway

The city would have fallen to the Germans but for what is sometimes called “The Great Ice Highway”', across Lake Ladoga. But by means of this highway, staked out on the night of November 16, 1941, munitions and supplies were brought in. The track was kept open by three-ton trucks towing big wooden triangles to sweep away the snow’. Ice houses w’ere built along the route. Traffic signs were set up. Traffic officers stuck to their posts through the blizzards, and made their homes in the little ice houses whose floors were piled high with the branches of fir trees. Sometimes 2,000 trucks passed a single traffic post in a day. All together, they took in to the beleaguered city 100,000 tons of supplies, and, although the German bombers destroyed some of the trucks, the trick worked. The siege was finally lifted in the latter part of January, 1943. During the summer season the people of the city had to live on fish from the lake and what garden truck they could raise.

The czar followed the Jesuit plan of keeping the common people illiterate. The Soviet scheme is the exact'opposite, and the results are in evidence for all to see and consider. The Russians get a big kick out of their underground press which nobody but Russians can read, even when the papers are discovered.

Rverybody has read about what took place at Stalingrad. Hitler said he was ready to lose a half million men to take the place. He lost the half million all right (not quite, but a goodly percentage of that number, making due allowance for his inability to ever tell the truth about anything) and the upshot was that the siege of that city was also lifted, and his entire army was encircled and was either destroyed or made prisoner.

After the licking that they received at Stalingrad, the German war propaganda bureau announced three days of national mourning for the annihilation of the great army upon which they had counted so much, and then had the crust to add, “The fight for Christianity must be continued.” The Jesuit insistence that its crusade against Russia has any Christianity about it is too gruesome to cause a smile on the meanest face beneath; the sun. It is just a bloody, beastly fight for power.

consolation

Grabbing the United States

IT WOULD .have to be somebody as crazy as Admiral Tojo to imagine that he could grab the United States by brute force. It isn’t polite, and, besides, in this case, it just isn’t done that way. It has to be done by politics, or nix, it isn't done at all.

The most astute and wholly political organization on earth is the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Its principal asset is gas, sometimes known as “bluff”. It can take the simplest facts and arrange them in such a way that the truth is buried a mile deep. To see some of the fairy tales in the papers, one would imagine that this whole country is just about to fall into the lap of Rome. A modest move in this direction is the statement of Dennis Cardinal Dougherty:

i There are more Catholics in the military forces than the population proportion could demand, and all of us are fighting in one way or another for the triumph of the United Nations. [Maybe the cardinal never heard of Coughlin and the several million who take as gospel truth everything he ever said.]

A less modest move, but just as inaccurate, is that of Archbishop Spellman, who spoke of himself as “one of 25,000,000 Catholics”. The extra 5,000,000, it should be explained, are Catholics that died some time before the last census, or else they never lived in the United States at all. The archbishop did not specify which horn of this dilemma he intended to use.

What are the facts? The population of the United States in 1940 was 131,669,275, of whom (divided into 256 sects) less than half were members of any church, and all the Roman Catholics, including babies just born, footed up to 19,914,937, or 15.1 percent of the population.

Is it a fact that all persons born Roman Catholics remain in that estate? Maybe you had better have a Catholic authority on this. The “Reverend Father” Peter M. H. Wynhoven, writing in what ■was then the only Roman Catholic daily JULY21, 1043

in the United States {The Witness, Dubuque, Iowa, which recently expired because nobody was interested in it sufficiently to keep it alive), made the admission that the Hierarchy is like the small boy whistling his way through the graveyard at night when he said:

The 65,000 converts annually registered are our boast, but this gain would make us feel sheepish were statistics available, as to our losses, which are from three to four times greater.          .

Court Politicians Are Friendly

It will have to be adnditted that the politicians that are on the bench are, for the most part, as friendly to the Hierarchy as are those once considered friends of the people, the newspapers. At Philadelphia, Pa., Mrs. Ruth Datz sought to remove the bodies of her husband and infant son from a cemetery there to one in New Jersey, and sought to enjoin Dennis Cardinal Dougherty from interfering. But Judge Harry S. McDevitt ruled that the Catholic Church alone had the right to make decisions in a case of this kind and to disturb the “peaceful sleep of the dead”. Is that so? And if it is so, how did it come that the United States government used one of its naval vessels to carry the body of the “Reverend Father” Damien halfway around the world, after he had been dead and buried a long time? McDevitt seems to hold to the “good old” Catholic doctrine that the cardinals do all the deciding and the people pay all the bills. So what ?

At Auburn, N.Y., Mrs. Josephine T. Morrissey and her husband were awarded $10,000 damages because Mrs. Morrissey, returning from a visit to the altar to have a medal “blessed”, was hit by a beam. (The church was undergoing repairs at the time, and the couple claimed negligence.) The judge on the bench, Benn Kenyon, set aside the verdict arrived at by “twelve good men and

true”, after a trial lasting five days, and the Morrisseys will get nothing. And don’t ask what they will get in “Purgatory”.                                  .

