This World-a House Divided

"Every house divided against itself shall not stand”

French and British Occupation Zones

Life in these zones fraught with many hazards

Shameless Sleepyheads

Animals that sleep away the seasons, oblivious to sunrises and alarm clocks

Cremation

THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

News sources that are able to keep you awake to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests, “Awake!” has no fetters- It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it Is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

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CONTENTS

This World—a House Divided

Vituperative Tongues on the Loose

Dangers of Disagreement

Hierarchy and Her Henchmen

Fascistic Catholic Action '

Adopting a Fascist Stepchild

Russia's Bloody Iron Fist

How Far, How High and How Fast Can Birds Fly?

Science News Items

French and British Occupation Zones

Changing Bloody Clerical Garments

Shameless Sleepyheads

The Ilibernators

Insect Sleepyheads

The Estivators

Test-Tube Farming Grows Up!

Large-Scale Chemical Gardening

Grand Opera Becomes Grand Uproar

“Thy Woijd Is Truth”

Cremation

Kingdom Witnessing Expands in India 26

Non-cooperative Hens and Sheep

Watching the World

/AWAKE!/

©'"Now it is hi$h time to awake.— Romans 13:119J

This World “a House Divided

^r| 'HE ominous signs of the brewing X storm are flashing to the ends of the earth. A great pall of darkness overhangs the world of men. Desperate men grappling with the momentous issues of these awful times; men stricken with fear of the shape of things to come. Frantic men asking questions, questions, questions.

What is Russia up to now? Are dreadful conspiracies hatching behind the “iron curtain’⁷? To what terrible extremes will Russian expansion lead! Is the whole world in grave danger of being engulfed by an international upsurge of Communism? Does the Bolshevik, crouching behind his walls of steel, wait confidently for the expected sign that deteriorating democracies are disintegrating from within? Have the cataclysmic seeds of world revolution been so skillfully planted that all nations are in imminent danger of civil wars and international anarchy?

Here is the confounding paradox of our time: Men high in the councils of government in these United States, men that are trained to influence and guide public opinion, arte talking glibly, complacently of a third world war before the smoke and dehris have been cleared from the battlefields of the last holocaust; barely before the nations have buried the uncoffined bodies of their dead from World War IL Political leaders of international reputation are urging the democratic powers to rebuild a strong Germany as a buffer against Russia in the West; to rebuild a powerful Japan against Russia in the East, Many an influential peTsonage, throwing his weight around in international circles, in bitter chagrin is harping that it was a tragic mistake to force unconditional surrender on the criminal German Nazis, their Fascist satellites, and the Japanese war lords. They argue that a totally defeated Germany and Japan has opened the way for the Red tide of Communism to sweep over Europe and over Asia, imperiling democracy everywhere. It is tantamount to saying tbaj the German and Japanese tyrannies ought to have been left intact on their homelands, standing as a constant threat against Russian aggression. Such reasoning strongly suggests that many statesmen among the democratic nations are inclined toward the opinion that the democratic world ought to have fought with Hitler against the Communists instead of fighting' with the Communists against Hitler. What incredible reversals of opinion these perilous times do bring!

So, the pressing question hammers at us on every side: Why have the three great powers of America, Britain, Russia, so recently allied in common cause against The Fascists, their armies locked in mortal combat with a ruthless enemy over tens of thousands of miles of battlefields stretching around the earth; three great powers that paid a staggering price in materiel, money and human lives to enforce the unconditional surrender of the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Japanese, why have they come so soon to the parting of the ways ? to this bitter cleavage that splits the world in two? Is Russia wholly to blame for this menace to world peace? Or do America and Britain both share their, portion of guilt?

None t)f the international leaders in big business, politics and religion can find a satisfactory answer, though they feverishly cast about for some solution, for something to quiet mankind’s morbid fear of the future. But to the inquiring mind it is passing strange that these leaders, most of whom claim to preach, teach, crusade and rule by divine right, cannot catch the spark of divine wisdom that explores and unlocks the secrets and the mysteries of the future. The fact that they are unable to foretell or even anticipate the shape of things to come is the strongest proof that their presumptuous and scandalous pretensions to divine guidance and divine right constitute an international hoax, a monstrous deception against mankind and an unmitigated slander against Jehovah God.

Vituperative Tongues on the Loose

The glorified heads of state, so apparently wise and yet so obviously foolish, and their glamour boys—the self-styled “foreign experts” on this and that —are continually making the headlines with their interminable, fruitless conferences; continually viewing with alarm, continually pointing up some new crisis between Russia and the Western world. With grandiloquent expressions of self-righteous indignation, they hurl their reckless accusations and counter-accusations across the conference table, busy every day denouncing and denying, and behind it all is the muffled, sinister heat of the war drums. Invariably, it is a stalemate between the weakly demonstrated aspirations of the democracies and the unrevealed ambitions of international communism. Nothing is ever accompusned; nothing but words, words, words, until millions of people are not only apathetic: they are nauseated.

The propaganda machines on both sides of this hopelessly divided world are grinding as never before. Even the United Nations Security Council has fallen victim to this international malady of suspicion and conspiracy. -From its much publicized proud elevation as the supreme .power in world affairs, it has been debased to the sordid level of a propaganda forum; a sounding board for all the evil spirits of selfish nationalism and opposing ideologies. At one time belittled as only a glorified debating society, it now rapidly loses its glory and the debating is replaced by name-calling.

And this is the travesty on these times: gullible peoples anchoring their hope to a house divided against itself, a house resting precariously on the shifting sands of changing national fortunes.

The greatly accelerated tempo and fanfare of this international proselytizing often borders on hysteria. The hydra-headed media of propaganda fairly bristle with elever catch-phrases and martial slogans cunningly calculated to arouse the somnolent masses to a new frenzy of international divisions and hates. From the Western world the great hue and cry against the threat of Coiii-mnnism rises higher and higher, until all logic and sanity is lost in the din and the roar of the stampeding crowd. The Reds are coming 1 Yankee, get your gun I Red Fascism threatens the very foundation of “Christian civilization”. Beat the bushes, boys. We have a holy charge to hunt down the Communist and uproot the sprouting seeds of revolution. Every Red, every fellow traveler, is a potential spy, a potential saboteur. Russia has planted her “fifth column” in the United States, working day and night toward the overthrow of the American government. And don’t be too'careful, lads. Better it is that a million innocents should suffer than one Communist escape! Just smear the Red label on everybody that believes-in a decent living for the common man; on everybody that is naive enough to use a portion of. the Four Freedoms to protest against American or British imperialism in foreign affairs. Plaster the Red stigma on every soul that dares to raise the issue that fascism still is very much alive; on everybody that dares to say that a resurgent fascism constitutes a greater menace to world peace than even communism at its worst!

Not to be eclipsed in this battle of nerves; this international game of trumpeting hyperbole and billingsgate to the deluded masses, the Sphinx-like Kremlin, exploiting to the uttermost its regimented channels of propaganda, bursts with a sullen roar of defiance and bit-:er denunciation: ‘Decadent democracies with your vaunted systems of free enterprise for the privileged few, what do you iff er the disfranchised workers of the world! Your reactionary politicians are even now making common cause with the fascist usurper against your Russian ally. You walk hand in hand with the enemy that spilled the blood of your sons and ours on the battlefields of the world, Warmongers, this was to be the century of the common man, the crowning age of the proletariat, but the capitalist democracies have stolen his heritage and destroyed his inalienable rights!'

Can you, honest reader, wonder then that peoples in five continents are completely mesmerised into an intellectual stupor by these crusading proselytes on both sides of a divided world!

Dangers of Disagreement

Ifyou are an American attempting to exercise an unbiased, independent judgment on world affairs, you are actually jeopardizing your standing in the community. If you so much as hint that American foreign policy tries to stop Russia by courting certaip fascist powers, you are a suspected conspirator; your loyalty is open to investigation. The anti-Red crusade so permeates the channels of public communication, and the general public consequently has been driven to such hypertension over Russia, that the individual who tries to think clearly and logically and question some of this propaganda is irrevocably classified as a Red. If you have and use indisputable facts to prove that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is notoriously .Nazi-Fascist; that the Catholic Hierarchy makes adroit use of fascist intrigue to influence America, Britain and other democracies in foreign affairs, then the public mind is already prepared to censure and condemn you as a blatant atheistic Communist hacking at one of the pillars of world peace. It does not matter that you also question the aims and condemn the totalitarian oppression and brutality of Bolshevism; they will say that you are only covering up.

President Truman obviously has succumbed to this spreading delirium of suspicion and fear. Last March he called for a “loyalty” investigation of two million federal, employees, and a special search now is being conducted among the State Department personnel, which has resulted in the outright dismissal of certain persons suspected of being Communists or Communist sympathizers. Thus the* president appears to have every symptom of a severe case of Russophobia. And the manner in which the investigation is being pursued has drawn caustic criticism from many quarters. It has been denounced as a “witch hunt”, as a dangerous move in America. It is the old Star-Chajnber method. It amounts to a political inquisition where the accused is first presumed to be guilty and is thereafter allowed no adequate defense nor impartial public hearing to vindicate himself. The judges fear to exonerate the accused, lest they too thereby become suspect. The inevitable result of such crass procedure is to make a “loyalty” test a condition of both publie and private employment; a "loyalty” test based on intolerance, preconceived opinions and stupid prejudice. Every minority suspected of being Bed or even “pink” can be harassed and hunted down by ignorant bigots, with the federal government itself establishing this ignoble precedent.

Only a few months ago the president appeared before Congress to project his saber-rattling Truman doctrine, a doctrine that aroused many misgivings both at home and abroad. That dubious foreign policy seems now to have been superseded by the highly publicized Marshall plan for the rehabilitation of western Europe before the Soviets get there with their secret p|ans for taking over. Daily now the news channels headline the report that at least 16 nations are asking for 16 billion dollars under the Marshall plan. But Russia has initiated a counter move: the Molotov plan for rehabilitating eastern Europe. Thus on and on, ad infinitum, goes the capricious game of international power politics. Big nations forming blocs, rejecting proposals, splitting the. harried lesser powers into spheres of influence. Pushing small nations here, there and everywhere, like pawns, on the European and Asiatic chessboards.

The major powers have reverted to all their bitter prewar alliances that 'exploded into World War II. Before the war, England and France could enter into the infamous Munich Agreement with Hitler to sell Czechoslovakia into bondage. In those days of appeasement it was customary for the dominating European powers to sacrifice small nations on the auction block of international expediency and diplomacy. Many a “free enterprise” statesman in many a foreign office hack there before the war secretly hoped that the full tide of Nazi aggression would annihilate Russia. The same statesmen were planning a four-power coutrol of Europe, divided among England, France, Italy, and Germany; a four-power control to assure security from Communism. Instead, they permitted a Nazi monster to grow up; a monster* more terrible and ruthless than the Russian Bear has yet proved to be. And during the crucial war years the democratic powers leaned heavily on the Russian armies in beating down the Nazi-Fascist hordes that came perilously near to putting the human race in irons.

