Contents

“The Germans Like to Be Governed” (?)

Any Torturer Will Murder

Cabinet and Congressional Findings

Women and Children Burned Alive

'■ Jews Killed in Lots of 2,000

^Trying to Get Rid of-the Evidence

Miseducation Ruined Germany

A Misguided Generation

The Aunday Plain Dealer

“Trut® Advocated”

Hard Going for Religion in the Keystone State 13

The Federal Council Was Perturbed

Attempts to Suppress Free Speech

“Thy Word Is Truth”

The Son versus a Trinity

London Assembly Impressions

U.S. War Expenditure

From a State Hospital for Epileptics

Prying into the Secrets of Blossom Time

The Art of Music

Development of Music

Classic, Romantic, and Modern

Folk Music

Railroads in Time of Stress

Mo Aristocracy in America

"'Railroad Men Not Overpaid

Can the Comeback Be Made Permanent? ' 31

Published «vcry other Wednesday by

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In Brief

Irish Enthusiasm

♦ A much-appreciated Canadian Irish* man by the name of Patrick Sullivan, and a good friend of this magazine in years that are gone, writes in to say:

Consolation! It consoles the timid. Glory to you, noble Jehovah's witnesses!

Old Eugene Pontifex Maximus of the Tiber’s Seventy could not suppress you. Never! Papal mobsters cannot annihilate truth. Never! Eugene’s stooges, Hitler, Mussolini, Tiso, Petain, Dollfuss, et al., tried that trick. You know what happened.

Glory to Christ’s little heroic army, Jehovah’s witnesses! You have won the admiration of the world! Grand and noble souls!

Who murdered the Toronto millionaire, Ambrose J. Small ? Who covered up this murder? Who handed this murdered man’s estate ($4,000,000) over to the college of cardinals?

Who murdered Ambrose J. Small’s sister, Gertrude Small, on October 28, 1939? Who covered up this murder? And who got the murdered girl’s estate?

Civilization vs. devilization! But Satan and his gangs are doomed. Their hysterical erics now remind me of the babble of Nazarius, Eusebius and Constantine.

Less than One-Fifteenth of a Cubic Mile of Humans

♦ There are supposed to be 2,200,000,000 humans । in the world. If they may be considered as averaging 6 feet tall, 18 inches wide and 6 inches thick, that would make 41 cubic feet for each human, and the total cubic contents would amount to 9,900,000,000 cubic feet. That means that the "whole living human race could be piled on a plot of land a mile square and about 355 feet high; really, about’ one-fifteenth of a cubic mile of flesh. It isn’t going to be such a colossal job for Almighty God to provide space on earth for resurrected humanity as some people who are impressed with their own cleverness have supposed.

CONSOLATION

^(tAnd in His name shall the nations hope. ”—Matthew 12:21, A.S. V.

Volume XXVII               Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, February 27, 1946                   Number 690

“The Germans Like to Be Governed”(?)

SEVERAL British newspapers have mentioned, and even commented upon, the terrible sufferings of Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany, but thus far the American press has either claimed that the Nazi persecutions were leveled at the Roman Catholic priesthood, or else they have played up Martin Niemoeller, who, in the same interview (June 5, 1945, at Naples) in which he admitted that while interned he had sought reinstatement as a U-boat commander, made the above declaration. The way he put it, as recorded by the United Press, was: The German people long for authority.

That was one of the reasons which gave Hitler such success. They have very few gifts or instincts to govern themselves in democratic fashion. Maybe they can, but they do not like to.

Confusion as to “Higher Powers'*

The “Higher Powers” mentioned in the Scriptures are the heavenly Father and His Son, Christ Jesus. They are certainly not men, like Hitler or the men at the Vatican that jockeyed him into his last job.

Of conditions at Dachau and Oranienburg (and, mind you, it is universally admitted that Jehovah’s witnesses were treated the very worst of all the unfortunates) Konrad Heiden in his book Der Fuehrer said:

It happened that prisoners employed in road-building were “for fun” thrown into the rotating barrel of a concrete-mixing machine and kept there until their bones were crushed. It happened that one torturer with a sense of humor burned, with a cigarette,

Nothing ever printed could surpass the story of Jehovah’s witnesses’ faithfulness in Germany, as published in the leading article in this magazine, in No. 678, issue of September 12, 1945. It shows that in that land, as in every land, there are indeed some that like to be governed, and the One that they like to have govern them is not some man like Hitler, but the great and good Almighty God. Get .it and read it.

holes in the bare chest of his victim to make them look like uniform buttons. To throw prisoners into sewers or drains “by oversight” was also considered a permissible pastime. The most gruesome tortures were often those in which outwardly nothing seemed to happen. Prisoners were compelled to stand ei^ct for many hours under a torrid sun; they . were forbidden to make the slightest motion, not even a quiver of a limb. Cases were reported of this torture being inflicted on hundreds of people for as long as eighteen hours. It happened that people were locked up in boxlike wooden closets, fed with salted herrings, and left without water or any other drink; of course, death was the result.

Every Day for Fourteen Days

Michael McPartland, West Hartlepool, England, a merchant seaman, 46, was taken to Germany as a prisoner, escaped three times, and finally got away and got home. The first time he escaped, all his top teeth were knocked out with the butt of a revolver, and he was put on bread and water for three months. After the second escape, the Gestapo cut round the nails of all his fingers and toes and then pulled off each nail with pincers. But let him tell it:

Then they pushed red-hot needles down my fingers and twisted them when it hurt most. My fingers and hands swelled to an enormous size, but I got no medical attention. I wished many times I was dead. The knowledge that I had to go back for more at the same time every day [Mr. McPartland was tortured for one hour ever;’' day for 14 days] was almost worse than the pain.                        4

Along toward the last, the German military were making use of all the sol- -diers they could muster, even if they ' had but one arm or one leg. A Swiss paper explained how this procedure came into being:

A new method to instill “enthusiasm” has been introduced in the German army. It consists of an electric-shock treatment for soldiers who feel incapable of front service because of previous injuries. The treatment is continued until they finally beg to be sent back to their units. The procedure is this: the apparatus is attached to some part of the body, usually the leg or arm, and at short intervals the victim receives a shock of 250 volts. The German soldier calls this treatment being “ironed”. No one who has expe-' ri eneed it will ever forget it. It is simply a form of torture by which wounded men are induced to return to the front. Many soldiers are said to prefer suicide to this agony.

Other forms of torture have been mentioned by responsible writers, such as the injection of drugs that rot away the vital organs; also, “another Gestapo favorite is to tie parents up, and make them watch a daughter being violated.”

Any Torturer Will Murder

It is axiomatic that any person that will torture another will murder him; and “no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him”. The history of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy shows that it gloats in its torture chambers. It also boasts of its murders of those whom it calls “heretics”, though it is itself the most heretical organization on earth. Its only god is the Devil himself. It has put a woman in general charge of the future. But God is not taking orders from women, nor from men. .

Tales come through of two German prison camps for women. The first one, at Auschwitz, Poland, contained 350 members of the Union of French Women, which aimed at developing resistance and sabotage in the German factories where they worked. In three years the deaths reduced their number to 60; and in another six months only 4 of the 350 survived.               ■

At the other camp (not named in the dispatch from Paris which conveyed the information) there were 30,000 French, Polish, Russian and Czechoslovak women who resented the conquest of their honri lands. They were crowded, five into each two beds, with no hygienic features, and no washing facilities, and forbidden to speak to each other. The young women guards beat them regularly “for the fun of it"; they were fed soup twice a day; they became covered with lice; they were compelled to work in munition factories or at construction work. When they mutinied, vicious dogs literally tore them in pieces. The French woman who saw this, Mme. Graviella Canaz-zi (mother of two children in France), says that she also saw women beaten to death by women wardens because they were too ill to work. The least punishment for communicating by note with another prisoner was twenty-five lashes and three days’ imprisonment in a windowless ceil without food. Mme. Canazzi was herself repeatedly beaten with bare fists on her naked body until she fainted, when a doctor revived her so that she was able to stand more beating.

When the American soldiers got to Buchenwald concentration camp, they forced 2,000 Germans, including men, women, boys and girls, to visit the camp and sec for themselves the horrible conditions, including the execution room, the laboratory for the vivisection of humans (this was bound to emerge eventually), and the crematorium before which were stacked 200 corpses to be burned; and when some of the women saw what was being done they had hysterics or fainted. Before bringing in the visitors, the Americans had removed the fifty gallows which were a part of the camp’s equipment.

Cabinet and Con

gressional Findings

In the fall of 1944 President Roosevelt’s cabinet board, consisting of Secretary of

State Hull, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau and Secretary of War Stimson, presented a 25,000-word detailed report of the atrocities committed in German concentration camps, and this was confirmed in detail by the 12-man Congressional delegation which returned from Europe May 9, 1945, The cabinet committee reported that many prisoners were simply beaten to death by their overseers during work, and without the slightest provocation. It also said:        '

It is a fact beyond denial that the Germans ¹ have deliberately and systematically murdered millions of innocent civilians, Jews and Christians alike, all over Europe.

The Congressional committee, which actually visited the scenes before the camps were broken up, said that the torture methods “reached depths of human degradation beyond belief”, and, of the camps in general, that

although differing in size, they all carried into effect the same pattern of death by hard labor, starvation, disease, brutality, gas chambers, filthy and unsanitary conditions which meant inevitable death eventually to every imprisoned person.

The British had their investigators -too, and their findings were the same. One of them told the British writer A. C. Cummings what he had himself seen at Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Versailles, * where there is a cellar lined wdth asbestos, with .one wall pierced with holes, the edges of which were blackened by fire. He said:

Outside the cellar were found four flamethrowers of the kind used in the German army, still intact. One can readily grasp what the torture was. The Gestapo, as was their invariable custom, stripped their prisoner naked, locked him in what was really an ' asbestos-lined cell and then turned a burst of white-hot flame upon-him through the wall. To save himself from a horrible death the victim leaped upward clawing at the asbestos wall in a frantic 'effort to save himself. A most pathetic sight were those marks of despairing human hands upon the asbestos partitions. Some were tiny—those of women; some were so small they may have been children’s.