. But sometimes the Hierarchy’s scheme hits a snag when they try to put something over. While in a subordinate posi-• tion in the Department of the Interior i at Washington, John J. Dempsey (now governor of New Mexico) promised the Hierarchy that'it could build a Roman Catholic church on government property, in a national park, at the Grand Canyon. Secretary Ickes was peeved because Dempsey tried to put this over in his absence and without his knowledge, and wrote the bishop that had the matter in hand that the construction of any church on government property was not in line with park policy. So Dempsey resigned and was shoved upstairs in the New Mexico governorship for at least having . tried to do what the. ecclesiastical politicians and himself had undertaken.

“It Required Special Permission”

As an able-bodied, full-grown American, with your eyeteeth cut, you are asked to believe that “it required special permission from the 'Very Reverend’ . Zacheus Maher, S. J., Pougkeepsie, - N.Y.” for “Reverend Father” John C. Friedl, professor at Rockhurst College, Kansas City, Mo. (313 students in this “college”), to stretch out his hand and take a salary of $6,500 a year as vicechairman .of a regional labor board. Uncle Sam, of course, is the man that lias to dig up the $6,500. The story comes through the Kansas City Times, headlined as follows: “Break Jesuit Tradition; Father Friedl May Accept Pay in War Labor Job; But All the Salary of $6,500 a Year Will Go to His Institute for Social Reconstruction at Rockhurst.” In other words, Uncle Sam _s foots the bill and “Father” Friedl gets all the pay and all the glory for ever and ever, Amen.

Now is a good time to have one’s nose shoved into the feed box, and in it goes. As price administrator, Leon 20

Henderson put a Catholic priest in the office of federal administrator for the nine-county Pittsburgh defense rental area. Probably the priest had to get very special permission from some other leech before he proceeded to tuck away the velvet. He was shoved into the job by Philip Murray, president of the CIO, who has openly boasted that his first loyalty is to the pope, his next to America, and his next to labor. A strike at the Levitan Mfg. Company, Brooklyn, N.Y., was reported as having “CIO, church support”. - This looks as if the church had nearly or quite obtained control of the CIO, does it not?

The American Catholic Trade Union, which is exclusively Catholic, is reported to be making considerable headway in Detroit, undey the guidance, of course, of the “Most Reverend” Edward Mooney, D.D., archbishop of Detroit. (It was while visiting Mooney that Lord Halifax, British ambassador to America, was the target for tomatoes and eggs thrown by women unknown.) The following are some extracts from the A.C.T.U. Catechism, which was approved by Mooney before publication:

Under the conditions which exist in modern America, the proper organization of labor is a part of our religion. . . . Does the Church hold that religion has anything to do in labor organization? Yes. The Popes have clearly implied that the organization and maintenance of unions is a work of charity which can attain the fullness of success only when animated by a thoroughly religious spirit. The Popes have also recommended that whenever possible Catholics should form Catholic unions, thus insuring an intimate association with the Church itself. . . , Why doesn’t the ACTU permit non-Catholics to join? The ACTU does not permit non-Catholics to join because its fundamental purpose is to spread the teachings of the Catholic Church, and it could hardly expect persons who do not accept these teachings to aid in spreading them. , . .

It is very apparent already that Catholic pressure is putting a disproportionate share of employment favors with

CONSOLATION

the Catholic workers. Though the Catholic population of the United States is less than one-sixth of the total, yet 10,000 of the 35,000 worker^ in the Greater New York transit system confess tha pope as their sovereign head.

Ku Klux Too Little and Too Late

The Ku Klux Klan makes ₍some attempt to stem the rising Catholic tide, but it is too little and too late. One of their publications, The Fiery Cross, recently said, feelingly:

We cannot safely pussyfoot much longer for fear we will hurt someone’s feelings or be placed in that category of intolerant bigots and narrow-minded nincompoops. The fight is on in our own back yard and the Jesuits have us with our backs to the wall. Both cheeks have been slapped and our noses flattened.

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy does no worrying over the Ku Klux Klan. It is not engaged in the business of slapping mosquitoes. Its spokesmen claim that the present president of the United States has done more for them than all the other presidents that preceded him did in sixty years. (So said the late Cardinal Mundelein.) They ought to know, don’t you think?

The Ku Klux is Fascistic, but it is the Fascism of the balilla, while that of the Hierarchy is the Fascism of the gang that ended the life of the noble Matteotti. The Catechism of Ripalda (Spanish), published by the Catholic Review Publishing Company, Las Vegas, N. Mex., 1911, tells the story plainly:

What sin does one commit who votes for a liberal deputy? Mortal sin generally. What rules may be given to know liberal papers? The following: (1) If they call themselves liberal. (2) If they defend liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, of the press or any other of the liberal errors. [Strange bedfellows these, for F.D.R.]