So, the old and bitter rivalries, are stirring. The flame of old, misgivings, suspicions, prejudice and grudges are being fanned into an inferno of hate which no political scheme of man can ever extinguish.

Hierarchy and Her Henchmen

In the vanguard of the anti-Red crusaders marches the omnipresent Roman Catholic Hierarchy, stirring up their gullible subjects to a fever pitch of mob action and war hysteria. Notorious for her past deeds of hate-hreeding, mob incitement, and war-mongering, the Roman Catholic Church brings to bear every artifice, every subterfuge, every sly and cunning deception from her vast repertory of tricks to appeal to the basest prejudices and passions of ignorant men. World opinion must be mobilized against Russia.'

The Big Business crowd, the political lackeys and footboys; the pandering, pusillanimous puhlic press; the obsequi-¹ ous, lickspittle editorial writers, columnists and news commentators pthat dissolute, unregenerate army of opportunists, pimping for the spiritually prostituting religionists; the fascistic, un-American American Legion that roams “like a wild ass among men”—all these flunkies, having their personal and political axes to grind, bend the knee and genuflect before that old “mother of harlots and abominations of the earth”. Her succulent propaganda teases the minds, soothes the susceptibilities and placates the hearts of her political and commercial paramours ; all of them asking to bed with her in Fascism's filthy nest But she has her price: They must join her in the present'international chorus of caterwauling against Russia.

It is therefore clear that the Catholic Hierarchy recognize in the Soviet Union their strongest competitor in this torrid race to world supremacy. They look up* on totalitarian, freedom-denying, communistic Russia as a potential invader of their green pastures, as a vandal that threatens their own ill-gotten riches taken from millions of exploited peoples upon whom they ply their monstrous religious racket. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is determined to gain ascendency among the nations, and they will brook ftp interference in gaining that position. Russia, blocks the Hierarchy’s path. Therefore Russia’s influence in world affairs must ho reduced to a minimum, or compromised to the aims of Catholic Action. Hither that, or communism must be outlawed among the nations. For very obvious reasons, the Big Business of "free enterprise”, being well entrenched in the "capitalist” countries, shares the capitalistic Roman Catholic Hierarchy's dread of a Red revolt.

The sum and substance of the whole matter is that Communism and Catholicism are out after the same thing. Both are totalitarian. Both use the inquisitional strong-arm method to subjugate whole peoples and nations. The only difference is that Russia inherently possesses the military power to accomplish many of her aims, whereas the Hierarchy must get a "sword of the church” ,to do their dirty work.

Fascistic Catholic Action

Looking on, believing that intransigent communism threatens to swallow the earth, the democracies .are being cajoled, influenced, deceived and indoctrinated by the sly emissaries of Catholic Action who draw near to democracy with their lips, when their evil hearts are far from it Democracy's interna* tional leaders are being induced and deluded into tacitly considering fasfdsm the lesser of the two evils. The democratic nations, under Catholic pressure, are winking at a despotic Franco in Spain, snuggling up to a fascist Peron in Argentina, bolstering totalitarian, pro-fascist, terroristic regimes in China and in Greece; but worst of all, the democratic powers are openly flirting with the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, the very power that fathered the infamous Rome-Berlin Axis of Mussolini and Hitler.

The terms of unconditional surrender imposed upon the vanquished Axis powers defeated the sinister conspiracy of the Roman CatholicrNazi-Fnscist combine to overrun the earth. Failing in that monstrous bid for world domination, the Catholic Hierarchy, in true Machiavellian disregard for their previous unholy alliances with the Nazis and the Fascists, has in a rush of expediency neatly executed an about-face, and now effusively makes love to Democracy.

The Roman Catholic Church now employs her powerful instruments of propaganda inside the democracies, plants her key mon in strategic positions in both industry and government, and through the process of attrition gradually wears down American Constitutional resistance to Catholic Action. Thus democracy is weakened by this in* sidious evil boring from within.

But the war scare, the Red menace, must be kept flashing on the world horizon. With consummate skill all the media of propaganda and. communication are exploited to the uttermost constantly to keep the threat of communism droning in the minds of the common people. In America, it thunders from the pulpit; it startles you in the somber, black headlines of the day; it comes howling at you from the radio; it craftily appeals to your sensibilities by subtle suggestion from the motion picture screen. The people must be stirred to emotional heights of frenzy and fear; they must be etep-nally vigilant lest a communist sneak in and overthrow “Christian civilization”.

Thief Yells “Thief!”

Meanwhile, the Fascists can escape the public scrutiny, because mankind is clamoring about Russia and international communism. This same thing happened before to the detriment of the nations. Twenty years ago, the politicians in America and Britain and France were spreading the alarm about communism; they alerted the nations to the Red danger; they set themselves in alliance against it. In the meantime, moving all around them, in their very midst, passing unnoticed, the surreptitious Fascists and Nazis were building toward international power.

The same thing is happening again. The Western world is alerted to the dangers of communism, but they seem to have lost sight of the adroit Fascists. The clever proponents of fascism yell “Thief I” Then everybody chases the Communist, and undisturbed fascism takes the loot. It is therefore increasingly obvious that when democracy's foreign policy spokesmen vociferously advertise the Bolshevik threat, and at the same time minimize the danger of resurgent fascism; when in fact they attempt to halt the advance of communism through strange alliances with a fascist fringe, they are preparing inevitable international repercussions that will jar the earth; they are setting the stage for the greatest time of trouble the world has ever known.

The former United States ambassador to Russia, Joseph E. Davies, in 1937, when Hitler was riding high, addressed a confidential summary to the then secretary of state, Cordell Hull, stating quite succintly: “It suits Germany’s book to hold the Soviet Union up as the menace to civilization.”—Mission to Moscow, page 216.

Hitler rose to power on an anti-Red crusade, which eventually engulfed not merely the communists but all the peoples of Europe. The Nazi horror camps reeked with the dead bodies of people opposed to Catholic Action Fascism, Roman Catholic Franco butchered the people of Spain on the specious pretext that the communists were threatening the security of that benighted country. Mussolini and his Roman Catholic cohorts railed against the Reds, but they shut up in prison not only the communists; they also hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death thousands of anti-fascists who also werq anti-communists.

Adopting a Fascist Stepchild

Now, in 1947, the democracies, with the United States taking the lead, propose to rebuild the German industrial machine. And many statesmen view that significant step with loud outcries of alarm. Among such protesting leaders is Sumner Welles, former undersecretary of state, who says quite bluntly: “Our Government now announces that it will scrap the industrial level for western Germany fixed at Potsdam and re-establish the level of 1936. We should not forget that it was that level which produced ‘guns rather than butter’,” and enabled Germany only three years later to launch the greatest military offensive the world has ever known.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 21,1947.

In short, there is the distinct possibility that the democracies will become so preoccupied with the dangers of communism that they will unwittingly adopt Fascism as their stepchild, And when they politically marry the Roman Catholic Church organization, that whoring mother of Nazi-Fascist delinquents, and get the ugly stepchild for bad measure, they will forever forfeit whatever altruistic plans they have toward giving the right of “free determination” to the shackled peoples of the world.

When the peoples of Europe and Asia look to the depraved, double-crossing political elements on both sides of the earth, political elements that stumble like blind men, clutching for "the last straw”, they are indeed blind followers of the blind, envisioning a mirage, chasing a chimera.

But the deluded masses in many nations know that royalty is dying. All the venom packed in centuries of hate-breeding oppression at the hands of kings, dukes and czars stirs up the proletariat against the decrepit remnant of modern royalty, against predatory plutocracy, against the master-slave complex that still dominates the minds of international leaders. The democracies, flirting with fascism and a despicable, decadent royalty, have thrown millions of Europeans and Asiatics into the arms of Soviet Russia. These oppressed peoples believe they have no other alternative. They have tasted Fascism’s'bitter fruits; they therefore choose for better or for worse the specious promises of the communists—a choice which they consider the lesser of two malignant evils.

Russin*^ Bloody Iron Fist

But Russia’s skirts are not clean. Upon her guilty head rests a multitude of sins, of brutal oppression against entire nations. That she has entered upon an ambitious program of global expansion there can be no, question. The iron fist- of the Soviet Union has smashed political opposition in a half-dozen communist-dominated countries. The giant shadbw of the Kremlin spreads ominously over Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia,, Albania, and threatens to blanket all of western Europe. Thus millions of many nationalities have been thrown violently into the Russian orbit. Conceding nothing to the fascists, Russia may be entertaining the hope of pushing her frontiers to the ends of the earth.

So, the danger signals are out. Fascism is rising again. Catholic-Action

Fascism that plays the great powers against each other. Catholic-Action Fascism that hopes to bring the United States and Russia face to face with daggers drawn. Today, Roman Catholicism sings in dulcet tones her panegyrics to Democracy; tomorrow, she will flirt with Russia if it works to her advantage. It has been suggested that Stalin’s death may precipitate a struggle for power within the Soviet Union, that Russia may emerge from the throes of internal political unrest haltered and bridled by Jesuit Catholic Action. But regardless of what happens, one thing is certain:

Fall of the Divided Bouse

Unchanging Bible prophecy, markedly at Revelation, chapter 17, foretells with earth-shaking significance that the kingdoms of this world—Russia,-America, Great Britain, France, China, and all the rest—will inevitably surrender their respective'national sovereignty to the United Nations organization, the sevenheaded peace beast that "was" the League of Nations, until it suffered a mortal wound at the beginning of World War n and "was not”, but "yet is" now that the old League of Nations has been resurrected even to greater power and authority. And the infallible finger of prophecy points to worldly organized religion as that "Mother of Harlots” destined to ride this composite "scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy”, and to hold in her hands the reins of political power to guide all the heads of this United Nations creature. Since the Roman Catholic Church' is the evil spawning ground of Fascism everywhere, the indication seems to be that both democracy and communism will he bridled by religious action; that totalitarianism will blanket the earth beyond the wildest dreams of Hitler, driving the human race back to the subhuman rule of the Dark Ages, until the fateful hotfr of Divine reckoning strikes in the great universal war of Armageddon.

But there is blessed nope m me great dawning light of the New World that now spreads with healing in its wings to all persons that seek meekness and righteousness before the great and terrible day of Almighty God's retributive justice falls upon a wicked world. For you who are cast .adrift upon humanity's churning sea of hopelessness, look to the kingdom of God that will hring heaven’s hlessings of everlasting happiness and life to this earth. Under that kingdom rule of the great Theocrat JehovaJi and His beloved Son, Christ Jesus, the only king who rules by divine right, no political oppressor will harass you. There will be neither fascism nor communism, neither democracy nor any other form of human government. But the Government or me .vew World rests upon the shoulders of Christ Jesus, "The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," and "of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end".

