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Contents
Deputies Disclose Troublemakers
Gilead Opens Second College Year
Australia High Court Reinstates Freedom
“Arbitrary, Capricious and Oppressive”
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
President Secretary Editor
11 *1.26
Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC. 117 Adama St.r Brooklyn 1, U. S.A.
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Notanda
The Care of Harmless Patients
♦ The nerves of humanity are giving way under the pressure exerted by the demons and so many are becoming insane. Maybe you have some loved ones that are mentally ill and need patient, loving care, and you may have had to put them away in a public hospital. Somebody in Connecticut had such a loved one. They put him in the Fairfield State Hospital at Bridgeport, Conn. He was described as a harmless patient Four of the attendants at the hospital, not realizing that the man was sick, and being ignorant of the fact that manifestations of real love do more for the mentally ill than anything else, took the liberty of beating him to death. Two other attendants beat up other inmates. The institution must have a superintendent that is a marvel, even among politicians.
Girls Guard Their Complexions
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♦ Effective cosmetics have been prepared for the girls that put explosives into big and small bombs and detonator caps. Formerly this work made their faces yellow. Now, when they arrive on duty, they must remove all their street clothing, put on flannel suits, and then go to a table, where an inspector sees that they make up their faces and cover . their hair with white dust sheets, to ' ' insure that their natural beauty shall be fully protected. _ 1
Man Lived with the Mastodon
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♦ The Alaska Sportsman, June, 1941, issue, page 21, contains the interesting information that when the skull of a half-grown mastodon was brought up by one of the big Fairbanks Exploration Company’s dredges, near Fairbanks, a long flint spearhead was found encysted in its jaw. How very evident that man and the mastodon lived together in ' Alaska and, without a doubt, both perished in the Flood.—C. Elmont Bell, California.
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
Volume XXV
Brooklyn, N. ¥«, Wednesday, October Z7, 1943
Number 629
Argentina, Land of Plenty
ARGENTINA is a land of plenty, and, to start with, it is plenty big. The country is divided into fourteen provinces, ten national territories and one federal district, the average size of each of these units being the same as of Virginia or Kentucky. Taken as a whole, the country is the fourth in size in the Western world, being exceeded by Canada, Brazil and the United States. In the Old World only Russia, China, Australia and India are of greater size. The acreage exceeds all that portion of the United States east of the Mississippi river, with all of Minnesota, Iowa and • Louisiana counted as east thereof. It is 2,300 miles long and 930 miles wide at the widest part.
Of its 27,000 miles of railway (three different gauges), one-third are state-owned. Argentina stands in sixth place in the world as respects its railway mileage. The Trans-Andine railway connects the country with Chile. Argentina occupies the thirteenth place in the world as regards the number of passengers carried, and the eleventh place with regard to freight.
The highway system extends over 250,000 miles. Concrete and macadam roads are under construction. The net earnings of the railways are taxed 3 percent to help in this good work, and there is a tax of 20c a gallon on gasoline to pt^sh the job ahead, and it is being pushed. Thousands of miles of excellent highways are in use.
The river Plata, navigable for 2,000 miles, is the widest in the world. At the port of Buenos Aires, one of the most OCTOBER 27, 1243 important ports in the world, the stream is 28 miles wide. Other deep sea ports of great importance are La Plata, Rosario, Santa Fe and San Nicolas.
The first.sight that strikes an American’s eyes is that the American-made automobiles, which he sees on every hand, have the driver’s seat on the right and the traffic keeps to the left, as in London. This helps him to see that Argentina has its own personality, and he had better watch his steps. The country has stronger European than American connections and interests. Another reason for watching out.
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, with a population of 2,470,000 (it had but 50,000 in 1890), is the second-largest Latin city in the world, and is, in fact, a second Paris. There are 100 parks, and three subway systems with 5c fares. The right time to visit the city is in June, July or August. The three -preceding months are excessively warm. The port of Buenos Aires is the second in tonnage and mechanical facilities in the Western world.
High Educational Standards
Though the percentage of illiteracy is still high in some rural districts, yet primary education is now free, secular and compulsory, which marks a splendid attempt at liberty, as in France, and with the same enemies with which to contend. There are 14,000 secondary schools, and important universities at Cordoba (founded in 1613), Buenos Aires, La Plata, Tueum&n, Santa Fe, Rosario and Mendoza. In its attention
to education, Argentina stands at the ' head of all the nations in South America.
Instruction is given in floating schools, State night schools, army barracks, warships and prisons. Compulsory school age is 6 to 14 years. Of the population . of 13,518,239 at the last census 1,867,191 t were students. There are 113 normal schools, with 55,000 studying to become , teachers. Argentina spends 24.5 percent of its budget on education. Very creditable for Argentina! The country has 1,660 publications, with a total annual circulation of 941,000,000 copies.
In his work Argentina: Land and People, John W. White, many years (25) Argentinean correspondent of the New York Times, claims that the Argentines are the best-dressed and best-fed of all Latin Americans and then makes, in different places, the following observations, which you may straighten out in your own mind the best you can. Says Mr. White:
In Argentina the general average of culture and good manners is considerably higher than the general average in the United States. . . . Argentines in many ways are more like the people of the United States than is any other people. For one thing, they have developed to a higher degree than any other of the Latin Americans most of those traits which they so persistently criticize in North Americans. They are materialistic, imperialistic, hypocritical, overbearing and insincere. . , . Like North Americans, they talk too loudly in public places, as though afraid they will not be seen unless heard. Like North Americans, Argentines are intense individualists, full of zest and spontaneity.
Mr. White describes the Argentines in private life as handsome, cultural and polite, but in public habitually rude to each other. He assesses them as with no sense of humor, never laughing at themselves and unable to endure being laughed at. You figure it out. In one of his stories, cabled to the New York Times, and published by it back in 1936, he tells of “the first plenary session of the Peoples Conference in Favor of
Peace, organized by Argentine feminists”, and remarks:
The session was' disorderly throughout. Every time any delegate began speaking, half a dozen or more would leap to their feet and all speak simultaneously at top voice. To restore order the president would ring, an electric bell which drowned out the shouters until they gave up the effort to be heard and sat down. Then another delegate would attempt to speak and bedlam would start all over again. ,
Mr. White said that the ladies did better the next day, the opening session being quite orderly, and devoted entirely to long speeches by a dozen orators. _
La Prensa, one of the most influential papers in the world, has publicly acknowledged “the Argentines’ deep-rooted peculiarity of hiding their own defects and ignoring those of others”.
In the fall of 1941 an Argentine congressional inquiry drew public attention to the fact that there are several hundred foreign schools in the country, that the German schools were controlled by the German Embassy, that the teachers * were sent from Germany, that the textbooks were received from Germany, and that the teachers were required to take an oath of loyalty and obedience to Adolf Hitler.
A year later one of the deputies published a book, Campo Minado (Mine field), in defiance of state-of-siege regulations forbidding comment on the administration’s foreign policy, in which w'ork he showed the existence of a “campaign to disparage Democratic institutions” and one which “has very highly placed sponsors”. Circulation of the book was forbidden by those who do not wish the true situation to come to the light.
Public welfare is looked after by compulsory insurance, maximum hours, minimum wages, half-holiday on Saturday, regulation of discharges, annual vacations, child labor, and employment of women. Seats in workrooms must have back rests. Wages must be paid in cash, and there are homestead and pension
regulations. Free medical attention is provided, and the maternity and other sanatoriums are world-renowned.
Basis of Argentine Prospe.ity
Argentines are the world’s heaviest meat-eaters, averaging about 346 pounds a year per person. The country has more cattle per capita than any other in the world. The United States, with 131,669,275 population, has 74,607,000 cattle, while Argentina, with 13,518,239 popula-. tion, has 33,100,512 cattle, or more than four times as many per person. The reason that Argentina has so many cattle is that the pampas, rockless, treeless, are a sea of rich grass hundreds of miles each way in extent, the climate is perfect for outdoor feeding the year round, and the breeds have been crossed until they are just adapted to the location. There are some cold winds, but not too cold, and some grasshoppers or locusts, but, as a whole, Argentina is a stockgrowers’ paradise.
The largest refrigerating plant in the world is in Buenos Aires. It has a daily capacity of 5,000 cattle and 10,000 sheep. It is British-owned. Argentina supplies more than half of the hides iiq|ported into the United States. A singl^shorthorn bull sold in 1925 for 152,000 pesos, and, as the peso was then worth $1.63, he seems to have brought about a quarter of a million dollars. About 75 percent of Britain’s meat consumption is of Argentine origin. .
There is such a great variety of fertile soil and good climate for agricultural purposes that great progress has been made in the growing of wheat, corn, flax, oats, sugar, wine, tobacco, cotton and fruit. Alfalfa is raised on a huge scale. Rice, peanuts, sunflower seed, apples, pears, and yerba mate, likewise. In the northern and northeastern forests there is an infinity of fine woods suitable for cabinetmaking. Twenty-three factories, with a capacity of 450,000 tons, work up the red quebracho, useful for its excellent tannin. Half of this goes to foreign OCTOBER 27. 1943
countries. There is so much corn that it is commonly used for fuel. .
There are 950 species of fish in Argentine waters. Some specimens of salmon are three feet in length. Sea elephants, fur seals and whales abound in the far south. There are large catches of mer-luce, anchovies, corvina, hake, and mussels. There is just a chance that you don’t know any more about some of these fish than the writer hereof. But the fish are there.
Argentina occupies ninth place in the world in oil production. It has also workable deposits of gold, silver, lead, tin, zinc, copper, iron, nickel, sulphur, alum, salts, borates, lime, gypsum, marble, and granitic and calcareous stones of all kinds. The value of manufactured products in 1935 was $3,265,000,000, and is now much larger.
Some Odd Enterprises
A favorite luxury in Buenos Aires is palmito. Its preparation entails cutting down a palm tree. The heart is then cut into cubes, soaked in oil, and served with lemon, anchovies and sliced olives. This epicurean treat has extended to London.
Before the war more than 100 ships arrived and departed from Buenos Aires daily, but now the harbor is virtually empty. This makes a big difference in the way the Argentines feel about things.
It seems odd to an American to read that the wine makers in San Juan province went on a strike against high taxes, refusing to ship wine to market and halting all activities connected with the cultivation and processing of grapes; also that the lawyers of the province of Chu-but went on strike because the district court of the province was so unfair, and the doctors of Buenos Aires threatened to go on strike because not paid enough. If these are not odd enterprises, what are they?