Mgr. Sheen Orates for Fascism -

One of the shrewdest Fascists in America is the “Reverend” Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. In seventeen radio addresses he harped on four themes: (1) that what is called democracy has de-Christianized ■Western civilization; (2) that Fascism is the necessary reaction to this decadent way of life; (3) that Fascism is right in seeking something that liberalism has failed to offer; and (4) that Fascism’s only fault is its error in grounding its “absolute” in man rather than in God (by which every Roman Catholic theologian always means the Papacy). Glorifying Fascism he said:

The young men of these dictatorial nations, whose forefathers were nurtured on the Christian virtues, were sick of a phantom culture based on selfishness and parading under the name of freedom; they wanted the hardy wine of sacrifice. . . . Totalitarianism could never have swept Europe [this was said when Hitler was cutting a wide swath] if it did not at least promise some solution of the problem of ’ life; if the citizens of those countries thought it was as wrong as a diet of sulphuric acid, they could never have accepted it..

The Converted Catholic magazine, "dis-eussin^the mischievous broadcasts of this c|^.ble man, said:

Msgr. Sheen’s view of Hitler and Mussolini is that of the Jesuits: that they are “scavengers of God”, men sent by God to purge, not only the nations, but even the Catholic church itself, of liberalism, which Msgr. Sheen holds to be self-destructive. Pope Pius XI -himself styled Mussolini “a man sent by Providence”. Again, the Jesuits likened them to the two “Candlestick Men” of the 11th chapter of Revelation, picturing them as bringing death and destruction upon the world: “the two strangers, the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks, who struck matches on the blue veil of waters, who turned the Indian Ocean and the Pacific and the Atlantic and Mare Nostrum (the Mediterranean) into blood.”

What asinine blasphemy!

The Flag of “Christendom"           ..

The -Galveston (Texas) Tribune and the McAllen (Texas) Daily Press contain a picture of a flag and beneath it the follow’ing description: .

Flag of Christendom—Approved by President Roosevelt and Pope Pips, here is Flag of Christendom, displayed by designer, Rev. R, J. Williams, right, at Poland Spring, Me. . Of blue, red and white, it bears star, cross and crown, symbolizing birth, death and kingship of Christ.

‘_t This is confessedly something new, t It does not seem to be the same flag that flies above the United States flag during times of religious services on shipboard. The latter, which is the church pennant of the Roman Catholic church (a blue cross on a white background), was invented in 1923, The statement has been made in Congress that prior to 1923 God had no flag. It now seems that he has two, and, counting the pope’s own flag, he has three. If the United States flag be counted as God’s flag, then he has four. If the British flag be counted, he has five; and so on and on. At a parade of Spanish War Veterans in Tulsa, Okla., the “Reverend Father” J. F. Gallagher carried the church pennant mentioned.

In an address at Beaumont, Texas, Bishop C. E. Byrne, carried avAfry with enthusiasm for at least some of the flags above mentioned, emphasized that what the people need is more religion. He went on to say that “nations are turning to God as never before”. That was just _ before France surrendered to Hitler; and so the bishop went on. to explain that “France and England are stretching out their arms toward the heavens asking God to kill an aggressor they cannot kill themselves”. Still gloating over present conditions the bishop went on to say, truthfully and significantly:

The Congressional Record, a record of the doings in the United States congress which frequently contains a lot of useless talk, but in many instances records things the American people should know about, has lately been almost a Catholic publication. Excerpts from archbishops, priests and bishops’ sermons appear on its pages, and, in the house record No. 219 an entire sermon of Archbishop Spellman.

The humor of these boasts does not 22

strike one fairly until he learns and ’ reflects upon the fact that the one and only Catholic daily in the United States, which was published at Dubuque, Iowa, failed completely because nobody was interested in the stuff that appeared in its columns. If that same stuff passes into the Congressional Record, published at public expense, and read by almost nobody, is the Hierarchy really helped any by that fact?

Would "Compel” Obedience to Whom?

The following are the headlines of a column story published in the New York Times:

Wants God’s Law to Govern World; Mgr. Walsh Says U. S. Must Set Up New Order Based on Ten Commandments; Sees Chaos if We Fail; Nations Must Be Forced to Comply if' Necessary, He Tells Sanitation Breakfast.

The humor of these headlines breaks in on the mind that learns that the “church” to which Monsignor Walsh belongs omits the Second Commandment entirely from its Baltimore Catechism, for reasons which are apparent in the commandment itself:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under¹ the earth: thou shalt not how down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.—Exodus 20:4-6.