Dislocation of the shoulder blades, a favorite sport of the Inquisition, was also practiced. There was also the shooting of wooden bullets into men’s faces or shoulders, the object being to cause the wounds to fester. Prisoners were also burned down the spine and on the soles of the feet with red-hot irons. There was also the dreaded electric brush.

In one solitary-confinement cell some God-fearing person (quite probably one of Jehovah’s witnesses) had written on the plaster, “To love God and your neighbor, that is the law of God, the Creator,”

Women and Children Burned Alive

The Chicago Sun's correspondent, writing from Orador, France, tells of what happened there on June 10, 1944, when Uncle Sam’s boys and the British and Canadians were swarming into France. German soldiers scoured the town for all the men, took them in groups of 40 to five garages and four barns, and there machine-gunned them -all. Four men crawled up from beneath the dead bodies of their friends and • neighbors, climbed through windows, after the executioners departed, and made their escape.

All the women and children in the town, 345 of them in all, wete taken into the village church. The entire interior was soaked with gasoline. Then the church was set afire, and as it burned the women and children' were machine-gunned. One woman got through a window, and lives, but with a broken back. Pope Pius XI was morally responsible for all this. He encouraged Hitler’s men to annihilate the Catholic inhabitants of Guernica, because he was wild to see the Spanish Republic, destroyed, so that the Hierarchy could get back on the necks of the common people. Naturally, the men that had killed Catholics in Spain to please Hitler and Pius XI would figure that it was all right for them to kill Catholics in France to please Hitler and Pius XII,

When American troops liberated the prisoners from the Siegenhain, Germany, prison camp, April 1, 1945, they ¹ also freed 900 Jewish women between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five, who had been imported from Hungary as slave laborers for farms and factories. These Jewish women told the Americans that they had seen sick girls, unable to work, stripped, thrown into trucks with ■ dead girls, and hauled off to be cremated. (New York Times, April 2,1945)

At Buchenwald on April 21, 1945, Representative Clare Boothe Luce, of Connecticut, found among the emaciated prisoners a 6|-year-old boy who had been imprisoned 24 years. He had been picked up in Paris because he was out after curfew. On this occasion Representative John Kunkel, of Pennsylvania, declared:

No one could visualize these horrors without seeing them. It is hard to believe that such

brutality' existed anywhere in the world, but it certainly did here, .It is incredible that some of the people were able to survive such an awful ordeal.          '

As the Russians entered Germany they' uncovered a huge underground arsenal built by the Todt organization. The workmen were war prisoners:

Their barracks were encircled by walls of barbed wire charged with electricity. Packs of German police dogs and wolfhounds especially trained to hunt men ran around the camp day and night along special tracks in barbed-wire corridors. Arriving in Todt Organization, a man lost his name. His number was branded on his chest. Upon completion of construction, the slaves were subjected to a medical examination and all the sick men and weak were killed immediately. Those who could still work were sent to build another secret arsenal. Todt officials kept a strict account. Not a single builder of the underground arsenals of the German General Staff was to escape death.

Jews Killed in Lots of 2,000

ihere seems no reason to question the accuracy of the claim of the American Jewish Conference and the World Jewish Congress, made January 10, 1945, that at that time only 1,200,000 Jews had survived out of the 5,600,000 that were in European countries outside of the Soviet Union before the Nazis began their systematic, efficient campaign of extermination. Hitler had threatened their complete extinction, but didn’t get away with it.

At the Auschwitz slaughter grounds, in Poland, the Jews were killed in lots of 2,000 at a time. Lieut. Gen. Ernst Kaltenbrunner was the awthor of the system, but Hitler and Himmler agreed and co-operated. A 15-year-old Czech lad that worked at the plant explained to inyesti-gators that the people were driven into the gas chambers with sticks and, when they became full, children were tossed in through the windows. The gas was then let in through three ventilating shafts and within three minutes most of the inmates died in screaming agony. The few still alive were finished off when the German guards opened the doors.

Mr. Anselm Reiss, head of the Jewish rescue committee in London, furnished the Los Angeles Daily News with detailed information as to just how the whole system of extermination was operated, and how the poor victims set apart for slaughter were deceived right up until the time that they were thrown into the extermination chambers. He said:        '

This powerful empire, armed to the teeth, with a fanatically wild and disciplined Nazi police, did not have the courage to tell the Jews outright what its purpose was. They were told they would be sent to work camps where there were more opportunities for hous-

ing, employment, and even mea»s of entertainment. When the deportations were started the highest officials gave their word of honor that “there was nothing wrong about the deportations”. The Jews from Holland, France, etc.', were sent to Treblinca, the. mass exter--^mination center for that area. As an indication of the people’s total unawareness of what was ahead, they eagerly asked, when weary of traveling; “Where is Treblinca?” The situation was similar in Poland. German tactics went so far that trains with Jewish deportees were halted before they reached their destinations and the Jews were given an opportunity to write to their families that they had arrived at their places of work and all was well. Railway employees were changed: replaced by Nazis who took over the service to cover up the business in hand. Despite these precautions, the truth began filtering through.

Oddly enough, though Germany officially surrendered unconditionally, on all fronts, May 7, at 2:41 A.M. (at Reims, France), yet a murder plant was in full operation at Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, as late as Monday, July 2. A Reuters telegram published in the Erie Daily Times stated that

virtually every inhabitant of Kaufbeuren was aware of the fact that human beings were both being used as guinea pigs and being systematically butchered. The perpetrators or passive collaborators were in no way conscious of a sense of guilt and, with few exceptions, they were Germans and not Nazis. Some were even Catholic sisters and nurses. The chief nurse, who confessed without coercion that she had murdered “approximately” 210 children in two years by intramuscular injections, asked her captors simply, “Will anything happen to me?” The chief doctor was captured and his second in command hanged himself the night before the investigators arrived. Another sister confessed with a stony grill that she had poisoned “at least 30 to 40 persons”.                            ’

Primary methods of extermination practiced at Kaufbeuren and its branch institute at Irsee were scientifically-directed starvation and the administration of chemicals. Those to be starved were divided into two categories, those receiving a rapid starvation diet and those receiving slow starvation. The former were killed in about three months while the latter took considerably longer. Poisoning was handled by injections of scopolamine and doses of luminal or veronal, given in food, death occurring after two to five days, the patient normally contracting a lung ailment or pneumonia which was usually given as cause of death on certificates sent to parents or other relatives. Sturdier patients were given overdoses of both poisons. [Sister] Woerle [who confessed to the 210 killings of minors and drew a monthly bonus of 35 marks therefor] freely confessed that when luminal or veronal failed she administered' injections. Drugs for the killings were received directly from Berlin.

Trying to Get Rid of the Evidence

At 5 a.m., September 19, at the Klooga labor camp, in Estonia, all prisoners, including some pregnant women, were ordered from their barracks, and each was required to come at once to a forest glade near the eamp and bring along one or more pine logs. The logs were placed on the grass in a row, A Vilna attorney who escaped told the balance of the story to W. IL Lawrence of the New York Times:

After this was done the Germans counted a group of people corresponding to the number of logs and told them to lie down with their faces turned to the ground as close to one another as possible. After this, SS men shot these people with tommy guns. The noise of the shooting could not muffle the screams of the people. One of them tried to run away, but a tommy-gunner shot him and brought him back to the logs. Then the Germans compelled a second group of people to place on the dead, bodies another row of logs and to lie down on those logs. Again they were shot by .tommy-gunners. Thus it continued until there were four or five rows of corpses. Finishing with the first group, the SS men took a second one. By noon there already were four hills of dead bodies.

Another supply of logs had been prepared,

but the Germans were in a hurry [to escape from the onrushing Russians]. They poured gasoline <in the corpses, set them afire and hurried to the barracks. The SS men drove those who still remained alive, including women and children, into the barracks, forced them to lie down on the floor, and shot them. Then the barracks also were set afire.

Tn his story recording this matter Air. Lawrence said, and his story ought to make anybody that Jias a heart pray for God’s kingdom:

I have seen and counted recognizable parts of 438 complete and partly burned bodies of men, women and children, including one child who could not have been more than three months old, but whose skull had been shattered by a bullet and who lay on the arm of her dead mother.

Before the Germans retreated from the neighborhood of the extermination camps near Lwow, Poland, the bodies were extracted from the pits and were first laid on specially-constructed platforms in stacks of 1,200 to 1,600 bodies each; tar and gasoline were then poured over them and they were burned. Tn five months 1.10 kilograms of gold were sifted from the ashes of these bodies and dispatched to Germany. The ashes were scattered on the fields or buried. Large bones were collected and crushed in a bone crusher, specially designed to speed up the work.

Miseducation Ruined Germany

Tt cannot be questioned that Germany was ruined by miseducation. This subject cannot be examined here at any length. Tt was fully dist'ussed in this magazine, in No. 644, issue of May 24, 1944. The opening sentence of that article is:

The most highly-educated people on the globe are the Germans, and, as might be expected in a world ruled by the one who offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, their education is the most Satanic.

You might get that article out and read it over. Its concluding sentence is:

Any rational person should be able to see from the foregoing that the long-anticipated release of the demons from their restraints is an accotn-plished fact, and that the most highly cultured people in the world have been their first objective, w^rith disastrous results.

The Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, who is also president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, retnrimd from an extended trip to Kurope remarking on his return that “in countries in which the Roman Catholic Church has a strong majority, full religious liberty is denied to minority groups’’ and, also, that (and following as a natural consequence, because Hitler was an ardent “practical Catholic”)

the educational system of Germany, together

FEBRUARY 27, 1946

with all other approaches ta the mind, were controlled by the Nazi party. Hitler insisted that the state had the right to determine the philosophy to which every person who lived within the state must give assent.