A really odd industry, legitimate and clean, was indicated by an advertisement for one gross of fireflies at 5c each. The custom of wearing lightning bugs in
their hair was started by the Quechua Indian girls of Pern and has never entirely died out. Many a Brazilian girl has appeared in public with literally hundreds of the brilliant insects tied in her hair. Each bug is tied securely to a single hair, a. noose being knotted t around its body. The American Weekly * explains:
Yes, the “luciernaga” again is in vogue in some of the cities below the Caribbean Sea— the same firefly which lighted the tresses of proud Spanish senoritas who came to these shores after Pizarro and also illumined the hairdos of the savage belles of the jungle long before Columbus sailed his little caravels from Cadiz. A scarcity of diamonds, due to premium war prices, has helped resurrect the luciernaga decoration for black tresses, a trick which produces living bug fire more brilliant than the diamond itself to feed the vanity of the wearer.
The Religious Business
The Lord sized up the religious business in a nutshell in His statement that neither would the clergy go into the Kingdom of heaven themselves nor would they permit others to do so who really had commendable desires in that direction. The prophets told that the clergy’s business was done with a profit motive, ‘greedy dogs that can never have enough.’ All can see that these statements are correct as a whole; and they are correct as to Argentina. Most Argentines look on religion as a racket, something for women to attend to; they, the men, have other interests.
Although the Boman Catholic religion is supported by the state, and the constitution requires that the president of the country must be a Catholic, yet in practice all creeds are tolerated. The same Mr. White (referred to on page 4 of this issue) told what the situation was in 1934, and it is the same today: ’
The Fascist program pledges active support for the church and the stimulation of religious sentiments. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that there was an open rapprochement between the church and the Fascist movement at the Eucharistic Congress. Because of that rapprochement political observers are watching with close interest the result of the church’s newly won influence over men.
The long conflict between the church and liberal polities in Argentina dates back to the revolution against Spain in 1810. Tolerance in religion was one of the principal topics discussed for years by the secret debating societies which played a leading part in establishing the new republic.
Religious tolerance was finally written into the Constitution of 1870, in spite of strong opposition from the church. . . . The church took a firm stand against the tolerance established in the Constitution and endeavored to retain its hold on the people by its control of marriage and baptism. The government stopped that in 1888 by the establishment of civil marriage and the civil registration of births. The Papal Nuncio threatened Catholics with excommunication if they were married ■ by the eivil authorities and the government retaliated by sending him his passports and giving him a fixed number of hours in which to get out of the country.
The Hierarchy’s pounding of Communism as a scheme to seize the Greek Catholip church is well known and has been quite successful. To date it has so far progressed that the Soviets have disowned Communism and the next act will be for Stalin and Paeelli to kiss and make up. La Prensa, away back in 1936, saw some of the truth on this subject when it said:
South American governments have given out many documents in recent months attributing Communistic character to revolutionary conspiracies led by citizens who .have no connection with Communism, or to labor movements seeking only better wages and better working conditions. This has happened in Brazil, Chile and Paraguay. Uruguay severed diplomatic relations with the Soviet on the charge that Communist agents at Montevideo instigated the revolt in Brazil. It would be highly commendable to tell the truth on this question and not permit political
pa^ipn to discover Communism in every act of opposition.
Deputies Disclose Troublemakers
The real troublemakers in Argentina came to light when the parliamentary report came out, in September, 1941, showing that the German Embassy’s diplomatic pouches were being used to inflame the minds of the children with Nazi propaganda. At that time Judge Seghesso Flores, at Parana, caused the arrest of an army officer and five priests engaged in subversive activities. He was on the right track, but by now he has probably lost his job for being a real Argentine, and exposing the conspirators.
This expose of the troublemakers was followed thirteen months later by another report of which the New York Times of October 23, 1942, had this to say:
It calls attention to pro-totalitarian activities pursued by the clergy of various denominations but especially by Catholic priests in the Territory of Misiones. There the most important German colony in Argentina is situated.
Especially in Misiones some priests, “violating the specific mandates of their ministry, try to direct the consciences of their flocks toward political concepts incompatible with the democratic sentiments of the Argentine faithful or create a state of confusion and uncertainty favorable to the assimilation of anti-democratic ideas,” the report says.
The names of several allegedly pro-totalitarian priests are given, with samples of their activities. . . . The report also mentions various publications of totalitarian tendencies printed or financed by religious institutions. Not all German priests share such ideas, however, as is shown by the fact that several who refused to participate in anti-democratic activities have been “molested and persecuted”.
In an address in Chicago, Bishop Miguel de Andrea, of Buenos Aires, said, “There is no doctrine which defends liberty more unyieldingly than Catholic teaching.” What he meant by that was
OCTOBER 27, 1M3
1 « clear a few months later when he and others urged that there should be no more teaching by Protestant missionaries anywhere in South America.' In other words, like all members of the Hierarchy, he wants liberty for Catholics but no liberty for anybody else. Maybe he doesn’t know that his fellow Catholic, “Reverend Father” Harney, has publicly declared that if the Catholic church in the United States had the power it would murder those that exercise their liberty to teach God’s Word.
The Reward of Guinazu
The Hierarchy is always ready to reward its pinhead politicians. One of these, in 1942, was the then president, Castillo, a mere tool of the Hierarchy, and his foreign minister, Ruiz Guinazu, now Argentina’s minister to the Vatican, was another of the same stripe. Waldo Frank, an American writer and lecturer familiar with Argentinean affairs, had gone to Argentina to deliver a series of lectures at various universities and cultural societies. The series was under way when Frank used his liberty to say to the press that all over the country he found “confusion, discontent and discouragement not far from consternation” over Guinazu’s and Castillo’s handling of the country’s foreign affairs. He was called upon by six thugs falsely claiming to be .detectives. When his back was turned one of these men struck him on the head with the butt of a revolver, nearly killing him. Meantime Guinazu’s foreign office had declared him persona non grata (after lecturing eleven weeks to the country’s most enlightened classes).
Castillo lost his job by a revolt of the army which, as one of its first acts, forbade the use of secret code in wireless messages to and from Argentina. The first message to come through in code was from the pope, and the new rules- let it come through anyway “as a special exception and as a mark of deference to the Holy See”. What seest thou? . r
The Business of Government
The Constitution of Argentina is closely modeled after that of the United .States, as is apparent at once from its preamble:
We, the representatives of the people of * the Argentine Nation, in General Constituent 4 Congress assembled by the will and election of the Provinces composing said Nation, in fulfillment of existing covenants, fo ■ the purpose of establishing national unity, ensuring justice, consolidating domestic peace, providing for the common defense, promoting general welfare, and securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves, our posterity, and to all people in the world who may wish to inhabit the Argentine soil; invoking the protection of God, the source of all reason and justice, ordain, decree, and set up this Constitution for the'Argentine Nation.
The president must be a Roman Catholic; he is elected for six years; he may not be re-elected. The senate is of 30 members elected by the provincial legislatures. There are 158 deputies in the House. The provinces have their own constitutions, as do the various American states. In the year 1933 the country was so thoroughly under the control of the 2,000 families that own everything that the Manchester Guardian described it as being then “a land of almost feudal aristocracy”. Readers of this magazine know that such is the objective of the Roman Hierarchy in every land that comes under its control.
Mr. White, the New York Times eorre-"spondent heretofore several times mentioned in this article, believes that the Argentine masses are liberty-loving; and there can be no doubt of it when one considers their educational achievements, but, as a review of his book put it: '
A nation-wide electoral machine surpassing in efficiency anything the American big cities and States have known has taken back political fiower from the masses, after a too brief enjoyment of it under the Irigoyen and Ortiz regimes. The limited number of land owners and capitalists that make up the Argentine oligarchy have taken over the direction of 8
national affairs by manipulating what ■ constitutes at the same time the strength and the weakness of the Argentine people, as Dictator Rosas once did, by calling themselves the champions of Argentine sovereignty.
In other words, a big and powerful holdup man meets a timid soul on the street, takes everything from him except his BVD’s, and then reassures him by telling him, “Now don’t be afraid; I am here as your protector. As long as I am around, nothing can happen to you. You are perfectly safe.” Such has been done elsewhere than in Argentina. Ask the Teapot Dome gang if it isn’t so.
"Colliers” Goes After the Gang
In his story on “Argentina—Axis Crateway”, published in Colliers of April 18, 1942, Frank Gervasi goes after the Castfilo crowd of grafters that followed the noble and able Ortiz when, on account of sickness and blindness, the latter was forced to have his vice-president take up his duties. A few of Gervasi’s paragraphs follow:
Here corruption is a craft. An honest election in Argentina is unknown. In August 1940, the Minister of War was implicated in a huge land fraud. In the elections the year before, the Conservatives stuffed the ballot boxes in the populous Catanarea Province so flagrantly that Radical President Ortiz was obliged to declare the voting invalid. ■
Castillo is the godhead of the Conservatives. The Conservative party is the party of the 2,000 families who own all of Argentina, her broad corn and cotton lands, her forests of quebracho, her mills and mines. These 2,000 families rule a prodigiously rich country that is more than a third the size of the United States. They boss Argentina’s 13,000,000 people.
This, because the common people of Argentina, like common people everywhere, are decent and. hard-working, and fundamentally believe in the same principles that resulted in the Bill of Rights in the United States. But the people are not sovereign in Argentina. Their votes are stolen. Their press is silenced by martial law arbitrarily imposed by Senor
Castillo. . . . Castillo—pious, glacially conservative and essentially pro-Fascist. ’
From Buenos Aires, you can send cables and radiograms and you can telephone any Axis or Axis-controlled capital in the worlds ... The Axis agents in Argentina are more numerous, better organized and more influential than in any other Latin-American country. They are ably led and have plenty' of money.
Enemy agents operating in the Argentine capital don’t even have to communicate directly with Berlin, They can wireless, cable or telephone to Madrid or Vichy, from where their dispatches can be readily sent on to Axis capitals. In the other direction, the fifth column in Argentina receives its orders and instructions.
Argentina, as a neutral, is able to sell meat and wheat to starving Spain, for instance, but these food supplies seldom or never go to Spain at all, but to Germany and Italy. On the ships that ply between Buenos Aires and Spanish ports, moreover, travel the reinforcements for the Axis fifth column in Argentina.