To cover up the omission of the Second Commandment, the Baltimore Catechism splits the Tenth Commandment into two parts. A nice question here arises: When the Roman Catholic section of the New York Sanitation Department gets around to compelling obedience to the commandments, will those ten commandments be those of the making by Almighty God as recorded in His

Word, or will they he the ten commandments made by the makers of the Baltimore Catechism? Maybe the sanitation department has the idea that, in its might, it could send the Second Commandment down one of the sewers temporarily in its charge.

Here is a good place to remark that no citizen of the United States should break the law and boast of it. The Constitution of the United States provides: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States. And no person bolding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state.” In direct violation of this fundamental law of the land, "Reverend Father” James J. Troy, post chaplain at Fort Snelling, well paid by the United States government, and holding an office of profit and trust thereunder, was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. Moreover, this illegal conferring of knighthood on an American citizen was passed on to Mr. Troy by the “apostolic delegate” to the United States, the archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, S.T.D., Ph.D., J.U.D., residing at 3339 Massachusetts Avenue NW., Washington, D.C.

In The Western Watchman, the. "Reverend Father” D. S. Phelan explained why the Roman Catholic Hierarchy does not hesitate to disobey the law itself and encourage others to do so:

And why is the church so strong? Why is it everybody is afraid of the Catholic Church? And the American people are more afraid of her than any people in the world. Why are they afraid of the Catholic Church? They know what the Catholic Church means. It means all the Catholics of the world; not of one country, or of two countries, but of all the countries of the world. And it means more than that. It means that the Catholics of the world love the church more than anything else, that the Catholics of the world love the church more than they do their own JULY21.1M3

by death if necessary, the spread . of such errors through the people” as are taught by Bishop Manning. Mr. Harney took pains to state that these sentiments ^expressed his personal convictions and were in accord with those of the Catholic Church”. Bishop Manning could get a > reunion with Harney, Hitler, Mussolini, a Franco and Salazar by surrendering his keys to the pope. These are all members of the one big “church” that Manning sees afar off, but which is eloser than he thinks. Every vestige of that “church” will disappear at Armageddon, and Manning’s along with it. So, maybe the idea of a reunion is not such a fine idea after all.

Once in a while some hundreds of Protestant editors, bishops, clergymen _ and presidents of colleges stir them-, selves in their sleep, but they seldom have the courage to mention the Roman Catholic Hierarchy as the outfit that is at heart Fascist and is plotting for world control. Four hundred such petitioned the United States and British governments to declare war on the Vichy and Franco governments, which governments, all are aware, are merely fronts behind which the Vatican is working. Of course, nothing at all came of the request. All the politicians are afraid of the master politicians at the Vatican.

Insist on Absolute Control

The Roman Catholic Hierarchy’s disposition to claim .all the benefits of liberty for themselves and to deny those benefits to everybody else gets on the nerves of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. The council is made up of 24 of the 256 sects, and has a total membership of around 25,000,000. It lacks power with the politicians because it is split 24 ways, but it was justly riled by the statement of the American Catholic bishops regarding non-Rbman missionary work, in Mexico^ Central America and South America in which occurred the expression:

Citizens of these countries are bound to

24

that they could shove in as secretaries.

A statement signed by seven of the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran ministers of Fayetteville, N.C., contains this protest:

When the $14,000,000 was raised last year for the USO, we were led to believe that the money would be used in a united recreational program, and not to promote the work of any particular religious group. The Y.M.C.A. and the National Catholic Community Service have about the same number of clubs under their management, with a much smaller number assigned to the other agencies.. As a matter of fact, 35 percent of the total number of USO clubs in the South are operated by the National Catholic Community Service. The objectionable and unfortunate part of this is that much of the money turned over to the National Catholic Community Service from the USO treasury has been used by them to carry on work in Catholic churches, Catholic parish houses and parochial schools. That these clubs in Catholic churches have been called USO clubs does not alter the facts. All of these clubs in Catholic churches are under the management of Catholic secretaries and staffs, whose salaries arc paid by the USO. The USO pays the local Catholic church rentals for the use of these properties, and in some cases has paid for the repairs of these properties. In addition to this, the operating budgets come from the USO funds. Twenty-one out of thirty-seven clubs under Catholic management in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and North and South Carolina occupy Catholic property and are staffed and financed out of USO funds. We do not know how many more there are in the other forty-two states. There are not any USO rentals in any active Protestant church in America.

Politicians Willing to Help

The politicians are willing to do what they can to help the pope grab America. For instance, there is Wendell L. WiUkic. He knows perfectly well that the Boman Catholic Hierarchy would not give a nickel to any Protestant enterprise, and even has a law against it. But the Hier-JULY 21.1943               ' archy likes Protestant mohey as much as it does bingo money and saloon money, so they had Willkie as a speaker in their campaign to raise $750,000 for one of their hospitals in New York city. Willkie knows that the archbishop of New York controls a half million votes in that city, and, as the national chairman of each party now is a Roman Catholic, he hopes to swing something his way.