All the mighty, political powers which today parade their strength in the earth and divide mankind will be ground into powder. They will lie ifi the dust with their cankering treasures of silver and gold, with their weapons of war, and all questions as to who will dominate the earth will be forever settled to the everlasting comfort and security of obedient humankind. As Christ Jesus foretold,^?at Matthew 12: 25, the divided house of this present world cannot stand.—Contributed.

How Far, Haw High and How Fast Can Birds Fly?

How far? Bobolinks and golden plovers cover 12,000 to 14,000 miles on their an-nua] round trips from northern to southern hemisphere and hack again. The ^*<5 A re tie terns every year fly between 20,000 and 25,000 miles as they shuttle back and forth between the Arctic and the Antarctic.

How high? Out of several hundred reports on the height of birds observed during World War I only thirty-six were above 5,000 feet and seven of these were above 8,500 feet. Only when it is necessary for hirds to cross high mountain ranges do they show themselves as high fliers. Rising on such occasions cranes have been seen at 15,000 feet, and once in the Himalayas storks and cranes were seen at 20,000 feet- Cranes, pelicans, vultures aud storks have great wing spans in comparison with their body weight, which enables them to fly in the thin air. Small birds, however, must move their wings very rapidly even when close to the ground. Northern phalaropes, sandpipers and sanderlings have been seen over the Pacific just skimming the top of the water in order to get the greatest lift with the least expenditure of energy* The lack of oxygen, so necessary for flight, in the rarefied atmosphere is also a reason why birds avoid high altitudes.

How fast? A “mile a minute⁷⁷ speed for birds is not impossible, but such instances are exceptional. From the reEable flight data that has been obtained in recent years it has been learned that the flycatchers fly only 10 to 17 miles an hour; ravens, shrikes, hawks, herons and horned larks fly 22 to 28 miles an hour; mourning doves, 35 miles an hour; and ducks and geese, between 40 and 50 miles an hour. These are the normal flying speeds, but all birds can fly much faster for pursuit or escape. Hence ducks being pursued by airplanes can fly 00 miles per hour. The fastest hirds are the swifts, duck hawks and peregrine falcons. Swifts have been reported to have circled airplanes traveling 68 miles per hour, which means they were flying probably 100 miles an hour. Frederick C. Lincoln, of the U. S. Biological Survey, wrote: “Once a hunting duck hawk, ‘stooping⁷ at its quarry, and timed with a stop watch, was calculated to have attained a speed between 165 and ISO miles an hour.⁷⁷ Ordinarily the duck hawk cruises around 60 miles per hour*

Science News items

The Jwetttjr of AU .Sweets

< The “blue ribtor." for sweetness wm held for many years by saccharin, the pure form of which is 500 times as sweet as cane sugar. When dulcin was synthesized it won only second pnre, with a sweetness of 70 to 250 tunes that of sugar. Then psryllartine was discovered, and it Tan off with Ulo Loureia with, a bate sweet* new four timee as great aa saccharin. But during the recent war this perfiune-likc substance had tn retire to the back row when a new chemical substance called 1 n-propoxy-2-«nino-4-nitrobcnKEe made its debut in ths Netherlands. Far dotinrigtot sweetness this prims donna ex-eels anything yet discovered, for it u rated M 4,000 times as sweet as can* sugar.

o/liT-condieoTied Beeri iocs

CL Taxing a tip front wLat science has learned about air-conditic ning, a California apiarist placed 42 hives io a chamber and maintained the temperature between 80 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity between 60. and 65 percent. He found that the aweoi little creatures even became sweeter in disposition and efficiency. They produced more honey, they did not raid other hives to steal honey, they developed better queen bees, **d they were so amiable and amicable it wu unnecessary to wear netting and gloves when working with them.

^Million Words a rftfirute

<L A new system known u “Ultrafax”, developed by Radio Corporation of America, is capable of transmitting 1,006,000 words per minute. in di vid tai pages of books and newspapers are treated as tingle pictures and are transmitted in rapid succession by tetevisioD. At the rceriving' end they are reprodneed by high speed photography. Id this way the- contents ' of twenty 50,000-word books could be flashed across tht^coniineot in a mere 60 seconds of time.

‘Sree-duvOing Masquiwcs

< The South American cacao tree, from which conies oar chocolate, h&a at the baas of it* leaves cup-shaped cavities that hold rain water. Hera on these miniature ponds ths dreaded Ako pi etc* bellator, a malaria-carrying mo*r quite, breeds and then raises iia children In these swinging aerial uunteriea. Since the modem mosquito weapon of soence, DDT, also damages the trees, it has been found that an old-time spray solution of dilate copper sulphate is about the beat means of control.

5\cw Ideal About Cani’alescenc*

<L Long rest in bed following surgical operations is really “de-condi honing” and harmful to recovery, say members of the American College of SurgvoDS. Patiente that lie in bed for several weeks have an 11-percent decrease in the rice of their hearts, marked disability at work, susceptibility to fainting, a fall in ba*l i mctaboliun, an increase in the pulse when working, double excretion of riboflavin and tbiaimad, and other complications. One group of 900 pa* dents abowftd that those walking about on tka first or second day after operations had only half the amount of gu pains and tbdr convalescence tune was reduced by 50 pereonti

^Baiting Soda fpr Athletes

< Research work conducted %t University ot Califonus -has shown that during physical exorcise when large amounts of oxygen are consumed a surplus amount of carbon dioxide i* built np in the body ks a waste product. Th* rate at which the body through its circulatory system cau throw off this waste is a good iti-di ration of ite physical efficiency. A twenty-year-old man does this three tunes fts fast as • man sixty years -old. It was also found that small amounts of sodium bi carbo Date (baking soda) increases the rate at which ths carbon dioxide is eliminated. As yet the exact amount of soda that can be taken without producing adverse conditions bus not been determined.

WHAT a change! Just a few years ago the world held its breath when it was announced that “Iler Fuhrer’’ was to make another speech. The sound of marching troops rang through the streets of the century-old towns of the industrious German people. Then came the war! Germany’s heart beat louder and stronger. Her youth were marching from victory to victory to a "better future”. The German people celebrated each milestone of success with inexpressible jubilation, for each triumph acted as a narcotic even upon those who were not in “the party”. ‘Just a few months and things will he better for us all. We shall have everything we need and more too/ they thought. The armament industrialists, the militarists, the politicians, the landed gentry, the smaller nobility, the officials, the middle classes, the workers, and the churches and sects —one aud all alike cried "Heil Hitler”. Then, almost overnight, disaster camq and catastrophe struck Germany like’a thunderbolt.

As if awaking from a strong anesthetic the German people see all about them boundless misery hollowly gazing up from the ruins of their destroyed cities. They stand before the ruins of their demolished houses, bridges and railways and they see the spiritual wreck of a dissatisfied and suffering people. They try to fathom the cause of this situation, to account for the fact that 60,000,000 people who in times pa^t have produced men of great spiritual capacity, a nation within whose walls the cradle of the Reformation was rocked, should be despised today to such an extent that the whole world points an accusing finger at them.

Cold and hunger are the two greatest causes of suffering in Germany. During the cold weather, in addition to fighting for a little food, the people must hunt for fuel like scavengers. According to reports in the British zone 3 hundredweight of brickettes, 10 hundredweight

of wood and 2 hundredweight of coal waste was released per family during last winter but this amount was far short of their needs. In the big cities the gas supply was insufficient and electricity was curtailed, and so the people flocked to the yards where the coal was being loaded, there to steal what they could. Up to the middle of last February 20,000 tons of coal had been stolen in Hanover and twice as much in Hamburg.

More distressing by far is the problem of food, for hunger stalks through the land year round. Nobody can live long or pacify his hunger on the frugal, wholly insufficient food rations. True, the fusion of the British and American zones brought a change in the combination of foods; but it did not give a higher number of calories. Hence everybody utilizes his spare time in the evenings and week-ends going to the country in search of food. They walk from farmhouse to farmhouse in hope of being able to buy an egg, a half-liter of milk, some corn or bread. They are often ready to pay many times what the food is worth; but farmers are not inclined to sell, at least not for money. Sometimes they will exchange some badly.needed material for eggs, a pair of shoes for bread, or clothing for potatoes. Last winter when it was announced by press and radio that North America and Argentina had had record harvests it was as a ray of hope penetrating this dark land. However, Hie situation in the meat and fat markets was, and still is, very pessimistic. A proverb here is: “Hitler gave us vita-mines, the British give us calories, and now we are waiting for the man who will give us something to eat!”

The difficulties of food and shelter are

Trafficking in Misery /

The only ones that a re more or less content with conditions and do not wish for a return to normal are the black-markfef dcrJers. Never was there snob a tremen-

. Tim economic -collapse, with its inflation and illegal bhuk market pram ices, yis fast leading 1 he one time ■ highly cul-■ in red G erman people down (’m road to-ward /becoming; a beggar, swindler and ■ gangster nation. Aloreover, the fact that the ’best, and most industrious’ people ; a re th e worst off makes ti iem ve r\ bitter about .these unrighteous conditions. Bob-¹-1 . beries are increasing to a nios 1 horrify-ing degree; people being attacked both.' in the isolated ruins and along the conn-try highways; evmn whole trains /feeing held up by organized gangs. Criminality /■' has reached an all-time high, with moral-ity sinking to an appalling depth.

Not so long ago a woman seeing the ''

feet, he quickly relieved her of her shoes . ■ and disappeared. An acquaintance of . mine told me that a little while ago he ;' was.■ standing on the curbstone when along came a cyclist and just lifted his■ .

- hat and made off. There is a sign in the Hamburg railway station saying that a', hundred coaches are standing idle be- ■ cause (he electric light bulbs have been ■. stolen out ofthem. These are only typ- 'x icaI cases and you can see such things happening every day. They are the gall- ■ ing fruits that are now harvested in /'

Germany.                            . y "

The whole transportation system is in -a very bad condition. For lack of gasp-line in the French, zone many trucks and : lorries are at a standstill. The omnibus' and tramway service as well as the rail-. ways are in a critical / condition that'_{; ;}. seems to be on the ve rgc of co 11 a pse at any moment. Many trains arrive hours behind schedule, and the overcrowded conditions on them is a chapter in itself, . one that is hard to describe in words.