Mr. Gervasi shows how easy it is to sink*ships. Here is how:
A ship sails from, say, Rio de Janeiro. Enemy agents transmit 'this information to Buenos Aires. That part is easy. There are at least fifteen high-powered clandestine Axis radio stations operating at strategic points on the continent. The German Embassy receives the information and transmits it, in code, to Berlin. There the High Command communicates the message to a raider or a submarine. The ship that sailed from Rio is sunk. '
Common People Are for Liberty
All writers on the subject are in agreement that the common people of Argentina want liberty and their real sympathies are with the democracies. Some of the evidences are that in San Juan province the women vote. When the “pious” Castillo (known to his countrymen as El Zorro, the fox) took away their liberties in December, 1941, by proclaiming the country in a state of siege, Ray Josephs, PM correspondent in. Buenos Aires, said of the common people:
OCTOBER 27, 1943
They are frankly nervous, jumpy and fearful that the step by which rights guaranteed under Argentina’s U. S.-patterned Constitution were suspended indefinitely is only the first move in a suspiciously rightist direction.
Arnaldo Cortesi, another of the New York Times’ correspondents in Buenos Aires (probably the successor of Mr. White, who was there in that capacity for 25 years), said, in April, 1942:
The people of Argentina, taken as a whole, repudiate totalitarian ideas as wholeheartedly as any other South Americans. They are just as firmly attached to their democratic form of government too, imperfect though it may be.
Four months later, Rodoffo Piria, special correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, quoted an Argentine traveler as saying to him that President Castillo’s Fascist or Nazi stand had doubly cheated himself and his fellow countrymen; that by his course they had lost old friendships and .not even won the respect of Germany, which continued to sink Argentine ships.
Mr. Cortesi, above mentioned, reported that in September, 1942, the national committee of the Radical (liberal) party had decided by a vote of 20 to 1 to demand an immediate rupture with the totalitarian powers.
That champions of liberty are appreciated was shown at the time of the funeral (in 1933) of former President Hipolito Irigoyen. Fifty thousand persons came from the interior on seven special trains to show their appreciation of this man, the founder of the Radical party, who had devoted sixty years to fighting for the. people, and that meant fighting against the wealthy and conservative land owners. At the cemetery fifteen funeral orations were delivered; the newsboys of the city had a huge floral piece, and every liberal organization in the country stent a delegation.
Castillo’s Downfall
President Roberto M. Ortiz was a liberal, greatly admired by the Argentines. When he became ill he saw right
9
away that the acting president, Ramon Castillo, was a mere tool of the enemies of the people. He wanted to get well so that he could oust him from his post; but it was not to be. Ortiz had to go on and . die. But he made no secret of the fact t that he disapproved Castillo’s tyrannical * acts, one of which was the forbidding of any public discussion of foreign affairs. The widely circulated excuse for this was that Argentina wished to show an in. variable adherence to the principles of international law. Well, if international law is such, a frail thing that one can’t open one’s mouth to talk about the foreign policy of one’s home government, then it needs to be washed in soap and hot water and hung out to dry.
Large Nazi influence in Castillo’s time in office was seen in the fact that during that time something like 198 of the 1,055 Admiral Graf Spee internees escaped and went back to their work of sinking Allied shipping. Castillo should have prevented that, especially if he was such a stickler for international law.
While Castillo was still in office the New York Times said of him, editorially: The government of President Castillo is a minority regime, suppressing free discussion under a “state of siege”. Its support comes mainly from a comparatively few great land owners friendly to fascist ideas and convinced that a Nazi victory would open a great . market for Argentine products in Europe.
Less than a week later the army overthrew his regime, and after a picturesque attempt for 24 hours to maintain his government aboard a mine sweeper, he surrendered and was sent to his home. One of the first things the new provisional government did was to dismiss six judges and two state prosecutors “marked by public opinion as lacking probity and balance". Castillo could have done that but he is of more service to the public back home keeping the weeds out of his garden than he is trying to be of prominent use to his fellow men.
The Nazi Parly
The German population of Argentina is set at only 236,000 out of a total of 13,518,239. That is less than 2 percent, Much is negligible, if it were not for their training and their connections. But it is claimed that of the 2,470,000 citizens of Buenos Aires, the very hub of the country, 90,000 are active Nazis and each must pay 4 percent to 32 percent of his wages to keep up the Nazi organization, . The party was dissolved by presidential decree June 15, 1939, but was reorganized the next day, under new names, occupying the same offices, having the same membership and the same officers. Every member was registered by name, number and photograph in both Berlin and Buenos Aires. The men were organized into cells of 10 under a cell leader, and the cells were organized into blocks under a block leader. Members had to take an oath to be faithful to a man that no man or no woman can trust, Adolf Hitler. The leaders never ran out of brass. A radio transmission set was-sent through in one of the regular diplomatic pouches.
There is a large Italian population in Argentina, about a quarter of the whole. There has been great economic unrest, due to the war, which has cut off a large part, of the Argentine exports. The Argentines have always been closer to France, culturally, than to Great Britain or'the United States, and the feeling so prevalent in France, that Germany -was bound to win, was sedulously cultivated in Argentina, and hurt the country in the eyes of all the democracies.
Relations with the U.S.A.
The political relations between Argentina and the United States are not good. The way Arnaldo Cortesi, correspondent of the New York Times, put it is' as follows:
If there is anything that is' constant in Argentina’s handling of her foreign affairs, it is her unwillingness to co-operate with the United States.
This unwillingness has been sedulously cultivated by the Vatican, by the Nazis,' and by the Japanese, and it is sustained by the fact that both countries, Argentina and the U. S. A., are great exporters of meats and grains, and so they are natural competitors for European markets.
There are only a few thousand Japanese in Argentina, yet Raymon Lavalie, until recently Argentina consular attache in Tokyo, and who resigned his post in protest of his country’s want of neutrality, made the statement, “The Argentine has been the eyes and ears of the Japanese government in the Western Hemisphere.” One could but wonder why Argentina would be interested in favoring Japan at the expense of the United , States. But to those who see the Roman Hierarchy’s plan of world-wide dominion, the whole scheme becomes plain. Perhaps former Under-Secretary of State Welles saw something of the real situation when he said that Argentina and Chile, by permitting Axis agents to operate on their soil, were stabbing American nations in the back. Six months later (in April, 1943) Mr. Welles went further, declaring that in 1932 there might have been some just grounds for Argentina to feel resentful over American uses of the United States Marines, but not since the “Good Neighbor” policy was inaugurated ten years ago. Now, said Mr. Welles:
Every Marine has been withdrawn; all fiscal supervision in other American countries has been eliminated; every treaty by which the United States was granted the right to intervene in other republics of this hemisphere for whatever purpose has been abrogated.
Mr. Welles is sore; no doubt about that. He says that because of her shielding the Axis powers in this hemisphere, Argentina will not be invited to any postwar planning conferences and will not have anything to say about the peace. It must be admitted that three American newspapermen, Frank Breese, Waldo Frank and Julius Strupp, have been cruelly and maliciously beaten up by gangs who must have had political OCTOBER 27,1943
motives, since these men were not robbed. No other nationalities have been thus singled out for cowardly assaults. After Frank was beaten up he said with a good degree of nobility,
I do not blame the Argentine people for what has happened, but rather the poison from foreign ideas brought into the country from abroad. .
There is no doubt that Castillo, the vice-president who was catapulted into the presidency by the illness of Ortiz, believed that Hitler would win, and so did his foreign minister Guinazu, and they both worked to that end, yet Castillo told the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce that he thought 85 percent of the Argentines were favorable to the cause of the United States and the United Nations in the war.
Possibly stirred by the fact that the United States is arming all her South American neighbors, and that she herself is being denied such arms in a time when they are in special demand, Argentina has granted the United States the right to consider itself a nonbelligerent. Its warships may therefore stay in Argentine ports as long as they wish. Also, a Brazilian paper noted, with some apparent jealousy, that Argentina had been sent thirty-six tons of oil-well machinery whereas such machinery 'had been denied to Brazil. '
Those engaged in the ancient and more or less honorable business of twisting the British lion’s tail have hinted that British money and British politicians are not sorry when Argentina gets mad at Uncle Sam, because it was British money mostly that developed the country, its railroads and its packing industries. But there is another angle to that also; for the Argentines are still sore that Britain grabbed their Falkland islands a century ago, and still keeps them. Argentina’s new postage stamps still show the islands as part of their country. Argentina is displeased with both of the Protestant countries named. And the pope is pleased to have it so.
Rebuilding the House That Jack Built
Commercially speaking, the future-makers are at frantic wit’s end when it comes to trying to reconstruct this old world. How to get control • of world economics out of the hands of t the European totalitarians is the problem. Can it be done without hopelessly shattering Europe’s economic structure, upon which 500 million lives precariously hang? To whom shall Europe’s economic order be turned over? Will it slip into the Communists’ hands?
The many “peace plans” and “blueprints for reconstruction” which have been issued in the past few months, all, so far as I am aware, presume the existence of stable and co-operative governments in Europe. When such governments come into being the merits of these proposals may be tested. But before any plans or blueprints can liave a chance Europe will have to recover from an economic prostration and social demoralization such as it has not known since the Thirty Years’ War -—perhaps since the Dark Ages.
So begins a chapter in Hiram Motherwell’s realistic book, The Peace We Fight For. He is quite right in saying that Europe has been plunged right back into the “Holy Roman Empire” Dark Ages where religious Caesars-in-skirts . held her for one thousand long years. They now hope to hold her there for another millennium. The four hundred years of Protestant Reformation it took to deliver Europe from the Papal Dark Ages have been swept violently overboard with blitzkrieg suddenness.
Threatening Chaos
Only fourteen years ago the Roman pope signed his first concordat with a modern dictator, Mussolini, and, by thereupon superimposing the Roman religious system upon that nation, plunged Italy the first of all into the frightful night of the religious “new order”. A quick survey of conditions in Europe shows how rapidly and completely the rest of the nations followed, and provokes a thinking person to wonder if she could be rescued a second time, if God should permit the time, within a thousand years.
In the first place European economics have been taken over and transformed into the most extraordinary system the Devil ever put together. Europe’s industry is one huge streamlined war machine; and not only must that war machine be taken out of the hands of its totalitarian masters if the earth is to relax from a reign of terror, but European economics must be taken out of the hands of the totalitarians without virtually sacrificing the lives of 500 million people. Let European industry be effectively disorganized by a United Nations victory, for example, and the entire continent may well be plunged into stark famine, disorder, chaos, and the maddest uproar the world has ever seen.