Governor Stassen, of Minnesota, has the same bee buzzing in his bonnet. There are 256 sects in the United States; yet when the Roman Catholic sect held a huge heathen celebration in St. Paul in honor of a little piece of bread, he closed all governmental subdivisions, schools, etc., and declared the occasion a state holiday. Would he have done it for any of the lesser sects? You know the answer.

Another politician similarly affected is Richard J. Barry, former president of the Queens County Bar Association. In an address at St. Mary's Church, Brook- -lyn, he asked the question, “What is to sustain this nation?” and answered it with the statement, “Nothing but true religion.” The only question left unanswered is, Which of the 256 sects does he consider the true one? But you know the answer.

Why, up in Seattle, w’here the Big Noise of the Northwest, Bishop Gerald Shaughnessy, holds forth, that “worthy” explains in his Catholic Northwest Progress that even if a Catholic is merely present at a mixed marriage, where the couple are remarried before a Protestant minister, then such a person is a heretic. The “great” Shaughnessy must have shivers when he reads the account of the marriage of Adam and Eve.

Any person with a sense of humor can only laugh when he reads in the papers how these priests that take themselves so seriously beslaver one another. Thus,' iri Sriranton, Pa., the “Reverend Father” O'Rourke preached a sermon on the ordination of the “Reverend” J. J. O’Brien,

and glorified this particular priest in the following manner. Verily they each ‘ had'their reward then and there, and the only reward they will ever get.

A priest is indeed another Christ. He is a union of human nature and divine power. He exercises powers that are absolutely divine, \ the power to forgive sin. Ai the moment he * says, “This is my body and this is my blood,” he is completely identified with Christ. He does not say, “This is the body of Christ,” but, “This is my body,” and the living body of Christ becomes present in his anointed hands. These are the words that equal those of creation, “Let there be light.” It is a renewal of what the Holy Ghost did at the Incarnation. But whereas Christ came only once through Mary, he comes into the world daily through the divine power of the priest.

The priest can say “I absolve thee,” and even though the soul before him be steeped in sin as red as scarlet and as numerous as. the sands of the seashore, the priest by those words can wash that soul clean as the whitest snow.

Truly God has created the priest in his human nature a little less than the angels, but has crowned him with glory and a divine power above that of the angels, and has set him over the works of his hands. There is no dignity or power under heaven that can compare with yours, Father O’Brien. As the sun outshines in brilliance all the other stars of the heavens, so does your dignity and power outshine all others. The greatest doctor in the world can preserve only the life of the body; you can give and preserve the life of the soul. The sentence of the highest judge stands only in the courts of the nation; yours binds in Heaven itself. Human is the dignity of the most noble king; yours is divine. When he dies his honors and his powers forsake him; your priesthood remains forever. They may possess the treasures of gold and offer the gifts of gold to one another: you can fondle in your hands the treasures of heaven arid offer God to God. [Scranton Twies]

What are you going to do about it when you learn that there are 36,580 priests in the United States that feel 26

just like that about one another and are determined to stop at nothing to grab the United States for the pope? Bishop John Mark Gannon, of Erie, Pa., lecturing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, made the statement, “No republic can hope to endure and prosper except it chooses Jesus Christ [meaning thereby the pope as ‘His vicar’] as its King and His Holy Mother as its Queen.” In the Denver Register this three-column story bore the heading: “Holy Father Is Only Light Left in the World; Bishop Gannon Says Civilization Dying in Europe Will Rise Again in America.”

Maybe you don’t know what you are going to do, but that little handful of priests that are represented by O’Rourke, O’Brien and Gannon know perfectly well what they have in mind, and they have even published it. For example, on page 38 of the book The State and the Church, written and edited for the Department of Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare Council by John A. Ryan, D.D., LL.D, (professor of moral theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.), and Moorehouse F. X. Millar, S. J. (and bearing the imprimatur of Patrick J. Hayes, D.D., archbishop of New York, 1922), occurs the following statement of what will happen when America is grabbed by the one and only group that actually believe that they can get away with the grab because they can all make the politicians, no matter who they are, eat out of their hands:

But constitutions can be changed, and non-Catholie sects may decline to such. a point that the political proscription of them may become feasible and expedient. What protection would they then have against a Catholic state ? The latter could logically tolerate only sueh religious activities as were confined to the members of the dissenting group. It could not permit them to cany on general propaganda nor accord their organization certain privileges that had formerly been extended to all religious corporations, for example, exemption from taxation.

