Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

IMPORTANT NOTICE

RESENTS LYING CENSORSHIP STRANGLING FREE SPEECH?

TECHNOCRACY AFRICA KINGDOM BLESSINGS IN CUBA AND MEXICO JEHOVAH IS GOD

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Vol.XIV-No. 351

March 1, 1933

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Drifting Mass of Roamers , . . 331

Southern Prison Company . . . 332

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Notice to the People .... 323

Western Canada Resents a

Lying Radio Censorship . . . 327

Pennington in Cleveland Press . 329

Is This Strangling Free Speech? 329

Technocracy........331

Chips...........331

An Honest Judge in Jacksonville . 332

Training Camps for Unemployed . 332

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

Japanese Mills in India .... 332

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

France Arms Japan.....330

The Cheltenham Express .... 331

British Markets Closed to Ireland . 332

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Does the Trick 332

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Farm Relief in Poland and Holland 331

The Sudd to Be Short-Circuited . 332

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

“Echo Dell Castle”

Taking China, Piece by Piece . . 330

Japs Invade Jchol at 10 Below Zero 330

Africa — A Continent in the SLvking

Kingdom Blessings in Cuba and Mexico

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Jehovah Is God

The Radio Witness Work . . . 351

Published e\ery other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & COWARD

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(The Golden Age

Volume XIV                       Brooklyn, N. Y., Wedneiday, March 1, 1933                       Number 351

Important Notice

January 19, 1933. To the People :

On the 16th of January, 1933, the following telegram was sent by the Canadian Radio Commission to radio stations throughout that country:

“Speeches of one Judge Rutherford, foreign anti-social agitator, must not be broadcast on Canadian stations until the continuity or records of same are submitted to Canadian radio broadcasting commission for approval.

(Signed)

Hector Charlesworth,

Chairman.”

The people should be informed of what is the real reason for this action by the Radio Commission in an effort to prevent them from hearing the truth by radio. Hence this notice. I am not an anti-social agitator, even as Jesus Christ and His apostles were not agitators. I am merely one among many of Jehovah's witnesses. Instead of being agitators, we are serving Jehovah’s notice of warning at His command. The rulers have already been served and are now attempting to prevent the people from hearing.

If one knew that Niagara Falls would shortly be dynamited, thereby turning great floods of water on the low lands, causing tremendous loss of property and human life, and he gave warning to the people of such approaching disaster, he would not be called an agitator. Jehovah has commanded this notice of warning to be given, and charges His witnesses with great responsibility. (Ezekiel 3:17-21) It is not a message from any man, but a message from the Word of God, and the grave responsibility rests upon each one to hear or to reject that message. In brief, these are the facts, to wit:

World powers began with the empire of Egypt, and that power w^ras followed by six others, in the order named: Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and Great Britain, the latter being specifically described by a number of the prophets. In each of these world powers three elements have constituted the rulers, to wit: commercial, political and religious strong men. The invisible ruler of each has been and is Satan the Devil, who has deceived both the rulers and the people and has filled the earth with great violence and suffering. That Satan might have full opportunity to make good his defiance and challenge to the Almighty, Jehovah God did not interfere with him until the end of a fixed time, which time came in the year 1914 and was particularly evidenced by the beginning of the World War. About that time Satan was cast out of heaven and down to the earth, where his operations are carried on, and now he desperately tries to blind all persons to the truth and to turn them away from Jehovah God and thus cause their destruction. The clergy are willingly ignorant, because they refuse to accept the plain teachings of the Bible. (2 Peter 3:2-5) The commercial and political rulers have followed the lead of the clergy, blindly trusting the latter. It is the blind guiding the blind, and the ditch is just ahead.

The clergy tell you that the present world distress is due to the fact that the people have failed to support their church organizations; while God’s Word says Satan has brought it upon the world. “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he know-eth that he hath but a short time.” (Revelation 12:12) Satan now seeks to destroy those to whom is given the charge to deliver the testimony of Jesus Christ to the people. (Revelation 12:17) There is now a company of men and women in the land wholly devoted to Jehovah God and His kingdom, and who are diligent in trying to deliver this testimony of Jesus Christ as commanded. They are not agitators in any sense of the word. They are not even asking anyone to join their ranks or any other organi-

zation, but are merely informing the people in obedience to Jehovah's commandment.

The great battle of Armageddon is approaching, at which time the final conflict between the forces of Satan and those of Jehovah will take place. Jehovah commands His witnesses to notify the rulers and the people of this approaching battle, that they may not be able to plead ignorance and that they may take their stand either on God's side or the Devil's side. Satan is now gathering all of the nations to this great conflict.—Revelation 1G: 13-1G.

Jehovah long ago used the nation of Israel to foreshadow or picture “Christendom” of the present day, and states that what happened to that nation was a type of what shall shortly come upon “Christendom”. The British Empire, of which Canada is a part, is the greatest empire that ever existed on earth. The United States is really a part of that empire; and it is properly designated the Anglo-American empire system. The Scriptures show that the chief officer of Satan in leading his wicked forces is called Gog, who formulates and leads in a conspiracy against Jehovah’s witnesses and against His kingdom, and that such conspiracy will begin and be prosecuted within the realms of the seventh world power above mentioned. Satan’s effort is to keep the people in ignorance of what is about to come to pass. Acting through his blinded representatives on earth, the clergy, he induces the commercial and political rulers to believe that the truth, as set forth in the Bible, should be kept from the people; and, in order to deceive the people and accomplish that wrong, public officials announce that Jehovah’s witnesses are anti-social agitators and what they have to say must be first censored. The radio is one of the best means of conveying knowledge to the people. If the official representatives of the seventh world power must first approve what is broadcast by radio, then the people may be assured that those powers will approve nothing that carries to the people the truth concerning the present unhappy condition and what is the remedy.

Since the message of warning is Jehovah God’s message, and not that of human creatures, and since this message is being delivered in obedience to the commandment of Jehovah God, those who hinder or oppose its delivery to the people are fighting against God, and He declares that He will recompense them fully in due time. No power can prevent Jehovah’s message from going to the people. Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, defied Jehovah, and disaster resulted. What befell that world power is but a sample of what Jehovah declares shall befall the seventh world power.

By His prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and others Jehovah makes it known that the Anglo-American empire system, which is “Christendom”, mil set itself in opposition to Jehovah God and attempt to destroy His testimony and His witnesses, but that they will fail. Satan’s world has come to the full in wickedness and must pass away, and no power can or will keep it alive for long. Jehovah God has caused His judgment, written in His Word, to be declared and made known. Armageddon will be the battle of the great day of God Almighty and will soon be fought, and at it Satan’s organization will go down.

Since the Anglo-American empire system, or “Christendom”, is the chief visible part of Satan’s organization on earth, it is certain, according to the Scriptures, that it will suffer the most. The notice heretofore served upon the rulers concerning what is about to come to pass they have scornfully spurned. The truth told to them from God’s Word has only served to harden their hearts, even as the truth hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Jehovah’s witnesses now on earth, instead of being agitators, are merely process servers to advise the rulers and the people by serving them notice of what is rapidly approaching. The opposers may control the radio for a time and may even destroy many of Jehovah’s witnesses, but the Lord declares that where one falls He will immediately cause another to take his place. The delivery of the message of Jehovah God must continue until the people are informed and given an opportunity to take their stand.

Armageddon will mark the complete end of the “Christendom” empire system. Jehovah by His prophets declares that “she shall be broken”, not by the power of man, but by the power of Almighty God. Jehovah’s witnesses now on the earth have nothing whatever to do with the breaking. Their only work is to bear testimony to the people, and for that reason they are opposed. Armageddon will be terrible upon all nations, but particularly upon the realm of “Christendom” because within that realm is found the greatest opposition to the message of Jehovah’s truth. Jehovah says concerning that time: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished'? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.”—Jeremiah 25: 29-33.

The clergy are the “shepherds” in “Christendom”, even as that same class of men were the shepherds in Israel. The commercial and political leaders constitute the “principal of the flock” of the religious systems of “Christendom”. Speaking further of what Armageddon shall mean Jehovah says: “Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.”—Jeremiah 25: 34, 35.

Christ Jesus foretold this time of great disaster and calls it 'tribulation such as the world has never before known’. It will be the expression of Jehovah God’s wrath against Satan and his wicked organization that has so long ruled and oppressed the people. Everybody knows that the peoples of the world are now in great distress and perplexity, and there is no earthly power that can pull the nations out of that dilemma. Why then denounce anyone who is merely telling the people why these things have come to pass and what is God’s remedy for suffering humanity? The only answer is, Because Satan exercises his subtle influence to keep the people in ignorance in order that he may turn them away from Jehovah and cause their destruction.

The time is here when every human creature on earth must take his stand either on the side of Satan or on the side of Jehovah God. The clergy have chosen to take their stand on Satan’s side, and they have inveigled most of the others of the rulers to do the same thing. Jehovah God will now have the people informed of the truth in order that they may take their stand on one side or the other before Armageddon. For this reason Jehovah causes His message to be published throughout the land of “Christendom”. More than one hundred and thirty million copies of books containing the explanation of the prophecies are now in the hands of the people, and this only for the purpose of giving them information. The radio has broadcast the message throughout the land, and the wide publication of the truth has alarmed the clergy, and they, acting under the direction of their supermaster, are attempting to stop the message of truth from reaching the people. Jehovah has many means of informing the people. He can make the very stones to be His witnesses if He so wills.

ESCAPE

If there is a way of escape from the disaster coming upon humankind, no one could avail himself of that way unless he is first informed as to the means of escape. To keep the people in ignorance of God’s Word of truth would mean to prevent them from knowing the way of escape. There are now on the earth millions of people of good will who are not at all in sympathy with the present oppressive rule exercised by the nations. For that reason these peoples of the nations are not desired by the rulers. To these people of good will Jehovah now says: “Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, 0 nation not desired: before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Zephaniah 2:1-3) To “seek meekness” means to be teachable, that is to say, find out what is in the Word of God and take heed to it. “Seek righteousness” means to do what is right, and that means to do harm to no man. Avoid controversies, do not take part in agitations, refrain from all manner of violence, and calmly wait on the Lord. If men attempt revolution or other violence against existing governments, have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Seek the Lord God and His kingdom and do right, because that is the only way of escape and the only safety for humankind.

Every one will identify himself. As Jehu caused all the Baal worshipers to identify themselves before he slew them, so likewise Christ Jesus, the Greater Jehu, will cause all the Devil’s representatives to identify themselves before He slays them. All who oppose God and His kingdom message thus identify themselves as being on the Devil’s side. Jonadab took his stand on the side of Jehovah and righteousness, and in this he pictured the peoples of good will now on earth who take their stand on the side of God and righteousness. These are the ones that will identify themselves as Jehovah’s people and will be carried through the great conflict of Armageddon and be made safe.—2 Kings 10:15-25.

In brief, these are the truths that Jehovah’s witnesses, of which I am privileged to be one, are carrying to the people by radio and otherwise, and these are the truths that the censors are trying to prevent the people from having. Many of these radio lectures are already in print and appear in the books and booklets that are listed below. The prophecy of Revelation is explained in detail in the two books named Light, and the prophecy of Ezekiel and other prophecies are fully explained in the three books called Vindication. Hundreds of thousands of these books are already in the hands of the people. If you have them, read them. If you have not, avail yourself of them as cprickly as possible and read them, together with your Bible, and compare these truths with the facts which you now know to exist and which will enable you to take your stand in a place of safety.

Armageddon will destroy Satan’s organization and will be followed by the righteous and blessed rule mider Christ Jesus, earth’s rightful King. That kingdom will bring unlimited blessings to mankind. The time of the great crisis is here! It is of most vital importance to you that you learn the truth, in order that you may safeguard your own life interests and be brought into endless life and its attending blessings.

If the Radio Commission prevents the people from hearing Jehovah God’s message of truth, that will be their responsibility and they will suffer the consequences. Jehovah will duly recompense them in His own good way. They will not learn from experience of men who in times past have opposed Jehovah God.—Psalm 82: 5.

Members of the Radio Commission of Canada are supposed to be the servants of the people, but they now presumptuously put themselves in a position of dictators by determining what the people shall or shall not hear by radio. If they have the power to censor one speech, they can censor all and keep the people in darkness. Have the people of Canada reached such a state of low intellectuality that they need to have a “w^Tise” radio commission to approve what they shall hear about the Bible? This censorship order bears the earmarks of the clergy, who have assumed to be the spiritual guardians of mankind. Themselves being unable to explain the Bible truths now in the hands of the people, they want to prevent them from hearing more. The censor order will doubtless cause the Canadian people to be more anxious than ever to hear what these radio lectures contain that is so objectionable to the clergy and their political allies. Be assured that the Lord God will provide the means for the people to hear; if not by radio, then by some other effective means. At this point how appropriate the words of Jehovah’s prophet: “For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult; and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.” (Psalm 83: 2, 3) “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.”—Psalm 2: 2-5.