This situation results from the unique construction of the “new order” industrial system. To secure the economic subjugation of Germany and adjacent conquered countries, the totalitarians first secured control over all heavy industries, such as the iron, steel, metal, chemical, coal-mining and oil industries. These were then scattered strategically throughout the whole of Europe, and the peoples everywhere were put to work in them, producing, not the peacetime commodities of civilian life, but the machinery of war. Besides countless women and children, it is reckoned that some 75 million men are hard at work in Europe’s war industry, while another 25 million are in the armed forces. Thus, while Europe’s entire heavy industry has been turned into the world’s most formidable war machine, every ounce of her manpower has been put to feeding that machine.
Now while all heavy industry has been petted and expanded and employed as a monstrous Frankenstein to regiment and enslave the whole populations, on
CONSOLATION
the other hand the consumption'goods industries, that is, the industries that produce goods consumed in everyday life, such as food, clothing and shelter, have been treated differently. In conquered countries the consumption goods industries were often simply closed down, as in the case of Poland’s textile factories. Damaged or destroyed factories were not restored or rebuilt, but were scrapped and junked for war material. What consumption goods industries were left were nearly all concentrated within Germany, so as to give that nation control over Europe’s supply of whatever everyday necessities the people were to have. Note that while the heavy, war-producing industries were decentralized throughout the continent, the consumption goods industries were centralized so far as possible within Germany.
Millions Thrown Out of Work
That means that with the end of war and the closing of the war factories practically all industry over the whole continent will come to a standstill, 75 million men will be suddenly thrown out of work, and if the armies are demobilized that will make 100 million men, 20 percent of Europe’s total population, with nothing to do, with the only useful industries concentrated in Germany, and with no one to look to for the absolute necessities of life but Germany or the world outside of Europe. Imagine feed-‘ ing, clothing and sheltering 500 million people scattered over the continent of Europe until they can beat their swords into plowshares 1 In this age of extreme mechanization a war industry cannot be converted into a peace industry before a man starves to death.
So what will those 100 million heads of the families of Europe do on armistice day?
This is one approach to the problem. Another picture, no less frightening, will be the confusion over ownership. Everything in Europe has been taken away OCTOBER 27, 1943 from the people and now rests in the hands of a tiny group of men. Even if all the property could be taken successfully out of the hands of the totalitarian few, how is it going to be returned to its rightful owners ? Who are the rightful owners? will be the question. When half a billion people present claims for lost property all at once, the future-makers’ hair will turn gray overnight. That is, if the postwar reconstructors ever get around to setting up a board to determine who used to own everything in a whole continent, with the hope of returning all that property to its rightful owners, who will also, no doubt, demand indemnities!
Some idea of the situation can be visualized by a bird’s-eye view of the land problem. Let us look only at little Czechoslovakia. Once upon a time this unfortunate country had but three owners: one third of it belonged to German-Bohemian landlords; one third to the Roman Catholic religious system; and the other third to the common people. But at the time Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister, handed that country over to the Nazi, the Czech government was engaged in a progressive agrarian reform, having taken more than half of the tremendous estates from the reiigio-feudal lords and divided them up between a million tenant farmers, with enough land still left to change thousands of paupers into farmers. But before land grants could be given to some 300,000 other small- and middle-class farmers, Hitler, Baron von Neurath and Heydrich, by a wave of the hand from Chamberlain, stepped upon the scene. By January 18, 1939, Goebbels was able to cheer up the “sorrowing heart” at Vatican City by informing the world that work had begun "to repair the damage caused by the Czechosiovakian agrarian reform. When the question of ownership has been definitely established, all the land expropriated by the notorious Czech reform will be returned to their former German owners”.
Question for future settlement is: Who are the rightful owners, the clerico-feudal lords or the Czech peasants! * Where is the man on this earth that can satisfactorily settle that question!
But if it had to be answered for little t Czechoslovakia alone, the problem of * postwar reconstruction would be simple indeed. “Who owns what on Armistice Day will be a major and almost universal preoccupation in Europe. The attempt ■to settle upon an answer will agitate the entire business of reconstruction/' continues Mr. Motherwell, “The Nazi New Order has so scrambled and obfuscated property rights in Europe that even the simplest land title may come into question.”
On top of that he points out another headache:
Generally speaking, Europe’s postwar financial structure simply won’t exist. Farmers and merchants will have no real savings to deposit with commercial banks because the * only thing these men will have been able to save is their skins. And the banks will have nobody to loan to because business faces customers without purchasing power. Bank “reserves” will consist of paper deposited in Berlin, redeemable when and as the Nazi armies shall have conquered the earth. Those who undertake to reconstruct Europe’s financial system will have to start pretty much from scratch. For some months after Armistice Day Europe will be, financially speaking, back in the Middle Ages.
Again he reminds us that Europe is back in her “Holy Roman Empire” days 1 Though Mr. Motherwell leaves her there for only “some months”, yet that is quite logical too, because the All-wise Author himself has allotted the totalitarian “new order” not another thousand years, but “one hour”, to stay here.—Revelation 17:12.
So, with Roosevelt and Churchill still sticking by their Atlantic Charter guarantee of a fair deal to all and pushing the war to an “unconditional surrender”, the overthrow of the Vatican-Fascist system will leave Europe suddenly not knowing what to use for money, as the , only money she has is totally and deliberately artificial, nothing bat banknotes manufactured by the barrel in Berlin. Europe will have no consumer’s business ; as all forms of consumption goods industries except perhaps the fishing canneries have been eliminated to the bone or centralized in Germany, while the only heavy industries running on the continent are war industries.
No Money, No Market .
Nor will she have a market; for without money to buy, without consumption goods industries to produce, without banks with real money to lend and all the gold buried in Kentucky, what can Europe buy! And certainly she will have nothing to sell!
On armistice day Europe will not even have a means of social adjustment: will tenants be able to share-crop with farmers who may not be able ever to settle the ownership of their farms ? will industrial employees, 75 or 100 million of them, freshly turned out of war factories and armies, find anyone who can hire their labor? and who will the professional workers, who depend upon the general prosperity at all times, have to depend on? and the shopkeepers and artisans, who must have stable prices and rapid turnovers before they can exist? and as for the clerical workers, if they can find jobs at all they will be desperately fearful of rising prices, for theirs are always the last salaries to be raised to meet inflationary skyrockets.
All these shadowy, conflicting class interests add up to an unparalleled situation in a country uneducated to meet class problems in the manner Americans would meet them. Shattered, impoverished, demoralized; with millions of dead, tens of millions of maimed and diseased, hundreds of millions of critically undernourished; as well as exiled, deported, homeless, embittered, hopeless,
what peace of heart will the peoples of Europe find on armistice day?
For the question still remains, Who shall rule them? Shall Germany? Or shall Germany herself, the largest nation on the continent, he divided up among other countries? Leave Germany intact and her 80 million population makes her the strongest country in Europe. Whack her up among others and her people can he relied upon to turn bitter agitators against the usurpers of their nationality, plunging the continent ultimately into an even more indescribable nightmare.
Must some European peoples be jumbled together into a set of “new" nations to form “buffer" states between Europe and Russia? If so, then there will be the Polish-Ukrainian and Balkan volcanoes exploding all over again,
Vnable to Govern
While now whole nations like the Greeks, Poles and Serbs are being exterminated systematically; while civil war is rife in Yugoslavia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania and Ruthenian Poland; while Rumania and-Bulgaria are kept from each other’s throats only by Hitler’s whiplash, suddenly let all these countries be turned free of the totalitarian’s grasp, will each go back to its desired form of government? Will it all be as simple as that ? Can Hungarians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Poles, Slovaks and others, freshly emerged from starvation, terror, dislocation, deportation, slavery, disease, famine, and immediately faced with the prospects of freedom, wholesale unemployment, breakdown of the technical, industrial and transportation systems of a whole continent,—can they be expected to muster the self-perseverance and presence of mind to choose and form a government for themselves and adjust themselves in a new world?
In the first place, the countries of eastern Europe wouldn’t know how to govern themselves. Read a book like Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Gray Falcon and see why such countries, the
OCTOBER 27, 1943
Hungarians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Slovaks and the like, never had a national aristocracy, a national monarchy, much less a national democracy; they never had a national religion, national courts, national laws, a national culture or literature or an urban middle class. Until the most recent years many of them did not have even what could be called a national language. Tn other words, these countries of the whole Eastern Europe never have been real nations at all. They have existed simply as various regions of peasants who have been divided and re-divided among bigger empires, such as the ITapsburgs’ Austrian Empire. And now, are all these countries-without-a-heritage to be recast into a “new" Austrian Empire under His Majesty, Otto Hapsburg?
At any rate, a recent magazine writer decided, there are two countries in all this unhappy realm of eastern Europe with enough past experience at selfgovernment to hope to rule themselves in the future, if they get the chance. These two are Czechoslovakia and Hungary. But as for Hungary, an authoritative and liberal Hungarian personally wonders w’hat kind of government can be expected of his people, “a country where such few and restricted civil liberties as existed before World War I were done away with' twenty-five years ago and have never been restored I’’— The Hungarian Problem, by Rustem Vambery.
This is but a skin-deep survey of conditions that face all future-makers who undertake to remake this old world, the job that must begin -with the right and just reconstruction of Europe. What can quench the earth’s anguish and hate, and bring peace of mind and heart to the people of this tortured world? For the typical answer we glance again into Mr. Motherwell’s otherwise excellent book, The Peace We Fight For:
Yet it seems to me that this will be the peculiar mission of the churches. Surely never
f 15
before has it been more necessary for the salvation of man here below that divine authority should proclaim in words of steel: ’ _ “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord.”
Vengeance indeed is God’s, and He Ft will take it in wisdom and justice. 4 Though certainly not through religion and religious men who, posing as Christ’s humble followers, foisted the totalitarian system upon the world and brought about this most frightful reign of violence in man's history. Having brought forth its harvest, religion has nothing more to offer the people but its “new world order founded on religion’s moral principles”, which already prevails in Rurope. Religion can only hope to maintain things as they already are, except to make the people even more religious and thereby extend religious totalitarianism even farther. No human has yet ’ brought forth or yet will bring forth the just and right solution for a righteous new world. For this job religious men, ■more than all others, have no vision: “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.”—Micah 3: 6.
Religion Has Nothing to Offer
All along, religious clergymen have claimed that they are God’s channels of communication and that God answers mankind through the medium of the . clergy, and their mouths have been open presumably to give the message from God. But now let all attend to the predictions and divinations of the “prophets” concerning world domination by a “new world order” or a “new League of Nations”, to see if one single divination, prediction or promise comes true. For there is a God who “frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish”, and these are the days when He gives them that misrepresent Him reason to “all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God”.—Isaiah 44:25; Micah 3:7.