In those zones practically all Indus- ■-trial activity is in (he same condition of ./■ stagnation ■ as the other ■ walks/ of life. Manufacturing industries that were not. entirely destroyed by bombing ■ were damaged, and because of the Jack -of . building materials and workmen their recovery is slow. Some of the big fae- ^r lories'have been dismantled and their valuable, tool machinery removed, to- y.

gether with raw materials, as reparations. This in turn has further embittered the inhabitants, who fail to consider that the Nazis plundered other lands they occupied and used the same to continue their war of conquest.

Each morning as one' goes through the deserted ruins and- dirty streets one is seized anew with the whole inconsolable state of this land. Thousands of faces have an expression of blank- nothingness ; some have the stare of starvation; others are sick unto death. They are a people without hope and without courage. Suicides are a common thing, with one town in the British zone reporting 200 for the month of January of this year. Discontent is expressed by many who fail to see and understand the relation of politics and economy. They complain about the German administration and the military government. For example, a man wants to make a journey 50 kilometers in order to settle some business, or he wants to he present at the burial of his sister. The local administration tells him he must have a permit from the military government, which usually requires two or three weeks, but at present the issuing of such permits has been interrupted. Such superfluous “bureaucracy" naturally irritates him a great deal.

The same dismal hopelessness prevails in regard to solving the housing problem. The British announce that a “five-year building plan” is drawn up for the renovation of a million damaged apartments and the building of forty thousand new apartments. But what is this in the face of so many millions of people without proper shelter? Keeping assiduously to such a plan as this means that the restoration will take 40 years to complete. Whereas the occupation powers seem to be a hindrance to a building up of the economic life, and criticism is warranted in this regard, yet they are a great help against every type of reaction and stand as a guarantee for the freedoms of speech, press, worship and conscience as laid down, in the Potsdam agreement.

Denazifying the Turnips

The law which was originally destined to “cleanse Germany of militarists and national socialists” is called “denazification”, It is, however, an open secret that the number, of denazification scandals greatly exceeds the number of real denazification cases. The whole procedure seems only to be a test of intelligence, and not a very difficult one for those who, in every situation of life, know how to swim like oil on water. Only the little “duffers” really remain hanging in the net spun for them, those who have the hahit of stumbling over every problem of life anyway. It is a familiar saying: “The small ones they hang and the big ones they let go.” Even over the radio they joke about it. For instance, a man who is thinning his turnips is asked what he is doing. “I am denazifying the turnips,” he answers. “How so?” “Oh, I pull out the little ones and leave the big ones standing,”

In many instances the military government has adopted reconciliation measures in handling denazification proceeding with the object in mind of preventing future disaster rather than revenging or punishing wrongs of the past. As a result many former Nazis are retained in German public offices. Democracy-loving Germans have resented this tolerance by the military government of former Nazi party members in public positions to such a degree that there have been cases in the French zone where Germans have used the greeting “Heil Hitler” when entering German public offices. Upon questioning by the astonished officials as to why this forbidden greeting is given, one person retorted: “As long as I still see the same faces here as during Hitler's time this greeting is surely appropriate; for nothing has changed, has it?”

As for political parties, the sincere man stands on one sice not wanting to hear any more about politics; the former honest Nazi aso stands on one side waiting. But besides those two classes there ifi a host of opportunist politicians who always hang their flag out the way the wind is blowing.

Tn the British zone the two strongest parties are the Socialist party of Germany (SPD), which has the same program as before. 1933. and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a new product drawn from the former Caiholfc Central party, the Democratic party and the Christian Socialist party’. The Communist party (KPD) takes third place. In the French zone the CDU dominates, esneciallv in the smaller communities, where they have taken over all public life in the mutters of administration, economics and questions of education. In the hitter matter they set up fixed forms for t Jie confessional schools overnight without allowing the public to decide what they desired their children taught. Many Nazi-minded men have found shelter in the CDU.

Changing Bloody Clerical Garments

Exhaustive possibilities of propaganda and, expansion have been created in this postwar period by the English military government for the two largest churches. The French also have given their support to the ehnrenes, especially to the Catholic church. Not only do they hgve their own newspapers, but they utilize lite radio for their propaganda. A new movement, called “Una San eta”, has as its purpose the unifying of Catholics and Protestants.

There is no better example of quick, behind-ihe-curUiiu changing of costumes than among the church leaders of Germany, Regretting their former support of Nazism as a mistake the clergy blasphemously charge God with the responsibility for the misfortunes and sufferings, saying that He sent these .things to

mush the people, and then in the next reath the clergy say they have a new spiritual attitude. As an exarnp.e of thifl change of cloak the archbishop Groeber, a former SS-man, in 1933, following the conclusion of the concordat between the Vatican and the Nazi regime, made the following statement: “I believe 1 am revealing no secret when I say that I unreservedly support the new Government and the new Reich. We know what the new Reich is aspiring to.” Then following the collapse the same bishop said: “One can maintain with confidence without injury to the truth that the German people were never so hoodwinked as in the last thirteen years.’¹ This statement is characteristic of many bishops and clergy. Catholic and Protestant alike. Jt is little wonder that they attract unfavorable attention with people requesting their resignation quite openly in the newspapers. Honest men and women are again turning away from the churches because they doubt the sincerity of these clergymen and preachers.

From this brief survey of conditions in the French and British zones it ia manifest that the peoplq generally have very little confidence or hope in either the political, religious or other promisee Since the war ceased the general diz-tress, the'economic and social insecurity, the [Kjstponement of a peace treaty which is expected to bring some measureof relief, have led idle multitudes to think and live only for today and tomorrow Eagerly they grasp at every distraction and pleasure. If they had the opportunity to flee from these torturing troubles by emigrating to other lands undoubtedly many thousands would do so, for they do not realize that distress and perplexity is upon all nations. These world conditions, and the inability of the mighty ones of the earth to find a remedy, emphasize again the need for the establishment of Jehovah God’s righteous and perfect Theocratic Government —Awaxe! correspondent in Germany.

ter; estlvators that slumber away summer. nuMi^ut iniitiiiiiiii]iuiuiiiiiitiiiiiiuiiiUHniiniiiiiiiiuiiiiiiuiiiiiiii[iiiiiniiitiiiiiiiiiiu

JEHOVAH God made the animals.

(Genesfs 1:24; 2:19) That He endowed them with power, and fashioned them with unfathomable skill, is. proved by the matchless description given to Job by God himself. The lilting lines of that majestic poetry ring today with resonance undimmed by the centuries passed since they brought rejoicing to. God’s afflicted witness. Like music from the skies resound the queries to enthralled Job:

Canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? . Who hath sent out the wild ass free ? Or who hath loosed the bonds of the swift ass, whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwellingplace? He scorneth the tumult of the city, neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture. . . . Hast thou given the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane ? Is it by thy wisdom that the hawk soareth, sand stretcheth her wings toward the south? Is it at thy command that the eagle mounteth up, and maketh her nest on high?—Job 39:1,2, 5-8,19,26,27, Am. Stan. Ver.

Not only did Jehovah invent the swift wing and fleet hoof to protect His wild creatures, but to others He gave the life-preserving instincts to hibernate and estivate.

Many are the changes, adaptations and preparations made to meet the seasonal changes, whether winter cold, with its attendant food shortage, or summer heat, accompanied by drought and consequent drying up of the waters that

make their home. Endowed by instincts that men may merely observe in wonder bnt not explain, each makes its change of environment or organic transformation ordained by Jehovah for their survival. The hibernators (the term “hibernate” being derived from the Latin verb hi-bernare, meaning “to pass the winter”) do not move from their environment or habitat, hut hole up, and undergo amazing systemic changes that enable them to continue in a comatose condition much deeper than human sleep for many months without food or water.

The torpid or lethargic state' into which the winter sleepers fall is paralleled by an equivalent dormancy of the summer sleepers called “estivation” (this term being derived from the Latin verb “aestivare”, “to summer”). In warm climes some creatures survive heat and drought in a condition called estivation which physiologically appears identical with hibernation. In fact, the alligator of South Carolina, for example, will hibernate in winter, but in the tropics, where there is no cold season, the alligator will estivate.

Man is privileged to observe, but cannot explain the curious deathlike state that some of these creatures approach: insects incased in ice crystals for long frozen months coming forth in the spring without harm; the African lungfish bedding itself a foot and a half in mud while its, river home completely dries up above, waiting for the next spring freshet, or even on occasions for rains three years later to unlock its mud-encrusted lair, from which it emerges thinner, but as lively as ever; or the champion sleeper among the mammals, the marmot or common groundhog, whose life processes are so completely suspended that an immersion in water that would kill it in three minutes during its active state can be prolonged for at least twenty-two minutes without doing it harm when hibernating.

The Hibernal or8

It must not be surmised, however, that hibernation is uniform among animals. The entire list is not large. When hibernation is mentioned the bear usually flashes to most minds. However, the lat-est.classifications do not place the bears among,the true hihernators, because they alternate sleep and foraging, and their body temperature does not fall so drastically as in the case of animals in dormancy whose body heat drops from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 40 degrees. Hibernating animals breathe slowly and unevenly and their temperatures approach that of their environmeuts and fluctuate with it. On the other hand, many male hears do not hibernate at all; while in the southern states neither sex of the black bear retires for winter.

The female polar bear, already pregnant, leaves her mate to range and forage while she retires to her den under the snow, a cave or large burrow. There she will remain for several months without food or water, sustaining not only herself but normal litter of two cubs, entirely on a four-inch layer of body fat stored up when actively on the prowl. Woe betide the man or beast that crosses her when she emerges gaunt and hungry with whelps already two months old! (Proverbs 17:12) Males among the mammoth Kadiak, or Alaskan brown bear, stay abroad all winter to feed on carrion and salmon stranded by the exhausting swim up the mighty Yukon, and do not hibernate at all. By continuous feasting, these largest of the hear tribe attain a height of twelve feet, and a weight of a ton. According to one explorer, their tracks are as large as those made by a snowshoe! South of the Alaskan peninsula and the cold Arctic tundra of Canada, where the Kadiak and the polar reside, the grizzly bear, of Rocky Mountain fame, takes the deep winter sleep.