Let the people who love righteousness and desire to see righteousness established in the whole earth under Christ’s kingdom be diligent now to inform themselves what Jehovah by His kingdom has in reservation for all who love and serve Him. “The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”—Proverbs 18:10, A.R.V.

One of the seiwants of Jehovah,

P.S. Since writing the above my attention has been drawn to a press dispatch appearing in The Telegraph Journal of Saint John, N. B., stating, amongst other things, that the radio commission of Canada had sent a telegram to each radio station of Canada the same as that quoted at the beginning of this statement, and adds: “Hector Charlesworth, chairman of the radio commission, stated a dignified complaint had been received from a group of Anglican clergymen in Saint John”; and the press report names some clergymen who protest, as follows: Rev. Cannon R. P. McKim, rector of St. Luke’s;

Rev. AV. C. A⁷". Martin, rector of St. Mary's, and Rev. T. Hudson Steward, rector of St. John’s (Stone) church.

These reverend gentlemen pose before the people as the representatives of God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom. I charge that they in fact represent Satan the Devil. I therefore challenge them to select one amongst their number to debate with me the following question, to wit:

That the clergymen of the Anglican church, contrary to their claim, do not in fact represent Jehovah God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom, but that they do represent and serve Satan the Devil and that thereby the people are deceived.

I respectfully request that the radio commission of Canada provide the national radio facilities to broadcast this debate so that the public may determine whether the clergymen represent their best interests or not. The people are entitled to hear the facts. The clergy and the radio commission have no right to withhold the facts and prevent the people from hearing the truth. The radio presumably is to be used to broadcast matters of public interest, convenience and necessity.

LIST OF BOOKS

The Harp of God

Deliverance

Creation Reconciliation Government

Life

Prophecy

BOOKLETS

War or Peace, Which? Heaven and Purgatory Crimes and Calamities Prohibition Who Is God?

Good News

Hereafter

Liberty

Cause of Death

By writing direct to The Watch Tower, 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., or to the Canadian branch office, 40 Irwin Ave., Toronto 5, Ont., you will receive, free, a copy of their 36-page booklet explaining the above books and booklets written by Judge Rutherford, and telling how you may procure them. Or, use the coupon on the last page of this magazine.

Western Canada Resents a Lying Radio Censorship

CENSORSHIP, as practiced during the World

War, proves to have been largely a business of suppressing truth and allowing lies to circulate ad libitum; at least that is what the former censors go to some pains to acknowledge. One of the British censors, visiting New York, boasted of the truths he had strangled and the lies he had circulated, and when the news got back to Great Britain the people were horrified to see how they had been lied to. They then learned the facts for the first time.

The people in general, and the Canadian people in particular, are tired of being lied to. Especially is this true of those that live in the western provinces. There is something about the prairie that tends to make people honest. People that live out in the great wide spaces, where there is plenty of room for everybody, resent having their thinking done for them by people that have ceased to think.

The clergy are such. They see nothing inconsistent in reciting over and over again their astonishing “discoveries” that there is but one God and that he is “not one, but three in one”; that God is love and that there is no depth of cruelty and meanness to which He will not descend; and that we should pray for His will to be done on earth as in heaven, but bend all our energies to glorify the set-up of which Satan is the prince, and which he backs up with battleships, howitzers, machine guns, bombs, flame throwers, poison gas and other methods of destruction lower and worse than those of the tiger, the jackal, the hyena or the boa constrictor.

For many years Judge Rutherford has been comforting the people in the Scriptures and, as a faithful witness of Jehovah God, pointing out where their former teachers have erred by taking their stand on the side of the Devil and failing or refusing to take their stand on the side of the Lord and on the side of the truth as laid down in His Word.

Of the more than 130,000,000 copies of his books that are in circulation nearly 1,000,000 a year go into the homes of the Canadian people.

Of the more than 300 radio stations from which his lectures go out each week to the truth-hungry people, 25 are Canadian, or at any rate were Canadian until three Anglican clergymen in St. John, N. B., concluded that the truth was getting too hot for them, and used their powerful influence with Hector Charlesworth, Canadian censor, in getting a ban put on the radio transcriptions now heard around the world.

It would be good for the Canadian people to have these three clergymen do all their thinking for them, if they desired to have it so, and were incapable of doing it themselves. They (Reverends McKim, Martin and Steward) were so elated at what they had accomplished that the news of what they did got into the Telegraph Journal in their home town. They got full credit for it.

But the credit which the three clergymen obtained in New Brunswick for closing the radio in Canada to the man who has challenged the clergy of the Devil to defend themselves against his charge that they are such—his willing and more or less (mostly less) able ministers and advocates—was discredit when it got to Winnipeg. The Manitobans, having been lied to in 1918 so effectively, are falsehood-shy. Note the following excerpts from the local press.

The first, “Censorship in Radio,” is a very good presentation of the fact that “religious” censorships have had their day. It is from the Winnipeg Free Press of January 20.

CENSORSHIP IN RADIO

It is perhaps well that the problem of censorship has projected itself so early into the domain of national broadcasting and perhaps also fortunate that it should have concerned itself with a question so almost academic as the broadcasts of “Judge Rutherford, of the Watch Tower International.’’ It seems, according to the statement of the Commission that there has been “dignified complaint” from a group of Anglican clergymen of St. John, N. B., and at the same time, the Government had called the attention of the Commission to the “subversive character” of the broadcast. So the Commission rushed to Canadian broadcasting stations an order to discontinue the broadcast until further notice.

Obviously any owner of a set who has a yearning to hear Judge Rutherford—and that number will be augmented by the Radio Commission’s action—has but to turn his dial on to an American station which carries this message. All that the Commission has done by its action is to effectively advertise Judge Rutherford’s lectures.

Back of this, however, stands the place and policy of censorship. A group of Anglican clergymen at St. John have a right to protest exactly commensurate with such a group of Anglican clergymen and no more. That right, however, is scarcely so powerful as to place its dictum on a national vehicle. Government interference is, if possible, a more gratuitous expression of misplaced ego. Exactly what Canada’s broadcasting commission must be free from is Governmental interference.

Admittedly, Canada’s Radio Commission is more than a machine for putting broadcasting in motion. It must take the final responsibility for what goes on the air. With the power of choosing what goes on comes the corollary of willing what shall be left off. Therefore, the necessity of the Commission establishing for itself at onee a policy of censorship. Broadly, it is generally agreed that Canada’s radio should not carry broadcasts offensive to public decency.

Within that light Canadian hearers have the inalienable right of listening to all sides of questions, whether those views coincide with those of the Government or of groups of citizens anywhere. Canada’s Radio Commission must face the fact that its clientele is for the most part used to thinking for itself, and will not tolerate judgments handed down as to what views it shall hear and shall not hear. The best and safest plan for the Commission is to make up its mind that it is dealing with a free people and, therefore, despite any ideas in high places as to what is good for the license holders, will proceed to present as many facets as possible of world opinion. And the first step on its course should be to point out to Government members that the Commission was appointed to run the Radio, not as an instrument under Governmental control.

The second, headed “Bible Student Talks Allowed by Commission”, from the Winnipeg Tribune of the same date, shows that the censor, Mr. Charlesworth, does not feel quite sure of the ground beneath his feet, and is trying to placate the indignant liberty-lovers of the West.

Mr. Charlesworth even goes so far as to repudiate the declaration that the Rutherford transcriptions were stopped at the instance of the clergy. Well, somebody has lied. It is barely possible that the three clergymen of Saint John, N. B., lied when they said they had made “a dignified complaint” to Censor Charlesworth. We -would consider such a course a normal procedure on their part.

It might be possible, but not at all probable, that the Telegraph Journal lied when it said that Hector Charlesworth admitted (or boasted) that he had received such a complaint from Reverends McKim, Martin and Steward, but the chances are that it is Mr. Charlesworth himself that lied, being aided, assisted and abetted, of course, by those who make their living by lying about Almighty God, namely, the clergy of the Devil, whose they are and whom they serve.

BIBLE STUDENT TALKS ALLOWED BY COMMISSION

Ban on Rutherford Records Not Extended to “Non-Abusive ’ ’ Speakers

Local members of the International Bible Students’ Association were “on the air” Thursday evening, explaining their teachings though the gramaphone records by Judge J. F. Rutherford remain under the ban —until sanction for their use is issued by the federal radio commission of which Hector Charlesworth is chairman.

Mr. Charlesworth issued instructions Thursday to all radio stations to discontinue the Rutherford broadcasts pending their being passed by the commission as “not abusive of other religions or governmental institutions. ’ ’

With the limitation Mr. Charlesworth permitted local stations to allow Bible students to speak on the air Thursday. The head of the movement in Winnipeg, F. C. Almond, gave W. II. Backhouse, manager of CKY, and D. R. P. Coats, of CJRW, the necessary assurances that the commission ruling against abuse of other religions or governments would not be violated and he was permitted to broadcast an address.

“It is regrettable,” Mr. Almond said, “that the federal radio commission, at the instance of the clergy, should curtail the message of Jehovah’s kingdom—as given by Judge J. F. Rutherford by electrical transmission. In the meantime the Winnipeg company of Jehovah’s witnesses will continue to broadcast the messages of truth for the comfort and instruction of the people.”

Mr. Charlesworth in a wire to Mr. Coats repudiated the charge of Mr. Almond that the stopping of the Rutherford transmissions had been “at the instance of the clergy.” “We have had no complaints of Bible Students’ programs,” he commented tersely.

Is This Strangling Free Speech?

TJADIO station KGEF, in California, was used vigorously until about two years ago. Then one line day its owner-licensee, Reverend Doctor Robert P. Shuler, received from the Federal Radio Commission the news that his application filed in September, 1930, for renewal of the station’s license had been denied “upon the ground that the public interest, convenience and necessity would not be served by the granting of the application”.

Exercising his privilege under the federal radio act, the clergyman appealed from this ruling of the commission to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Near the end of last November came the decision that the court heartily agreed with the radio commission; and that “some of the things urging it to this conclusion were that the station had been used to attack a religious organization— meaning the Roman Catholic Church.”

These last-quoted words are the exact ones used in the court's decision, as delivered by Associate Justice D. Lawrence Groner, most recently installed member of that august body. For this Mr. Groner is entitled to the blessing of Achille Ratti, his oiliness, il papa, Vatican©.

Additionally, the court said that it thought the operation of KGEF “constituted interstate commerce” and “that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitation, other than such as prescribed in the Constitution”. The court also thinks, as stated in its decision, that if one so authorized to broadcast uses a station

“to obstruct the administration of justice, “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic dis-“cord, or offend youth and innocence by the “free use of words suggestive of sexual im-“morality, . . . then this great science [radio “broadcasting], instead of a boon, will become “a scourge”.

Commenting on this case, the anti-clerical writer H. L. Mencken very appropriately said: “If the commission has a right to prohibit speeches which it believes will cause ‘religious strife and antagonism’, then it has a right to prohibit speeches which cause any other kind of strife and antagonism. In other words, then it has the right to decide at all times, and on whatever grounds it may deem sufficient, what shall and shall not be said on the air. It would be hard to imagine a more outrageous censorship. And it would be hard to imagine putting it into worse hands.”

In the effort to break the radio commission’s strangle hold upon his windpipe, the “Reverend Bob” Shuler asked that the adverse decision of the appeal court be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court. On January 16 last the nation’s highest tribunal announced its refusal to consider the final appeal of the pastor.

What it was that any “dumb dogs” (Isa. 56: 10,11) of the Methodist Church South said over KGEF we do not know, and care less. But if a radio broadcasting station can be ruled off the air in the U. S. A. because something has been or is being published by means of it that may “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands”, then we do care, a little.

Furthermore, when federal judges become powerful enough to dispatch a broadcasting station to gehenna because it has been or is being used to publish something that can be claimed to “attack a religious organization” or to “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands”, then such judges are, in our judgment, more powerful than the supposed-to-be rulers of this country, the common people, ever intended judges to be, and more powerful than their own instrument, the Constitution, allows judges to be. Seems not to have occurred to some of the judiciary that a simple and certain remedy for any sensitive listener who begins to hear something which to him may be unpalatable is to reach for the dial knob and gently turn it.

Taking China,

A S TIME goes on, the details of the Japanese plan of taking over China, a piece at a time, become more manifest. Evidently the Japanese have studied the history of the western nations to advantage. First was the seizure of Korea. That was nearest home and easiest to take. Last year came the rape of Manchuria. This year it is to be Jehol.

There is always an excuse. Last year there was the trumped-up charge of the Chinese destroying their own railway tracks at Mukden; this year bombs were discovered in the Japanese barracks.

The business of discovering things that you wish to discover, in the place where you wish to discover them, is an industry in itself, sometimes called “the detective business”. First you plant your stuff; and then you find it. It is not a difficult business. A crafty mind and an entire absence of principle are qualifications.

