Golden Age, March 1, 1933
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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IMPORTANT NOTICE
RESENTS LYING CENSORSHIP STRANGLING FREE SPEECH?
TECHNOCRACY AFRICA KINGDOM BLESSINGS IN CUBA AND MEXICO JEHOVAH IS GOD
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Vol.XIV-No. 351
March 1, 1933
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Drifting Mass of Roamers , . . 331
Southern Prison Company . . . 332
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Notice to the People .... 323
Western Canada Resents a
Lying Radio Censorship . . . 327
Pennington in Cleveland Press . 329
Is This Strangling Free Speech? 329
Technocracy........331
Chips...........331
An Honest Judge in Jacksonville . 332
Training Camps for Unemployed . 332
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Japanese Mills in India .... 332
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
France Arms Japan.....330
The Cheltenham Express .... 331
British Markets Closed to Ireland . 332
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Does the Trick 332
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
Farm Relief in Poland and Holland 331
The Sudd to Be Short-Circuited . 332
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
“Echo Dell Castle”
Taking China, Piece by Piece . . 330
Japs Invade Jchol at 10 Below Zero 330
Africa — A Continent in the SLvking
Kingdom Blessings in Cuba and Mexico
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Jehovah Is God
The Radio Witness Work . . . 351
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(The Golden Age
Volume XIV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 1, 1933 Number 351
Important Notice
January 19, 1933. To the People :
On the 16th of January, 1933, the following telegram was sent by the Canadian Radio Commission to radio stations throughout that country:
“Speeches of one Judge Rutherford, foreign anti-social agitator, must not be broadcast on Canadian stations until the continuity or records of same are submitted to Canadian radio broadcasting commission for approval.
(Signed)
Hector Charlesworth,
Chairman.”
The people should be informed of what is the real reason for this action by the Radio Commission in an effort to prevent them from hearing the truth by radio. Hence this notice. I am not an anti-social agitator, even as Jesus Christ and His apostles were not agitators. I am merely one among many of Jehovah's witnesses. Instead of being agitators, we are serving Jehovah’s notice of warning at His command. The rulers have already been served and are now attempting to prevent the people from hearing.
If one knew that Niagara Falls would shortly be dynamited, thereby turning great floods of water on the low lands, causing tremendous loss of property and human life, and he gave warning to the people of such approaching disaster, he would not be called an agitator. Jehovah has commanded this notice of warning to be given, and charges His witnesses with great responsibility. (Ezekiel 3:17-21) It is not a message from any man, but a message from the Word of God, and the grave responsibility rests upon each one to hear or to reject that message. In brief, these are the facts, to wit:
World powers began with the empire of Egypt, and that power wras followed by six others, in the order named: Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and Great Britain, the latter being specifically described by a number of the prophets. In each of these world powers three elements have constituted the rulers, to wit: commercial, political and religious strong men. The invisible ruler of each has been and is Satan the Devil, who has deceived both the rulers and the people and has filled the earth with great violence and suffering. That Satan might have full opportunity to make good his defiance and challenge to the Almighty, Jehovah God did not interfere with him until the end of a fixed time, which time came in the year 1914 and was particularly evidenced by the beginning of the World War. About that time Satan was cast out of heaven and down to the earth, where his operations are carried on, and now he desperately tries to blind all persons to the truth and to turn them away from Jehovah God and thus cause their destruction. The clergy are willingly ignorant, because they refuse to accept the plain teachings of the Bible. (2 Peter 3:2-5) The commercial and political rulers have followed the lead of the clergy, blindly trusting the latter. It is the blind guiding the blind, and the ditch is just ahead.
The clergy tell you that the present world distress is due to the fact that the people have failed to support their church organizations; while God’s Word says Satan has brought it upon the world. “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he know-eth that he hath but a short time.” (Revelation 12:12) Satan now seeks to destroy those to whom is given the charge to deliver the testimony of Jesus Christ to the people. (Revelation 12:17) There is now a company of men and women in the land wholly devoted to Jehovah God and His kingdom, and who are diligent in trying to deliver this testimony of Jesus Christ as commanded. They are not agitators in any sense of the word. They are not even asking anyone to join their ranks or any other organi-
zation, but are merely informing the people in obedience to Jehovah's commandment.
The great battle of Armageddon is approaching, at which time the final conflict between the forces of Satan and those of Jehovah will take place. Jehovah commands His witnesses to notify the rulers and the people of this approaching battle, that they may not be able to plead ignorance and that they may take their stand either on God's side or the Devil's side. Satan is now gathering all of the nations to this great conflict.—Revelation 1G: 13-1G.