Needless to say, Hitler was Jesuit-trained and wholly without principle. An ^unnamed German major said, as early Jib October, 1944 :■

The only question is when will the war end. It would end today if the German people could order it. But there is no way for the people to express an opinion. All of their organs of expression have been usurped, and they dare not complain.

German refugees in Switzerland testify that Hitler’s plan for conquered Europe was, as to conquered countries, no schooling for girls after the fourth grade, and none for boys after the sixth; industries of ■ the conquered ^countries were to be rationed by Germany; the Germans ■would serve in the various factories only as overlords for the 'individual direction of the work.

A Misguided Generation

A misguided generation of Germans has grown up. As American soldiers marched along German streets as prisoners, women spat at them, men jeered them and boys threw stones at them. At the prison camps they were robbed of all their personal' property, in marked contrast w^Tith the generous treatment of German prisoners in American camps.

As the victorious American troops entered Nuremberg, boys and girls of 8 to 14, who should have been differently taught, were every

where shooting with rifles, and throwing hand grenades out of the windows. The American boys hated to kill the youngsters, but had to do it. Drew Middleton, in a wireless dispatch to the New York Times, said:

The Germans have regarded themselves for two generations as a people for whom all the laws of God and man are suspended.

At Oberndorf a German girl falsely, as she afterwards admitted, denounced another German girl for having had relations with a Polish worker. The poor innocent Pole was hung before her eyes. Hitler youth spat in her face and jeered her. Her hair was shaved, publicly. She was sentenced to two years in prison. That night she hung herself in her cell. Yet, three weeks later, when the liar confessed that she had told the story to spite the victim’s mother, nothing was done about it.

Realizing that miseducation is at the bottom of the Nazi deviltry in Germany, one of the first orders of the combined chiefs of staff was that neither secondary nor higher schools may be opened without their consent. New textbooks, entirely stripped of the Nazi political and militaristic doctrines, are being printed for use throughout Germany. Denazified kindergartens were opened in Aachen before Berlin fell.

The Weekly KAP Review of European Facts and Problems published the following report on Nazi education as made by a soldier of the Polish Underground in September, 1944. It bears internal evidence of truthfulness and shows how much, how very much, there is need right now, among the German people, of just what they are going to get, i.e., a faithful witness from Jehovah’s liberated witnesses, bearing testimony to the kingdom for which Jesus taught His followers to pray.

The Germans who are actually occupying Europe are entirely different from those whom European people knew in 1916. Eleven years of a totalitarian regime and of a totalitarian education have molded a new German generation, a generation of men of conscious and willed bestiality. German schools and German organizations are serving only that purpose. In bringing up children and older boys special stress is being laid upon training them in ruthlessness, upon making of them individuals deprived of any feelings of pity or sympathy, but blindly devoted to their superiors and to the aims of the state.

Let me give you a few examples of that education.

A German public school. The boys in the room are on .the average eight years old. The teacher talks of the greatness of the Vater-land, of national heroes, of their devotion to their country. He tries to impress the children by painting vivid pictures of heroism. Then he asks suddenly; ‘Are you ready to sacrifice yourself for the Vaterland?” The children, as a matter of course, answer that they are.

‘All right,” says the teacher, “now let each of you take a sheet of paper and a pencil, and write down what you consider your dearest possession.”

The children do so. They write down their individual preferences. One loves the most his dog, the other a rifle, the third some toy, etc. “Well,” says the teacher, after looking over the papers, “it is up to you to sacrifice all these things to the Vaterland, to the Fuehrer. You mustn’t do it in the future, but right away, right now. Go home, and tomorrow you will tell me whether you have accomplished your task.”

The children are also told that they have to watch each other; those of a stronger character must supervise the weaker ones.

Jugend. If he behaves well he is being rewarded by obtaining permission to attend an execution. He is allowed to look at the shooting down of defenseless people, and to pick up the corpses. He is taught how, when lie reaches his fifteenth year, he would have to act as executioner himself without losing his nerve. Between the ages of sixteen and | eighteen they are promoted to the SS officers’ school. After graduating from that institution they conclude their education by a six months’ stage as guards in a concentration camp. Only then do they become “supermen”.

Five thousand pupils of an SS officers’ school were recently brought to a concentration camp to attend the execution of 3,000 prisoners. They thus had the opportunity to observe the mass-slaughter for several hours, an indelible impression for the rest of their lives. A graduate from such a school can be relied upon: he most assuredly won’t shirk the perpetration of any erime ordered by his superiors. The results are but too evident.

The commander of the concentration camp in Poniatov noticed among the boys of a new transport of prisoners a nine-year-old youngster strikingly resembling his late son. He took him to.his luxurious apartment, supplied him with good clothes, took care of his tuition; in short, he treated him as his own child. He bought the boy a pony and both went together horseback riding. The commander had found a child; the child, a father. They became used and attached to each other. Suddenly came the order to “liquidate” the camp. The German didn't hesitate a moment. He shot the boy dead in his own house.

In conclusion: Jehovah’s ways are always right and true, and He has already begun to apply the remedy that the Germans need, and to which they are entitled. This is made clear from the following extract from a letter just received from one of Jehovah’s witnesses now in France, and who has recently been in Germany:

I learned that many of the brethren that were in the concentration camps in Germany, upon being liberated, went straightway^ into the work of house-to-house witnessing with whatever literature they had. The people were most astonished to see them again. Many asked where the brethren got their literature, and said, in substance, “We see that there is a greater power behind you people than there was behind the Fuehrer. We will surely look into and study these books now.”

The Sunday Plain Dealer

THE Cleveland Sunday Plain Dealer prints 400,000 copies of a 138-page paper. That necessitates' removing all the timber from 102 acres of forest land. The total output from the presses for that one issue comes to 441,600,000 columns, or 88,320,000,000 lines, or 529,920,000,000 words. Suppose you had to do all that by hand. What a job it would be! The one issue takes about 500,000 pounds of paper, which is about 250 tons, or

about ten freight-car loads, if you prefer to measure it in that way. That is only one of the big Sunday papers. There are too many of them. They are a curse to the people, not a blessing. A man with his head packed full of only the contents of a Sunday paper has no interest in the Scriptures. To him they seem foolishness. The Sunday papers are always seeking to undermine the authority of God’s Word, the Bible. being done by Jehovah’s witnesses and at various places bore witness to it as follows:

And now commences an era of light and suffering, when the corrupt churches (with the kings of the earth and great men united with them) being about to be wholly brought down, make one general muster against Christ and his true worshipers. These things are clear to me as a ray of light; and whoever lives at this time will see as great opposition and ijpite to the true way of righteousness then set forth, from sectarians and professors generally, as there was from the Jews towards Christ and his testimony: and also, like the Jews, at the very time they oppose the true way of the Lord with all their might, they will no doubt make the greatest possible show of religion, and will think that they are the true church. . . .

The authors of this testimony will, , . . unlike to all who go before them, attack the evil gt its root, and expose the deceit, hypocrisy and wickedness of the different sects in a way that has never before been done; for which they will suffer the greatest persecution. . . .

J say, when such a testimony as this goes forth, as it sooner or later will, no wonder that the sects, all with one accord, should set'them-selves against it, call it heresy, declare it will ruin the churches if it is not suppressed, , , ,

All the reformations which go before this last great reform will only be partial and temporary. They will only lop off the branches, or, at the most, only strike at the body of the corrupt tree, while the roots remain untouched and uninjured. But when this last testimony goes forth, the very roots of the corrupt tree will be attacked. ...

This happy period I never expect to see; but known unto the Lord only are all things. I Jrnow that such a time will be; for we are assured by the angel. These are the true sayings of God; and I also believe that it will take place within two centuries from this time.

Hard Going for Religion in the Keystone State

IT IS the general view, of religionists that if we had a few more sects than the present 256, or at the very least a few more in each of that number, things would be in pretty good shape, and the Lord could come at almost any time and say, “That is very well done; almost as well as I could have done it myself”: then the saints would be physically and literally eaught up in their rapture and the Millennium would be here in dead earnest.

It must have been a shock, therefore, when a subscriber for The Messenger, Philadelphia, boldly declared: “Not only -is there no Christian country, there is not even a Christian city in the whole wide world. A Christian city would be a city without slums, without jails, without poverty, without unemployment, without injustice, without drunkenness, without vice, without jealousy, without hatred, and without bitterness.” Yet who can deny that he told the truth?

Standing at the exit of a school ground in the same city of brotherly love, a minister handed to each child a card with a penny glued on it. On the card was the following mimeographed statement:

Here’s a penny for you. Pull it off and keep it. Here’s how to get another one. Fill out this card on the other side and bring it to the gospel hour for boys and girls at Calvary chapel next Tuesday October 2nd, at 7:00 o’clock. Here’s how to get more! If you bring someone else who doesn’t have a card, you will receive another new penny for each one you bring.

The back of the card calls for the name, address, age and grade of the pupil and whether he attends Sunday school, and where. Of course, a penny is not an awfully big bribe, but it sjirely does look as if the man that handed out the pennies felt sure that something desperate had to be done to get them coming in the other direction.

The Federal Council Was Perturbed

The Federal Council of Churches, meeting at Pittsburgh in the fall of 1944, was perturbed, and this time it was because the council thought that one of the 256 varieties had too much political drag. The council declared, in effect, ‘that for America to have diplomatic relations with the little Vatican state would be the equivalent of having diplomatic relations with the Roman Catholic Church, for the reason that, in practice, the Vatican is both a church and a political institution. Thus, thought the council, the continuance of an official connection between the United States government and the Vatican would encourage the un-American policy of a union of church and state, and would put this government in* the position of according preferential status to one only of the 256 sects doing business beneath the stars and stripes.

At the same meeting, Dr. Cavert, the general secretary of the council, made this statement:'

We gratefully acknowledge the spiritual influence both of faithful priests and laymen of the Roman Catholic Church, whom we think of as true servants of Christ and as our Christian brethren,                   .