Indeed, not only has the sun gone down upon religion’s world and her prophets, but as soon as religionists have fully exposed themselves by crying “Peace and safety” in a world where there will be none, Jktiovah, a God whom religionists know" not, is going to put a very strange end to it all.—Marley Cole, Tennessee.
Requisitioning Norwegian Food
♦ The news from Norway (furnished by the government in exile) is that one-third of the potato crop would have to go to Germany, along with 1,250 tons of apples, which is about a third of that crop also. The entire output of preserves put up in factories was requisitioned, and a portion of all private preserves as well. This is the same plan as that employed in the requisitioning of woolen blankets. 2,800 tons of hay were requisitioned frorp Redmark province;.
The requisitioning of food for the body is accompanied by requisitioning of food for the mind. The Norwegians have a meeting for any purpose, entertainment, movies, lecture or what not. Once the people are seated the exits are locked and a Nazi speaker proceeds to lecture them, telling them what’s what. This has been done in America. Public-spirited citizens have rebelled against a political ring and had their own mass meetings taken over bodily by “regular” politicians or employers or labor organizers. But it is a dirty piece of business, and cowardly.
Motorcars Are Non essential in Britain ♦ The British police have halted all nonessential motorcar driving for the duration of the war. The statement as wirelessed to the New York Times is that “only doctors, midwives, nurses, commercial travelers and others on necessary errands will hereafter be allowed on the streets and highways in automobiles”.
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Basis for Man’s Resurrection
THE resurrected Son of God is “the first begotten of the dead”. (Revelation 1: 5) All other Biblical cases where humans came to life from the death state were merely a reviving of such dead ones to a temporary existence thereafter in the flesh, ending up in their return into death and in the dissolution of the human body. That Christ Jesus was resurrected to endless immortal life in the spirit is proved by the miraculous view of the heavenly glory of the Lord given to Paul years after His resurrection.
As Paul, being then .known as Saul of Tarsus, was journeying to Damascus to push the persecution against the Christians there, suddenly a light from heaven shone about him. In the vision then given him he did not see the body of Jesus, but only the light from His glorious body. He heard a voice saying to him: “I am Jesus whom thou perse-cutest.” So brilliant was this light that for three days Saul was blind. Then the Lord performed a miracle by removing his blindness. “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.” (Acts 9:1-19) The apostle Paul, afterward relating this incident, speaks of himself as though he had then been prematurely born or resurrected from the dead ^to life in the spirit, saying: “And last of all he [the resurrected Christ Jesus] was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”—1 Corinthians 15:8.
Here we have a little suggestion of what the glorious body of that immortal Spirit, Christ Jesus, is. This instance and the other recorded cases of Christ’s
OCTOBER 27, 1943 resurrection appearances to His disciples show that the bodies in which Jesus appeared during the forty days after His resurrection were neither the body that was nailed to the tree nor His glorious spiritual body, but bodies created expressly for the purpose of appearing to His disciples without blinding or otherwise injuring them. The entombed body of Christ Jesus was removed from the sepulcher by the power of God, whither, no one knows. Had it remained on display in the tomb it would have been an obstacle in the way of the faith of His disciples, who were not yet instructed in spiritual things. They were not thus instructed until the giving of the holy spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, fifty days later. The Scriptures do not reveal what became of that body, except that it did not decay or corrupt. (Acts 2:27,31; Psalm 16:10) Christ Jesus being resurrected to life immortal, in the “express image” of His Father’s person, we are sure that no man could look upon Him and live. (See Exodus 33:20.) Christ Jesus the Lord in heaven is a glorious person, and no human eye has ever seen Him as such, except for the vision of His glory miraculously given to Saul of Tarsus. ’
The purpose of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, when understood, is further proof that He was raised an immortal spirit. As explained previously in these columns, the ransom for humankind had to be provided by a perfect human creature’s going into death sacrifieially. This ransom price, namely, the value of the perfect human life, must be presented in heaven itself as a sin-offering on behalf of mankind. Unless this was done, the ransom would be of no avail and there would be no purchase of the human race from death and its results. The apostle Paul plainly states that Christ Jesus has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, (Hebrews 9: 24) He is now a great high priest who passed into the heavens, becoming the high priest on behalf of those 17
who come to God through Him. (Hebrews 4:14-16) On the ancient Jewish typical atonement day, God each year caused a prophetic picture to be made of the sin-offering by the Jewish high priest. His appearing in the. Most Holy of the tabernacle or temple and there | sprinkling the blood of the sacrificial victims upon the mercy seat was a type of Christ Jesils appearing in heaven itself, presenting the merit of His human sacrifice as a great sin-offering. This would have been impossible had not Jesus been resurrected a spirit person after His death as the sin-offering.
Afterward Jesus Christ gave to the apostle John a revelation by His angel, which is recorded in the book of Revelation. In it the resurrected Christ said: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” (Revelation 1: 1.8) “Hell” means the tomb, the grave, the condition of death into -which Christ Jesus himself went and continued for three days. Heath is the great enemy, and in due time the Lord Jesus Christ will abolish or destroy death and the grave by His Kingdom.
As each person comes to a knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and understands and appreciates the purpose, his heart is made glad. After the Lord has finished the selection of the members of His body, which is called “the church”, then His merit or ransom sacrifice will be made available on behalf of those of humankind who shall gain life on the earth under the Kingdom. (Colossians 1:18) The Scriptures conclusively establish the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
In Paul’s day there were some who denied the resurrection, even as it has been ever since. To meet their argument Paul wrote: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you ihat there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, 18 then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we arc of all men most miserable. But now' is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down al] rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death/’^l Corinthians 15:12-26.
Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension on high, all believing and obedient human creatures are guaranteed one full, fair opportunity to obtain everlasting life. God had made this provision and given this guarantee, as the apostle Paul states: “Because he [God] hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17: 31) In that great day the Lord Christ Jesus will fulfill His own words: “Marvel not at this: for the hour co meth, in which all that , are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.” —John 5:28,29, Am. Rev. Ver.
Gilead Opens .Second College Year
NO, ONE doesn’t have to go to a college or a seminary to be a Christian and a servant and witness of God. This fundamental certainty is held fast by Jehovah’s people at all times. They are .aware that the invitation to 'come, and take of the water of life freely1 is for all, the unlettered and the better-educated being equally welcome. So-called “theological courses” have come to consist chiefly of the traditions and opinions of men, and, instead of making those who take them (even though sincere) believers, produce doubters, if not out-and-out infidels, as far as the Word of God is concerned.
It is otherwise with the Watchtower College of Gilead, where earnest men and women, already fully devoted to God’s service, and engaged in the ministry, may equip themselves for wider fields of service. Such training is entirely in harmony with the letter and the spirit of God’s Word, in which we find mention of schools existing in very ancient times. However, this matter has been covered at some length in an earlier issue of Consolation. Here mention is made of the beginning of another term at Gilead and the words are addressed to the group that is taking up the studies of the second college term, a group consisting of 51 men (two colored) and 49 women, fully devoted to Jehovah God and approved by a record of diligent service.—2 Timothy 4: 5.
Upon completion of the first college term arrangements were set in motion to receive the next student body in the first week in September. The instructors were busy revising and improving the courses. One of them visited leading bookstores in Philadelphia, New York and Boston to purchase various authoritative and rare books of reference to enlarge the college library for Bible research. Another instructor Ijad interviews with several professors at the University of Michigan, where there is an OCTOBER 27, 1043
important collection of Bible manuscripts. Others were busy collecting and assembling material for new textbooks.
Theocratic College
Gilead being a Theocratic college, textbooks for a number of courses could not be supplied from institutions of the “old world”. New World textbooks were prepared, to be used in connection with the key textbooks: the Bible and “The Truth Shall Make You Free”.
Arrangements were made to introduce a new course for the second college term, to be entitled “Bible Themes”, a course of interpretative Bible study bringing out the thirty chief themes of the Scriptures: “Jehovah,” “Jesus,” “The Kingdom,” “Satan,” “Sin,” “The Holy Spirit,” “The Issue,” “The Lord’s Coming to the Temple,” “Covenants,” “The Body of Christ,” “Prayer,” “Consecration,” “Resurrection,” “Ransom,” “Christian Conduct,” etc. “Bible Themes” brings the number of subjects based on the Scriptures to six, the remaining three subjects dealing with languages and mathematics. The six subjects using the Lord’s Word as authority and an auxiliary textbook are “Bible Research”, “Bible Public Speaking,” “Bible Themes,” “Theocratic Field Ministry,” “Supreme Law,” and “Applied Missionary Service”.
Mention has been made of the textbook “The Truth Shall Make You Free”, released at the marvelous “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly, held by Jehovah’s witnesses in over 100 cities on August 20-22 of this year. The book now used by the college students at Gilead was likewise made available to other earnest' searchers of the Scriptures. Stressing education for freedom, as did the Assembly itself, the book presents old and familiar truths in a new and striking setting and introduces new and refreshing arguments in support of fundamentals. This scholarly publication, manifesting evidence of years of diligent
Bible research, becomes a very important part of the training given at Gilead. Other publications, such as Freedom of . Worship, released at the aforementioned Assembly are likewise made part of the course. The course in "Supreme Law” stresses the importance of “Freedom of | Worship” and takes up the Theocratic laws recorded in the Scriptures. The . course of instruction given at Gilead, therefore, definitely ‘ties in’ with the “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly, Students already acclimated to the Scriptural principle of Freedom will be further equipped to bear the message and spirit of freedom to others, bringing solace and courage to all who will hear.
All things, then, were in readiness for the new student body. September 2 was z the first registration day, and the candidates for instruction began to arrive. By Sunday evening (September 5) the full number of one hundred had come in, had bfeen assigned to their rooms in the dormitories, and had done a little looking about. Gilead exceeded their expectations, by far. Somehow verbal and even photographic pictures had failed of showing the reality. Yet some had formed a mental picture that enabled them to echo the following letter received from one who is present in spirit though absent in b»dy, and who voiced her appreciation as follows:
Jehovah, our heavenly Father, has given me a beautiful picture of what is happening at Gilead. I want to express my happiness at information given in the July 15 Watchtower, “Gilead Graduates First Class of Students,” etc. It brought me into such close harmony; I was sitting among-you in class, out doing chores; and in the field service. Though many of us cannot actually be at Gilead, we are sharing the joy and blessing with you for having this wonderful privilege in advancing the Theocratic government. Those who oppose, because they cannot take part likewise, should read Matthew 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me seattereth abroad.”—United in The Theocratic Government, Olga Hostel.