Among the mammals, and besides the hear, there are six other phenomenal sleepers: the raccoon, the chipmunk, the American marmot (woodchuck, or more commonly called the groundhog), the skunk, the dormouse (and its relative the jumping mouse Of the Zapus species) and the bat. Similar species are the hedgehog, the gopher, and the sat-squir-rel, which, because of its habits, bears the name “seveu sleepers” in Germany. Raccoons and badgers are intermittent sleepers, while the chipmunk or ground squirrel takes food into his burrow for winter snacks, and makes occasional forays to replenish his larder. (The chipmunk is also sometimes called a gopher, and should not he confused with the burrowing rat so destructive to orchards in the west and which has been called by the same name.) A naturalist once uncovered one of this species, called a Richardson ground squirrel, while excavating for

construction. The little fellow was curled up in a spherical, grass-lined hole, un-der sixty-nine inches.of soil hard enough to make picking necessary. Placed in the warm sun shine, he remained for an hour without moving. As he finally stirred and stretched his limbs with a tremor, even his natural enemy the "weasel, which chanced by, gave him no apparent sign of concern. When returned to the pit where his burrow had been exposed, he wabbled into the old nest, and when last seen had dug six inches deeper fora new retreat

Bats hibernate in large flocks, thousands sometimes being found in old barns or caves, notably in Carlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico. In characteristic slumber position, they hang with head down, talons tightly clutching a limb or projection. Their animation is so much suspended, almost deathlike, that one placed for an hour in a bucket of water failed to conic to, although not in the least injured. This peculiar trance is also a trait of the hibernating dormouse. When removed from its warmly lined nest it is noticed that its breathing is almost imperceptible, with body cold and rigid. Instances are recorded in which its body was rolled like a ball across the flpor without awaking.

But of all mammals the hedgehog and the woodchuck hold the record both for duration and for intensity of sleep. The' woodchuck, so common in the fields and along the creek banks of eastern states, has been used in extensive experiments to learn the nature of hibernation. Regularly, about the end of September, the mechanism or internal schedule of the groundhog calls for going into winter sleep. That the animal's systemic change (or basal metabolism) induces construction or location of a well-drained burrow, and moves the now fattened and waddling marmot to lie down to sleep, is shown by captivity experiments. Even when provided with warmth and plenty of food the marmot nevertheless falls into his seasonal torpor!

The marmot further demonstrates certain fundamental requirements of the hibernating animal: retention of moisture, effected by sealing up of bladder and cessation of alimentation; lowering of basal metabolism (qr rate of consumption of body fats) which'is attained by drastic reduction in heart and breath rate, accompanied by a drop in body temperature from over 100 degrees to about 40. With the flow of blood reduced to approximately one seventy-fifth of normal, there is a corresponding reduction in hreathing. So imperceptible does the breathing hecome that the animal may take in in 200 days only as much oxygen as would be required in a single active day. The accumulation of carbon dioxide does no harm, apparently, because circulation of the hlood approaches a standstill. This partly explains why it could endure a twenty-two-minute immersion in water; and survived for four hours in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide. While these facts have been demonstrated with the groundhog, it cannot be demonstrated that the popularly accepted theory of Mr. Groundhog's seeing his shadow and returning for six more weeks of winter has any foundation other than myth.

Cold-blooded Sleepers

Turning now to the cold-blooded reptile family, snakes, lizards, turtles (or tortoises) are bracketed among the hi-bernators. The newts and salamanders which resemble lizards but without scales have similar habits. Frogs, toads and earthworms burrow into the ground or mud. The muck of the rice fields may sometimes contain both the bullfrog and the deadly water moccasin. Copperheads have, not infrequently, been ploughed up in the open field. The diamond rattlesnake may choose a hollow log or hole under a stump, or a lumber pile, Negroes once aroused a rattier from a pile of debris in^; late winter. It was torpid and lethargic, its skin hanging in undistended folds like an oversize stocking. Snakes may often congregate in favorable retreats, such as the rock den in Pennsylvania where two hundred hibernating copperheads and rattlers were discovered.

Swamps make the winter bed for many reptiles. When the mighty Santee floods through the South Carolina lowlands in spring, it sweeps out vast hordes of rattlers, moccasins and alligators. Almost every log and floating turf ferries one or more'snakes that have been washed out of their beds still groggy from slumber. Pond bottoms may receive the bullhead of the smaller catfish variety. Crabs, fiddlers, crustaceans, oysters, clams and snails seek the mire for dormancy. The carp and other fish become torpid in winter, but the strangest story of fish dormancy comes from Alaska.

Fish is one of the chief foods of the hungry Malemutes that pull the dog sled. Drivers foraging for food seek stranded fish frozen in the surfaces of streams and lakes, chopping them bodily out of the ice, and feed the chunks to the Huskies. The ravenous hrutes often take the fish in one gulp, only to regret their impolite haste. In the dog’s stomach the fish warms up, loses his icy case, and becomes a wriggling torment to his de-vourer. Finally up comes the fish, but only for a moment. His lively flipping is cut short by the powerful fangs that snap him up this time in a few more bites. In explaining this phenomenon of animation suspended for the many months in which the fish is frozen solid, observers believe that sufficient oxygen is also trapped in the ice to sustain the life spark for its inactive period.

Insect Sleepyheads

Hibernation is-also the general means by which insects outlast the winter. It must partially account for the teeming NOVEMBER 22, 1S47

insect life of the Arctic which attracts even the tropic hummingbird while the icy circle is thawed for a hurried summer. No doubt they live through the subzero frigidity on the roof of the world in much the same way as they are observed in more temperate climes. Wasps leave their paper nests to hide in tree holes and roof corners. Great companies of insects creep down from trees to their winter homes on low shrubs, weeds and leaf-strewn ground.

“Insects can endure continuous freezing; and snails, myriapods, spiders and insects that have been incased in ice crystals and solid masses of frozen soil for weeks at a time become normally active when thawed out," states one authority. Some pass winter in a pre-adult form, egg, larval or chrysalid stage. (The larvae of the caddis fly estivate by sinking to the pond bottom and burrowing in for the duration of the dry season.) Great ingenuity marks the maternal insect’s care for the eggs which must wait for spring warmth for batching. Mother lackey moths hind their eggs in bracelets around slender twigs and cover them with a gum that hardens into a protective crust. A shiny coat of glandular shellac the same color as the twig protects the eggs of the Eastern tent caterpillar against weather and other enemies until the caterpillars are ready to emerge in April. Winter sleeping bags of ehewed wood held together with a little silk snugly harbors the goat moth for the cold weather. The splendor of gum-varnished and silk-lined chambers gives tribute to the Infallible Intellect which gave life-preserving instincts to the gorgeous and multicolored Lepidoptera.

Common to the East is the beautiful mourning cloak, or Vanessa Antiopa, butterfly. No fashion expert ever designed such rich color combination as the splendor of its wings of dark purplish brown edged with a wide yellow band and a row of sparkling blue dots. After gracing the skies from spring to fall, the beauteous Vanessa attaches itself to the underside of a limb, and literally "freezes on”.

The Estivatora

Such is the amazing way in which Jehovah has provided for some of His creatures to, pass winter rigor. Other denizens of the outdoors are equally endowed to endure summer heat and drought. In tropic climes many of the same reptiles estivate that hibernate in the north latitude, such as turtles, newts and snakes. The great anaconda of South America, the boa, which is said to attain forty or more feet in length, simply buries itself in the mud for the dry season. Another outstanding performer in the field of estivation ,has been mentioned, the African lungfish. When this fellow was first placed in enclosed aquariums, he died, because he must have air for his lungs, even though be possesses as well a set of gills. In the wilds, when his native river recedes to a miry channel, the finny breather pushes himself into the muddy bottom, exudes slime for his nest, now turns his head toward the surface, and fashions with his lips an aperture of tubular dimensions reaching about eighteen inches to the surface. Deriving only a modicum of precious oxygen for the slight needs of his dormancy, he remains until the rains fill the river again. In at least one instance on record, this Rip Van Winkle of fishdom stayed buried thus for three years, and, when released by the waters, swam forward without apparent injury.

Rutledge, in his discussion, calls to mind another curious example of estivation. "The most astonishing case of estivation I know of is that of a snail from the Egyptian desert. Its shell, thought to be empty, was put on exhibition in the British Museum in 1846, Four years later it seemed tp show signs of life, and when immersed in water the animal emerged and began crawling about.”

While these phenomena reveal the divine skill of the Master Workman, there is a case of so-called "hibernation” that does not reflect credit to Jehovah. On the contrary, it bears the mark of Satanic cruelty, wastefulness and oppression. Selfish men, under bondage willingly to God’s adversary-, one of whose names is “Devourer”, have so ruthlessly grabbed up the earth’s food and fuel supply that human creatures on the Russian steppes have been forced to "hibernate” When winter famine and cold reaches out icy fingers to snuff out life among the peasants of northern Russia they have resorted to an unusual custom. All available wood and covering is brought to the largest home where the chief furnishing is an immense flat-top stove. Then the whole family, and sometimes the whole village, huddle together on the top, which is kept warm by one member appointed to keep the fires going. Breathing slowly, and deriving warmth from both one another and the fire beneath, they conserve as much as possible their vital energy. Only getting up for unavoidable necessity they remain in practically uninterrupted slumber until winter is broken. In Jehovah’s New World human creatures will not be forced to that misery.

Of that day, when man’s mind and body will be fully satisfied, and no shadow of fear shall cloud his face, God’s Word records the sure promise: "Then shall the earth yield her increase.” (Psalm 67:6) Demonstrating the peace and amity among His wild life in the New World, foretold for our generation, God's Word says (Isaiah 9:6-11, Amer. Trans.): "Then the wolf will lodge with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion will graze together, and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will be friends, their young ones will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The suckling child will pl&y on the hole of the asp, qnd the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will do no harm or destruction on all my holy mountain.”

THINK of it! Farmers that no longer need to plow, no longer need to cultivate, no longer need to weed their gardens in order to produce bumper crops of vegetables. They no longer need to worry about spring floods’ preventing them from sowing their seed, nor do they need to worry about summer droughts’ burning up their crops. Neither do they need to worry much about bugs and insects.

None of these worries afflict the soilless farmer who has mastered the art of hydroponics. The science of hydroponics is the growing of plants without soil simply by feeding them the correct balance of chemicals in dilute water solutions. For twenty-five years this chemical way of raising plants has been carried on in the laboratory, but in recent years chemical glassware has been replaced by five-acre greenhouses and huge mechanical gardens. Test-tube farming has really grown up.

Early experiments in dirtless gardening were carried on by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Pnr-due University and the University of California. Also a hundred greenhouses throughout the country, covering about ten acres of ground, tested out the raising of practically any kind of plant on special water-mineral diets. Much was learned by these experiments and certain definite methods were developed.

The name “hydroponics” was first applied to the “water culture” method which consisted in suspending the plants in baskets of exeelsior or other inert material and allowing the root systems to

extend down into chemical solutions. It was necessary to pump air into the solutions in order to aerate the roots. This, together with other difficulties, made the method impractical for extensive cultivation. Another method consists of placing a wick made of some rot-proof material in the hole of a flowerpot, and thus feeding the chemical solutions to the plants by capillary action. However, this is practical only on a small scale.