How Dr, Cavert could make a statement like that wdien he could so readily learn, if he does not already know, the truly devilish spirit of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, is something for him to settle with Almighty God. If the Roman Catholic Church, with its record of countless assaults upon true Christians, is a servant of Christ, then so is the Devil himself, for they both have one spirit.

The council elected a new president, Dr. G. Bromley Oxnam, of New York, and that gentleman stirred things mightily a year later when, in an address at St. Louis, he said:

Protestants are gravely concerned over what they believe to be an attempt upon the part of the Roman Catholic Church to exercise political domination here, similar to the control exercised in many nations. Protestants will fight to preserve religious liberty, not only for Protestants but for Roman Catholics and Jews and other faiths.

The Protestant pledges himself to accept, and in humility calls upon his Roman Catholic fellow Christian to practice, a very simple principle of religious liberty, "Do unto others as ye would be done by.”

Protestants have been subjected to serious misrepresentation in the Roman Catholic press. When Protestants have protested their protests have been called intolerance.

It is not intolerance to protest against Roman Catholic activities that seek, through boycott, to threaten newspapers and therefore to control them in Roman Catholic'interest. This is to endanger a free press and to destroy civil liberty.

It is not intolerance to protest against actions of certain Roman Catholic leaders to deny Protestant ministers access to the radio by threatening station owners with the loss of consumer support of products advertised.

It is not intolerance to insist upon the separation of church and state and therefore to object to the use of public funds for private and sectarian education.              .

It is not intolerance to refuse to accept dictates that would deny Protestant churches the right to engage in missionary work in other lands at the very moment the Roman Catholic Church affirms its right to carry on missionary work in all lands.

It is not intolerance to protest against Ro-mSn Catholic support for the fascist regime of Franco Spain when our sons die to destroy fascism everywhere and to preserve democ-¹ racy for mankind.

It is not intolerance to point out that Protestantism will oppose the clericalism that has cursed other lands.

It is not intolerance to insist that a chureh must be a church, that it cannot be both church and state. Protestants, therefore, oppose the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Vatican. This is no lack of respect for the distinguished, devoted, brilliant and brotherly Christian who is the present pope.

It is not intolerance to point out the Roman Catholic position on religions liberty that in effect means a demand for religious liberty when the Roman Catholic is in the minority but denies it in practice where the Roman Catholic is in the-majority.

. At its 1944 meeting the council, it is ' said,

Declared the churches as favoring, in principle, a fixed date for Easter and approved a committee report which suggested the second Sunday in April as nearest the historic date of the Resurrc.ction.

It should be explained, for the benefit of the council, and such others as will hear, that the word “Easter" is a heathen and not a correct Scriptural term. “Passover” is*the right word; anc^the time for the observance of the Passover was fixed by Almighty God, land not by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and was quite out of hufiian control. The Passover day w^Tas the 14th day of the month Nisan, which month begins with the new moon nearest the spring equinox. Nisan has no relation whatever to the Gregorian, papal calendar, and cannot be adjusted to it in any w^Tay at all.

Attempts to Suppress Free Speech

Everybody knows that America stands for freedom of speech, and everybody with any education at all, or any brains at all, knows that the Roman Catholic Church does not stand for freedom of speech, and is always seeking some halfwitted politician to shut off the flow of free speech in the land of its origin.

With this objective in view, the Pittsburgh city council adopted a resolution which attempted to outlaw the publication of any material which “exposes any racial or religious group to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy”. When this attempt Y^as made the Pittsburgh Press said editorially (February 7, 1945):

The question is: Will it work! It won’t. Who, for instance, is going to determine whether or not any certain publication is guilty of willful effort to create an attitude of “hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy” toward any group ? And how free is that authority itself of racial or religious prejudice? Will it be up to every individual policeman to judge whether or not the ordinance has been violated? Or will there be an all-high commission, or board of exceeding wisdom and impartiality, which will decide such questions? The ordinance doesn’t say.

Councilman John T. Duff, who introduced the ordinance, says he did so at the request of “certain minority groups”. What is a “minority group”? Republicans? Socialists? Baptists? Holy Rollers? Methodists? Catholics? Jews? Negroes? Greeks? Syrians? Irish ? Isn’t any group a “minority group” ?

Fifty days went by, and the same paper, the Pittsburgh Press, that had said on February 7 that such a law would not work, published the information that three bills, to accomplish the same impossible because intolerant objectives, had been introduced in both the Senate and the House at Harrisburg, providing penalties of $500 to $5,000 and one year in prison for those who are feund guilty of what, for the sake of giving it a name, is called “group libel”.

If any group on earth was ever basely libeled it is Jehovah’s witnesses, but they have more sense than to invoke the use of any such law as Mr. Duff and his colleagues have framed for those who wanted it framed.

One more religious item from Pittsburgh is that the 1944 Methodist conference raised the minimum salary of pastors from $1,200 to $1,800. With the war still on, and money flowing in the streets, that looked all right; but soon now, very soon, trade will be dull and jobs will be few. There is going to be, first, one grand rush for those $1,800 religious jobs, and once the jobs have been secured there is going to be another grand rush to get the $1,800 out of the long-suffering Methodists that long ago ceased to get a “blazing hell” for their money and now get nothing at all. The religious business is in trouble up to its neck.

The Son versus a Trinity

TO King David of old Jehovah God said: “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.” (Psalm 89:27) The “Son of David”, as Jesus Christ was called upon earth, is this firstborn Son of God, The name in the Holy Scriptures which designates Him in His life before human birth is The Word, or Ho Logos; which ineans the One who is the mouthpiece, or word, or speaker, as Jehovah God’s instrument. He was the beginning of God’s creation, and from and after His creation the Logos was the active agent by whom Jehovah God created all things that were thereafter created, as the Greek text of John 1:1-3 states.

The great Jehovah is The God, or Elohim, according to the Hebrew Bible. (Genesis 2: 4) His Son, the Logos, is a god, or El, according to the Hebrew text of Isaiah 9: 6, where He is called “The mighty God”. This has nothing tn do with heathenish polytheism. In the Bible the title god (or El) is applied to mighty ones, even to angels and to human magistrates. (Psalm 82: 6; John 10:34; Exodus 22:9; Psalm 8:5) The name god is therefore properly applied to Jehovah’s Son, because He is .a mighty one. The name god is fitting to Him because He is the agent used by the great Creator in the Creation of all other things. The names Jehovah, Almighty God, and Most High are never in the Bible applied to Jesus, God’s Son.

Jesus himself testifies that He is the beginning of God’s creation, saying: "The faithful and true witness, the beginning [not the author] of the creation of God.” (Revelation 3:14) Also, He said: “Jehovah possessed [(margin) formed] me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was. When there were * no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the beginning of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there: when he set a circle upon the face of the deep,' when he made firm the skies above, when the fountains of the deep became strong, when he gave to the sea its bound, that the waters should not transgress his commandment, when he marked out the foundations of the earth; then I was by him, as a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his habitable earth; and my delight was with the sons of men.”-Proverbs 8: 22-31, Am. Stan. Ver.

Hence, when the time came for the starting of the sons of men, manifestly ' it was to this "master workman”, His Son the Logos, that Jehovah God addressed these words: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) Later, when man had sinned and was to be expelled from Eden, manifestly Jehovah addressed the Logos when He said: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.”—Genesis 3:22.

Thus the Holy Scriptures definitely show,that Jehovah God, the great Creator, used another as His mighty instrument by whom to carry forward His purposes. That great One whom He has used as His instrument is Hi# Son, the Logos, who became Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul, with authority from God, wrote concerning Jesus as the One “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”-—Colossians 1:15-17,

Thus the foregoing scriptures clearly show the distinction between God, the great First Cause, and the Word or Logos, the beginning of the creation of the great Creator God. Adam, the perfect man, became alienated from God by sinful disobedience, and this led eventually to the birth of the first-begotten Son of God as a human creature on earth. At that time Jehovah God transferred the life of His beloved Son from heaven to earth that He might be the One to take away sin and furnish the basis for reconciliation to God. In plain phrase the Sacred Record says: “The Word [Logos] was made flesh, and dwell among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”—John 1:14.

That a babe was born of a virgin, the Jewess Mary, at Bethlehem, and grew to manhood’s estate and died upon the tree at Calvary, both sacred and profane history abundantly testify. Who was that man? The so-called “clergy” of religion, in order to support their false dogma of the trinity, have been forced to accept from the Devil another lie and to teach it, namely, that the child born of the maiden Mary and which grew to manhood and was impaled was God hims’elf and hence a God-man; that while on earth He was a spirit and that the body of flesh that He used was merely an incarnation of a spirit person; that is to say, that Jehovah God took upon himself the form of man and went about in this body of flesh for thirty-three and a half years, being known during that time as the man Jesus Christ. Their contention is that, He being born as a man child, the second person of a “trinity” assumed a human body and that during all the time He was on earth Jesus was both God and man. Frequently such religionists say:/Jesus was very God and very man; He was God incarnate.’

Strange it is that sensible men could ever be deceived by so unreasonable a doctrine. Such doctrine leads to absurdities which embarrass the trinitarians. Their doctrine is: God is one, made up of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; which trinity of gods is really borrowed from the heathen that practice polytheism. The logical conclusion is that, when God left heaven and took upon himself the form of man, which form He assumed for over thirty years, heaven during all that time was without God; and so heaven must have operated itself. At the end of that period God, that is to say, Jesus Christ, died an ignominious death upon 'the tree, at which time, however, He cried out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1) He cried thus either sincerely or for a fraudulent purpose to fool men.