The bombs having been “discovered”, the first step was not a step of inquiry or of conciliation, but 2,600 Japanese shock troops, using nineteen field guns, assisted by seven bombing planes and two destroyers, easily reduced the Chinese city of Shanhaikwan to ruins. One wonders if the planes used included those stolen from the Chinese when Manchuria was grabbed.

The grabbing of Jehol opens the way to the heart of China. Peiping may go at any time now, because from the province of Jehol there are numerous passes into China through which, in ages past, her conquerors have entered, and been swallowed up. The Great Wall was built

Piece by Piece

to keep them out, but it is about as effective today as if it were a pale fence.

Japs Invade Jehol at 10 Below Zero

NO OTHER armies ever carried on the invasion of a foreign country at such low temperatures as the Japanese faced in Jehol, Manchuria. With incomparable fortitude these little brown men marched, fought and camped in an enemy country when it was 10 below zero. It would be next to impossible to get white troops to move, and sleep in the open, in such weather. But we do know of many companies of Jehovah’s witnesses moving into action in obedience to the command of the Most High God, about the same time, in this country, at 17 below zero.

France Arms Japan

THE conclusion that France is arming Japan is drawn from the fact that in the first eight months of 1931 the value of arms, powder and munitions exported was 58,576,000 francs, while during the first eight months of 1932 it was 124,857,000 francs. Additionally, it is learned that French exports to Japan in 1932 included great quantities of raw materials and articles useful in war, such as machines, machine parts, medical and chemical products, and scientific apparatus.

Technocracy By Judge J. F. Rutherford

IN RECENT weeks the newspapers and magazines throughout the country have given much space to technocracy. Many are wondering what it means. Those who have walked in the light in recent years, and have a vision of Jehovah’s organization and Satan’s organization, well know that the metropolitan newspapers and the leading magazines are owned and controlled by Big Business. Everything that is presented to these publications is carefully scrutinized before it is published. If it has any semblance of truth relative to the reconstruction of the world on a line of righteousness it is omitted oi' turned away. Every attempt to get Jehovah’s truth published through the magazines and the leading newspapers has failed because Satan’s agents are against such truth. Technocracy, in brief, claims that the price system is entirely done, and must be supplanted by a different system, which would require no medium of exchange such as is now used in the United States. Big Business owns almost all of the money that is in the banks or elsewhere. It has built its tremendous power upon the price system. It would be wholly inconsistent to say that Big Business would permit such a thing as technocracy to take over the government.

Why then does Big Business permit such a wide publication of the matter concerning technocracy? The correct answer, in harmony with the Scriptures, seems to be this: Big Business has been trying for some months to find an excuse to have a dictator in the United States and to control the affairs by one man or a very few men. A wide agitation of technocracy throughout the United States would likely produce a desire to try it. The unemployed would welcome anything that would seem to bring to them a better condition. An uprising of the people demanding technocracy could be easily seized upon by Big Business as an excuse or pretext for the appointment of a dictator in the United States. The Devil is a wily foe. His diplomatic agents on earth, following their father’s course, always put forward the very thing they do not want. Big Business does not want technocracy. Technocracy will never be in force in the United States, but it may be the camouflage for the appointment of a dictator. Let no one be deceived by Utopian dreams that are endorsed or even given notice through the public press and the subsidized magazines. The owners thereof, Big Business, without a question of doubt have some ulterior motive in permitting this wide publication of a thing that they are certainly against.

Chips

Farm Relief in Poland and Holland

T)0LAND has extended a moratorium to the farmers in respect of payment of their debts. In Holland, where 47 percent of the farms are rented, any tenant who signed a lease prior to January 1, 1932, may ask any district judge for a reduction of the rent.

“Echo Dell Castle”

JF. Paksons and wife, both over 70, owners

• of the heated and wired but not quite completed “Echo Dell Castle”, Pullman, Michigan, wish to make contact with some who might wish to help them complete and share their “castle”, raise poultry and vegetables on the estate, and heli) the owners to a share in the witness work of Jehovah’s witnesses. [Please do not write to The Golden Age about this.]

The Cheltenham Express

ORDINARILY the Cheltenham Express is booked to do the 77fj. miles between Swindon and Paddington Station, London, in 65 minutes, but the other day it did it in 62 minutes. It is now the fastest train in the world.

Drifting Mass of Roamers

THE report of the Welfare and Relief Mobilization of 1932 states that in the drifting mass of roamers now traversing the highways of the United States there are to be found expectant mothers, sick children, young married couples and old men and women without homes and without jobs. Many of the children traveling with migratory parents have never been in school a day in their lives. Of the wanderers 200,000 are mere youths.

Japanese Mills in India

T ARGELY shut out of India’s markets by the recently imposed tariff, Japanese capitalists are now erecting their own mills in Calcutta and it is predicted that a real war for control of the Indian piece-goods market impends.

British Markets Closed to Ireland

A NGERED because of De Valera’s repudiation of obligations incurred many years ago for the redemption of Irish lands, the British government has moved the duties on imports from Ireland up to 40 percent, thus virtually closing the Free State's best and almost her only market.

Southern Prison Company

THE Southern Prison Company of San Antonio seems to be well named. In this machine shop, engaged in the manufacture of steel prison cells, if reports of the Machinists’ Union are to be believed, employees on duty ten hours a day are paid for eight, they must report for work fifteen minutes before the starting whistle blows, they may not talk at their work, if they are injured at their work they are fired. It is claimed that men assigned to fire duty are docked for time spent in responding to practice alarms, and on one occasion were docked three hours’ pay for the time spent in extinguishing a fire in one of the company’s buildings.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Does the Trick

HF HE Smoot-Hawley tariff was going to make everybody in America rich by keeping out foreign competition. The duty on wheat was fixed at forty-two cents a bushel. The American farmer was told he would get the world price, plus forty-two cents, for every bushel he raised. As a result he has been offered as low as twenty cents a bushel in some places, and in many other places the elevator men will not take his wheat at any price. The tariff has made all our regular customers mad, and as most of them owe us borrowed money, and a creditor is almost always hated by a debtor, we are out of luck. John Bull has gone over to a protection basis, and, finding it lots of fun, is now negotiating preferential tariffs not only with Canada and all other parts of the British Empire, but with Sweden, Argentina and other countries. The American eagle, with his tail feathers all pulled out, is a sorry-looking object.

The Sudd to Be Short-Circuited

THE sudd section of the Nile is to be short-circuited. A fresh channel will be built around the sudd-filled section, in connection with the new dam at the end of Lake Albert. Thus all the water of the Nile can be used. Now three-fourths of it is absorbed and wasted by the sudd.

An Honest Judge in Jacksonville

Judge I. M. Anderson, of Jacksonville, Fla., answering the accusation that he did not bring in as much money in fines as his predecessors had done, explained that such moneys come from the poor, not the rich; that thousands of the influential citizens pass stop signs and traffic lights, park by fire plugs and commit other offenses, but they never have to pay fines. Their political friends intercede for them, and their traffic tickets never show up in court. Said Judge Anderson: “I have yet to have an arrested banker brought before me. The speeders usually are fruit or fish peddlers or other kinds of poor devils who are barely making enough to buy gasoline to peddle their wares. They have ancient autos that are about to fall apart. The eight-cylinder cars, it seems, are always within the speed limits. Only the 1925 models with four cylinders are speed-crazy.”

Training Camps for Unemployed

THE New York American makes the excellent suggestion that instead of waiting till next summer to conduct citizen’s military training camps the federal government should at once cooperate with state and municipal authorities in opening training camps for the unemployed. The government has had large experience in the planning of military camps and could care for the unemployed and make wise use of their services under better conditions than any other present agency. And it is its duty to so do. To have the streets of the richest country in the world constantly filled with begging men and even begging women is a national disgrace. Now let the National Guard be put to use. In Ohio a respectable young woman arranged to be sent to the workhouse for five months so that this winter she could earn $15 a month with which to care for her two boys, eight and nine years of age; she knew no other way to insure their being fed and sheltered during the winter months.

Africa — A Continent in the Making

In Four Parts — Part IV

WHAT was once the Orange Free State, but is now a part of the Union of South Africa, is mostly a table-land 3,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level, with a little over half a million people scattered over an area as large as New' York state.

Before the Dutch trekked into the country, in 1835-36, it was thinly settled with Bushmen and other natives; now⁷ there are 203,000 whites and 360,000 natives. Orange is cold in winter, and in summer is liable to violent thunderstorms and long droughts, but is healthful.

When diamonds were discovered in the w’est-ern part, at Kimberley, the British wanted the region, and took it, but subsequently paid $450,000 compensation for so doing.

The natives have no political rights in Orange. The Boers, fearful of the loss of theii- own liberties, and not inclined to be sentimental as respects their treatment of the natives, keep everything in their own hands. They are a Biblereading, praying people. When they first settled the country they were not accompanied by any clergy. On one occasion the British seized the land, to put a stop, so they said, to Boer outrages upon the natives, but after a time gave back the reins of power.

Natal w⁷as taken from the Dutch, in 1839, because it affords the only really good port on the South African coast for nearly a thousand miles, and the British w’anted that port for themselves. Situated on the border of Zululand, and, in fact, including Zululand within its present boundaries, Natal has had a stormy career.

Most warlike of the Negroes, the Zulus were able to put up a powerful resistance against the advance of the whites. Their higher type of vigor and physique is by some supposed to be due to a strain of Asiatic blood, common to all the Bantus, of w^Thom the Zulus are an advanced type.

The Zulus do not like taxation without representation. Occasionally they manifest dislike for their present masters, and somebody gets killed. They feel the want of employment, and resent the poor whites’ and Hindus’ taking their jobs. Half the population of Durban, the principal port, are of Hindu parentage.

The Town of Weeping

In the year 1838, in February, the then Zulu king Dingaan treacherously murdered Piet Retief and 70 of his fellow’ voortrekkers or pioneers while ostensibly entertaining them. Then warriors weie sent on farther, to exterminate their wives and children. They came upon them at what is now the town of "Weenen” (weeping), where 400 or 500 Boers came to their rescue and gave the Zulus one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in South Africa.

Dingaan Day is an annual public holiday in the Union of South Africa now, and serves as a great national reunion of Dutch-speaking South Africa, somewhat similar to the American Fourth of July. Fighting continued, off and on, until July 4, 1879, when British soldiers finally put an end to Zulu power to make trouble.

There is now⁷ little or no cannibalism among the Zulus, though the flesh of a dead wizard is popular. It is supposed to carry with it some of the dead man’s magic powers.

A Zulu expects to pay his father-in-law seven or eight cow s for his wife; the fatter she is, the more cows he has to pay. A chief’s daughter may cost him as many as thirty cows, and the cows about $10 apiece. A job with a white man will pay a Zulu in the country districts not more than 35c a day, so that a cow a month is the most he can expect to earn.

Zulu children often work as herd boys on white farms. Without fear they run among a herd of cow s to drive them in the desired direction ; and when tw⁷o bulls are fighting they separate them by twisting their tails. As older boys they do plowing. Eventually they have kraals or homes of their owm, and some of them, the older men, as many as twenty w^Tives. A Zulu in prison at Atlanta had the given name of Forty ; he was his father’s fortieth son, a bright and capable man, too, in prison for life for killing several men.

Zulu fathers teach their boys to bat one another over the head with clubs called knobker-ries, and to continue tomorrow⁷ the fight which starts today, in the hope that the loser today may be the winner tomorrow. The men fight with heavier clubs, and consider it all right to hit a man even when he is down.

In war time the Zulu warrior carried two clubs, one to fence with, and the other as a w’eapon, and the memories of what the w’arriors of a generation ago could do with their assagais makes it illegal to this day, in Natal, for a Zulu to be seen in public with two sticks in his hands.

Zulus Not Too Kindly Treated

A hundred years ago, when the Zulus were on the warpath, they are estimated to have slain 2,000,000 natives of other tribes, and to have eaten about 300,000 of them. British colonial administrators know all this, and it somewhat colors what they do to keep the Zulus in control.

In the city of Durban the Zulus have to live in barracks in a crowded area of streets. At present, 40,000 natives are living in barracks originally constructed to hold but a fraction of that number. For the privilege of living under these conditions they have to pay a poll tax of one pound a year, or about half a month’s wages.

In 1929 several hundred could not or did not pay their poll tax and the entire barracks was surrounded at night with police armed to the teeth, ready to let off tear-gas bombs which were in readiness. But not a drop of blood was spilled, though six hundred of the natives were arrested.

Prior to 1913 the Zulus found homes on European-owned farms as share-paying squatters. Now they may hold farm land only if they give ninety days a year of “labor service”. The farms of the Europeans have been cut up into smaller holdings, with no room for squatters, even if squatting were now legal, which it is not. As a result they have been crowded into the reserves and barracks in ever more cramped conditions.