The Opening Day
6ame the opening day, Monday, September 6, At eight o’clock all the students, the instructors, members of the “Farm family” and visitors were assembled to hear the opening address by the president, N. H. Knorr.- We cannot do better than, to insert here some of his remarks, which only added to the eagerness of the students to do their best and inspired all present to an appreciation of further Theocratic privileges of service. The president said in part:
This is a day that you students have been looking forward to-—the day when you start a course of study that.will prepare you for greater service somewhere in the Lord’s organization. . . . AU great educators of the world are worried about the future and how they will find among the people of the world competent persons to instruct the younger generation. There really is a dearth of teachers now, and probably it will be worse in' the future.
With the Lord’s organization it is different. We find more instructors daily, because the "other sheep” are coming into the Lord’s organization and they in turn study for one purpose: that they might have the opportunity of comforting more people of goodwill, so that they too may learn the truth.
“Global Education"
Today the great educators are planning on a system of global education. If this is ever put into operation—and very likely it will be—it will mean that old ideas, traditions of men, will be taught the people. Educators of the world have rejected the Bible. They do not use it. .
Man does not appreciate that he is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. He thinks he is smart and intelligent, making great strides in human advancement and multiplying inventions and discoveries in science; but people keep right on dying. As long as sin governs they ean never improve. As long as they are under the rule of the Devil they will never be free. And as long as they follow religion, which the Devil has introduced, they will not be free. The only free people in the world today are those who recognize1 Jehovah as God, have faith in the Bible as His Word, and preach it, having come away from the world. Such are in the world, but not part of it.
You, in time, will be educators. You will go to lands far from here, if it be the Lord’s will. Religion keeps the people in ignorance, but the truth shall make them free. We have this truth and are anxious to see that it is sent far and wide, to all corners of the earth.
Tips college, Gilead, is not dependent on any worldly educators. It is not dependent on instructors that have gone through some universities and have "higher learning”. The instructors in this organization are people just like you students: full-time ministers; men who have proved their devotion to the Lord in times past. They have learned Theocratic instruction. They are Jehovah's witnesses. They are free people. They are not bound by any religious doctrines. The truth is what they want to bring to you. Nowhere in the world could you find instructors that are not bound down by creeds or traditions or by theory. Here in this college we have God’s Word, the truth, and that is what we study.
This group of students is the second class coming to Gilead. I cannot help but think of the first class, because the same conditions were in existence during the last four days as when the college opened. Anxious, smiting, happy, with hearts filled with joy—that is you. You came here not knowing what you would receive in the way of comforts, and that wasn’t of any concern to you; but you 1 came here that you might be better fitted to serve somewhere in the world. Now you are beginning. What you get out,of this course is going to depend upon what you put into it The instructors will do everything they possibly can to help you learn. ... It is going to be hard work. Brethren who were here last year and who had gone through New York University and other universities expressed themselves to the effect that they learned more here in five months than they did in two years at the universities. We made a schedule for them. By the Lord’s grace they kept that schedule and didn't waste time. After the five months are over you will be OCTOBER 27, 1943
glad you put in- every hour of study and concentrated on the class work. If you are going to improve in any field, no matter what course you take up, it requires work; and you will have to work here. . . . What you learn here now will be to your advantage in the many years following Armageddon. What you are going to learn here is the law of God, which is perfect. What you will learn here is lasting. It isn’t something you will discard in years to come. It is light; it is His truth, and it changes not. Therefore, what you will learn here will last you into eternity. . . .
Faith Indispensable
"Faith cometh by hearing.” You will not have faith in God unless you hear His word. Here you will study the Word and learn. You already have that faith; which you have demonstrated by engaging in the work in the field as ministers of the gospel for years. But by further hearing the Word of God and studying it your faith will become firm and grounded. It will become so strong that nothing can shake it, in heaven or earth. No matter what trials come upon you, your faith will be so strong that nothing will ever be able to take it away. Your accepting God’s Word and acting upon that Word proves you have the faith necessary to carry you through even the battle of Armageddon.
You, as students leaving this college, will have to have the same faith as Abraham, the apostles, and all the footstep followers of Christ Jesus, and never for a moment waver, but stand fast "for the freedom you have. We are going ahead soon, throughout all the world, in the education of men of good-will. We have been aiding the people of good-will for some time, but henceforth a greater campaign will go forward. To that end this college is established. You are free men who are not held in bondage to Satan, and you never want to return to the bondage and sin and religion of the Devil's affairs on earth. You have been made free from that and therefore you want to go forward in the free educational campaign so that all the people of good-will can be made free also. All of you were at the “Free Nation’s” Assembly and heard the Declaration adopted there. I want to read it to you again this morning, so that you will have clearly in mind just what it means.
“Jehovah’s witnesses and their companions, being gathered together worldwide in the ‘Free Nation’s’ Theocratic Assembly, do hereby declare;
1 “That Jehovah God by his truth and by * the sacrifice of his beloved Son Christ Jesus has made us free; and that, though in the world, we are not of it, but are of His new world to come;
“That our freedom is not granted for any selfish or lawless purpose, but is that we may fully serve Him and the earthly interests of his kingdom under Christ Jesus;
“That our commission from God ordains us to be his witnesses and ministers of the gospel of his Kingdom; and we must perform our part as such in the educational work which he has decreed must be carried on at the end of the world, where we are now;
“That all ‘men of good-will’, without distinction as to race, creed or color, must be located and prepared for life in the new world; and that the educational work with the Kingdom truth is the most essential instruction to such ones now and in the postwar period, as it makes them ready for life eternal;
“That our work is not subversive of present governments, nor for commercial gain or any selfish purpose or in the interest of any religious sect; but. is for the purpose of spreading good-will among men, and promoting full respect for law, order and righteousness, upon which the permanent freedoms and peace and prosperity of the New World will rest;
“That the textbook of freedom is Jehovah God’s Word, the Bible, and that the truths he has revealed therein by his Son and King at the temple make the people free, without which all freedoms announced by men are passing and illusory;
“That in obedience to our commission we will endeavor now and in the postwar era to extend more widely the. publication of Kingdom truth and to increase the number of free Bible-study classes in the homes of ‘men of good-will’ throughout the earth, using the educational means which the Lord has provided for our use. We are in favor of free education of all ‘men of good-will’ concerning The Theocracy.”
A Great Educational Work
That takes in a lot of work for every one of us, as students of this college. This declaration was accepted by all of the J >ord’s people assembled together in this country and pther countries throughout the world. They have, by adopting this declaration, taken upon themselves a great work of educating the people of good-will, and you students will be an example in the future throughout the whole world of this educational campaign. The Lord’s blessing will go with you. You will be strong in the Lord and rely on His power to protect you. But before you leave there is much work you have to do in preparation, and that is the work that will begin this morning in these classrooms.
a fitting conclusion to this brief article we herewith append a telegram received by the college and students from some of the graduates of the preceding term:
Our hearts, thoughts, prayers, with you as new term opens. Jehovah’s richest blessing upon your effort to increase heap of witness for free nation.—Eagle Pass, Toxas, Gilehditcs.
May Use Paper to Light a Fire
♦ Tn Britain it is lawful to use waste paper to light a fire, but it may not be used for any other matter, and it may not be mixed with refuse. The only waste paper that may be destroyed except for the purpose of building a fire is such as would be included in secret or confidential documents. Britain has figured that in the first year and a half of war half a million tons of paper was lost through being burnt, thrown away or mixed with refuse.
Australia High Court Reinstates Freedom
JUNE 15, 1215, was the. date of the signing of the Magna Charta. That historic document wrested from the tyrannous rule of King John liberty for his oppressed subjects, and laid the foundations of democracy and justice which have since become characteristic of English-speaking governments everywhere. Damned almost at its birth by the bull of an Italian pope, it has nevertheless endured many attacks from those who would seek to deprive men of their God-given liberties. Its influence extends far beyond the bounds of t.hc land that gave it birth. In the “land down under”, Australia, its freedom - guaranteeing principles have been trodden underfoot by intolerant religionists for more than two years, but it has weathered that stormy assault and now once again stands as a bulwark of freedom.
Very fitting indeed was it that on the 728th anniversary of the Magna Charta the news should go forth in the Australian press, and in the press of other lands, that freedom to worship God in Australia had been reinstated. It was on that date (Tuesday, June 15, 1943) that the newspapers published the decision of the High Court of Australia rendered the day previous, and which decision lifted the ban on Jehovah’s witnesses and restored to them full enjoyment of the Magna Charta freedoms. It ended a long period of over two years’ waiting; not anxious waiting, but confident waiting upon Jehovah, the great Judge and Deliverer, to grant the victory that would surely come, as come it did in His own good time. Neither was this period of waiting marked by inactivity on the part of Jehovah’s witnesses.
Facts of the Case
To fully appreciate the High Court’s ruling it will be necessary to review the history of the case. Following Australian entry into the global war, the religionists who honeycomb the government and
OCTOBER 27,1943 hold strategic offices seized the war emergency as a pretext to rid themselves of Jehovah’s faithful witnesses. They instigated the publication of many unfounded allegations against these Christians and brought tremendous pressure to bear against the federal government, to spur it to action against Christ’s followers as similar religious pressure against Pontius Pilate nineteen centuries ago effected the death of Jesus in the flesh. Their religious crusade against Christianity was seemingly victorious when, on January 17,1941, the governorgeneral by an order in council declared to be unlawful those “organizations known as Jehovah’s witnesses or the Witnesses of Jehovah; the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society; the International Bible Students Association; the Adelaide Company of Jehovah’s witnesses; and Consolation Publishing Co.”
Some time previously, four radio stations broadcasting God’s Kingdom message had been put off the air at the request of the navy department because, it was alleged, these stations were passing on information to the enemy. These false, defamatory statements were covertly spread abroad, servile newspapers and Catholic Actionists playing the leading role in inventing such lies. This serious charge was found on investigation to be absolutely without foundation. There were no prosecutions for treason or seditious acts of any kind. And the naval department was agreeable that the radio stations broadcasting the Kingdom message should resume operation without let or hindrance.