Since the Bible teaches that Jehovah God is immortal and can not die, the trinity dogma of incarnation leads unavoidably to the conclusion that the so-called “dying” on the tree was just a sham and that Jesus did not die at all. Furthermore, His words of agony were merely a subterfuge to deceive the people. If the one dying on the tree was really God, w’hy would He say to himself: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Otherwise, if Jesus Was Jehovah God himself and also the Holy Ghost, to whom-was Jesus crying wdien on the tree? Suppose you put these questions to your religious clergymen. Do' not be surprised if they look wise and say: “It is a mystery.” If you know your Bible, you know that the fact is that it not only is “mystery” but is a delusion and a snare and a greatly magnified untruth that does dishonor both to God and to His Son.

London Assembly Impressions

THE eagerly anticipated visit to Brit* ain of the Watchtower Society’s president is now in the past. Perhaps a few impressions of the London assembly and the mammoth public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall, from one of the rank l and file, may be of interest, and serve as * a supplement to other reports (published in the Watchtower magazine).

' The hopes of a January assembly somewhere in Britain, to follow the president’s continental tour, had been running high. Suddenly word was officially sent around that the Society’s president was returning to this country, and was undertaking a brief tour of Scotland and the north of England. And then came the crowning piece of news. There was to be an assembly in London on January 12 and 13, culminating in a great public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall. This assembly was being arranged for the benefit of the witnesses in the south of England.

Some of us had often journeyed to London assemblies in the days when Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford had come over, but always had it been in the summer. Prospects of winter rain, snow and fog loomed up momentarily. But the term “convention weather” has become a commonplace over here, and fears were quickly banished. Nevertheless, the day before we started the rain came down ceaselessly and relentlessly, and the official radio weather forecast was a continuation of the same. But the weather prophets with the all assistance of their meteorological and other sources of information were wrong, for the two days of the assembly were exceptionally bright and sunny for January.

And what an event it was I Witnesses, a great multitude, streamed in from all over the southern half of England, from Wales, from Ireland, and, it was said, from the Channel Islands. One could not but feel how appropriate was the year’s text, “Be glad, ye nations, with his peo-pie,’’ for joy and gladness shone from the bright faces of the Kingdom publishers on every side.

Time and space will permit of only a brief reference to the high lights of the assembly. At the special Saturday evening meeting, arranged for the witnesses at the Royal Albert Hall, one was amazed to see the huge crowd assembled, and the thought came to the mind, ‘How would all the public find room the next day, even in London’s greatest hall! Thrilling indeed was the president’s narration of his continental experiences. How we longed for the facts concerning the persecution of Jehovah’s witnesses to be broadcast throughout the land!

Sunday morning came, and the rendezvous was Seymour Hall. Coming out of a London station, I engaged a taxi. “Seymour Hall!” said the driver, with more expressiveness than understanding of his own figure of speech, "Eve just been there. There’s a tremendous crowd there. What’s on?” Explanations followed.                  '

For the afternoon three halls were wired in together, Seymour Hall, the Metropolitan Theatre and Kingdom Hall, and all were needed. Outstanding was Brother Knorr’s speech, “Strong Hearts in the Postwar Era.” How encouraging! But one must press on, and relate a few happenings at the great public meeting.

Surely Jehovah God had provided that at the very time the United Nations Organization was opening in London, the president of the Watchtower Society should speak in London’s largest hall on the Scriptural theme, “Be Glad, Ye Nations!” What a contrast! All the efforts in the field during the assembly had been directed to announcing that lecture. Leaflets had been distributed from house to house. Information walking had been engaged in. And even here a division of the people had been manifest. Some had refused to be glad

• with His people, and had frostily declined even to accept a leaflet. Others in better heart condition had smilingly, ac. cepted. '                                   '

Nearly two hours before the meeting was due to commence I took my stand in the already long queue, standing beneath an illuminated sign which said, “Artists.” There we 'waited in patience for the doors to open. The time passed quickly, being relieved by conversation and various incidents. For instance, a party of strapping American soldiers passed through the crowd, and were admitted at the artists’ entrance. Then a car quickly rolled up, and out stepped the speaker of the evening, President Knorr, and passed quickly in. Then a religionist, walking along the immense queues of people, ejaculated as he went, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” “Wonderful Jesus,” and the like.

Finally we are admitted. “Where shall we be directed?” We are not long left in doubt. Up the stairs we go. Up, up. At last we come to the huge balcony at the top, high above the arena. Looking down one almost feels dizzy. The people are massed in huge sections, and the layout of the hall suggests nothing so much as a large central flower bed, surrounded by other banks of flowers.

The memory brought to mind former

occasions when Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford had spoken in the ' same hall. But now there is a splendid amplifying apparatus. The speaker’s voice comes up as clear and incisive as the trenchant words. I marvel at .this, for the previous night I was on the platform, quite close to the speaker, and had then been conscious of a slight echo. But not so now.                     ■

Outside the hall the speech was being relayed to the crowds unable to gain admission. And what a speech! Logical, convincing, irrefutable, and given with fire and enthusiasm.

But, when ! opened my morning newspaper the next day it contained, as was to be expected, no reference to that really important speech, but contained columns devoted to the platitudinous remarks of the United Nations delegates. No matter. 'As it was in the days of Noah,’ were the words foretold, 'so would it be in the days of the Son of man.’

We have the blessed assurance that Jehovah’s word shall not return to Him void, but that it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it. Wherefore we cry aloud, “Be glad, ye nations, with his people,” and have full confidence that His sheep will respond “out of every nation, kindred and tongue”.—Contributed from England.

U. S. War Expenditure

IT IS calculated that U. S. war expenditure up to “Victory in Europe” day amounted to 276,762,000,000' dollars.

You would probably be shocked to know that if we spent one dollar for every single second since the creation of Adam we would still have a vast amount of this sum left over. .

It would knock you over to know- that with the residue every man, woman and child in the United States could receive a gift of oyer six hundred dollars.

It would probably paralyze you to learn that with what was still left you could make carpets, each consisting of four hundred one-dollar bills for every square mile of the U.S.A.

Then for an encore you could use the rest to lay*a line of five-dollar bills, end to end, from New York to Los Angeles and still have some over. .

It seems that war is a costly business. —Contributed from Britain by an English newspaper correspondent.

From a State Hospital for Epileptics

I AM sending a short story of how I’ve been blessed with the truth and the ^privilege of comforting others with the ’truth.

Once upon a time, about eight years ago, I began to study God’s Word with the gracious helps He has provided. I saw my mistake in the kind of life I was living and started at once to turn away from Satan’s world and go in the right direction. Satan immediately got busy and took advantage of my sick, epileptic condition and caused me to try to kill myself. He failed (which he.always does when Jehovah God fights our battles for us). My nervous breakdown led me to be brought to this institution, behind locked doors. Although meant for a curse, it turned into a rich blessing! Noiw I am able, and am getting the opportunities, , to do God’s will commanded at Matthew 24:14. While at home with my husband, who is bitterly opposed to the truth, I could not take part in the “strange work” at all. Here, among many others who are afflicted as I am, I am able to obey God’s command. His name be praised! Many “other sheep” are here waiting for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, and it is a great joy to be among them. God continues to feed His flock with spiritual and material food. May we continue to use the same to help bring others into the fold. Singing the “new song”, I close with love to all in Kingdom service.

Prying into the Secrets of Blossom Time

THE wise man once said, “For everything there is a season, ... a time to plant and a time to pluck.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,2, Am. Stan. Ver.) By observation the people of all lands have learned this truth from their childhood. The aborigines of the various races in their primitive state know this fact. Likewise ignorant and illiterate people of countries that have been soaked in religion know of springtime and harvesttime. Highly educated men not only have observed this fact, but have pondered over and wondered about the causes of this “natural law”.

With their scientific approach to everything scientists have searched for an understanding of the fundamental processes that control this 'phenomenon. It is not so hard to understand why perennial plants and trees found in the temperate and frigid zones shed their foliage and “close shop” when the first frosty nights warn them of the coming winter. But what causes these same plants to bloom forth again at their proper and

customary time is not so easily explained. What causes “the bud of the tender herb to spring forth”? is a question as old as the days of Job.—Job 38:1,27. _                                 .

School children are taught that “April showers bring May flowers”. Yet to say that it is the warm sunshine and rain of April’s springtime that alone causes these plants to put forth their buds leaves too many questions unanswered. More observant individuals will ask why pussy willows do not wait for the warm showers, but, rather, put forth their silken and downy catkins when they are still standing in snow up to their ankles.

Then there is the case of that offensive member in wild-plant society having a fetid odor, skunk cabbage by name, which grows in swampy parts of North America and eastern Asia. While the temperature is still cold it pushes up even if it has to break through thin ice to do so. This early precursor of spring is the first pollen-bearing plant visited by the bees.                 ,

Wild violets, beneath a blanket of snow w’bere the sun never penetrates, also flower out with delicate fragrance and beauty at a time when most of us consider it still wintertime.

But perhaps the most eccentric of any is the w’itch hazel. With limbs completely bare of any leaves it blossoms out. In fact, it is such a rugged isolationist that it blooms only in the wintertime between November and March. No warm spring .showers for the hardy witch hazel!

We may set aside these “exceptions to the rule" and consider only the “normal” individuals that blossom forth in April and May. Still we have a difficult question to explain. If the warm days in April cause the plants to open up, why, then, are they not awakened in November when oftentimes the weather is even hotter? Why is it that when they have once shed their leaves in October they cannot be coaxed out prematurely by the heat of a late Indian summer? It must be that more is involved than the weather factors of temperature and moisture. The answer to these questions and the explanation of this God-ordained phenomenon must lie in the plants themselves. Somewhere within them Jehovah, in His creative wisdom and power, must have placed elements that control and govern the individual behavior of each in harmony and accord with the rest of His universe.

Biochemists, in their study of the chemical processes and reactions of plants, think they have discovered the answer to the question. They have found stored away in plants certain organic substances that control the habits of the individual plants and give them “personality”. These chemical materials are called enzymes, from the Greek word meaning “leavening”. They are distinguished from the “organized” ferments known as yeasts, molds, and bacteria. Scientists freely admit that they know very little about these enzymes in spite of years of study. New findings in the field of research are continually upsetting old theories. One thing, however, that investigators pretty well agree on is that enzymes control the budding out of plants; the differences of opinion are . on how this is accomplished.