Economic conditions in the reserves are so bad that fifty percent of the adults have to be away from home constantly in order to keep the rest of the family alive. The Mandates Commission suggests that five percent away from home is the maximum compatible with social stability. In the Belgian Congo they aim at a ten-percent maximum.

We would not like to say that the Zulu exwarrior in Natal is five times as badly off as the oppressed natives of the Belgian Congo, but it may be that guilty consciences, as well as memories of the Zulu wars of long ago, have something to do with the rigidity with which the imperialists of Natal treat the men that were there before them.

Basutoland and Swaziland

Basutoland, larger than New Jersey and Delaware, is the Switzerland of South Africa, as Abyssinia is of North Africa. This little native state, surrounded on all sides by the Cape province, Orange Free State and Natal, is very fertile, and well watered, and has a fine climate. The natives have increased from 40,000 to 500,000 in a century and are said to be the most intelligent of South African natives. No white man may own land in Basutoland. The scenery is said to be magnificent.

Swaziland is a reservation for the Swazis, one of the Zulu tribes to the north of Natal. It is larger than the combined area of Rhode Island and Connecticut, but it has only about 125,000 population and is undeveloped. Wild game and the most poisonous snakes in Africa, the mamba, are plentiful. A few minutes after you are bitten by a mamba you are on a one-way trip to the cemetery. Swaziland is well watered, well timbered and healthful.

Basutoland and other portions of South Africa have ancient and unknown scripts chiseled into the surface of the rocks. Within the past two or three years 12,000 photographs of these scripts have been taken, and are now being studied.

The Transvaal, the End of the Great Trek

The Great Trek, which began in 1833, when the Boers tried to get away from their British rulers in Cape province, ended when several thousand of them crossed the Vaal river (the north branch of the Orange river) and settled in what is now called the Transvaal.

There have been other treks since, but they have been fruitless. Only a few years ago seven hundred of these harried liberty-lovers left the Transvaal and went two thousand miles up the east coast of Africa through a trackless and dangerous wilderness, only at last to settle in what is now Kenya, British East Africa. They might better have stayed where they were.

The turn up the steep, almost impassable mountains from Natal into the Transvaal was made necessary because great hordes of Bantus (Zulus) were headed down the coast, and the vast plains beyond the mountains seemed easier to conquer than the warlike savages.

The vehicle which took the Boers into the Transvaal was the ox-wagon, the counterpart of the prairie schooner of America. These oxwagons are now mostly gone, having been supplanted by railways and automobiles, but are still occasionally seen at the annual Dingaan celebrations and the quarterly gatherings for “nagmaal” (the Lord’s Supper).

The Curse of Gold

But for the discovery of the greatest gold mines in the world, the Boers would have been permitted to retain their new country. In the effort to resist its being taken from them they put up one of the stiffest fights the British Empire has ever had to face. Their leader, Oom Paul Kruger, said the British might win, but it would be at a price that would stagger humanity ; and it was.

The heroic fight put up by a handful of men, mainly farmers, against the hosts of the powerful British Empire for almost three years is one of the pathetic stories of human history. In May, 1902, the Boer forces had to lay down their arms, having lost about 4,000 men on the field, with many more lingering in prison camps in India, Ceylon, St. Helena and Bermuda. But the chief cause of their surrender (not without conditions) was that more than 26,000 of their women and children had perished in the war and many more were in danger of perishing.

One of the reasons the British wanted to enter the World War was to square the account with Kaiser Wilhelm for congratulating Oom Paul when he suppressed the Jameson Raid (supposedly engineered or at least sanctioned by Cecil Rhodes), intended to seize the republic, in 1893.

Gold was discovered in the Transvaal in 1854, and by the end of 1928 more than one billion pounds sterling of gold had been taken out of the mines. As the output increased the need of better means of getting supplies in and gold out became evident. Railroads were built, paid for with the gold taken out of the mines, the Uit-landers (strangers) came in ever-increasing numbers, and the Boers were unable to govern to their satisfaction, and probably did not try.

At first the Boers did not wish the mines developed. They wanted to keep their country. They sensed what would happen when the mining experts of other countries came in. They would want to run things themselves; and that is what happened.

The Witwatersrand mines, or the Johannesburg mines, as they are more generally called, have an annual output exceeding £40.000,000, about half the world’s production. The gold mines benefit much by the fact that Great Britain has gone off the gold standard, and figures that they would stand to gain still more if the Union Government did the same.

It is predicted by experts that the present spurt in Witwatersrand gold production is the last, that by 1940 it will be but 60 percent of what it now is, and by 1950 but 25 percent. At the Village Deep shaft, near Johannesburg, gold is now being extracted from a depth of 7,600 feet. This is one of the deepest mines in the world.

So deep are the mines and so extensive their operations that they often cause slips of rock, similar to light earthquakes. These are often felt in Johannesburg. Ore is extracted from an area fifty miles long, extending twenty-five miles east and west of the city.

Gold Mine Labor Problems

The natives do not like to work under ground. They can hardly be blamed for that. It sometimes happens, therefore, that the mine owners cannot get enough native help to work below ground at the wages they are willing to pay. At one time, when Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer, living in London, he participated in shipping thousands of Chinese coolies to these South African mines. The experiment was not a success, and those that survived the treatment they* received were repatriated.

A capable Negro may earn as much as ten pounds a month in the mines, while his wages on a farm may be a pound a month or less, yet he prefers the farm. Europeans are paid six to eight times as much as is paid to natives. Maybe this general knowledge is one reason the natives do not press forward to secure employment under ground.

The Union Government system of railways, of which Johannesburg is the center of administration, as well as the hub, is the longest in the world under one general manager. In regularity of service and comfort provided for the passengers, it is rightly regarded as a model of efficiency. This is the more notable when regard is had to the long distances covered in a land so sparsely populated.

Johannesburg, with a population of 300,000, is an up-to-date modern city. The revenues flowing in from the gold mines have brought in a variety of manufacturing enterprises, the climate is excellent, and there are rich diamond and coal deposits, and agricultural possibilities. Oranges and other fruits are grown to some extent and could be grown in immense quantities.

Birj Game Is Plentiful

Big game is plentiful throughout the Transvaal. In the Kruger National Park, distinguished by 250 miles of good motor roads, the tourist may witness lions stalking in search of their prey, leopards slinking through the undergrowth, monkeys chattering in the tree tops, and bucks and zebras in abundance.

A device called the “mercy bullet'’ enables naturalists to stun wild animals of any kind without killing them. A fin-tailed shell contains chemicals; the nose is tipped with a hypodermic needle. When the shell, propelled by a light charge of powder, strikes an animal the needle penetrates the skin, the chemicals are immediately expelled, and in a few minutes the animal falls asleep.

Meantime, he is powerless; he can be photographed, have his tail shaved, have tags affixed to his horns, or have anything else done to him that the naturalist elects to do. In an hour or so he is back on his feet, as good as ever. Naturalists use this method in securing animals for zoological gardens.

In 1930, in the northern part of the Transvaal, a native was found living in a lions’ den, and sharing with the lions in their daily food. All the lions had been killed off but one lioness, and when she was slain he was greatly distressed. He is now employed on the farm of the man who discovered him.

In 1929, a white farmer of the Transvaal, Jack Nafte, hanged a native head downward by the legs from a tree and whipped him to death. The farmer was sentenced to receive ten lashes in the Pretoria jail, and to serve seven years’ imprisonment at hard labor. Prime Minister Hertzog interfered with the execution of the sentence.

At Johannesburg lightning is seen, on the average, 114 days in every year. Throughout the Transvaal hailstorms are frequent, often as many as a hundred a year are recorded.

Bechuanaland and Cecil Rhodes

From here on this story is the story of Cecil Rhodes. Whether they admire him or not, nobody can question the ability of this consumptive who had to flee for his life from England to South Africa when he was but seventeen years of age, and, in the thirty-two years that remained to him, changed the life of a continent.

Cecil Rhodes was the type of imperialist that honestly believes the British are the most capable administrators in the world and that therefore everything that is in the world is theirs by right. When he first went to South Africa the Kimberley diamond mines had just been discovered. In two years, while yet but nineteen years of age, he was a millionaire, and in a little while had talked the discoverers and owners of these mines out of their holdings and started his work of the conquest of Africa.

An eight months’ trip by oxcart into the interior convinced him that Britain could have in the Dark Continent an empire of exhaustless wealth, that the way into it was from the south, and that a railroad from the Cape to Cairo would be the making of the empire and the means of Africa’s civilization. He set about to build the railroad and to outwit the Germans, Portuguese and Boers whose interests conflicted with those he had in view.

In 1884, at age 31, he was responsible for the British acquisition of a protectorate over Bechuanaland, the first step in his dream of conquest. In six more years the British South Africa Company, which was his, was in control of what is now Southern Rhodesia, the Transvaal had been surrounded on all sides, the Germans and the Portuguese had both been shut off from their dreams of connecting their eastern and western possessions, and the British wedge that he hoped would result in an Africa entirely British had been driven thousands of miles far up into the heart of the continent, even to Lake Tanganyika.

Livingstone Prepared the Way

It is literally true that the missionary David Livingstone prepared the way for Cecil Rhodes. The very territory that Livingstone covered in his travels is the territory that is now included in Bechuanaland, Southern Rhodesia, and Northern Rhodesia.

Livingstone’s first missionary appointment was in Bechuanaland. The first nine years were spent in mission work; the remainder of his life was expended in the service of the British Government as an explorer and consul. At the time of his death he had not been a missionary for fifteen years. The Boers distrusted Livingstone, and on one occasion burned his house in his absence.

Livingstone’s journals were at the disposal of Cecil Rhodes, and he made good use of them. It was on the basis of information supplied by him that the copper mines of the Belgian Congo were located, and the railroad was recently built from Lobito bay to the mines, by Williams, the personal friend of Rhodes.

These men were all empire builders together, all true Britishers, all interested in the building up of the seventh world power, and not interested in, nor having any knowledge of, God’s kingdom, the hope of the world. The missionary business was a camouflage to the real end.

The Bechuanas are very intelligent and peaceful. Unlike the Zulus, they build their homes with several rooms and so constructed as to provide circulation of air. The country is 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. The rains fall in the summer. In the winter there are frosts, with occasional snowfalls.

With more water, Bechuanaland would be an ideal country for cattle-raising, but the water supply is a little too treacherous. In the rainy season the veldt becomes covered with a tall grass which, while it is green, burns the mouths of the cattle; but after it is mature it is eaten by them greedily. It will keep its nourishing power for years, and is stored by the natives against seasons of severe drought.

A feature of the South African desert that makes it less dreadful than the Sahara is the Tsama, or wild watermelon, which affords a good substitute for water, and is widely distributed. As in the case of the Sahara, there is plenty of water beneath the surface; and when wells are bored the life-giving underground streams are always found. There are still some Bushmen (dwarfs, aborigines) roaming about the Kalahari desert. They seem to be almost extinct elsewhere. At one time the Bantus killed them on sight.

The Grabbing of Rhodesia

On October 30, 1888, King Lo Bengula (who could neither read nor write) executed a paper drawn up by three commissioners of Cecil Rhodes by which, in return for one thousand Martini rifles, one hundred thousand ball cartridges, one hundred pounds sterling, payable on the first day of every lunar month, and one second-hand steamer, he delegated to these men exclusive control over all the metals and minerals within his country, along with the right to exclude from the kingdom any other person who might come there in search of such concessions. Later messages from Lo Bengula show that at the time he executed this agreement he was totally ignorant of its contents, but the white men interpreted it as giving them the right to exploit and govern all his territory.

Having stolen all the lands of this poor king that was reigning by the grace of the Devil, it was proper, in order to get the title straight, to have it confirmed by somebody that was •'reigning by the grace of God”, and so next year Queen Victoria confirmed the steal. She issued a charter to the South African Company which gave it:

“for twenty-five years the right to make treaties and laws, maintain police, construct roads, railways and harbors, develop mines and industries, make grants of land,” and in short, govern a vast but purposely undefined area north of British Bechuanaland and Transvaal and west of Portuguese .Mozambique, but with no northern boundary. The latter was left unmentioned because Rhodes hoped to extend it far to the north.

That shows how it is done. A missionary “by the grace of God” goes through a land to see what some heathen man has that is worth taking. An empire builder comes along and takes it, and a queen “by the grace of God” says, “Boys, you have done a good job; henceforth there is laid up for you a place in Westminster Abbey.”

Cecil Rhodes was the son of a clergyman! Southern Rhodesia alone, which this man took, because he thought it would be a good thing for the British Empire to have, is larger than New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Gold and the Zimbabwe Ruins

There is gold in large quantities in Southern Rhodesia. The suggestion has been seriously made by its present administrators that in this time of depression every unemployed white man in the country can be profitably employed in prospecting for the minerals with which the country abounds. There are reasons for believing that the rich gold mines hereabout were those from which came that used in the construction of Solomon’s temple. Since 1888 £100,000,000 in gold has been sent out of Southern Rhodesia.