The method most extensively used today is known as the ‘'gravel culture”. Shallow watertight trays are filled with coarse gravel, crushed rock, pumice, cinders or similar inert, sterile material and used to support the roots of the plants. At regular intervals these trays are flooded with solutions of chemicals, the excess of which drains back into the storage tanks and is used over again. Once a week the solution is built back up to the proper strength.

Farmer Must Know His Chemicals

The real crux to successful farming without soil is to know the chemicals required, the amount of each needed, and the best form to supply them. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and sulphur are the principal elements needed for plant growth. Carbon is supplied in the form of carbon dioxide from the air, and oxygen and hydrogen in the form of water. The other elements are made available in the form of soluble “salts” dissolved in water. Nitrogen Irom ammonia salts, urea or nitrate salts; calcium from lime; potassium from potassium chloride, potassium sulphate or potassium nitrate; magnesium from Epsom salts; phosphate from phosphate salts of ammonium, potassium, magnesium or calcium; and sulphur from the various sulphates.

In addition to these principal elements minute amounts of a few others are also necessary. Without iron the green coloring of the leaves suffers, yet an over-supply is as detrimental as an undersupply. It is a very difficult element to keep in solution, and any change in the acidity or alkalinity will upset its balance. For this reason ferrous citrate and ferrous tartrate are the most satisfactory forms to introduce the iron. Traces of manganese, boron, zinc and copper are also needed for healthy plant growth, but only in' amounts of 1 or 2 parts per 10,000,000 parts of nutrient. The rare element of molybdenum is required in the amount of 1 part per 100,000,000. Potassium permanganate will supply the manganese; borax or boric acid will supply the boron; and the zinc, copper and molybdenum are usually found in sufficient quantities in the water supply that it is not necessary to add them. Such chemicals as seedless fruit hormones and growth-promoting hormones are sometimes added. As seen in the following list, considerable latitude is found in the composition of different hydroponic solutions.

Elements	Parts per million
Nitrogen	90 to 350
Calcium	150 to 570
Potassium	90 to 450
Magnesium	101 to 110
Phosphorus	30 to 150
Sulphur	100 to 560
Iron	1/2 to 4
Manganese	1/5 to 2
Boron	1/5 to 1/2
Zinc	1/5 to 1/20
Copper	1/5 to 1/50
Molybdenum	1/100

Formulation is greatly simplified by using a three-compound recipe, as, for example, calcium nitrate gives calcium and nitrogen, monopotassium phosphate supplies potassium and phosphate, and magnesium sulphate gives magnesium and sulphur. However, it is not as simple an operation as making lemonade, for there must be a certain balance maintained between the elements. In dark, cool winter weather plants require more potassium and less nitrogen than they do in sunny, warm weather. An excess of potassium hardens and slows down the growth, and an excess of nitrogen has the opposite effect. If the nutrient solution is too concentrated it makes the plant leaves and stem thick and stubby. The normal solutions ’ are only about one-tenth to one-twentieth as strong as sea water, yet for sensitive orchids only a one-tenth normal-strength solution is needed. All of which emphasizes the complexity of dirtless farming.

Large-Scale Chemical Gardening

Some 700 miles from St. Helena on which Napoleon lived out his life there is a black and barren volcanic rock jutting out of the south Atlantic ocean midway between Africa and South America. It is called Ascension Island, is owned by the British, and during the recent war was used by the United States Army as an airplane refueling station. On this off-cast island, devoid of fresh -water and green vegetation, a large hydroponic farm was built to supply the personnel with fresh vegetables. Volcanic cinders were used in place of gravel and sea water was distilled for. the chemical solution. In order to pollinate the cucumbers it was necessary to fly a hive of bees to Ascension.

Installations similar to this were set up in British Guiana, Iwo Jima, China and Japan. Before the war an experimental station*on Wake island in the Pacific was growing vegetables direct from chemicals. Today near Tokyo there is one such farm 55 acres in size, and near Kyoto, Japan, there is another 25-acre farm, 5 acres of which is in the largest single greenhouse in the world. All of these gardens use the gravelculture method.

These Army installations are limited to raising lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and onions for the occupation forces. This last season‘something like. 1,000 tons of ripe, juicy tomatoes were produced; together with other items for the salad bowl there was a total crop of 3,180,000 pounds of soilless vegetables produced in Japan. Ordinary lettuce has a tendency to “bolt” in hot weather, that is, to form a woody stalk and go to seed. So a special hybrid lettuce known as “slobolt” has been developed for the semitropical chemical gardens.. By picking off only the outer leaves without disturbing the stalk it is possible to get four crops from one planting. Icicle radishes stand up to the heat better than other varieties, and the tomatoes are a heat-resistant variety.

Test-tube gardening has exhibited some very spectacular results in the way of growth: tomato plants as high as 20 feet; rhododendrons that ordinarily take five years from seed to flower doing the job in half the time; aristocratic orchids growing faster and stronger than under their natural conditions; and vegetables of superior quality and higher nutrient value than those raised in many parts of the country that suffer from soil deficiency. All types of plants may be successfully grown in inorganic chemical solations, with possibly oaks and conifers as the exception.

While there are many advantages to “off the soil” farming, there are also many drawbacks. It costs much more to pull vegetables out of test-tube solutions than out of the good earth. The investment runs very high, about $25,000 per acre per year, and few crops will produce sneh returns. Only some enterprising concern like the U. S. army can afford to raise common vegetables on a big scale, and even then young Japanese college and university graduates that are willing to work for low wages in order to learn the business are employed.

For these reasons the old reliable dirt farmer may dismiss all fear that soilless gardening will drive him off the land. He can continue to plow and cultivate the land, and fight insects and weeds, to produce an abundance of food for the hungry stomachs of the world. At the same time greenhouse horticulturists with a chemical bend will continue making a living raising expensive cut flowers and specialty items without soil. Studying the many books and bulletins on this interesting subject and conducting new experiments, they will learn more about the exact science of plant growth.

-

Cremation

TIE term “cremation” means the burning of corpses, or the practice of disposing of the bodies of the dead by reducing them to ashes, instead of by burying them in the ground or in sepulchers. This was a general custom among nations in ancient times, except in Egypt, where corpses were embalmed as mummies, Egypt’s dry climate favoring this; and also the land of Israel, where the Israelites for the most part buried the dead and hid them away in sepulchers. China was another place where they buried the dead in the earth. In ancient Greece the law was that only suicides, and persons struck by lightning, and unteethed, children were refused the right to be burned. In Borne, down to the end of the fourth century A.D., burning on the funeral pyre or rogus was the general practice. Whether such was the practice for reasons of sanitation or out of superstitious beliefs is not certain. Cremation is yet practiced over a great part of Asia and America, but, of course, not always in the same manner or form, but fire and heat are the agencies. The ashes may be preserved in urns, or buried in the ground, or cast to the winds; and the Digger Indians of southwestern parts of the United States smear the ashes of the dead with gum on the heads of the mourners.

With the spread of Christianity to Europe in the first century earth-burial became more the practice among the western nations. Near the end of the last century the conviction began to spread that a more rapid and sanitary method of disposal should be substituted for burial in cemeteries, especially in or close to the great centers of population. It is becoming more and more of a problem to find enough land for burial purposes. For example, if 4,000 corpses are crowded into an acre, and a death rate of 15 to every 1,000 persons is taken as the average, then nearly four acres for every one million persons are required each year to bury the dead. It is claimed, according to computations based on population, the death rate, and the space required for burial, that, unless the custom is changed, more of the available space in the outskirts of all large cities will finally be required for burial purposes. And eminent scientists argue that, while cremation should be left as a matter of choice for ordinary cases of death, it should be made obligatory in cases where death is due to such transmissible diseases as smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and tuberculosis. In cases of epidemics and after battles with a large mortality, when large numbers of bodies are to be disposed of at once, cremation is recommended as specially advisable. Advocates of cremation also point out that where burial is resorted to, even if the cemetery is located at a distance from human dwellings, yet there must be contamination of the water and the air, because such are the only means of carrying off the products formed by the dissolution of the corpses.

That there should be objection to cremation oil the part of certain religionist's is to be expected. The Roman Catholic clergy insist upon burial in sanctified ground, and, of course, such special

burial ground for the faithful of their religious system is regulated, controlled and owned by the religious system and operated on a financial basis; and so cremation as a general practice would take away from them revenues on this score, unless they went into the urns storage business. Some religionists object also that by cremation trace of the dead is obliterated from the sight of the living. Then there are others that take the Scripture text, ‘'What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God!” and they apply this to their own personal bodies instead of to the “body of Christ, which is the.church” and which church is His temple in which God resides by His holy spirit At any rate, from this view of their fleshly body as being a' temple for God’s spirit to dwell in, they think it to be a desecration to burn or cremate the dead body. They do not stop to reason that God’s spirit would hardly he in a corpse and that at death such body ceased to he what they said it was when alive, namely, a temple. “The body without the spirit is dead.”—James 2:26.

Cremation should not he associated with the valley of Gehenna to the southwest of Jerusalem, and which is used in the Bible as a symbol of annihilation or “second death”. The ancient Jews used Gehenna as the incinerator for the city of Jerusalem, and dumped into it the city’s refuse to he. disposed of by burning, the fires being intensified by the addition of brimstone or sulphur. Occasionally the dead bodies of executed criminals who were considered to be too vile and depraved to be deserving of a resurrection were cast into Gehenna to he consumed by the fires, or, if escaping a drop into the fires, by worms. There, however, the cremation of the criminal corpses' was carried on from a symbolical standpoint. But even the Jews themselves used cremation in the .vale of Tophet for the disposal of other corpses NOVEMBER 1W

when a plague struck and carried, oft many of the people; and the modern Jews of Berlin and the Spanish and Portuguese at Mile End cemetery in England were among the first to welcome the recently revived process of cremation.

There is nothing in the Bible against the cremation of the dead. Those who think that cremation spoils a person’s chances for life in the righteous new world should remember a few things. At the battle of Gilboa the Philistines killed King Saul and his three sons, cut off Saul’s bead and put it in their temple of Dagon, and nailed the four corpses to the walls of the city of Beth-shan. But the Israelites of Jabesh-gilead came by night, and “took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones, and huried them under a tree.” (1 Sam. 31:8-13; 1 Chronicles 10: 8-12) True, King Saul was rejected of Jehovah God, but his son Jonathan was a faithful man and a lover of David. Those faithful ones that “quenched the violence of fire” were in danger of being cremated; and we ask, What about the three Hebrew companions of Daniel whom Nebuchadnezzar cast into the fiery furnace, if Jehovah God had not delivered them from the flames! (Hebrews 11:34; Daniel 3:16-27) Also, if anyone thinks cremating can keep a Christian ou,t of heaven, let him ask himself, What about those faithful Christians who were burned at the stake for their refusal to worship Caesar as a god and to burn incense to his idol and to renounce Christ Jesus as Jehovah’s anointed King of the new world!