Addenda

Public Aid for Parochial Schools

♦ As illustrating the effort of the Catholic Hierarchy to get state aid for the parochial school, the annual meeting of the Department of Superintendents of the National Catholic Educational Association may be mentioned, which was held at the Catholic University of America late in 1940. One of several resolutions adopted on the occasion stated:

The Department of Superintendents views with great satisfaction the fact that a growing number of states are recognizing the rights of Catholic school pupils to free transportation, free health services, free text books and other just services to which they are entitled as American citizens. [But which they should get in the public schools, andwould.]

But the Hierarchy wants the provisions made in its own parochial way, and is getting its way. Now “pupils in New York private, parochial and other denominational schools receive at public expense the same health and medical care provided public school children”. The mention of “private” and “denominational” schools in this press item is intended to cover up the primary fact that the parochial branch of the Hierarchy system is the main beneficiary. Other religious schools are few in number, of negligible consequence, and do little to raid the public treasury.

“Catholic France”

♦ More than one set of eyebrows lifted at the news that the real reason that trials at Riom were abandoned was that Judge Caous was on the bench, and it so happens, explained Newsweek, that Caous is a Protestant, that he has an unbudgeable devotion to judicial ethics,, that he permitted the five chief defendants a full opportunity to vindicate themselves, and that when they got so far that they began to implicate the “fanatical Catholic” Marshal Petain in the laxity that led to the nation’s collapse, the insiders at Vichy whispered that he had wielded his gavel for the last time at Riom. The minute one starts telling the truth, or permits it to be told, about these ultrareligious birds, that minute he is headed for the exit.

Life Article Peeves Hierarchy

♦ An article in Life magazine (October 19) showed the apathy of the French Canadian Catholics toward the war effort; and the fact that the article struck home was indicated by a condemnation issued by nine Canadian archbishops. At about the same time Rep. Wm. B. Barry, New York, at Washington, scored the article in Congress, saying, “It is unworthy of the best traditions of American journalism." He presumably referred to the “tradition” that nothing unfavorable must be said about the unholy racket centered in Vatican City (formerly part of Rome). One can’t say that Rome (or is it Vatican?) doesn’t see to its propaganda. But they have shouted “Welf" too often, and few take them seriously any longer.           .

Confusing Religion and Christianity

♦ Making the common mistake of confusing religion with Christianity, thinking that they are the same thing, when, as a matter of fact, they are direct opposites, and in deadly antagonism with each other, Lord Halifax speaks of St. Paul’s cathedral in London in much the same awe-stricken way as Mr. Pacelli speaks of St. Peter’s cathedral, adjoining his place of business at the Vatican. Lord Halifax said:

I have tried to show you what St. Paul’s means to us, standing clear above the city— a reminder that what we are fighting to preserve, freed of all that onee marred our view, is the Christian way of life; an inspiration to fight better; an assurance that after victory, by following the Christian way more faithfully, we shall come to the kind of future we long to see.

Five Years of War in China

THE Japanese claim that in the first five years of their campaign in China - they murdered 5,000,000 persons (killed, wounded, missing, imprisoned), but that in doing this the Japanese themselves, t on account of superior equipment (large-⁴ ly obtained from the United States) had casualties of only 106,000 men.

The Chinese, on the other hand, claim that in those same five years the Chinese have killed 1,000,000 Japanese and wounded 1,500,000.

The claim is made that big United States freight planes, making two trips a day from India to Chungking, are actually' delivering more aid to the Chinese than they received over the Burma road. If that is true, it should not take long to place many more such freight planes in¹ service and to thus greatly assist the Chinese in their unequal battle with the would-be masters of the world.

A dispatch from Chungking reports the Chinese reduced to fighting with rocks, hand grenades and machine guns against Japanese troops supported by planes and heavy guns.

The Chinese accuse the Japanese of using poison gas on more than 800 occasions in the last four years.

No Khaki Suits for Civilians

♦ It is well understood in China that khaki, commonly called “Roosevelt cloth”, is supplied as an aid to winning the war, but though the Chinese, as a whole, are a very honest people, there are some thieves and crooks, and sometimes some of the cloth gets upon backs or legs where it does not belong. Hence the new sport in Chungking, at any rate, of gendarmes suddenly pitching on other civilians. who have surreptitiously obtained some of the war clothing, and removing it from them instanter. This goes over big with the public, while the victim makes a dash to a shop to buy other clothing, or looks for a barrel.

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It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it is true, because Jehovah God has purposed and declared and promised in His Word, the Bible, that there will be a NEW WORLD which shall be established and ruled in righteousness under His heavenly supervision. He has promised that those living in this NEW WORLD shall live a joyful, perfect and blessed life in a condition where human equality dominates.

Is such a new and better world your desire ? If so, then you need the Bible textbook bearing the appropriate title THE NEW WORLD. This book of 384 pages will provide you with necessary knowledge showing how you may enter into this NEW WORLD, and the requirements and blessings thereof.