The immense granite ruins at Zimbabwe, Southern Rhodesia, are believed to be Phoenician in origin. The wall, 40 feet high, 14 feet thick at base, elliptical in form, is composed of well-trimmed blocks of granite fitted together without mortar, in regular courses, and occasionally set at an angle for ornamental purposes. The building is very strongly built for defense. In the neighborhood, hieroglyphics have been discovered which are now being studied. Traces of an ancient road have been discovered. In one place the mountains were terraced for seventy miles.

Having stolen the land, the white men now in Rhodesia have parceled it out largely to themselves; they graciously allow the original owners to live in certain places, which is more generous than it would be to have taken the land and then killed the owners. Didn’t the queen say that they could give it to whomsoever they would?

There is another reason for not killing off the natives. They are useful as servants. After the land has been wholly parceled among the whites, the natives can find work as servants, living as best they may in a land where they were once free to live where and as they liked. Homeless, landless and in misery, the poor African has nothing to hope for in his homeland but God’s kingdom.

Poor Whites in Rhodesia

Not everybody is qualified to manage a vast estate, and so it happens that even in rich Southern Rhodesia there are poor whites. At the end of 1923 there were but 3,253 European workers on the state-owned railways of South Africa, but at the end of 1931, so as to make jobs for the poor whites, there were 14,551 European workers on the railroads and the native workers had been proportionately reduced.

But when the European gets the native’s job, does he take the native's pay? He does not. Arbitrarily, because he is a white, he gets several times as much, for doing the same work. The effect of such injustices on the mind of the native is easily seen. It is a rule by fraud and force.

The principal town (but not the capital) of Southern Rhodesia is Bulawayo, a new, handsome, hustling, prosperous city. It was at this place, Gubulawayo (the place of killing), that in the good old days, before Cecil Rhodes came his way, King Lo Bengnla used to put his enemies to death. Rhodes’ grave overlooks the city where Lo Bengula traded his empire for a few rifles and other junk.

Lions, leopards and other wild game are plentiful in Southern Rhodesia. In one place, as in the Transvaal, there is a wild game preserve. This one, however, belongs to a private citizen. It covers 25,000 acres. A group of Jw’s visiting the district had a ride of 30 miles through this preserve and counted 371 head of game, the antelope, pallah, waterbuck, tsessebe, eland, koedoe, wart hog, zebra, baboon, ostrich, and giraffe. P. J. de Jager, the chronicler of the trip, says of the giraffes that there was “one, about twenty feet high, that seemed to wave his long, powerful neck in rhythmic waves as he raced along with his family group”.

Many Rhodesian natives believe that the spirits of their departed chiefs are reincarnated in the lions and leopards, and hesitate to kill one of them for fear of bringing down the anger of the spirits, and this despite the fact that these supposed ancestors or ancestor-containers, if we may invent that term, sometimes carry off members of their families. In one of these Northern Rhodesia tribes, the Borotse, the wives do the hunting and fishing and the men do the cooking. After the meal is cooked, the wife dines first, and alone. When triplets are born, two of the babies are killed, for good luck.

Demons Fear and Hate the Truth

Jehovah's witnesses have no monopoly of the name “Watch Tower”. The term is employed seven times in the Old Testament scriptures, ■written more than twenty-five hundred years ago. Every week, and for years past, the New York Sunday Times contains a digest of news which it calls “Watch Tower Dispatches”. This digest has not the remotest connection with Jehovah's witnesses. The Times can neither be blamed for use of the Watch Tower name nor be restrained from using a term which has been the common property of all men for thousands of years.

In just what way, something like a quarter of a century ago, the natives of what is now Northern Rhodesia came to use the term “Watch Tower”, and to practice immersion, and subsequently witchcraft and murder, in connection therewith, we do not know, but we do know that the Brooklyn “Watch Tower” had no connection with it at any time.

In 1908 Pastor Russell heard of this Watch Tower commotion in Central Africa and sent a representative all the way from Brooklyn, via Cape Town, to explain to them the way of God more perfectly. That representative was entirely unable to get into the country at all, though repeatedly pressed to do it, even at the risk of his life. The reason why he could not do so is now entirely clear.

The bogus Watch Tower work in Central Africa was manifestly the work of demons, done with deliberate intent to blacken the good name and fame of the truth when it should finally penetrate that dark land. And it succeeded very well. Its founder, M’Wana Lesa, was in due time executed as a murderer, but not before he had done much harm in bringing reproach upon what is in deed and in truth a very good and wholesome name.

Every time the words ‘‘Watch Tower’’ are mentioned in the Rhodesias there flit before the minds of those responsible for the preservation of law and order the orgies of M’Wana Lesa and his followers, and, as they have opportunity, or can make it, the missionaries, who could readily know the truth, if they would, carefully foster the impression that the Central African demonized M’Wana Lesa Watch Tower is the same as the Brooklyn one, which is as false as anything can be.

The word Judas is a good word; it signifies ‘Jehovah’s praise’. Our Lord selected two disciples bearing that name. One of them gave us one of the books of the New Testament. He is in no way to blame for the fact that another man of that name betrayed the Lord. Jehovah’s witnesses are in no way to blame for M’Wana Lesa, Iscariot, or the missionaries.

Pioneers in Southern Rhodesia

Four pioneers (Jehovah’s witnesses) have just visited Southern Rhodesia. For reasons above outlined they had a hard time establishing their innocence of the M’Wana Lesa calumny, especially as the missionaries took pains to press the untruth upon the attention of the authorities.

At first the workers were told to leave in-stanter; then they were granted a brief extension of time while an appeal was taken to the governor; and at length they were given three months in which they might work among the whites but not at all among the natives. The sad part of it is that some of the natives, catching sight of some of the literature, sought for further light, but it could not yet be given. Says one of the pioneers:

“One can fully appreciate the dread of those responsible for the maintenance of law and order among the natives of Africa of anything that may stir them into a fanatical challenge of those who, for good or for evil, are holding rule over them. This also makes the minds of such rulers, even when seeking to do absolute justice and fair play to all concerned, exceptionally susceptible to the representations of Satan’s religious representatives who have firmly (?) established themselves as the so-called ‘rightful educators’ of the black and other races of the world, especially of these untutored minds of Africa, against the purpose and outcome of the activities of Jehovah’s witnesses.

“On the way up from the Cape, in our Tudor Forel Sedan, we had, one night, a beautiful sight of two zebras crossing our road in the glare of our lamps, and saw a few other disturbed denizens of the wilds clear the road for us as we came up. One of the two parties thought they smelled lions; on a later occasion we actually did see the spoors of lions, still quite fresh.

“After working a few weeks at Buluwayo, our companions having departed on the fifth of June on their northeastern tour, we started for Northern Rhodesia. M e passed over 150 miles one day, having spoken to only two Europeans all the way.

The Devil Always on the Job

“We found only a few small centers to work on our way up here, the largest of which was Wankie, a coal-mining center of only a few hundred European population. While working here our attention was drawn to an article against us by Very Reverend C. E. Greenfield, who held out the usual charges that our teachings are ‘subversive to law, order and religion’. We found that meanwhile he was attending a missionary conference at Victoria falls, where we now are.

“At this conference the missionaries again mentioned us, but in the light of recent exposures they dared not repeat the previous charges, and only in indirect, yet self-evident terms, could they advise the government to keep us out of Northern Rhodesia and prevent us from bringing our message of great joy to the natives.

‘ ‘ Ever since we heard of this missionary conference we hoped to be present before they dispersed, and the Lord gave us the desire of our hearts. We arrived here on Monday, June 27. We immediately got in touch with the authorities at Livingstone, who were expecting us, and pleaded with the chief immigration officer to be allowed to call on these men with our message before they dispersed.

“I think this impressed him. It proved to him that we were not going behind the backs of these men, but boldly faced them. He readily granted permission for that, even before our case had been finally decided upon by the governor. We therefore pitched our camp about a hundred yards from their camp, and the next day gave the Kingdom witness to about forty of them, and left 35 of the Kingdom booklets.

“This ‘slaughter of the innocents’ (?) was reported in writing the same day to the authorities of Livingstone and undoubtedly further helped them to decide to let us in to Northern Rhodesia, Britain’s ‘Darkest Africa’. The missionaries have departed; their camp is vacant; one can readily see that but for them, and with proper European control, the government will willingly allow us to work among the natives, as we have done freely for years everywhere throughout the Union of South Africa.”

Victoria Falls and Zambezi Bridge

The route from Southern Rhodesia into Northern Rhodesia is via the Victoria falls and the Zambezi bridge. The column of spray of the Victoria falls can be seen for forty miles, and the roar of the cataract can be heard for nineteen miles. The Niagara falls are 160 feet high; the Victoria falls are 400 feet high. The Niagara falls have a width of half a mile; the Victoria falls, of over a mile. The quantity of water passing over each of these falls is approximately the same: 24,000,000 tons per hour.

The Victoria falls were discovered by David Livingstone in November, 1855. The gorge below the falls is 45 miles long. The Zambezi bridge, opened in 1905, which crosses the gorge at a point where it is but 500 feet wide, is the highest bridge in the world, being 406 feet above the stream at low water. A baobab tree, near the falls, with a circumference of 88 feet 6 inches, is believed to be the largest of its kind in Rhodesia.

For miles along the Zambezi the bank of the river above the falls is lined with papyrus to a depth of five or six feet. Numerous crocodiles are to be seen. They frequently get a native. To keep from being carried off by crocodiles when they go to the stream to draw water, the natives in some places build an enclosure of poles partly out into the stream. This serves the purpose of a screen or fence.

From Cape Town to Victoria falls, 1,642 miles, there are four trains per week; fare for the round trip, £22 5s. 6d. The journey takes three days. The use of two pillows, three blankets and two sheets, providing a full-sized, comfortable bed, costs only 2s. 6d. per night. Meals are 3s. 6d. each.

From Beira, Portuguese East Africa, to Victoria falls is 951 miles; there are three trains per week; the journey takes two days; the round-trip fare is £12 9s. 6d.

The Victoria Falls Hotel “trolley” service (without the trolley) is unique. It consists of a narrow-gauge track, and seats for eight passengers in each car, four on a side, facing away from each other. The cars are each propelled by two natives; the charge is a shilling apiece for each trip.

The Marquis Curzon of Kedleston, in his description of the Victoria falls, says in part:

At the Zambesi, nature has supplied the most wonderful platform which it is possible to conceive, with belvederes or outlook towers built out at convenient points for the spectator to take his view. The formation of the gorge is responsible for this astounding feature. Although the river discharges itself in an almost straight line (unlike the great curve of the Horseshoe fall at Niagara) into the chasm below, there is only one outlet from this chasm, and that is about three-quarters of the way across from the right or southern bank, where the entire water that has come over the fall forces its way through a single aperture only 100 yards wide into the whirlpool known as the Boiling Pot, and commences its zigzag descent through the 45 miles of canon towards the sea.

The consequence is that except at this spot the volume of water as it falls is pent up in the chasm, which is seldom more than 150 yards in width, and has to flow from left to right in order to make its way out by the solitary gap. And here comes nature’s unique gift. From left to right or from right to left we can walk along the near side of the chasm from end to end, save at the point of exit, and gaze at the falls immediately opposite, as though we were standing in some showman’s panorama and were looking across an intervening hollow, devised to assist the illusion, at the painted canvas beyond. Only here is no artificial picture, but the living masterpiece of a more than human showman; tangible, because the scud of the spray-storm lashes us in the face; throbbing with movement, because the heaven above and the earth beneath appear to be equally in travail; audible, because in our ears is the rattle of eternal thunder.

Northern Rhodesia Took What Was Left

In Northern Rhodesia, Cecil Rhodes and his friends went north as far as they could go, until their advance was cut off by Angola, the Belgian Congo, Tanganyika and Portuguese East Africa. It left an odd-shaped territory, the shape of a pillow tightly tied in the center. It has an area equal to all that portion east of the Mississippi river and north of the Ohio and Potomac, excluding the states of Maine and "Wisconsin. The country is mostly high plateau covered with thin forest. Much of it is suitable for farming and grazing; The copper reserves are estimated at 236,165,000 tons, and are believed to be ample to supply all the copper needs of the British Empire for a generation to come. There is lead, zinc, gold, silver, vanadium, manganese and iron.

The expressed views of the British colonial office with regard to the natives of Northern Rhodesia are quite noble and humane. When a deputation of white residents wanted to come to London at the public expense to discuss home rule for the colony their request was denied and they were told plainly that the British Government considers itself the trustee of the natives, on the ground that “the natural trustees of barbarous and less-developed races are their more civilized neighbors”.

Pioneer P. J. de Jager, to whom we are indebted for much material in this article, says that in Rhodesia he saw for the first time a rhinoceros-hide whip and was informed that they are actually used there on the natives, to some extent. This was about thirty miles from Victoria falls. In most sections of the Union of South Africa the white that would use one of these whips on a native would be liable to arrest for assault.