According to Science News Letter practically all of the spring-blossoming plants will not break their winter sleep until they have gone through a definite period of low temperature, which causes certain chemical enzyme reactions to take place. This arrangement of the Creator acts like a kind of life insurance for the plants. If the trees and perennials responded to the warm fall rains after they had shed their leaves, then they would be caught and killed by the real cold weather later on.

The article in the above-mentioned publication continues to tell something of this little-known budding process.

The biochemical mechanism involved is at • least partly understood. Tree and shrub buds are stimulated to unfold, and underground bulbs, tqbers and rootstocks to send up new shoots, by certain enzymes in their cells. These enzymes will not start the vital chemical reactions for which they are responsible unless they are first well chilled, then warmed.

The degree of chilling, and the length of time it must be continued, differ widely among plants. Some flowering shrubs have a very light dormancy: a few nights of frost suffice for their chilling requirements, and after that they, are ready to break into bloom on the slightest provocation. Thus we see forsythia, ornamental quince and several kinds of honeysuckle putting forth at least a few flowers during a warm autumn, and sometimes even in a mild winter.

On the other hand, some species require a really stiff freezing before their enzyme combination will unlock itself. Common examples are lilac, snowball, most fruit trees, most bulb flowers and a great many of the other perennial herbs. Lily-of-the-vallcy is an especially tough customer about wanting to leave its toes well frozen before it will wake up.

This phenomenon, of course, is Umi ted

mainly to plants that grow in regions where there are fairly well-marked temperature differences between summer and winter. Many tropical and sub-tropical species do not have . dormant periods, but these are governed by

factors other than winter cold. Winter drought, for example, is important in the dormancy of plants from monsoon regions.

1 And many tropical plants, from regions where year-long growth is possible, never become dormant at all.

Thus we see how Jehovah God did not overlook any detail in making provision for the orderly function of His entire creation. All works together in complete unity. All is in harmony with His fundamental law set forth in Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Let men with their scientific tools continue to pry open the recesses of creation’s wonderland in their search for understanding, yet they will only scratch the surface of the boundless treasurehouse of wisdom. After considering the infinite greatness of the Creator of the Universe a' learned man of ancient times cried out, “0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”—Romans 11:33.

.             The Art

MUSIC was heard when the foundations of the earth were laid, ‘the morning stars singing together.’ There was music in the garden of Eden even before there were any ears of man to enjoy it, myriads of songsters such as the lark, thrush, and nightingale filling the air with their sweet notes of melody. To many music is the most beautiful, expressive, and natural of all the arts. When the heart is filled with the greatest joy or the most poignant grief, words seem inadequate, and so it bursts forth in song, in music.

Early in man’s history he began this mode of expression, Jubal, some thousand years before the Flood, being referred to as “the father of all such as handle the harp and organ”. Many centuries later we find Moses, Deborah, and others using music to express their appreciation to Jehovah of His marvelous acts of deliverance. Then David appears on the scene, who doubtless is the outstanding musician mentioned in the Scriptures. Not only was he a skillful player on the harp, and a composer of many songs, but he also devised a musical program of worship for the temple

of Music

in which thousands of musicians took part.                               i

The sacred chronicler who witnessed the initial performance of that musical program appreciated good music well rendered, taking pains to tell us that when “the trumpeters and singers were as owe”'then the glory of Jehovah filled the temple. Since both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures abound with commands to praise Jehovah with music, what could be more fitting and helpful than a discussion of music, what it is, and what rules and laws govern it and its interpretation, so as to aid all who appreciate the goodness and greatness of the Creator in their efforts to express that appreciation with music, and to help them to do it “as one”?

Science of Music

What is music? Music is, first of all, vibration. This was forcibly illustrated when a certain deaf-mute, who was also blind, placed her fingers on the bottom of a violin while it was being played, and by the changing expressions on her face gave evidence that she was able to appreciate and enjoy the music even though she did not hear a sound. However, to

moat of us music is sound. We enjoy its vibrations only after they have been transformed into sound waves and have been picked, up by our ears. The more vibrations per second, the shorter those sound waves. Most music comes within the range of forty to four thousand vibrations per second. However, our ears have a range of sixteen to 16,000 vibrations per second, the delicate mechanism able to measure up to 16,000 vibrations per second being another striking evidence of our being “fearfully and won-♦ derfully made”.

How do our ears pick up those sound waves? Well, our “outer” ears serve as a funnel, being shaped so as to catch the sound waves and feed them into the “inner” ear. In this “inner” ear there is a miniature pool in which the auditory nerves are suspended. Sound waves entering the ear cause ripples in that miniature pool, the nerves carrying a message to the brain, telling it just what kind of ripples were made by those sound waves, thus telling the pitch, the quality, the volume, etc.

If music is sound, isjp.ll sound music? No, far from it! Science distinguishes sound that is music from that which is noise in that it has definite pitch, definite quality, and definite duration. The squeak - of .a wheel on a subway train may have a definite pitch, but, being without quality, it is noise, apd not music. What causes quality in sound is regularity of vibra-_ tions and the number of related sound waves $et in motion, which factors are influenced by the medium used to make the sound and the manner in which it is made. Such related or sympathetic vibrations are called “overtones” or harmonics. However, even sounds of quality, when played without regard to time or duration would no longer be music, but just so much noise.

Development of Music

Music, as we have it today, is defined as the combining of tones into rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic order so as to ex

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cite the emotions or appeal to the intellect. Regarding its development, The Americana says: “Every point connected with the rise of music is more or less wrapped in vagueness and doubt.” It seems to have gotten its start in Egypt many centuries before Christ with the discovery of the octave. It was found that every note has a most perfect concord, or another note that sounds very much .like it, and blends almost perfectly with it. This discovery gave a natural as well as scientific basis to music; for as one went up or down the musical ladder, as it were, one came to a note sounding almost identical with the starting note; this being so because it had exactly half' or twice as many vibrations, depending on whether it was below or above.-Ap-preciation of this fact gave music a unit of measure, the octave.

But what about the distance between any given note and its most perfect concord, between any set number of vibrations and their half or double? This was gradually filled in as the scale on which music was played developed from two or three tones to four and five, and finally to two separate sets of four tones which completed the octave, which name means “eighth”. From the very beginning it was found that the ear required variety in these steps or tones, and so both whole and half tones (or “semitones”) were used. In the major scale there are five whole tones and two semitones, which latter come between the third and fourth and the seventh and eighth steps or “degrees”. These seven notes are called by the first seven letters of the alphabet, the eighth being the same as the first. When the half steps are in this position the music lends itself ideally to cheerful, bright and forceful moods. However, by placing them in certain other positions we obtain a subdued and melancholy tone color, which scales are called “minor”. This use of five whole tones and two half tones not only is the golden mean between a scale having less variety which would result in monotony,

and one having more and resulting in confusion, but also the effect upon the ear shows that their location is natural.

In our scales we have a “home” posi-* tion, which is the scale beginning with the note “C”. From “C” to “C” each note follows the rule governing the major scale ^k    as to position of whole tones and semi-

i   tones, which are indicated by the white

keys on a piano. From that it is seen that were we to begin our scale on any other-note than “C” certain changes would have to be made to have the whole tones and semitones come in the right places. ' For this purpose we have “sharps” and “flats”, sharps raising the note a half tone, and flats lowering them a half tone, being indicated on a piano by the black keys. At the beginning of a piece of music we have therefore indicated the number of sharps or flats used, as well as which notes are involved, from which we can determine the key or foundation note of the musical selection. Such signs are also used throughout the music whenever it is necessary or seems artistic to change certain notes, tin? sign being placed immediately before the note, and referred to as an “accidental”. There is also the natural sign which restores a note made sharp or flat, either by means of the key or an accidental, to its “natural” position.

Writing Music

However, it is one thing to play and sing music and another thing to have a medium for recording it so that it can be passed on to others. In this regard we have no record of Scriptural music and can only surmise that its quality was in keeping with the worship of the true God, and other artistic manifestations of that worship as seen by architecture of the temple and the poetic beauty of the Psalms. The Greeks and the early “Christians” had certain characters denoting music. However, these were of value only when one already knew the tune or melody. With the gradual discovery of the laws governing music came

also the invention of mediums through which to communicate music to others, the first big step being made in the eighth Century with the invention of the staff, a set of five parallel lines, which together with the spaces between were given names corresponding to the seven different notes of the octave-, viz., from “a” to “g”.      .     ,           _

Staffs are written in four positions or “clefs”, the two most common and the ones used in all piano and songbook writing being the treble or “G” clef and the bass or “C” clef, thr treble being the five lines above the words in a songbook (such as the Kingdom Service Song Book), and the bass clef being the five lines below. By adding an extra line between these two clefs we have a continuous musical ladder. As a key to the names of the lines and spaces think of the letters in the word “ace” as the names of the notes combining the two; the top line of the bass clef being “a”, the e^tra line between being “c”, while the bottom line of the treble clef is “e”.

Not long after the invention of the staff came the playing of two notes (other than octaves) together, and thus harmony had its beginning. Several centuries later a system was devised to distinguish the time value of notes, thereby laying the foundation for variety in rhythm. In the beginning of the seventeenth century the printing of music began, and by the time another century rolled around music had reached the form in which we find it today. ■

Melody

From the foregoing we have seen that music is vibration, music is sound, that it has definite pitch, quality and duration, that the laws governing it were gradually discovered over a period of about three thousand years, and that in order to be able to transmit it to others certain characters and forms were invented. Now as to the essential characteristics of music: melody, rhythm and harmony.