Hence, in this matter of disposal _ of the dead, we should exercise Christian tolerance. If any prefer to dispose quickly of the dead bodies of loved ones by cremation we should allow them this right, because the Lord God in His Word does not express disapproval

Kingdom Witnessing Expands in India

“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations,” said Christ Jesus. In fulfillment of this command there are

Jehovah’s witnesses in 84 nations doing this preaching work. Graduate ministers from the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead are doing missionary work in 65 nations. One of these nations is India, and on July 31 a Gilead graduate stationed in that country dispatched a letter to one of the newer directors of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, M. G. Henschel- The following extracts give at least a sketchy view of situations encountered in the field witnessing work there.

Out of a maze of Kingdom privileges that absorb all my attention emerges this letter with love and Theocratic greetings from your co warriors in Bombay. Your, postcard from Jerusalem was a welcome indication that you had reached your immediate destination from India safely and were now abbut to start the next lap of the world tour. Since your departure we here have endeavored to press on with all diligence in the service and to have a lively part in the expansion work now extending to all nations, as decreed by the Most High. However, the Hindu mental outlook is something to Cope with, and it is indeed apparent that only the spirit of Almighty God can awaken them to a realization of the truth. For instance, note the following witness that I had with a Hindu last Sunday.

Hindu: “Tell me, is there a God?” So, after carefully demonstrating by the cause and effect method that there is and must be, beyond all question, a Supreme Creator or God, starting with small things to help in this logic, such as on seeing an anthill (plentiful here). To the query as to how it came here, we find that the ant is the end of the quest. So we see structures on the earth's surface and we find man at the end of the quest as to how they came there. Likewise, in looking at man and the whole universe with its perfect harmony, we find God at the end of the quest as being the Creator.

Hindu, condescendingly: “Ah, but we believe that God is rnadc up of all the things of the universe. That chair on which you sit is worthy of as much and even more honor than you, because it is a part of God/

I said: “Wait a moment, and let us see how the chair came about. First of all, a tree was cut down by man_s sawn up, and then pieces of the resulting wood were designed and put together by man and varnished, and yet you say the chair that was produced, which is inanimate and the product of man’s creative ability, is worthy of as much or more honor than man who formed it? Surely, that isn’t sound reasoning/⁵

“Ah, but the chair isn’t inanimate, for it can think and has life, only man’s senses are so dull that lie cannot pick up the thought waves” he replied.

Witness: “Yes, I know well Hindu philosophy on this matter and it is for this reason that all things arc made objects of worship. But your conclusions are not based on recognised and accepted facts. It is a recognized scientific fact that wood is inorganic, doesn’t possess any of the five senses, and, therefore, is incapable of the achievement you attribute lO it. Moreover, if your conclusion were correct, then why perform acts of worship and prayer to anything at ail, for if the sum of all things is God, then no single part ean have power to answer your prayers: and even more so if all things were part of God, then God himself is diseased, ill and suffering pain, since all His organs in the human-family part of His body are in the most appalling condition. Carrying your conclusions farther, it means that God is gradually being made, for the earth is a small and apparently a more reeent addition to the universe and, likewise, man himself had a beginning and even more recent date. Therefore, on the basis of your own conclusion your worship of cows and wood and stone images is unreasonable and, at best, one-sided, for if you, being a part of

God, worship stone and wood images, then why don't they in turn worship yon T”

From this and a few other remarks I went on to show the truth of creation, of man's sinful condition and the only remedy. I am trying to instruct this man with the study of “Let God Be True”, hut you can see how absolutely unbalanced mentally the Hindus have become as a result of religion. Daily tbis is the mind we are up against.

During the past month the company got down to the rural work with a will. Schools have been engaged for the entire day in some of the villages, mostly Hindu schools being used, and on the whole the outcome has been gratifying. [The writer then told of four public meetings being hold in that many different places, that the total number of strangers attending the public meetings was 132, and that these splendid results in a land commonly called heathen were being followed up with an intensive hack-call campaign.]

By the way, at one place while working in the rurals two companions and I got to Jdgcshwari and struck off into the jungle of palm trees, visiting the people in their little grass and bamboo huts that you probably noticed in your travels here. What a conglomeration of towns in this area! There were Urdu j. Marathi and Hindi, and Gujarati and Goanese flung in for good measure. It was hard going, trying to explain our mission. At last, passing over a stream to a hut, we found the Indians here speaking English and who had apparently been in Africa, They gladly heard our message and a book study was arranged, Filled with joy that in this place some of the Lord’s "sheep” have been identified, we struck farther into the trees, following the trail. At one point we passed a dead snakfej which excited natives explained had been a danger, being poisonous, and they described with most descriptive gestures how they killed it. Then we saw the ncwly-con-structed walls of a temple. Investigating this place in an area Which had no roads, we came across a tiger on guard at one of the doors after we had ascended the stairs. It was chained to a pillar and looked real ferocious,

but I learned later that the animal had been blinded to prevent its escape.

Leaving this place we struck farther inland and, crossing a marsh, we came to a cluster of huts for further witnessing. An interesting thing here was the path which we followed and which led to a cave where a priest or Sardu sat. On removing ^hoes to look around, inside I saw a large vaulted eave, rather dark, with a shrine in the middle and a lamp burning to illuminate it. Then farther back the cave roof opened up to show the skies, and around this part were other passages running off, with several Yogis silently worshiping, looking rathcr weird with their long hair and painted bodies. This was supposed to he a Bpddhist shrine.

After leaving this place—the day was well spent—we hastened back to the station and soon were homeward bound. Truly, you never know wbat you will see next in this country. It amazes me to see the so-called “intelligent” businessmen marking their foreheads, doing worship before their household gods, or by going to one of the central gods set up at the street corner, pay money, say a prayer and tben ring a bell and go off quite happy. Yet this is an everyday occurrence. As for Marathi, it would have saved a lot of trouble if I had been born in a Marathi home. However, both Dick and I enjoyed a study of this language and its script and only wish we could devote more time to it, although while * in the service we endeavor to make use of what we have learned. Of course, if I can teach the people I meet the Scottish tongue it will save further trouble.

Well, now I guess I’ll have to bring this to-a close. By this time you will be hack in Brooklyn reunited with all the family. You know, I often recall happy times at Bethel and at Gilead, and sometimes Dick and I have occasion to relate something of our joys and experiences to the brethren here. It is always with considerable relish that we recall the many and various incidents that were our lot at the places and with the brethren that we encountered while in America,

[Signed] Hendry,

Non-cooperative Hens and Sheep

AT LAST the source of the world’s ills has been spotted. It is stubborn hens and sheep that persist in obeying natural laws. Four years ago an Idaho sheep rancher wanted canvas to build lambing pens. The “wonder boys” of WPB refused the material, but wisely counseled: "As an alternative, we suggest that you postpone your lambing season until more favorable weather.” Nonplussed, the sheep rancher reasoned that to change the lambing season he must change the mating season. The ewes just would not brook such interference with their love life.

Now, to save grain, eggless and poultryless Thursdays were tried. But the nasty old hens refused to take Thursdays off. They stubbornly went on laying eggs on their newly designated sabbath. And they did not inaugurate grainless Thursdays for themselves, though humans shunned the hen’s fruitage for that flay. Nor can the grain be saved by eating the hens, because they are not to be eaten either.

Of course, to get off the horns of this dilemma it would be in character for the politicians to dump the Thursday crop of eggs in a heap, and on'top of that stack the bodies of the rebellious hens that persisted in eating on Thursdays, and pour kerosene over the whole foodpile, just to make sure no hungry person eats any of it and causes the spiraling prices to drop. That has been the politicians’ policy, recently relative to potatoes. But let’s not drift into any satire that tends to make the wonder-boy poH-ticians the scapegoats when the guilt rests clearly and squarely upon productive but non-cooperative soil and hens and sheep. How dare they flout political laws to keep natural laws I

doctrine, Reproof, (Torrection instruction in righteousness

These things are necessary equipment today if one is to do truly Christian works. They are found in the inspired Word of God, the Bible, To provide greater knowledge of God’s Worland thus make available doctrine., reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness, we present the hook

“Equipped for Every Good Work”

This hook provides a brief but comprehensive coverage of the Bible, explaining its origin, writing and preservation, and summarizing each book. Charts, tables, maps, and a subjective Scripture Summary without comment, all help to . make this book most valuable. Its 384-pages are bound in maroon binding, and it is available on a 50c contribution.

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<$> Ab the United Nations Assembly In mld-October entered upon the sixth week of its second session the Balkan question and the Issue of the "little assembly'¹ were in the forefront. The U* S._f pushing for hoth the Balkan commission and the "little assembly¹¹ arrangement, was backed by a large majority, and the Russians resorted to the boycott method of meeting the situation not to their liking. Russia's representative pushed another issue to the fore, urging that the Assembly do something about banning "warmongering”. Action on that subject was slow, the delegates realizing ' that while war-mongering was bqd, It was difficult to stop It In countries where free speech prevailed, even if It could be defined accurately. Said U. S. delegate Warren R. Austin, "There can be no compromise with efforts to curtail freedom of speech,” which he said would lead to “a tyrannical exercise of arbitrary power”.

Meanwhile the U. N. approved a Balkan commission to go to Greece and watch the borders between that country and Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria, Russia boycotted the commission. The Assembly's political and Security Committee set Dp a sub-committee, over Russian objections, to draft a plan for the ♦ “little assembly”, which would be a year-round standing committee to take up problems of peace and security and report to the regular Assembly.

Report on Korea

The Korean question. Involving the simultaneous withdrawal of Russian and U. S. occupation forces, was submitted to the U. N. by the U. S. on October 17. A resolution calling for an election there under the supervision of U. N. observers was presented by the U. S. representative, W. R. Austin. Rugala proposed that « Korea send representatives to present its case to the U. N. John Foster Dulles of the U.S. (October 29) proposed that a special commission go to Korea to make sure that Korean representatives so sent were actually elected by the people and not merely the appointees of the occupation authorities. An October 26 pre® dispatch stated that the Russians had armed and trained 287,000 Koreans In their zone, ready to invade the south zone as soon as U. S. troops should be withdrawn. Department chiefs of the North Korean Interim People's Committee (Communist) had pnt the plan Into final form at Pyongyang in early September. The Information came from Yoon Chang-Sun, former national police chief in the northern zone, who escaped to South Korea a month previously. Rusia Is urging immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces from Korea at me beginning of 1^48. The U. N. voted In favor of a U. N. watch to observe election of Korean representatives to confer with a U. N. agency on the whole Korean question. Russia boycotted the move

De Gaulle Comeback

Municipal elections held throughout France on October 19 showed that General Charles de Gaulle's anti-Communlst rally of the French people (RPF) rolled up a total of nearly 40 percent of all the votes. They had expected only 20 percent. The Communists, who held a scant 30 percent of the votes, promptly made overtures toward the Socialists, seeking their co-operation In an effort to stop De Gaulle. The position of De Gaulle Is now dominant, and he calls for a new Constitution at an early date, giving greater power to the executive. His party alms at the establishment of a system of capital-labor associations. The unexpected situation caused the French premier, Paul Ramadier, to call upon the assembly for a vote of confidence In his govern* meat, which, upon being taken, yielded a very alight margin in his favor.