Northern Rhodesia is a lion country. Lions have been known to raid native villages in broad daylight. At night a half dozen may charge a village at once, with excellent chances of getting a baby or two and leaving behind them several dying men and women. Adults are carried off, too. Several times lions have actually invaded railroad trains. One of them charged full tilt into a locomotive and got his back broken.

Nyassaland and Mozambique

Nyassaland, once known as British Central Africa, lies on the west side of Lake Nyassa, and is of the size of the state of Pennsylvania. To all intents and purposes it is a part of Northern Rhodesia, of which it constitutes the eastern border.

Lake Nyassa, discovered by David Livingstone in 1858, is a half larger than Lake Erie or Lake Ontario, being 350 miles long and from 20 to 50 miles wide. There is steamer service on the lake, and rail and steamer service with Portuguese East Africa, sometimes called Mozambique.

By a new $7,200,000 bridge, building in 1932 across the Zambezi, there will shortly be allrail connections with the Central African Railway, and hence direct service to Cape Town. The bridge consists of 33 river spans of 262 feet 6 inches each, and has a total length of nearly two miles.

Portuguese East Africa, the last remaining state in this vast continent, is another huge area equal in size to all that part of the United States east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers. The coast lands are low-lying and not very healthful, but the country as a whole, stretching for a thousand miles along the Indian ocean, is said to be one of the richest, in agricultural possibilities at least, of all undeveloped countries of the world. Much of the land lies high above sea level, has no deserts, no salt sinks, no large swamps, no mountainous wastes, and no impenetrable jungles; but it does have millions of acres of the finest alluvial soil, and without doubt will sometime support a vast population. At present it has about 3,000,000 inhabitants, of whom only one percent are whites.

How very apparent it is, from all that we have seen, that Africa is just what we have called it, A Continent in the Making. The number of persons now living there is only a handful of the billions that will sometime make it their home. And they will all be happy subjects of the Kingdom.

There will be plenty of blacks, yes, and whites, and browns and yellows, too, all living together in peace and amity. There is enough variety in their temperaments to make life interesting. In Africa the black man needs the white, and the white man needs the black. What is most urgently needed of all is the perfect government for which Jesus taught us to pray, and which we announce as now here.

Judge Rutherford’s lectures are now going out by radio over the Dark Continent, and it won’t be long, we feel sure, before the Devil and his crowd will get all that is coming to them and, in the fullest sense of the word, “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God” and be taken into the Kingdom, the hope of the world.

Kingdom Blessings in Cuba and Mexico By W. F. Salter

ONCE again upon the service of Truth and in the interest of the vindication of Jehovah’s word and name, Judge Rutherford, accompanied by his assistants, sailed from New York on Wednesday, November 16, 1932, this time aboard the palatial steamer Oriente. On the wharf were many friends to bid bon voyage, while across the East river, upon the roof of the Bethel, the friends gathered en masse waving farewell.

The waving continued as long as the steamer was in sight. It was a touching scene and greatly stirred the heart of the judge. He was very reluctant to leave behind so many friends: he would like to have had all accompany him, but such, of course, could not be; on he must go in the call of duty to serve in other parts of the Lord’s vineyard.

The ship had not been long under way when the captain sent word that he would appreciate having Judge Rutherford and his party take seats at his table. It was, of course, a kindly act to pay honor to Judge Rutherford, but the judge, in his gracious and characteristic way, declined the invitation, for he does not care for the honor of men, preferring the fellowship of God’s children.

The first stop of the journey southward was to be Havana, Cuba. En route we traveled out of sight of land until we neared Florida; then we skirted the coast of that state. It was evening time, and the cities of Palm Beach and Miami, all alight, were plainly to be seen, and the passengers enjoyed the pretty view thereof.

In Sight of Cuba

Saturday morning we hove in sight of Cuba. It was a beautiful morning, and the green shore, runningback from the sea, was very picturesque.

On sailing into the harbor of Havana were to be seen on the left Morro Castle and other fortresses reminding one of the pirate days of Captain Kidd, and of the Spanish-American War. Just prior to the outbreak of the latter, the United States battleship Maine was blown up and sunk in this harbor. It was afterwards raised, towed out to sea, and permanently sunk in deep water. Supposed to have been blown up by a mine, the condition of the ship when raised showed that it had been sunk by an internal explosion.

The Spanish war was the occasion of another interesting harbor incident at Santiago, on the opposite side of the island, five hundred miles to the east, when the Spanish fleet was bottled up in the harbor by Lieutenant Hobson, who heroically and alone sailed his ship, while under heavy fire from the cannon of the Spaniards, into the entrance of the harbor and there scuttled it in such a way as to completely tie up the enemy fleet.

The Oriente sailed quietly into the harbor, passing a number of ships from various lands anchored there, including the majestic ship Columbus, of Germany.

Cubans are noted for their swimming ability, and a number make their living in the water. They swim out into the harbor to meet each ship as it comes in and call to the passengers to throw them coins, for which they dive. Their skill is remarkable, for they seldom fail to capture the coin.

The Catholic church has long been a dominating power in Cuba and has used its power to keep the people in fear, ignorance and superstition. The message of God’s kingdom as broadcast regularly through the medium of Judge Rutherford’s electrical transcriptions, and the zeal of the pioneers in giving the witness, is causing an awakening, and the people are beginning to see the clergy are nothing else than instruments of the Devil. There are, however, still to be seen on the streets of Havana some nuns and priests, the latter being termed by some Cubans, ‘•buck-nuns.”

Life in the Sub-Tropics

The people of Havana, as elsewhere throughout Cuba, are not early risers. They breakfast anywhere from eleven o’clock in the morning until two o’clock in the afternoon and generally seem to take life easy. Their great industry is, of course, sugar, and the market for that product is so very poor today that great unemployment prevails there as elsewhere. Conditions economically are very distressing, and beggars, all the way from the street beggar down to the church beggars, swarm the streets. It is a pitiable sight. The Cubans need God’s kingdom even as do others.

Architecturally speaking, Cuba is very much like Old Spain. Flowering vines spread themselves over their pretty homes and pergolas, and their flower gardens are a riot of color. With such a display of color banking either side of their streets, and the streets themselves lined

with pahn and other delightful trees, many of their broad avenues are most beautiful and compel one to pause to drink in the scene.

A Hospitable People and a Happy Convention

The Cubans are most hospitable, and it was a great joy to Judge Rutherford and his party to meet with them in convention and in their homes. The convention itself was not large in number, but those attending were ones devoted to the service of bearing testimony to God's kingdom, and it was a joy to serve them. There were delegates from the United States, Canada, Jamaica and Bermuda as well as from various parts of Cuba.

That the message of God’s kingdom as continually proclaimed by Judge Rutherford over the radio, by printed page and other means, is making a very deep impression in Cuba as in other parts of the earth, is evidenced in the fact that not alone were the facilities of station CMK, owned and operated by Doctor Cabrera, a very prominent Cuban and personal friend of Judge Rutherford, thrown open to the message of the Kingdom, but the telephone company offered the judge their powerful station CMC as a key station linked into a chain of five stations covering the entire island of Cuba. For the occasion Judge Rutherford chose as his subjects, “Comfort” and “Messengers of Peace”, and delivered his messages in his usual characteristic and telling manner. They were messages of great comfort for the people, but of strong denunciation of the ruling factors, and the clergy in particular. The broadcasts were heard very clearly, not alone throughout the West Indies, but also far and near on the mainland, as evidenced by telegrams received from Brooklyn and elsewhere in the United States immediately following the lectures.

When the time arrived for our departure from Havana many friends were at the boat to bid us farewell. Our staterooms and tables were delightfully perfumed with the bouquets of beautiful flowers they so kindly arranged to have there in expression of their love. It is hard to leave such friends.

En Route to Yucatan and Vera Cruz

En route to Vera Cruz we anchored for a short time off shore at Progreso, Yucatan. It is located about thirty-six hours’ journey from Havana, and the voyage there upon a delightful sea was thoroughly enjoyed. While our boat lay at anchor a tender with government officials, passengers and freight came alongside. The captain informed Judge Rutherford that the freight consisted chiefly of shark skins and that the peculiar odor noticeable was of them. The people of Progreso are noted foi’ their cleanliness, and the laborers who handled the cargo were spotlessly clean and all dressed in white.

The anchor was raised, and on toward Vera Cruz our steamer moved upon a sea continuing delightfully smooth. We were thoroughly enjoying the voyage when we were informed that a “norther” (a storm from Texas) was on its way; and very shortly afterwards it was found to be only too true. With startling suddenness the wind increased in velocity, and soon the quiet waters were whipped into a mighty sea and at times the boat, strong and large as she was, shook from stem to stern from the weight and power of the waves. During the night one of the iron doors on the windward side and a number of port holes were broken open by the force of the storm. By morning, however, the storm had died down considerably, and in due course we arrived at Vera Cruz.

Vera Cruz, so called from the fact that Cortes landed there on Good Friday, 1519, naming the place “La villa rica de la Vera Cruz”, is the tidewater terminal of the Mexican Railway and is the oldest and most important seaport on the Mexican Gulf coast.

At Vera Cruz Judge Rutherford and his party entrained for Orizaba. At the beginning of the journey we traveled through lowland tropical country, passing at intervals fields of tobacco and sugar cane, as well as banana plantations.

Mexico’s Incomparable Scenery

At Paso del Macho the oil-burning locomotive gave way to one operated by electricity, for we were approaching the giant mountains which had been in sight all the way from the coast, and to reach Mexico city, 216 miles away, these mountains must be scaled.

A few miles beyond Paso del Macho we crossed the San Alejo bridge, 318 feet long. At Chiqui-huite siding there is another bridge, 220 feet long, and just before we reached Atoyac there is a bridge spanning the Atoyac river. Between the two latter bridges, and immediately between Tunnels 1 and 2 are the beautiful falls of Atoyac. Soon, Potrero, with its important sugar mills, was passed, and within half an hour we arrived at Cordoba, 2,713 feet above sea level.

Cordoba, founded in 1618, by order of the Spanish viceroy Diego Fernandez de Cordoba, is the center of a rich coffee-growing region. Tobacco and pineapple plantations, banana and mango groves, are also found in the immediate vicinity.

At Fortin, the next stop, baskets of tropical flowers and fruits may be bought from the many vendors who come to meet the trains. From here the railroad turns sharply to the right and begins the journey through Metlac ravine. On the opposite side of this ravine, in the depths of which a tropical river churns its way, can be seen another set of rails, on a terrace cut from the side of a precipice. The line passes through five short tunnels before it reaches the higher level and turns the flank of the hill. The train then glides over the Metlac bridge, a very skillful piece of engineering work 350 feet long, built upon a curve of 325 feet radius, on a 3-percent grade, 92 feet above the river. Eight cast iron and masonry enclosed pillars support it. As the train comes up the flank of the opposite mountain the ravine widens and exposes its tropical charms to the traveler.

Orizaba — "Joyful Waters"

Magnificent forest trees, palms of many kinds and patches of luxuriant tropical jungle can be seen, and sometimes a vale snuggled between sheltering hills. The general plan when building the line was to curve around the mountains rathei' than to drive long tunnels through them, and this is well seen from the number of short tunnels through which the train passes after leaving Metlac bridge. From the last of these tunnels the train emerges upon an extensive table-land, whence the eye looks upon broad valleys, billowy mountain ranges, and many straw-thatched native huts. Passing Sumidero, the train soon reaches Orizaba.

At Orizaba we detrained, stopping at a very quaint old-fashioned hotel there for the night.

Orizaba occupies the site of an Indian village which existed centuries before the Spaniards came. History records that the Aztecs conquered it in 1547 and that they named it Ahua-ialixapan (Joyful Waters), because of the many streams which burst from the verdure-covered mountain sides and dash down the vale to lower levels. One of these gurgling streams, the Orizaba, plunges through a rocky ravine in the town and adds charm to it. Its power was utilized by the Spaniards as early as 1553, when they established a flour mill, perhaps the first one erected in America. Orizaba received its charter in 1774. Now the town is an important manufacturing center having large cotton and jute mills, as well as famous breweries. Several hundred feet below the town, reached by a funicular railway, is the valley of Tuxpango, where the waterfall has been harnessed to supply electric power. The generating plant there is the source from which the Mexican railway draws its current for the operation of the electrified section of the line over the mountains.

Zigzagging up the Mountains

Leaving Orizaba and the neighboring industrial centers of Rio Blanco, Nogales and Santa Rosa, we crossed the Encinal valley and threaded the Infiernillo canyon to arrive at Maltrata, more than fifteen hundred feet higher up. Conifers and mountain scrub oaks of the temperate zone had taken the place of banana, coffee and coconut groves through which our train had been passing.