Prepare now for life in The New World by obtaining and utilizing the book THE NEW WORLD. It is bound in beautiful peach-colored cloth and contains a scriptural as well as a topical index and numerous pictorial illustrations. It will be mailed to you postpaid upon a contribution of 25c.

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2g                                                           CONSOLATION

Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”

Impromptu Speaking

THE extemporaneous method of speaking is generally used when delivering a speech. However, in the witness work of preaching the gospel impromptu speaking is used to a far greater.extent. Impromptu speaking is giving a talk on the spur of the moment; it is not planned or prepared. The speaker has no idea that he will he required to give a talk, but when occasions arise where questions are asked that necessitate immediate answers he must use the impromptu method of speaking. So, not only does the impromptu method of speech lack planning the phrasing of the words or language as does extemporaneous speaking, but it also Jacks preparation of the material and the outlining and arranging thereof. There is, however, a requisite for worth-while impromptu speaking, and that is a knowledge of the subject. In other words, one must know the answers to the questions that are propounded or the issues raised. The information is in one’s mind; he has made a study of the subj ect; he has the knowledge, but it is not in the form of a talk. Impromptu speaking is not just uttering so many words; that is prattling, and is vain. Bather, it is arranging the thoughts one has in his mind on the subject in an orderly manner for presentation. It is not merely being heard “for much speaking” or taking up time. .

When is the impromptu method to be used? Only when the circumstances demand it; and at no other time should one depend on the impromptu method. It is often used by Jehovah’s ministers in the door-to-door work, in back-calls, in book studies, and now, more than heretofore, before boards and courts. They are commanded to give a -witness in-defense of the gospel on these occasions and to represent the Lord in a manner pleasing to Him. They are commanded to do impromptu spealdng. Colossians 4:6

states: “Know how ye ought to ans-wcr every man.” They do not always have time to prepare these answmrs. “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you_with meekness and fear.” (1 Pet. 3:15) They are instructed to be “ready always”, at any time, on any occasion that demands an answer, to give an impromptu talk or presentation that will answer these questions and be a testimony in the interests of the Kingdom. Also Isaiah 50: 4: “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.” Therefore it shows that when the occasion arises where a word fitly spoken will bring comfort to those who hre weary, or comfort to those that mourn, God’s servants should be able to put in this seasonable -word that will be a testimony to the Kingdom, the hope of the world.                 *

Jehovah’s witnesses are equipped to do this. How so? Not by a miraculous provision of words, as some believe. Some refer to Matthew 10: 19, giving it an improper interpretation to support their contention, where it reads: “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.” John 14: 26 shows how this is effected: “But the comforter, which is the holy [spirit], whom the Lather will send in my name, he shall teaeji you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” The reason why they cannot meditate on these things in advance is that they do not know the questions that will arise. . Such speech, therefore, will have to be impromptu to a large extent before these boards and courts, concerning which Jesus was speaking. But if the witnesses for the Kingdom have studied the Scriptures, gone to service meetings and Watchtower studies, and otherwise assimilated the information that Jehovah God through Christ Jesus at the temple is providing, they will have in their minds the needed answers. They have gained knowledge, and used it in field service. So doing, the Bible truth, , or “sword of the spirit”, is not rusty when the occasion arises to use it, and the spirit of the Lord will be upon those faithful witnesses and will bring all things to their remembrance and will make it possible for them to give a witness on the required occasion. The physical facts prove this to be true.

This information, then, is in the person’s mind, and when the occasion arises demanding its use in an impromptu mdnner, what shall the person do? How can he assemble these facts and marshal them for effective use, not hitting on minor points to the exclusion of major ones and not mixing them up void of all relationship and continuity and principle of argumentation? This series of articles on presenting the gospel has discussed -the main principles of outlining and of coherence. In preparing talks for service meetings and other occasions these principles have been put into practice. Possibly not everyone remembers all the theory of these things that have been studied— the different methods of outlining, the different types of introduction, body and conclusion—and yet, in preparing talks, he has been using them to such an extent that they have become a part of his mental equipment, and when he gives a talk he thinks of what is the important thing, what is the theme, what will introduce that theme, what will be a logical approach to the subject that he may lead the minds of the listeners into that main argument or theme. He also asks him-sejf, /After I have presented that theme, what about it? How, can I bying: that point home to my audience? .What kind of conclusion will I make to settle the matter finally in their minds?’ That is how the minds of those studying these articles have been trained to work, and that is their purpose. Such logical reasoning has become a part of their mental processes, though specific bits of theory may not be recalled.