Melody is the succession of notes expressing a musical thought. It is the “tune” which we whistle or sing, the wandering up and down on the musical ladder or scale of whole tones and semitones in a manner to appeal to our hearts and minds, our feelings or our understanding. It may be said that to the extent that a melody is the product of inspiration, and is based on sound musical principles, it has true beauty, and to that extent it will strike a responsive chord in man and will therefore live. Both the emotions and the mind must be deeply stirred and active if the result is to affect the emotions and minds of others. Popular tunes usually are shallow in both respects and therefore last only until the novelty has worn off. Nor can ability to compose beautiful, stirring, or catchy melody be learned from books, as is clearly seen by its lack in music of recent years, in the fields of both serious and popular music. -

Rhythm

Rhythm is the regular recurrence of heavy and light accents. To facilitate this, music is divided by vertical bars into “measures”. The kind of rhythm used is indicated at the beginning of the selection by fractions such as 2/4, 2/2, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, etc. The lower figure indicates the unit of value, while the upper shows the number of such units involved in the rhythm. As a rule, the first unit gets the heavy accent, the simplest forms being march time 2/4 or 4/4: one, two, one, two; or one, two, three, four (there being a secondary accent at the halfway mark), and waltz time 3/4: one, two, three, one, two, three. By changing the aceent from the first to the second unit we get a novel effect called “syncopation”.                            ‘

The various values of these notes are indicated as'“follows: a whole note resembles an oval; the half note, the same with a stem attached to it; the quarter note has the oval filled in ; while to indicate the eighth note one bar or flag is added, for the sixteenth, two; etc. Rests or pauses have similar values of whole, half, quarter, etc., which are also shown by certain characteristics. There are also indications showing when to increase or decrease the tempo, as w^Tell as to show when certain notes should be held beyond their regular value. All such, of course, depending upon the tempo or time in which the piece is written, which is usually indicated by Italian words ranging in meaning from very, very fast, to very, very slow. Rhythm imparts vitality to music, and much of the popularity of so-called “popular” music is due to its effective and novel uses of rhythm.

Harmony

Harmony is the combination of notes into chords, which are played simultaneously, as distinguished from melody, in which notes are played in succession, and has well been termed the grammar of music. Fundamentally, harmony is based on three notes, the first, third and fifth notes, and is used to give body, richness and support to the melody note. While chords are based on three notes, the adding of the fourth note gives them the sound of completeness, and so we find that most music is written in four-part harmony, the fourth note usually being an octave of one of the three. The male quartet, the mixed (two male and two female voices) quartet, and songbooks in general are cases in point.

In a class by itself is the “seventh” chord, 1-3-5-7, which when played produces a novel effect, not that of completeness, but, oh, the need of it! Therefore it is usually placed before the last chord in the selection, as it so definitely calls for the foundation chord, 1 -3-5-8, or some variation of it. While this is the most common use of this chord it is by no means limited to that. In fact, all of the foregoing is simply the a-b-c of harmony, there being no end of combinations and variations that may be played at one time. Indeed it is possible to play all seven notes of the octave at one tiinp and yet have a pleasing effect, provided those notes are properly spaced according to the rules of harmony.

_ Other Musical Elements

In addition to having the primary parts of melody, harmony, and rhythm, > all music is also divided into vocal and 5 instrumental. In vocal we have soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. In instrumental music we have strings, such as" the violin and harp; woodwinds, such as the flute and clarinet; brasses, the trumpet and trombone; and instruments of percussion, such as drums, cymbals, etc. All of these various instruments make for color in music, called timbre, which depends upon materials used in the instruments and the manner in which they are played. Musical instruments mentioned in the Bible can be classified likewise.

Not only is a musical tone distinguished by pitch, timbre, and duration, but also by dynamics, the volume with which it is rendered. To indicate this the following marks are used ranging from very, very loud to very, very soft: fff, ff, f> mfr ^mP> P> PP> PPP1 f irorn forte, meaning loud; and p from piano, meaning softly. The name piano as applied to a musical instrument is an abbreviation of its original name “pianoforte”, being so called because one could play on it both “piano” (softly) and “forte” (loudly).

Classic, Romantic, and Modern

Music in the days of our Lord and the apostles was the natural expression of the heart, and all took part therein. As religion crept in and took over, music also became a formalism, and, while mechanically making progress in some respects, as we have seen, it became more and more of a ceremony, involved, complicated, and requiring specialization, the “mass” becoming a most elaborate musical performance, priests and choirs being specially trained to sing its music. Typical of the way the Roman Catholic Hierarchy worked in those days was their making hundreds of boys eunuchs so as to provide male sopranos for their choirs (eunuchs keeping their boyish voices), the cathedrals being considered too “holy” for female singers; also their persecution of itinerant musicians, who, traveling from place to place, furnished some of the most beautiful music of the day, it being the kind that struck a responsive chord in the ■ hearts of'the common folk. Such were considered as outlaws, and when apprehended were actually put to death for their “crime” of entertaining the common people with simple and beautiful tunes, the Hierarchy looking upon them with about as much favor then as she does upon the> itinerant witnesses of Jehovah today.

Under this influence was developed what was known as “polyphonic” music, that is, music carrying many (poly) tunes (phonic—-literally, “Voices”) at one time. Listening to four melodies at one ■ time may prove interesting to one having studied music and may provide men-tai exercise, but has little for. the heart.

With the Reformation also came a reformation in music. Martin Luther rightly contended that instead of having music sung by priests and specially trained choirs, and which was chiefly an exhibition of musical mathematics, all of the congregation should join in the singing even as the early church did, and that it should be an expression of the heart. To carry this out he had a musical friend write what proved to be the first hymn book. Thus began the change from polyphonic to “monophonic” (one-voiced) or single-melodiedmusic with a supporting structure of harmony, the supporting harmony now being possible due to the progress made in the discovery of musical laws and forms.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the men who played the chief role in music as we have it today were Protestants, With the seventeenth century these men began to compose what is now called “classical” music, which reached its zenith in the following century. It might be noted here that there is a prevailing misconception as regards “classical" music. It is confused with all serious music, as, contrasted with light or popular music. But it actually is serious music of a certain style and written chiefly during a certain period of time, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the classical composers still largely employed the polyphonic style, they did strike out for beauty and reason, thereby freeing music from much of its bondage to ecclesiastical “modes” or musical rules. Chief among such composers were Bach and Handel.

This stage was followed by what is known as the Romantic period of music. The reformation which began with the lowly choral now took over the field of serious music. It too became monophonic, having a single melody with a supporting ■ structure of harmony. Composers, fioneer among whom was Beethoven, no onger felt tightly bound to set musical aws and rules, known as “canons”, and argely arbitrary, but gave true expression to their emotions. Serious music written from the end of the eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century is largely in this Romantic style, all of which is outstanding for its melodic charm. It has well stood the test of time. And no wonder, it was music of the heart, struck a responsive chord, was music for the many.

However, toward the end of the nineteenth century composers appeared not only whose goal was still greater freedom of expression but who insisted on using that freedom, not as an aid to greater beauty and more accurate expression of what they felt, but to give an intellectual message, called “programme” music, it having a descriptive program; while others went to the other extreme, holding that music should merely give impressions, such being known as “impressionistic” music (something like impressionistic paintings, where no clear outline is to be seen but everything is vague and indefinite). Their appearance marked the end of the Romantic and the beginning of the “Modern" periods of music. Comparatively little of this music has lasted for more than a few years. And how can it, since it does not strike a responsive chord in man but is largely an intellectual experience?

Folk Music

Serious music, be it classical, romantic, or modern, has been misunderstood by many because of their lack of musical education, or unwillingness to take a little pains to try to understand it. Knowing what to expect will greatly aid in this regard: sheer beauty of sound, from absolute music; intense feeling, from poetic music; or a musical portrait, from descriptive music.

However, there is another form of music which all can enjoy, it requiring neither education nor effort to understand it, and that is folk music. In Europe almost every country ha$ its distinctive folk music: that of the French being marked by its rhythm; that of the Italian, by its melodic charm; that of the German, and, in fact, that of all northern countries, being noted for its harmony, again showing the influence of the choral of the Reformation; etc.; while in this country we have Negro, Indian, and Western forms, etc.

Folk music springs from the heart, the common people, the soil, as it were. It has stood the test of time because it expresses with truth and beauty the feelings of the common people, their joys, their longings, their heartaches, etc. Such being common to all, we find that while each nation has its own folk music, we are able to enjoy them all; thus showing that music is indeed a universal language.

Moods and Interpretation

Music being the language of the heart, we think of it as being in moods, such as joyous, heartfelt, majestic, and martial. In interpreting such moods it is well to bear in mind that all music falls info two general classifications: song and dance. In songs the rhythm plays “second fiddie” to the melody; while in the dance _ the melody plays “second fiddle” to the rhythm.

All martial music has vitality, snap, ’* power; it gets in your feet as it were, j and therefore its rhythm, particularly in the bass, must be marked distinctly. Martial songs are usually written in 2/4 or 4/4 time, such as “ 'Forward!’ be our watchword, Steps and voices joined”; and the ending is usually broad and strong.                                  .    ■

Then we come to the joyous mood, which invariably is indicated by the dotted eighth note (actual value, 3/16) followed by a sixteenth note. “Go we forth with gladness now to serve our King” is a good example of this.

Just the opposite are our heart songs: earnestness, intensity, from the heart; but watch out—do not drag! “Take sides , with Jehovah; Make Him your delight,” etc. Such songs have tendency to reach the climax before the last line of poetry, with which they usually come to rest by getting softer as well as slower.

Also there is the majestic theme, appealing to the imagination; “Arm of the Lord^ awake, awake! Put oh thy strength, the nations shake.” All such -must be rendered-majestically, with full appreciation of the grandeur and scope of the poetry, not too slow, nor yet hurried.