From Maltrata the train zigzags north, south, east and west up the hills. Sitting on the observation platform at the rear of the train we could trace the road below as it doubled and twisted and looped its way downward among the valleys, at times as many as six sets of rails being visible. Finally we arrived at Alta Luz, from where there is an awe-inspiring view over the plains below. It is like the view from an airplane, the village of Maltrata looking for all the world like a checkerboard more than two thousand feet below. Leaving Alta Luz we soon passed over Wimmer bridge, 90 feet long, built over a chasm from the ridge of which there is another magnificent panorama. Boca del Monte, 7,924 feet above sea level, on the eastern edge of the great Central plateau, was gained almost immediately, and the steepest part of the climb was then over: more than five thousand feet in less than forty-two miles!

The Central Plateau and Mexico City

At Esperanza, a few miles farther on, the traveler obtains an expansive panoramic view of the giant snow-capped Citlaltepetl, often known as the Peak of Orizaba. This giant mountain, shaped like a great ant-hill, is the second highest peak on the North American continent, being topped only by Mt. McKinley, in Alaska. At this station, Esperanza, time is allowed for the traveler who seeks a novel variation in his diet to lunch at the station restaurant, where, if he has not already done so, he may taste the national dishes. The electric locomotive here is replaced by an oil burner, for, although the line still ascends till it reaches the summit, 8,320 feet at Acocotla, the grades are easier.

From Esperanza the train traverses the Central plateau. Tropical vegetation is then left behind and fields of corn, wheat and magueys are seen on either hand. The maguey plant, which after a short distance is to be seen on every side, is known as the Century plant or American aloe or pulque plant. It is from this plant that the famous native drink “pulque” is obtained.

Apizaco is the junction point for Puebla, less than thirty miles away. Picturesque little villages dot the scene, and there are occasional glimpses of the workers in the fields. At Ome-tusco a line branches off to Pachuca, which is the center of one of the largest and richest silver-mining districts in the world. While traversing this plateau the great snow-capped volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl are visible to the south.

So many scenic marvels of such wide variety come within the range of the traveler’s vision between Vera Cruz and Mexico city on the line of the Mexican railway that no visit to the republic seems complete unless this daylight wonder trip is included.

The full scope of natural splendor—snowcapped mountains; tremendous gorges; towering cliffs; broad, fertile mesas; turbulent streams and tumbling waterfalls—all are included in the panorama that unfolds its fascinating scenes throughout the 264 miles of daylight travel.

Jw Convention in Mexico City

Arriving at Mexico city a convention of Jehovah’s witnesses was being held. Delegates were present from many parts of Mexico, also some from the United States and Canada, in all about one hundred and fifty.

At the station a number of delegates were present to greet Judge Rutherford, as were also the newspaper reporters with their cameras, all set to take his picture and with pencil in hand to report the interview.

Much to the joy and encouragement of the delegates the president of the Society addressed the assembly on two occasions; but the outstanding feature of the convention was the radio lectures delivered by him.

Beyond question this convention will go down in history as an event of outstanding importance in the onward march of Truth in the republic of Mexico.

From the time when Cortes, in the name of the king of Spain and the church of Rome, forced the Indians of Mexico to build 365 churches in one town, until almost recent months, the Roman Catholic church has dominated every phase of the life of the people of Mexico, and kept the masses in intense ignorance and abject poverty. Some men of courage have endeavored to encourage the people to break away from this yoke. Rebellion after rebellion has taken place, until now there is a complete separation between the church and the state. Church property has been confiscated other than that necessary for actual church purposes. None but native-born Mexicans can serve in Mexico as priests, and then there can be no more than one priest to one hundred thousand people, and, furthermore, no church funds are allowed to be sent out of the country.

/n Jehovah God’s Due Time and Way

Despite this awakening, every attempt by Jehovah’s witnesses to hire any broadcasting station in the republic for the purpose of proclaiming the message of God’s kingdom was of no avail. Up until as recently as two months ago this condition prevailed. Then the Lord suddenly opened the way, for the National Revolutionary party began to realize the fact that the message Judge Rutherford was proclaiming was something different, something that the people needed, and, after reading some of his literature, opened up their stations to the message.

During Judge Rutherford’s visit to Mexico he delivered no less than five radio lectures, four of which were chain broadcasts. The subjects he chose for four of his lectures were: “Messengers of Peace,” “End of the World,” “The Resurrection,” and “In the Resurrection, Where Will You Be?” They were powerful lectures showing up in no uncertain terms the false teachings of the clergy and their hypocrisy and at the same time messages of comfort and hope for the people. It would seem that nothing could have been more appropriate, comforting and timely than these messages, but all who heard his final message, “Know Jehovah Is God,” delivered as it was, with such clarity, feeling and power, were impressed with the fact that it was a fitting climax to his testimony that Jehovah alone is God, that Christ is King, that the Devil is the god of the present evil world and the clergy are his tools whether they know it or not.¹

A Thrilling Inaugural Address

That this stirring message, as well as his former lectures, was heard far and near was evidenced by the telegrams and telephone messages received from many places. Characteristic of those received we quote the following telegram from the “Bethel” family: “Speech clear. Thrilled by denunciation. Listening at ten. Much love.”

Arrangements were also completed for the people in the heart of the city to hear the messages by means of loudspeakers. For over thirty years the governments of Mexico have been constructing the colossal national theater; and arrangements were made whereby the loudspeakers were located at the entrance to this building, and thus the first occasion of its being put to use was for the purpose of the message of God’s kingdom. Many assembled to hear the message, and one was heard to say, “That’s what I like to hear: the truth spoken with boldness.”

Mexico city is, of course, the capital of the republic of Mexico, and is situated in a great valley so completely surrounded by mountains that there is no natural outlet, the only valley of its kind in the world. The belief is that this large valley was at one time a mighty volcano and at a later time became a large inland lake which has since been drained into the sea.

Mexico, a Very Beautiful City

Mexico city is a very beautiful city of broad, spacious thoroughfares and contains a population of over 1,200,000 people. It is situated within the tropical belt and, being at an altitude of 7,444 feet, it enjoys the advantages of two zones without any of their inconveniences. It compares most favorably with world-known resorts, as can be seen from the following:

Mexico City Nice, France

Mean annual temperature  60°

Average, hottest month     71°

Average, coolest month     48°

The Valley of Mexico is a favored spot, enjoying one of the highest averages of sunshine hours in the world: 2,445.3 hours yearly, and 636.6 hours during the winter months (December, January and February).

The main square of Mexico city is commonly called the “Zocalo”. From a historical viewpoint, it is one of the most important spots in the country. It marks the place where the Aztecs first established their kingdom, and also where the Conquerors made their headquarters. This square is surrounded respectively by the world-famous Cathedral, the National Palace, the Municipal Palace and the “Portales” (arcades). The cathedral is acknowledged as the finest and oldest in America. It is built upon the site formerly occupied by the main “teocalli” (house of the gods) of the Aztecs. It is a magnificent structure 374 feet long and 198 feet wide, with towers 204 feet high, and contains marble altars, silver railings, famous paintings, exquisite wood carvings, and priceless examples of Churriguera decoration. It was started in 1537, taking more than a half century for its completion.

The National Palace

When Hernan Cortes, the Conqueror, arrived in Tenochtitlan (now Mexico city) he admired very much the palace of Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztecs, and he made up his mind to respect this structure. However, due to the disorders which took place shortly afterwards, his soldiers completely destroyed it. Cortes then built his own house, and lived there until his return to Spain. This house was since occupied by the different viceroys, until 1692, when fire destroyed it.

In the same year, and by special decree of the king of Spain, the present building was started. Completed late in 1698, the National Palace was the official residence of viceroys, until the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the republic. Since then the National Palace has been the official headquarters of all the presidents of Mexico.

Located on the left side, back of the National Palace, the National Museum has the largest collection of historical and archaeological treasures of an aboriginal civilization: the Aztec calendar stone, weighing more than 60,000 pounds; the Sacrificial Stone; the Palenque Cross, and other monuments; idols, relics, jewels, etc., as well as suits of armor of the Conquerors, maps, documents, books, paintings, furniture, coaches, and other objects of the Colonial and Empire periods.

The Famous Paseo de la Reforma

Paseo de la Reforma is one of the most beautiful city driveways in the world. It is three miles long and 200 feet wide, and shaded by a double row of trees. It is also adorned with six circles, or “glorietas”, in five of which are the following historical monuments: the equestrian statue of Charles IV, an exceedingly fine piece of work, cast in one single block which required 30 tons of molten metal; statues to Columbus, and to Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor; and Independence Monument, a magnificent column 150 feet high, costing over $1,000,000. The view from the top of this monument is magnificent.

The Paseo de la Reforma leads to Chapulte-pec castle, a solid structure built on the top of a hill which is surrounded by the forest and park of the same name. During the pre-Hispanic period this hill was the seat of the Aztec emperors. A summer residence for the viceroys was constructed later, serving also as summer residence for the presidents of Mexico. The castle is now divided into two sections: one the private residence of the president of Mexico, and the other a historical museum. In this museum one can see the luxurious apartments of Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota; the Chinese room, a gift to former president Diaz from the dowager empress of China; and many other interesting rooms and objects. From the terrace of the castle, which is 200 feet above the city level, one can enjoy the most wonderful sight of the Valley of Mexico and notice the contrasting beauty of the snow-capped volcanoes and the tropical palm trees.

Chapultepec park is one of the oldest natural parks in the American continent. Its 500-year-old ahuehuetes, a sort of giant weeping willows, more than a hundred feet high, and nearly fifty feet in circumference, are the lonely survivors of the 'glorious’ reign of the Aztecs.

Xochimilco— The Floating Gardens

Surrounding Mexico city are many places of interest, such as Xochimilco. The name Xochi-milco comes from the Aztec, and means “place of flowers’’. This name is given to a little village which, however, is better known as “The Floating Gardens”. About ten miles from Mexico city, Xochimilco can be reached by electric tramway, bus or automobile. It is a small native town originally built on a series of floating islands. When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico they found the natives of this district occupying a region of islands and waterways. And though these have decreased in number and the islands are not movable now as they were then, Xochimilco still remains a garden of trees, flowers and vegetables.

Rides in “canoas” propelled with long poles by the natives, typical songs, music full of languid melodies, and, above all, an unsurpassed natural beauty: this is what awaits the tourist in Xochimilco.

About three miles from the city is the village Guadalupe. Guadalupe is the site of a shrine erected in harmony with Roman Catholic superstition, to “Our Lady of Guadalupe”, on the spot where, the legend says, she converted the Indian’s “ayate” into a beautiful cloth bearing her image. This cloth is still preserved in a frame of pure gold and enclosed by a solid silver railing weighing fourteen tons. This building was erected in 1695. On December 12 of each year thousands of Indians spiritually blinded by Satan make a pilgrimage thither. In their worships they perform their religious dances and rites centuries old. Near the shrine is the beautiful “Chapel of the Well”, which name is derived from the spring of water which flows from the inside, and which is closely associated with the false tradition of the virgin.

Other Interesting Suburbs

The towns of Coyoacan and Churubusco, located on the road to San Angel, are two interesting places to visit. The former is a historical residential section, for there still remain the houses of Cortes and of some of his famous men of war. Notable among these houses is the house of Alvarado, now a private museum. Coyoacan is older than the city of Mexico proper, since it was there that Cortes established his headquarters during the time he was directing the layout of Mexico. As for Churubusco, it is a smaller town made famous during the Mexican-American War.

The archaeological city of Teotihuacan is situated on the northeast of the Valley of Mexico, about 30 miles from Mexico city. The word

‘’Teotihuacan” means, “Place where deities are worshiped.”

This town is very closely related to the proud Indian myth of the creation of the sun and the moon. Teotihuacan, like most archaeological cities in the world, flourished at several eras which are now marked by the superimposed construction of buildings. As one can see now, the first structures were either destroyed in part or intentionally covered by new ones, while those built later' remained abandoned for reasons still unknown, crumbling down and thus forming their present mounds. The ancient metropolis was noted for the perfect harmonious symmetry of its outline, and for the grandeur and beauty of style of its structures. Among the most notable of these structures are the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the pyramids to the sun and the moon, and the stadium.

The road to the pyramids passes through Guadalupe Hidalgo, but it also goes through San Cristobal Ecatepec, a historical town with a museum related to Morelos, the hero of Mexican independence. On the same road is Acolman, noted for its famous “Convent of San Agustin”, built in 1539, and completely abandoned until 1924, when the Mexican government ordered its restoration. This convent is now a museum of Colonial art.