When a subject arises calling for immediate discussion, quickly erect a mental outline. Necessarily it will be brief and scanty. Call to mind two ot three, or even one principal argument that one w’ould use to refute the contention of an opponent or answer the question of an inquirer, and then think of some type of introduction that will speedily lead up to it—general statements that will prepare the mind of the listeners for it. If one does this, as he goes into these main points the material in his mind will group itself under those heads, and, having outlined these main points in their order of presentation, it will have some semblance of continuity. The evidence of an outline will be present and the thoughts and argument will be logical. One can lead up to the proper climax, which is important in persuasive argument, and he will not be guilty of digressions or failure to answer the question. He will not go wide of the mark, because a goal has been set. Even if just one point, that point will be put across.

This trains the publisher to “think on ¹ his feet”, which is what impromptu speaking is primarily. One might lead into the subject gradually, parting at the fringe of the topic by general statements, and at the same time have his mind working a few jumps ahead of his speech, just, as the eye runs several words ahead when one reads aloud. In this way, one approaches the subject with minor points, and at the climax he will be using major points; otherwise the tendency is to state the main argument first, and then, for want of something to say, begin to ramble on things of minor importance, and thus the force of the main point will have been lost by, the time one finishes. Stalk to the major

point by giving minor ones first; walk gingerly at the, outset, then lead up to the proper climax. This requires a certain amount of poise to execute under distressing condition, but with experience it will be possible.             .

So study God’s Word and all the provisions He supplies to His witnesses, and when circumstances in the presentation of the gospel of the Kingdom require impromptu speaking, His spirit will give all-sufficient aid and support to His Theocratic representatives and make them equal to the occasion.

Transportation Items

Flying Freight Trains

♦ It just doesn’t seem to make sense, but the transportation experts are beginning to talk and write of flying freight trains. One of them, for instance, says:

“Such a flying freight train could start from New York and release gliders at Scranton, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, and Toledo, with the big two-plane landing its load at Chicago, all at a ton-mile cost comparable to that for motor-truck transportation.”

So, brother, if some fine morning when you are out for a walk you get hit in the back of the neck by a moving freight ear, it may be either a railway car that has jumped the track or one of these motor trucks that carries a load at 60 miles an hour, or, perchance, one of the gliders hit you just as it was winging its way down out of the blue. The first man to get hit by a flying freight train will have the glory of having his name in the morning paper, but after that it will become so common that the paper will need only to use ditto marks.

Back to the Covered Wagon

♦ Anne O’Hare McCormick rendered a public service when she drew attention the other day to how swiftly the world is changing, She said:

Even now we are only two generations removed from the covered wagon. Nothing better illustrates the swift and heroic drama of American development than the fact that the : mother Of Orville and Wilbur Wright, the inventors of the airplane, traveled in a covered wagon across the mountains to Ohio from a Virginia farm.

No Need to Apply

♦ You have no need to apply for a job ($190 per month) as one of the stewardesses of the American Export Lines, Inc., flying between the United States and Europe. The women, 7 of them, like their jobs, though they are up all night and on their feet virtually all the . time the planes are aloft.-Each hostess loses 4 or 5 pounds on each trip, and sleeps 24 hours on arrival.

The Douglas B-19

♦ Writing in Newsweek for May 4,1942, Admiral Wm. V. Pratt, U.S.N., retired, speaks of "the Douglas B-19, said to be able to carry an 18-ton load of bombs, with a cruising range of 8,000 miles”. He goes on to explain that from Hawaii southwestward through the islands of Palmyra, Howland, the Samoas, Fijis, and New Caledonia to Australia the greatest hops do not exceed 900 miles. It is very apparent that the Detroit manufacturers of planes stated the truth when they observed recently that they were prepared to deliver their planes at any military airport in the world.

1,200 Plants Produce Rubber

♦ There are about 1,200 plants that have juices which can be processed into good rubber, and the brightest minds are investigating the possibilities of each of them. Thomas A. Edison was an advocate of rubber made from goldenrod; Russia has made much use of a rubber" made from a hardy dandelion, the kok-sagyz.

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Over 100,000 New Subscriptions for

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The Watchtower

The WATCHTOWER magazine was the center of attention during a special campaign period from February 1 to April 30 of this vear, at which time THE WATCHTOWER was offered to the public upon a year’s subscription basis. The goal of new subscriptions set for this period was 100,000; but this -was far surpassed. Yes, over 100,000 people placed their names on the WATCHTOWER subscription list during this period in order to obtain regularly the unequivocally reliable Bible instruction provided™ the WATCHTOWER magazine. It is not a commercial magazine, but is devoted unreservedly to teaching and publishing God’s Word of truth in order to assist, instruct and comfort all people of good-will seeking God’s kingdom.

The campaign is past, but your chance to place your name on this subscription list is not. You may do this by filling out the coupon below and mailing it together with $1.00 contribution, and you will receive the WATCHTOWER magazine regularly for one year.

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Please place my name on the subscription list for the Watchtower magazine, for which I enclose $1.00 contribution.

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CONSOLATION