At that point, however, the Menzies government ban was clamped down wholesale, and not only the radio but all of the activities of Jehovah’s witnesses were declared illegal. On that fateful day of January 17 the attorney-general issued a direction to take possession of several properties held by Jehovah’s witnesses throughout Australia. Raids
became the order of the day. Books, Bibles, phonographs and recordings were seized everywhere,. The Devil saw . to.it that his dupes spared no effort to halt the proclamation of the Kingdom message. Peaceful, law-abiding citizens ■ were arrested and incarcerated, and | even murder was attempted against
Society representatives!
But with what result? Did the witness work dwindle and die out? No; instead of the proclamation of Jehovah’s new world being arrested, it forged ahead with ever-increasing vigor. The servants of God chose to obey Him rather than men. Though faced with obstacles seefn-ingly insurmountable, the faithful witnesses continued preaching, by God’s grace, and the number of those so engaged skyrocketed far beyond any previous peak of Kingdom publishers. The Satanic blitz failed completely. The Hierarchy’s tools in Australia were jolted out of their complacency and forced to face the fact that the witness work is not of men but of God, that they could not overthrow it. At Armageddon they will realize, too late, that they fight against God.—Acts 5: 38, 39.
Not only did Jehovah’s witnesses defeat persecution by pushing on in the witness work in the field; they also " carried the fight to another front, the legal front. Trusting in the Lord, and undismayed by the august presence and formidable might of the government, they readily took up the gauntlet thrown down and haled the authorities into court to defend their high-handed action in outlawing Christianity. Realizing the far-reaching nature of the decision, whatever it might be, Jehovah’s witnesses launched a test case that would clearly present the issues involved. In this the Adelaide Company of Jehovah’s witnesses Incorporated was selected as plaintiff, not only because they suffered from the general ban but, additionally, they were the owners of the Kingdom Hall that had been seized by direction of the attorney-general, thus furnishing a concrete instance of oppression.
Not Guilty!
The case was heard in Melbourne before Mr. Justice Starke, on November 23-25, 1942. Throughout the hearing Justice Starke’s rulings were fair and reasonable and he was quick to view the evidence in its correct perspective. He readily grasped that the purpose of the witnesses was to advocate a higher, righteous government by God, and he did not hesitate to emphasize this point. While servile newspapers and politicians, anxious to ingratiate themselves in the good graces of the totalitarian Roman Catholic Hierarchy, were very zealpus in circulating slanders and libels against the witnesses, none of them possessed the intestinal fortitude to make specific charges for a public investigation. The “mud-slingers” and smear campaigners did not come forward. No fifth-column activity was even hinted at during the proceedings. After listening to the argument Mr. Justice Starke expressed his conviction “that Jehovah’s witnesses are not engaged in any seditious enterprise nor in the printing or publishing of any seditious words”. The religious falsifiers were squelched!
Justice Starke considered that, while he had his own view as to the. proper verdict, the issue of the validity of the National Security Regulations and the governor-general’s order in council banning Jehovah’s witnesses ought to be decided by the Full High Court. In harmony therewith, he stated a case for that court, comprising six questions.
On some of the questions at issue the learned judges were unanimous, and on others they held differing opinions. Questions involved were whether the declaration of Jehovah’s witnesses to be an unlawful organization within, the meaning of the National Security Regulations was a contravention of Section 116 of the Constitution, and whether the seizure and confiscation of buildings and other property was to be similarly described. ■
Section 1.16 reads:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
The judges found that this section guaranteeing freedom of religion had not been infringed. However, Mr. Justice Williams made a most interesting observation in this connection when he said:
As the religion of Jehovah’s witnesses is a Christian religion, the declaration that the Association is an unlawful body has the effect of making the advocacy of the principles and doctrines of the Christian religion unlawful and every church service held by believers in the birth of Christ an unlawful assembly. Apart from Section 116 such a law could not possibly be justified by the exigencies and course of the war. But it is also prohibited by Section -116,
Although the rest of the court did not hold that Section 116 was the ground for declaring invalid the regulations, nothing in the judgment is inconsistent with this statement of Mr. Justice Williams, and it is fair to assume that the whole court would accept his view. At least Section 116 gives this protection: it forbids outlawing basic Christian beliefs:
“Arbitrary, Capricious and Oppressive”
The judges were unanimous in ruling that in the seizure of the property the attorney-general had exceeded the powers given to him and that the regulations upon which such seizure was based must be held to be invalid. A majority of the court, Justices Rich, Starke and Williams, were of the opinion that the National Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations are beyond the powers conferred by the National Security Act. The entire court was of the opinion that the regulations, as applied to Jehovah’s witnesses, were far too drastic. This fact of itself shows that the judges did not consider that Jehovah’s witnesses were people against whom such action should have been taken. Mr. Justice Starke said:
The regulations are arbitrary, capricious and oppressive. Bodies corporate and incorporate are put out of existence and divested of their rights and their property on the mare declaration of the executive government. The operative clauses of the regulations, such as the provision relating to bank credits, forfeitures and unlawful doctrines, have little, if any, real connection with the defence of the Commonwealth or the efficient prosecution of the war. Accordingly, in my judgment, the regulations are beyond the power conferred upon the governor-general in council by the National Security Act 1939-1940, and even if enacted by the Parliament itself, they would, I think, transcend the powers conferred upon the Parliament by the Constitution.
The learned judge’s comments on the regulations were, to say the least, illuminating. The forthright denunciation by Mr. Justice Starke correctly brands their oppressive nature. By the statement of Mr. Justice Williams, particularly his declaration that the ban makes “the Christian religion unlawful and ■ every church service held by believers in the birth of Christ an unlawful assembly”, the commonwealth government stands convicted of banning Christianity in Australia. If, during the two dark years of the ban’s reign, Christ Jesus ^acl come to the “land down under” and begun preaching the Kingdom truths He would have been apprehended and thrown into jail. And because of such action the religious hypocrites would have rejoiced and felicitated one another, too! (
On with the Fight ,
But now the ban has been lifted. Jehovah’s witnesses in Australia did not slack the hand because of the ban, but surged.aftead with increased zeal in the field witness work. And now Jehovah
God has given them a grand victory on the legal front, at the same time administering a stinging defeat to totalitarian-.minded religionists. The regulations used as an instrument against freedom of worship are now invalid, and truth'* hating religionists that 'frame mischief * by law’ must forge another weapon before they can make another stab at destroying Christ’s followers and their God-directed work. Christians know religionists will persist in their anti-God fight; that when Armageddon strikes they will be in the midst of their all-out assault against The Theocracy. That battle they will not survive. Convinced of this, and that final victory is with Jehovah’s troops, His witnesses march forward in the performance of their divinely assigned work. They will fight for and hold fast to their freedom to worship, because “for freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage”.—Galatians 5:1, A.R. V.
This freedom-restoring decision in Australia, coming as it does in the midst of a global -war fought for the claimed purpose, by the Allies, of setting up the Four Freedoms world-wide, has a salutary effect upon all members of the United Nations. It gives weight and substance to the aims of the Atlantic
Charter, removing them from the realm of mere platitudes to the state of reality. The Christian Century, July 7, 1.943, hails the Australian High Court’s action, saying: _
Democracy is safe in Australia, even under the stress of war. judging from the recent decision of the federal high court (the equivalent of our Supreme Court) that the government’s regulations for the control of “subversive associations” are invalid and that, consequently, the purported permanent dissolution of Jehovah’s witnesses and the seizure of their property by mere administrative fiat are also invalid.
The results of the High Court decision are very tangible to J ehovah’s witnesses. All seized property has been restored, or negotiations for its restoration are well advanced. Large shipments of literature that were confiscated by the government are now’ released and available for use in the work of gospel-preaching. It will now be possible to import literature from the Society’s •headquarters, the only limiting factor being the restricted shipping space. The assembling together of God’s people in Australia is greatly facilitated now, and on July 11 twelve hundred Witnesses assembled in Sydney in the Marrickville Town Halt, the first united meeting in Sydney since the High (Concluded on page 28)
Still Going Strong
A GF is no deterrent w’hen it comes to learning about and serving the kingdom of Almighty God, Jehovah. Her« are presented a few pictures of young “oldsters”, w’ho know what is good, and who are anxious still to do good to others. And, of course, there is nothing better than the excellent knowledge of Jehovah’s purpose of blessing the repentant and obedient, ones of humanity so that they may live upon the earth in perfection and harmony, peace and prosperity, forever. ’But as to the pictures: (1) Gust Berg, 86, and'Kingdom publisher Jane Bourne, 2, listen to some worth-while information via the phonograph at Glidden, Iowa. (2) Second-oldest Kingdom publisher at Bangor, Maine, (over 70) complete with bookbag and phonograph. (3) D. II. Roberts, 82-year-old pioneer witness at Malvern, Ark., who devotes 150 hours a month to Kingdom activity, and does ail his work on foot. (4) Oldest “sheep” found at Yoakum, Texas; 96 years old and still willing to learn. (5) Mr. Lovemoney, and little Beverly Rice, of Gansevoort, N.Y., 85 and 5 years old, are both enthusiastic publishers of the good news of the New World.
Still going strong
(Continued from page 26)
Court victory. At that time the booklet Course in Theocratic Ministry was released, to the delight of all assembled. They are anxious to study and train themselves to efficiently use their newly won freedom. Very appropriately, the booklet Fighting for Liberty on the Home . Front is now being distributed in Australia. ■
And the following cablegram, received by the Society from the Australian Branch servant, will bring a joyous thrill to all of Jehovah’s servants throughout the earth, and particularly those privileged to attend the “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly. It reads: “Eight thousand Australasian freedom-lovers unanimous ‘Free Nation’s’ Assembly most glorious introduction to expanding work of free education. 156 immersed. Minneapolis scripts relayed all conventions by landline from Sydney public lecture from crowded Sydney Town Hall. New releases announced and Declaration adopted amid thunderous applause.” So from this it is seen that many cities of the “land down under” were tied together in the blessed “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly, though it followed by three weeks the one held in this country.
Naturally there is rejoicing among the witnesses everywhere over this signal victory given them by the Lord. They feel it is a triumph for freedom of speech and worship for all, and that, therefore, all liberty-lovers will rejoice in the victory. Jehovah’s witnesses are not gloating over their frustrated opposers. They are aware that such enemies are dupes of the Devil, some possibly even being honest and sincere, who, like Saul of. Tarsus, think that in opposing they are doing God a service. Truly sincere ones shall have their eyes opened in time, arid advocate The Theocratic Government as zealously as they once opposed’ it. For themselves, Jehovah’s witnesses render grateful praise to the Almighty for the victory granted, and will seek to show their gratitude by continued, zealous service to the Most High, Jehovah, the great Liberator and God of freedom. —Psalm 146: 7, Rotherham.