A Kindly, Hospitable, Intelligent People

The population of the republic is some 15,000,000 people, of whom 9,000,000 are pure-bred Indians. The remainder are either Spanish or of Spanish-Indian mixture. As a whole they are a kindly, hospitable, intelligent people, and it is a pleasure indeed to visit them. The poor are very much down-trodden and burdened, seemingly more so in Mexico than in other countries, and no doubt due to the centuries of Catholic domination. Despite the poverty that was so manifest, begging in Mexico was conspicuous by its almost complete absence as compared with Havana, Cuba, where almost at every step one met with a beggar. One little chap we met with in Mexico, when a coin was offered him for service, steadfastly but graciously declined it.

The gardeners, wood cutters, earthenware makers and others use donkeys very largely to carry their produce and wares to the market in Mexico city, but, despite the fact that donkeys can he bought as cheap as the equivalent of three dollars in United States money, many are even too poor to have them at that price, and these can be seen on all highways carrying their produce and wares on their backs many miles to market (often thirty or more) and then disposing of them for little or nothing. Surely the people of Mexico, in common with all men, need the kingdom of God.

Leaving Mexico city Judge Rutherford and his party entrained for San Diego, California, where the judge’s headquarters for his winter work are located. The journey was made via San Antonio, Texas. This railroad line from Mexico city to the American border is noted for train robberies. We had not been aboard long when the conductor warned us to be watchful, as two passengers had been robbed and the train crew had therefore been armed. Shortly afterwards a man knocked at Judge Rutherford’s drawing-room door. The judge opened the door and in a strong voice said, “What do you want?” The man said, “Oh, I beg your pardon ; it was a mistake,” and slunk away.

To San Antonio and San Diego

We stopped for a short time at Monterey, a place noted as a place of refuge for outlaws who escaped from the United States in the pioneer days. At San Antonio a short stop was made to make train connections.

San Antonio is a very pretty city, famed, among other things, as the center of the fighting for the independence of Texas from Mexico and where so many American soldiers laid down their lives, including David Crockett, an American ex-congressman.

Journeying from San Antonio westward bound we were soon traveling through the great desert land of the southwestern part of the United States, upon which are located many ranchers with their herds of cattle grazing upon the tufts of grass and watering from water brought to the surface by w’indmills from wells deep below the desert surface.

It was good to get to our journey’s end and to be welcomed at the depot in San Diego by loving friends who were so pleased to see the judge once again. We were soon by motor car conveyed to Beth-Sarim, a place dear to the hearts of Jehovah’s witnesses, for it was here that the manuscripts of Light, Books 1 and 2, Vindication, Books 1, 2 and 3, Preservation, and other literature, were produced, all of which have been such a rich blessing to God’s people and used so extensively in the cause of the vindication of God’s word and name.

Jehovah Is God

Broadcast from Mexico city over chain November 30, 1932, by Judge Butherford

THE greatest need of the peoples of earth is to know that Jehovah is God and that His kingdom is their salvation. He created the heavens and the earth and the fullness thereof. The Scriptures written by His prophets of old, and now being fulfilled, put the knowledge of Jehovah within the reach of all persons. Time will not permit me to here quote the appropriate Scripture texts, but every statement I make is supported by the Scriptures; the citations I shall be glad to furnish you upon request.

The Scriptures reveal the Supreme One under several names, to wit: Jehovah, meaning His purposes toward His creatures; God, meaning the Creator of all things good; Almighty, meaning the one possessing supreme power; the Most High, meaning the one above all and besides whom there is no other.

God created man and all earthly creatures and placed these under the supervision of His creature Lucifer, a spirit of great power. Lucifer rebelled against God and induced men and angels to sin, and then God changed his name to that of Devil, Satan, Dragon and Old Serpent. From then till now he (Satan) has been the chief enemy of God and of man. He declared himself to be equal to Jehovah. He challenged Jehovah God to place on earth men who would under the test remain true and faithful to God. He declared his ability to turn all men away from God. That challenge raised the question, Who is supreme in the universe? The only way to settle the question was to permit Satan to do all within his power; hence Jehovah accepted his challenge, at the same time declaring that when Satan had failed in his boast, then God would destroy Satan and all of his followers. That crisis must be reached in due time.

Unrestrained, Satan has budded a mighty organization which for more than sixty centuries has ruled the world in wickedness. The Scriptures plainly state that Satan during that time has ruled and blinded the people to the truth. The chief instrument used by Satan to thus deceive the people and turn them away from God has been and is that of religion. Satan has at all times had his priests or ministers practicing the various religions by which the poor, suffering humankind has been deceived, exploited and oppressed.

Every man who has faithfully served God has been persecuted by Satan or his instruments. He caused the holy prophets to be killed; and when Jesus came to earth Satan caused him to be crucified, and the clergy of that time were the chief persecutors and slayers. Jesus told them that they were the children of Satan their father.

The Jews were Jehovah's covenant people and it was the duty of their priests or clergy to instruct the people in the truth. Those clergymen yielded to the subtle influence of the Devil and turned almost all of the Jews away from God and into infidelity. The Jewish nation was a typical nation and foreshadowed “Christendom”, meaning the nations of the earth today that claim to be Christian nations. It is expressly written in the Scriptures that what came to pass relative to the Jews shall be duplicated upon “Christendom” at the end of the world, where we now are.

Jehovah anointed Jesus to be the King of the world, and the Scriptures show that He could not begin His reign until the end of Satan’s world. God raised up Jesus out of death, and He ascended into heaven clothed with all power and authority to rule the world, but He must await Jehovah’s due time for Him to begin His reign. To Him Jehovah said: ‘Wait until my due time to put down Satan the enemy.’ The end of that period of waiting marks the end of Satan’s world, and Jesus declared that the first proof of the end of that period of waiting would be the World War, which came in 1914. Satan, knowing that his time was short, plunged all the nations of “Christendom” into that war, his purpose being to destroy humanity. Since that time great sorrow and suffering have been upon the world, and the clergy of today falsely tell the people that Jehovah God has brought all their trouble upon them because of their unfaithfulness to their religious organizations. Satan the Devil is the one who is the cause of all the trouble, sickness, sorrow and suffering of humankind, and he causes his agents to charge this against God in order to turn them, the people, away from God.

Jehovah stopped the World War in 1918, to give His witnesses opportunity to tell the people what must shortly come to pass. Now Christ has come, and the people must be told that Jehovah is the supreme God, that Christ is King, and that His kingdom is at hand. The time has

now come when all the people must take their stand either on the side of God or on the side of the Devil. They must have some knowledge of the truth in order to determine which side they will take.

Jehovah sent His faithful prophets to warn Israel that because that people had turned to the Devil He would destroy that nation. The clergy of Israel at that time claimed to represent God, but, in fact, as Jesus told them, they represented and acted for the Devil. The clergy denounced God’s prophets and told the people not to hear them. Shortly thereafter God completely destroyed Israel and all of her clergy. Today that history is being repeated. Jehovah God is now sending forth His witnesses to give warning to “Christendom” that because the clergy have made themselves a part of Satan’s organization, and because “Christendom” has turned against God, He will destroy it. The clergy in their pulpits today command their congregations not to hear what Jehovah’s witnesses have to say about God’s Word, and thus they hope to keep them in ignorance. For centuries Satan’s representatives have kept the people in ignorance, but now the time has come when they must hear the truth.

This wicked world the Scriptures declare is Satan’s world, and further declare that those who are friends of the world are the enemies of God, and that the clergy have made themselves a part of the world and hence God’s enemies. Recently in a national broadcast in the States I made the statement that the clergy as a class, whether willingly or unwillingly, whether with knowledge or without knowledge, are serving the Devil and not Jehovah God. In order that the people might hear the truth and determine for themselves what they should do, I challenged the combined clergy of America to select their best man to debate this question by radio. That challenge they have refused.

The people must have a knowledge of what is about to come to pass and what they shall do for their self-protection. Jehovah has caused books to be published setting out alongside of the Scriptures the facts showing that the time of His kingdom is here, and how He will relieve the people from oppression, lift them up, and bless them. I urge upon the people the necessity to take these books, together with their own Bibles, and learn the great and important truths now due to be understood.

When Jehovah’s holy prophets had completed their testimony to the Jews, then God destroyed that nation. The Scriptures declare that when the work of now serving notice upon “Christendom” has been completed, then Jehovah will destroy Satan’s organization, both visible and invisible. Jehovah’s witnesses are calling the attention of the people to these truths in obedience to the commandment of Jehovah God, and not for any selfish reason.

The greatest crisis of the ages is at hand. The time has come when Jehovah will prove that He is supreme and that all blessings flow from Him and that Satan and his representatives are false. This proof He declares in His Word He will give fully and completely at the great battle of Armageddon. The Scriptures declare that Satan is assembling all of his forces at this time for that battle. In that great battle Satan and all of his forces will fight on one side against Jesus and His heavenly hosts on the other side, and Satan’s organization, including oppressive “Christendom”, shall fall never to rise again. Of that great battle Jesus says: ‘It will be a time of trouble such as the world has never known, and there will never be another.’

What shall the people do to protect themselves in that great crisis? Jehovah answers that question by His prophet Zephaniah, in chapter two, in these words: ‘Before the day of wrath falls, seek meekness and righteousness, and it may be that you shall be hid in that time of trouble.’ Those who take their stand on the side of Jehovah God and obey His commandments will be the ones He will preserve. The people must have a knowledge of these facts in order that they may intelligently turn themselves to Jehovah God and serve Him. For this reason Jehovah now commands that a witness of warning shall be given to all the nations of the earth and that the people shall be told that Jehovah is supreme and almighty and that His kingdom is the only means of relief for humankind. To have a part in giving this witness is my only reason for speaking to you on this occasion. Jehovah God has provided the radio for that purpose, and I am grateful to Him and to the men who have cooperated in giving opportunity to thus speak to you. If the clergy could they would prevent the people from hearing this message, but they cannot prevent it. Jehovah is supreme and His will must be done.

Immediately following the great battle of Ar-

mageddon there shall come to all surviving peoples of the earth peace that will last forever. There will never he another war after that. Oppression and suffering will for ever end. Instead of Satan ruling in wickedness, Christ Jesus will be the invisible ruler of the world and will rule in justice and righteousness. His representatives on the earth will know the truth and gladly obey Jehovah God and His King. All mankind then, regardless of nationality, will have a full opportunity to obey the righteous laws of God’s kingdom, and, so doing, they shall be restored to perfect health and live in peace and happiness upon the earth for ever.

Thus Jehovah will settle for ever the great question of supremacy. He will prove that selfishness and wickedness lead to destruction, and that unselfish devotion to Jehovah, the righteous One, leads to endless life in happiness. Today is the most important time in the history of man. Everyone should avail himself of the knowledge and understanding of Jehovah’s Word and His purpose. The burdens that now oppress humankind soon shall be lifted for ever, and they that learn these truths and obey them will be the first recipients of God’s blessings.

I call once more upon the clergy and upon all men to lay aside selfishness and to help the people to understand that Jehovah is the only true God and that His kingdom is their only salvation. There is no other relief for the people. Jehovah’s kingdom will bring blessings to mankind beyond the fondest dreams of all. Let all the people now learn that Jehovah is the only true and Almighty God, from whom all blessings flow.

The Radio Witness Work

Eastland, Tex. “I have heard you over the radio many times, and have read many of your books. Needless to say, they are wonderful food to my soul. I want to know how I may get your messages in print, and especially your message of yesterday on the times in which we are living. How I do thank God for you because you are not afraid to speak the truth, and you are without fear of or favor toward man. You speak about nobody but our Jehovah God, and it thrills my soul. How I thank God for you! I am only a little servant girl, but I know God, and to know Him is life eternal.” B. R.

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AN IMPORTANT I55UE

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Clergy Again Challenged

by Judge Rutherford mloT only have the elergy of the North American continent refused to accept Judge Rutherford’s challenge of May 1, 1932, but they continue to persecute Jehovah’s witnesses by having them arrested and cast into prison; and recently the clergy have gone to the extent of influencing the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission to ban Judge Rutherford’s lectures from the air in Canada so that the people might not hear the truth. To this Judge Rutherford now replies:

“These reverend gentlemen pose before the people as the representatives of God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom. I charge that they in fact represent Satan the Devil. I therefore challenge them to select one amongst their number to debate with me the following question, to wit:

“That the clergymen of the Anglican church, contrary to their claim, do not in fact represent Jehovah God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom, but that they do represent and serve Satan the Devil and that thereby the people are deceived.

“I respectfully request that the radio commission of Canada provide the national radio facilities to broadcast this debate so that the public may determine whether the clergymen represent their best interests or not. The people are entitled to hear the facts. The clergy and the radio commission have no right to withhold the facts and prevent the people from hearing the truth. The radio presumably is to be used to broadcast matters of public interest, convenience and necessity.”

Why do the clergy take this course? Why do they refuse to accept the challenge? Read Judge Rutherford’s books, which will set the facts clearly before you. A coupon is provided for your convenience.

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¹

The message was so strong and thrilling to all of Jehovah’s witnesses who heard it that the full text is given as the final article in this issue for the encouragement of the Lord’s people and to the honor of His name.—Ed.