One who plays accompaniments for such songs should always sing mentally, this greatly aiding him in giving proper rests at the end of each line and especially at the end of each stanza of poetry. And while such a one has the main burden as to interpretation and must take the lead, unless those singing know what to expect and apply themselves he will largely labor in vain, and should he insist, the result would be confusion. But with all having an appreciation of the fundamentals, and, above all, listening closely, the result will be to the praise of Jehovah’s name, even as it was in the days of Solomon, when the “trumpeters and singers were as one",           ’

Consider the Evidence

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“THE KINGDOM IT AT HAND”

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Railroads in Time of Stress

IN THE twelve years from 1930 to 1941 inclusive the inilfeage of American railroads shrank from 249,052 to 231,971 miles; the locomotives in service dropped from 60,189 to 44,375; the freight cars in .service, from 2,322,267 to 1,755,798; the passenger cars in service, from 53,584 to 38,334. An all-round drop of about 25 percent.

It took another world war to put the railroads back on their feet, but they arc back. The tons of freight carried in 1941 were 225,786,309 more than in 1930, even though they had 15,814 fewer engines with which to haul it and 566,469 fcrwer freight cars on which to load it. Tn 1941 the number of ton-miles hauled by truck was only 9.3 percent of that hauled by rail. And when it comes to the moving of troops, in a single period of six months recently these railroads carried 5,250,000 troops in organized movements, and this did not include the men on furloughs. This is as many men as were carried in the first fifteen months of World War I.                    ■

The United States and Canada have between them more railway mileage than all of Europe and Asia put together; and they have four times as much mileage as Africa, South America, New Zealand and Australia. Efficiency is at an all-time high. For each pound of fuel used in freight service in 1940 the railroads hauled 8.9 tons of freight and equipment one mile, compared with 6.2 tons in 1921. This is an increased efficiency of 44 percent.

The first big strain that -was put on the railroads was when the U-boats began sending the tankers to the bottom. Then the normal rail movement of oil east was 12,000 barrels a day, and this had to be jumped to 1,600,090 barrels, which is 133 times as much. And, do you know, they did it. Some days they ram 559 oil trains a day, and at passenger speeds; and some of the runs were 2,500 miles long. John Grover, writing his dispatch in the caboose of one of these oil trains, said, in the Baltimore Sun:

It can’t be done, so they're doing it. I have had a box seat for this mightiest of hot-shot freight in rail history, the bouncing caboose of a 60-car tanker train that’s just winding up a record lfl!)-hcur trip from the Texas Gulf Coast. [Port Arthur, Texas, to Providence, R.T., 2,427.5 miles] The oil’s going through. It’s a gigantic effort that compares with the great, sagas of our pioneer days.

Jfrwing Troops and Passengers

Tn Europe it takes 1,216 ten-ton railway trucks to carry every enemy division of around 12,909 men. This will give some idea of what a great and sudden burden was thrown upon the railroads in looking after other needs than the oilburning homes and factories of New’ England and the East. In America it takes 1,500 Pullmans ten days.to haul a division across the continent.

The people like to travel fast, and they get the chance. The Burlington has two trains that, between certain stations, are scheduled to make over 80 miles per hour; Union Pacific, tw’o trains at over 77; Missouri Pacific, one at over 80; Florida East Coast, one at 79.6; Santa Fe, tw’o at over 78; Milwaukee, one at 81. On one occasion the Union Pacific ran 9 miles in Nebraska at 129 miles per hour; the Philadelphia and Reading has done 115.2 miles, and the New York Central 10,9-35 miles, per hour.

The Trail Blazer, Pennsylvania Railroad, leaves New A^Tork at 5:25 P.M. (E.S.T.). and arrives in Chicago, more than 900 miles awmy, at 9:25 (C.S.T.) the next morning; there is no extra fare. All seats are reserved and adjustable; there are buffet-lounge cars and twinunit diners serving popularly priced meals. And do the public like it! The first year the train carried 132,000 passengers; and the second year, 175,000 passengers.               -

There are 7,000 sleeping cars in the Pullman system. When a car has the word “Mount” in its name it is a ten-J section observation; when it has “Lake” it is a ten-section ; when it has “Point” it has ten sections and two drawing rooms.

• When cars are needed anywhere they * are supplied from those nearest the station where they will be first needed. A new⁷ two-way telephone system permits continuous communication with a moving train, between trains, and between the head and rear of the same train; Pennsylvania Bailroad.

The newest streamliner steam engines used for hauling fast passenger trains are the length of a city lot (more than 100 feet), and weigh more than 1,000,000 pounds. The Pennsylvania has some of these giants that were built to haul 880 tons at 100 miles an hour. They run the 713 miles from Harrisburg to Chicago with only one stop for fuel. They carry 41 tons of coal and 19,500 gallons ol‘ water.

No Aristocracy in America

There is no aristocracy in America, and if black men are to die for the four freedoms, it is hardly fair to ask them to go without sleep in a Jim Crow^T car when there are unused sleeping accommodations in the adjoining Pullman, where the clean, courteous and efficient porter is a black man. The Supreme Court decided that Negroes traveling on first-class tickets in Arkansas are entitled to first-class accommodations.

C. S. Stamps, a Kansas City Negro, complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission that he purchased a first-class ticket from Kansas City to Houston, Texas, but was carried in a car “used for baggage and cooking and carrying of freight and express”. He could npt figure it out why persons with more or less white hides, that paid no more for their tickets, should be provided with clean towels, wash bowls, upholstered seats, smoking rooms, lounging rooms, Writing materials, reading matter and valet service while he was compelled to ride in a car “possessing none of the afore-mentioned facilities, but being hot and'without windows or ventilation and having express and freight and livestock and hot kitchens and dirty facilities and non-toilet facilities”. Four railroads were mentioned in his complaint.

In the spring of 1944 thirty railroad employees and hotel workers in Miami, Fla., undertook a private plan of buying and selling Pullman reservations on a huge scale. They were making $15,000 to $20,000 a month until the federal government arrested them all, charged with violation of a federal law forbidding the sale of any service to a passenger at a rate in excess of that charged other persons for the same accommodation. Some of these parties charged $100 extra for the Pullman service to New York, above regular fares.'

.Joseph B. Kastman, director of Transportation, ruled that rail travelers are limited to one suitcase, but. the rule is not enforced on one of the principal trunk lines, and .the baggagemaster in one of the largest cities in the United States had heard nothing of it.

Railroad Men Not Overpaid

The periodical Labor claims that the average pay of railroad men is but $1,324 per year; and if that is true, it is too little. They do not have the appearance of being overpaid. A sly scheme of some railroads is to farm out sections to contractors on a cost-plus basis; the contractors pay 20c to 40c an hour more than the railroad pays its own men for the same kind of work. The advantage to the railroad is that it gets much of its work done at wages below the market rate paid by the contractor. The Pennsylvania railroad now employs 12,000 women workers (10,700 more than 'pre-viously). The great majority⁷ of these work in overalls and slacks.

In an argument before the Rail Wage Board, in Chicago, Judge Charles M.

Hay made these interesting and convincing statements:

The distinguishing characteristic of railroad service, particularly the service rendered by the men in the operating groups, is that it has to do primarily and supremely with the eare, conservation and safety of other people’s property and other people’s lives. There is no class of men known to our industrial life whose burdens of responsibility for the safety of life and property is comparable to that of men in this service. That is inherent in the very nature of the business. That is the business of railroad men. Their responsibility is of such a fearful measure as to demand of them skill and efficiency of the highest order. They must be 100 percent efficient 100 percent of the time.

AU this is particularly true in this day of heavier loads, longer trains and greater speeds. During the last twenty years the tractive power of engines has increased 38 percent ; the capacity of freight cars, from 42.4 tons to 50.2 tons; the average number of cars per train, from 35.6 to 49.7; the speed of freight trains, from 10.3 miles per hour between terminals to 16.7; and the speed of passenger trains has increased almost to the point of rivalry with the airplane.

This enlargement and speeding up of the units of transportation has enabled the carriers to operate substantially the same number of miles of road; handle an ever larger number of gross ton miles and passenger car miles than were handled twenty year's ago, with a much smaller number of ears and greatly reduced number of men. Whereas there were 2,022,832 men in railroad service in 1920, there were 1,026,956 in 1940. In terms of increased service the facts are that the same crew that in 1920 handled the average freight train of 36 cars with a gross tonnage of 1,443, at a speed of 10.3 miles per hour, in 1940 handled a train of 50 cars, with a gross tonnage of 2,047, at a speed of 16.7 miles per hour.

Can the Comeback Be Made Permanent?

Many are wondering whether the railroads . can stage a permanent comeback after the war; they could hardly do it with 14,000,000 wage-earners out of work. There are some indications that some of the railroads dread the r.eturn of normal times and are trying to clean up. The Lackawanna, on at least one of its trains, has an'ordinary bar where men and women may drink whisky and other similar drinks ad lib.

Basing its claim on land grants made in 1864 and 1870, the Northern Pacific claimed the right to select 2,900,000 acres of government land which had been set aside for forestry and other purposes. It asked too much. The government showed that the railroad had been guilty of fraud, having already obtained more in land and in values than it was entitled to, and the request was denied.

The faster speeds make the wrecks very bad when they, occur. Near Baden, Pa., some vicious man, on a bitter winter night, took a wrecking bar, drew the spikes from a rail and caused an innocent engineer and four other persons to lose their lives, and 114 others to be injured. How could any man do such a thing unless demonized? Serious rail wrecks have been caused by children who have placed rocks and spikes on a track or opened switches, “just for fun.” The tramp menace was never serious. The one-time 1,013,000 hobos in America were glad to get work when they could get it; they are said to have voluntarily kept ofi the railroads during the war.

But for the war, there might now be through trains running between London and Cairo, with the cars ferried over the Channel and the Bosporus. The railroad to Alaska has been surveyed, and it would not be a great undertaking to hook it up with the Trans-Siberian, and so, eventually, with all the Eastern Hemisphere. Despite the auto incursions into the field of transportation, the railroad business still looks like such a good investment that only a few years ago the Pennsylvania borrowed $11,925,000 at less than 1$ percent interest.

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