FREEDOM IN THE NEW WORLD i auuumaii . inuiiHim?
& :
Global bondage now mars the peace and freedom of all nations, resulting in sorrow, fear and destruction to the people.
But, shall this continue? '•
Or is there a way of dehverance?
The answer to these questions is indispensable to all lovers of righteousness, “ mainly when there truly is a way of deliverance and a place of existing peace and freedom. Yes, the new 32-page booklet FREEDOM IN THE NEW WORLD will point you to the way and place of lasting peace and freedom I from all terrors now menacing the people in this present world. This is | what you have been wanting; don’t let it pass by. Send now for your copy I and some for your friends. This booklet will be sent postpaid upon a contri- I bution of 5c; or 7 for 25e. I
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WATCHTOWER 117 Adams St Brooklyn 1, N.Y. 1
□ I am enclosing 5c, for jvhieh please send me a copy of Freedom in the New World. □ I am enclosing 25c, for which please send me 7 copies of Freedom in the Few World.
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Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Means of Oral Emphasis
EH0VAH has commissioned His witnesses to preach the good news of the Kingdom. Until very recently this work has been done primarily by word of month, or orally. In the days of Jesus and the apostles the work of bearing witness to the truth was almost entirely oral. They called upon the people at their homes and from house to house and talked the Kingdom message to the people. Good oral delivery was essential to the effective preaching of the gospel by these early Christians whether they spoke to a simple family group or addressed a multitude. There is Scriptural reason to believe these early witnesses were amply qualified and competent to speak the Word effectively and convincingly. . . .
Concerning Jesus it was said, “Never man spake like this man.” (John 7: 46) Attending circumstances and the Master’s choice of words and phrases would strongly argue that this reference to His speech was not merely in recognition of His gracious words, but also the forceful manner in which He spoke. Of the apostles it is written that they spoke with boldness (Acts 4: 31) and that their speech was forceful to the point of swaying multitudes. Jehovah’s witnesses even before the time of Christ recognized the forcefulness of words properly spoken. Jehovah’s faithful servant Job said, “How forcible are right words!” (Job 6: 25) And the wise man Solomon gives this sage counsel, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”—Proverbs 25: 11.
That present-day witnesses of Jehovah have the blessings of the printed page to assist in their Divine commission concerning the ministry is'no argument that they may grow lax and indifferent to their oral presentation of the Kingdom message. Speaking the truth by word of mouth is still the first step in the presentation of the Kingdom message. The
OCTOBER 27, 1943 effectiveness with which this is done often determines the measure of success attending this first contact. Oral emphasis is the backbone of forceful and effective speech; whether this be in conversation with an intimate family group, in study class, or on the public platform; whether it be in reading the words of someone else or delivering your own speech.
What is oral emphasis? Oral emphasis is the art of using the voice so as to focus the listeners’ attention upon the key words or phrases that carry the burden of the thought, and subordinating those words that merely bind together these vital sentence parts. By vocal expression the speaker places the proper values upon the words he is uttering, thus indicating to his hearers the relative weight they should attach to the words he uses. Oral emphasis is the means whereby he makes stand out in bold relief, above the sentence elements of lesser importance, those relied upon to impress and convince and drive home the vitals of his argument.
In conversation one naturally stresses the words or phrases that will bring out the main iclea, and one just as naturally subordinates other words and phrases that carry relatively subordinate value. This is a general rule. It holds true in music as it 'does in the art of painting. When painting a picture the artist doesn’t paint all parts of the picture with colors of the same value. He brings out lights and shades. He has a central subject to which other complementary objects are duly subordinated. So it is in speech. There is always a main idea. Other connectives and modifiers are merely complementary and must be subordinated, otherwise they will detract from the stature of the main thought or central theme.
Thought-analysis must precede effective oral emphasis. You cannot very well emphasize an idea unless you first have ' 29 one. You cannot give importance to a thought unless you first perceive in your mind that the thought is important. This places great stress upon the mind of the individual, and his ability to weigh in his mind the relative importance of ideas. It requires knowledge on the subject in hand. But suppose you have a definite mental picture you wish to convey in oral expression; you must make sure that your voice really expresses the thought as you conceive it. It is therefore necessary to know how to emphasize.
The three principal means used are pause, time, and stress. The element of pause in oral emphasis has reference to the silent space or “gap” between words or phrases. Special attention may be called to a word or phrase by pausing before or after, or both before and after, its utterance. The element of pause has a tendency to lend drama. It is very effective in expressing deep feeling. An example: At John 11: 35 is recorded the shortest verse in the Bible. Its setting is at the death of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. When Jesus arrived at Bethany Lazarus had been dead and had lain in the grave four days. Mary and Martha, grief -stricken and mourning, accompanied Jesus to the burial tomb, jyid in this tragic surrounding, the record says, “Jesus wept.” Now separate these two words by a slight pause and mark the effect. The tragedy at Bethany is thus dramatized.
Emphasis by pause, as anything else, can be overdone, in which case it loses its real effectiveness and causes a delivery to drag.
The element of time in oral emphasis has reference to the amount or length of time one gives a certain word or phrase in relation to the remainder of the sentence. Thus a word or phrase may be given special emphasis by taking relatively more time for its utterance. For one to take the same length of time in speaking each syllable of all words, or a monosyllabic word, would make the speech sound strange indeed, and the idea being expressed would be grasped only with difficulty. No normal person shows such utter lack of discrimination, yet many do not fully exploit the possibilities of emphasis by time. Take relatively more time in speaking the words and phrases that are to be emphasized f expand them, draw them out, dwell upon them. Example: Where such key words as Jehovah Gon, Theocratic Government, etc., occur in a sentence, by the simple expedient of stretching them out relatively longer than the words immediately preceding or following, the effect upon the ear is the same as bold capital letters are upon the eye in reading print. Hence the element of time is as important a means of effecting oral emphasis as. the use of capitalized words and phrases is in gaining emphasis in print.
While the elements of pause and time are important in oral emphasis, the most important and most common method of emphasizing a word is by means of stress. To stress a word one raises the pitch of the voice above the average key, thus exciting special attention to that word. It is a “hitting” of a particular word or phrase, forcibly drawing special notice to it. And though such stress of a word is often accomplished by an increase in the volume of the voice, stress is not to be confused with loudness, or mere noise. It is a significant stress of the voice. Take the simple negative “no”. Begin to sound it several tones above the natural key and slur it to several tones below natural key and the effect will be an emphatic no!
Suppose you wish to stress the contrast between God’s organization and
• Satan’s organization, in the following sentence. "God's organization is diametrically opposed to Satan's organization.” It will be noted in emphasizing “God’s” the voice begins on a higher than r normal- pitch. The same is true of the word “Satan’s”. By thus stressing these two words a clear contrast is drawn.
The extent of this gulf between the two organizations is indicated in the words, “diametrically opposed?’ By applying the element of time rather than stress to “diametrically opposed”, and stretching these two words out, the extent of the gulf is clearly shown by oral emphasis.
Excessive emphasizing is a fault of which some are guilty. Emphasizing too many words in a single sentence introduces too many side-issues and colorings, which have a tendency to take away from the central thought. Put special emphasis on only a few words.
However, above and beyond the mechanics of oral emphasis here considered is the mental understanding and the heart appreciation of Jehovah’s faithful witnesses which makes them .able ministers. It is out of the abundance of the heart, a heart overflowing with joy in ■ Jehovah’s service, that His faithful ministers speak. Thus it is that the word of Jehovah now “fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver”.
. Happened
LAST week a young colored boy who had just secured a Consolation from on,e of the magazine street publishers entered a local furniture store on business, and on leaving he accidentally dropped the magazine. The owner of the business (Jewish) called twice to the boy that he had dropped something, but the voice was evidently not heard. Therefore the gentleman picked up the magazine, remarking at the time that he would save it for the boy’s mother and would give it to her when she came into the store. It was then noticed that the proprietor began reading, and was so interested that he took the Consolation home to read it that night. A day or two later he remarked to an employee that that magazine was a real one, as he had carefully read its contents, and then asked if the employee knew where be could get the following issue; and to which question he received the answer Yes.
To continue the story: It was our privilege and pleasure to have had the opportunity to conduct a Children book study in the home of the father-in-law of this employee for the past five weeks; and so, last night, when relating to us the above incident, he then stated that when his wife had asked him to attend our-first meeting he remarked to her as follows: “To hell with them.” No doubt he thought we were just some more
in Georgia
religionists. However, last night he contributed for the new issue of Consolation, one for himself and one for his employer. Also subscribed for The Watchtower for one year. Bidding us good night on the front porch he said he was really enjoying these studies and would look forward to next Wednesday night’s meeting. Thus the Theocratic message gets to the honest people in an unusual manner at various times.—David J. Richards.
The Judge Took Away Her Child
♦ In a Chicago courtroom Superior Judge Oscar F. Nelson took away the daughter, 8, of Marion Ewing because the mother is one of Jehovah’s witnesses. The judge is reported as asking, “Are you willing to go back to your husband, give up ringing doorbells and preaching your religion and stay home with your daughter?” The answer was, “I would limit myself to a few hours of my spare time.” She was then asked, “If it came to'custody of the child or your religion, what would you do?” The answer was, “I love my child but I’d take my religion.” The man testified that his wife had always been a good mother, but that he wanted his daughter brought up a Cath- , olic. Without a doubt some priest is back of the outrage.
' "7* REE indeed to enjoy the created provisions of AI-
■ ■ mighty God, which He so graciously created for the welfare of all righteous people. To plan and prepare for life in a world providing such a condition of freedom, an intellectual understanding of God’s purposes is imperative, as a knowledge of God’s Word of truth is the guiding factor. Apply yourself now to searching out and obtaining this truth in God’s Word by employing the new key to the Bible, namely, the 384-page hook
This new book contains 30 chapters, all on timely vital topics. It is equipped with a helpful scripture index containing, in Bible order, all the scriptures cited in the book. Impressive also are the numerous pictorial illustrations. The binding of this book is a pleasing violet-colored cloth, with a gold-embossed «title. Upon your sending in the coupon below, together with a contribution of 25c, a copy will be mailed to you, postpaid.
WATCHTOWER, 117 Adams St., Brooklyn 1, N.Y,
Please send me a copy of “The Truth Shall Make Yau Free,”, for which I enclose 25e.
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CONSOLATION