Britain Swings to Bight

British elections the last week In October seemed to indicate a swing to the right The Labor party, presently in the saddle, was banded a stunning defeat by Winston Churchill's Conservatives. Almost complete returns showed that the Labor party had lost 683 seats in municipal posts, while Conservatives had gained 63L The Conservatives showed strength in some Industrial districts heretofore considered Labor strongholds. Said a spokesman tor the Conservatives, "An overwhelming Conservative victory and a wholesale rejection of the Socialist doctrine” were Indicated by the voting results.

Curbing British Lords < The king of England, opening Britain's Parliament in October, caused a mild sensation by loti-mating that be would curb his lords a bit. He didn’t say so in so many words; in fact, It was not his idea at all. The Labor government told him what to say, and he said it. Princess Elizabeth, present for the first time on such an occasion, sat gingerly pn the edge of a chair. Someday she may have to read speeches she did not originate. It turned out that the curbing is to limit to one year (instead of two) the maximum period for which the House of Lorda can hold up the passage of measures passed by the House of Commons.

Purpose of the "ComlnfoMn”

<$> In a declaration made public on October 22, Col. Gen. Andrei A. Zhdanov, member of the Soviet Politburo and a secretary of the Communist party Central Committee, urged Com-muolsts everywhere to joint in opposition to the objectives of the Marshall plan, which he said were an attempt to gain "world domination by American imperialism”. The atatement had been made originally at the nine-nation conference in Poland at which the International Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) w'as set up. Zhdanov said the U. S. was trying to make Europe a 49th state,

Stalin for Peace

Eight labor members of the British House of Commons, who had been touring Europe! stated on October 17 that Premier Stalin, of Russia, had told them while they were in Russia that he had no thought of making war, and wanted to compose the political and economic differences between Russia and the U. S, and Britain, adding, “If, however, they do not want to Improve their relations with the Soviet Union, we shall have to < do without them. We shall nevertheless be able to carry on/¹

Atheism In Russia

($> In Moscow the Communist Youth Organization forbade its membera to go to church or have anytning to ao wirn religion, me organization’s Central Committee, in its newspaper, Komsomol-skaya Pravda, quoted Stalin as saying, "The party cannot be neutral with regard to religion.” The suggestion that leniency be shown members with religious beliefs was severely criticized by the committee, which declared, “It is conaidered impossible and impermissible for a young Communist member to believe In God and observe religions rites.”

Soviet Statistics

<$> Prof. S. E. Harris, of Harvard University, on October 19 made public an analysis by a group of leading statisticians of Soviet figures on the progress made by the U.S.S.R, The analysis indicated that claims nf Soviet economic grow¹ th are distorted and that Russia has "a distressingly low level of welfare”.

Iran Rejects Oil Concession

<$> The Iranian Majlis (Parliament) October 22 rejected by an all but unanimous vote Russian maneuvers to gain oil concessions in their country. It w^Tas decided instead to carry out its own five-year oil exploration program, from which all foreign capital is to be barred.

Brazil, Chile Break

with U.S.S.R.

<$> Diplomatic relations between Brazil and Russia were broken dff October 20, and the Soviet diplomats were given their papers to return to Russia. Formal announcement of the break was made the following day. The reason; slanderous attacks by the ‘ Russian government upon Brazil. The Brazilian foreign office stated: “It is universally known that the Soviet press is rigorously controlled by the government, whose responsibility therefore covers virtually everything published in the country.” Chile broke ^diplomatic relations wdth the Soviet on October 21, giving as a reason that recent events disturbing the peace in cnue w^Tere instigated by interna* tional Communists. Chile also broke diplomatic relations with Czechoslbvakia. A general roundup of Communist leaders in Chile followed.

Rumanian Trial

Following the pattern set in other Communis t-dominated lands, Rumania put on trial Dr. Jullu Maniu, 75-year-old leader of the Peasant party, and eighteen other atitl-Communists, before a military court They were charged wdth "high treason, espionage on behalf of the U. S. and Britain and conspiring to overthrow the government by armed . force”. Two former Rumanian ministers of state, having escaped to the U. S._t were tried In absentia.

Polish Feasant Leader Flees

In lute October the leader of the Polish Peasant party, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, disappeared from Warsaw¹, had fled the country. There had heen numerous arrests of prominent officials of state organizations. Mikolajczyk had been outspoken in his criticism of the Communists. With the leader gone, the party was taken over by the government-hacked left wing of the party.

Palestine Partition

<$> The question of Palestihe con-tinned before the U. N, as in midOctober Britain urged that body to take steps tn establish a prop^ er authority to usher iu the In* dependence of the Holy Land. Britain was going tn withdraw soon, but insisted on Immigration curbs while it remained there. The U. S. reluctantly backed partition, but* it was a question as to how the U. N. would handle the problems that would result from that doubtful solution of Palestine difficulties. Ru ssi a a I so fa v o r ed parti t i on. .Jewish spokesmen in the Assembly said the Jews of Palestine were ready for a fight, if the Arabs provoked it, but they sought peace. Arabs are resolutely against partition, taking their stand ^uon the sacred right of self-defense”,, The IL 8. withdrew a proposal for a IL N, force to maintain order in Palestine until partition, recommending In* stead that Britain continue its police power until the authority was turned over to the proposed Jewish and Arab states.

Memorial for Slaughtered Jews <$> An audience of 15,000 persons, including a hundred survivors of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, attended dedication exercises on October 19, setting apart a plot oX land on Riverside Drive, New York, as the site of a memorial to six million Jewish victims of the Nazi terror,

Greek-Communist Press

Suppressed

<$► Tn Athens a Court of Appeals order of October 18 suspended the Communist dally newspapers Rizoxpastis and Eleftheri EUada “for the duration nf the rebellion" of Communist guerrillas in northern Greece.

Aid Waste In Greece

<^> The Americnn Aid Mission la Greece announced on October 21 that It had discovered $75,000,000 of supplies in Greek warehouses and 'docks, .which supplies were not being used. The stock was part of the billion dollars' worth of aid sent to Greece since the close of the war. The hidden supplies included thousands of cartons of cigarettes, apparently kept off the market to keep up prices of Greek tobacco. Medical supplies were also found In large quantity. A considerable parj of both items had deteriorated and become unusable,

Grt^k Taxation

<& With military expenditures amounting to 40 percent of the budget, due to guerrilla attacks, the Greek government lo late October drew up an emergency tax program to raise additional revenue in the sunt of 600,000.000 drachmas, which Is approximately $120,000,000,

PopnWian Transta tn India

The states of Pakistan and Hindustan (formerly India) are witnessing population exchanges on an unprecedented scale. The greatest exchanges are taking place In the Punjab. The number of evacuees in other provinces Is relatively small But the total ail over India will, it Is estimated, reach ten million, some alx million Moslems moving Into Pakistan, and four million Hindus and Sikhs going to Hindustan. Deaths resulting from the vtoleDce that preceded and accompanied the movement are expected to reach a million. Vast as this mass' movement of populations Is, a large majority of Hindus and Moslems go their accustomed ways, for there are some 400,000,000 of them- The Punjab and some of the larger cities have, nevertheless, been the scene of unmeasured carnage, all Inspired religiously.

Independence for Burma

& Under the terms of a treaty signed October 17 at London, Burma will become an independent, self-governing nation entirely separate from, the British Commonwealth of Nations. It la intended to end all British political ties on January 6, 1948, Close relations between Britain and Burma, however, are to continue.

Civil Rights Report

<$> One of the most significant events of the last half of October waa the submission to President Truman of the Civil Rights Committee’s report on October 29. The Civil Rights Committee waa appointed by the president on December 5, 1946, and made' a thorough study of the subject, marking numerous violations! Said the president upon receiving the report, “I am going to read and study this report with great care and I recommend to all my countrymen that they do the same," The committee recommended the strengthening of machinery for tl]e protection of civil rights, of the right to safety and security, of the right to citizenship and its privileges, of the right to freedom of conscience and expression, and the right to equality of opportunity. It also urged a campaign nf education to acquaint the American people with these rights, and severely condemned discriminations against minorities, such as Negroes, Jews, Americans, of Mexican and Japanese descent, and Jehovah’s witnesses.

Congressional Mo vie-Probe

<$> The U. S. House Sub-Committee on Un-American Activities In the latter half of October staged an investigation of Communist influence at work In Hollywood, center of the motion-picture Industry. Numerous actors, including outstanding "stars”, testified, as w'ell as other prominent movie figures. It was a good show, though the plot was hard to find. The Sub-Committee had a list of 79 alleged Hollywood Communists, but many of them refused to testify, offering to read a statement instead of answering questions which they considered Impertinent. They w'ere refused permission to make statements. Emmett Lavecy, a writer, and Kric Johnston, president j of the Motion Picture Producers Association, endeavored to point out the dangers of such an investigation, urging the committee not to turn the hearings into an inquisition wherein civil rights would be trampled down for the sake of disco ver iog a few Communists. One witness asserted that in 1942-43 Soviet agents had sought, unsuccessfully, to get information about a “highly de-structtve. weapon*’ from the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California. The hearings were ended rather abruptly on October 30. Apparently it was concluded that as long aa there seemed to be no tangible evidence that movies contained Communist propaganda, the Committee had better go out and get some first I

“Train Up a Child n the Way

He Should Go”

Will your child avoid the pitfalls of life?

Can you as a parent properly train your child?

Children need instruction in righteousness to avoid the dangers of delinquency. Do you as a parent so instruct your children? Many parents feel unqualified to teach their children from the Bible; yet Bible study should be the very center of the Christian household and part of a child’s home life. To aid in this instruction we offer the book “Let God Be True", prepared especially for systematic, easy-to-understand

Bible study for the family group. Don’t neglect parental duty. Gather your family together .for ular Bible study.

WATCHTOWER               117 Adams St.               Brooklyn 1, N. ¥.

□ Enclosed find 35c for the book “Let God Be True’’.

□ Enclosed find $1.00 for three copies of “Let God Be True¹⁷

Street   _. - T-.,-,

City

Zone No. _..... State

32