Jehovah long ago used the nation of Israel to foreshadow or picture “Christendom” of the present day, and states that what happened to that nation was a type of what shall shortly come upon “Christendom”. The British Empire, of which Canada is a part, is the greatest empire that ever existed on earth. The United States is really a part of that empire; and it is properly designated the Anglo-American empire system. The Scriptures show that the chief officer of Satan in leading his wicked forces is called Gog, who formulates and leads in a conspiracy against Jehovah’s witnesses and against His kingdom, and that such conspiracy will begin and be prosecuted within the realms of the seventh world power above mentioned. Satan’s effort is to keep the people in ignorance of what is about to come to pass. Acting through his blinded representatives on earth, the clergy, he induces the commercial and political rulers to believe that the truth, as set forth in the Bible, should be kept from the people; and, in order to deceive the people and accomplish that wrong, public officials announce that Jehovah’s witnesses are anti-social agitators and what they have to say must be first censored. The radio is one of the best means of conveying knowledge to the people. If the official representatives of the seventh world power must first approve what is broadcast by radio, then the people may be assured that those powers will approve nothing that carries to the people the truth concerning the present unhappy condition and what is the remedy.
Since the message of warning is Jehovah God’s message, and not that of human creatures, and since this message is being delivered in obedience to the commandment of Jehovah God, those who hinder or oppose its delivery to the people are fighting against God, and He declares that He will recompense them fully in due time. No power can prevent Jehovah’s message from going to the people. Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, defied Jehovah, and disaster resulted. What befell that world power is but a sample of what Jehovah declares shall befall the seventh world power.
By His prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and others Jehovah makes it known that the Anglo-American empire system, which is “Christendom”, mil set itself in opposition to Jehovah God and attempt to destroy His testimony and His witnesses, but that they will fail. Satan’s world has come to the full in wickedness and must pass away, and no power can or will keep it alive for long. Jehovah God has caused His judgment, written in His Word, to be declared and made known. Armageddon will be the battle of the great day of God Almighty and will soon be fought, and at it Satan’s organization will go down.
Since the Anglo-American empire system, or “Christendom”, is the chief visible part of Satan’s organization on earth, it is certain, according to the Scriptures, that it will suffer the most. The notice heretofore served upon the rulers concerning what is about to come to pass they have scornfully spurned. The truth told to them from God’s Word has only served to harden their hearts, even as the truth hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Jehovah’s witnesses now on earth, instead of being agitators, are merely process servers to advise the rulers and the people by serving them notice of what is rapidly approaching. The opposers may control the radio for a time and may even destroy many of Jehovah’s witnesses, but the Lord declares that where one falls He will immediately cause another to take his place. The delivery of the message of Jehovah God must continue until the people are informed and given an opportunity to take their stand.
Armageddon will mark the complete end of the “Christendom” empire system. Jehovah by His prophets declares that “she shall be broken”, not by the power of man, but by the power of Almighty God. Jehovah’s witnesses now on the earth have nothing whatever to do with the breaking. Their only work is to bear testimony to the people, and for that reason they are opposed. Armageddon will be terrible upon all nations, but particularly upon the realm of “Christendom” because within that realm is found the greatest opposition to the message of Jehovah’s truth. Jehovah says concerning that time: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished'? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.”—Jeremiah 25: 29-33.
The clergy are the “shepherds” in “Christendom”, even as that same class of men were the shepherds in Israel. The commercial and political leaders constitute the “principal of the flock” of the religious systems of “Christendom”. Speaking further of what Armageddon shall mean Jehovah says: “Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.”—Jeremiah 25: 34, 35.
Christ Jesus foretold this time of great disaster and calls it 'tribulation such as the world has never before known’. It will be the expression of Jehovah God’s wrath against Satan and his wicked organization that has so long ruled and oppressed the people. Everybody knows that the peoples of the world are now in great distress and perplexity, and there is no earthly power that can pull the nations out of that dilemma. Why then denounce anyone who is merely telling the people why these things have come to pass and what is God’s remedy for suffering humanity? The only answer is, Because Satan exercises his subtle influence to keep the people in ignorance in order that he may turn them away from Jehovah and cause their destruction.
The time is here when every human creature on earth must take his stand either on the side of Satan or on the side of Jehovah God. The clergy have chosen to take their stand on Satan’s side, and they have inveigled most of the others of the rulers to do the same thing. Jehovah God will now have the people informed of the truth in order that they may take their stand on one side or the other before Armageddon. For this reason Jehovah causes His message to be published throughout the land of “Christendom”. More than one hundred and thirty million copies of books containing the explanation of the prophecies are now in the hands of the people, and this only for the purpose of giving them information. The radio has broadcast the message throughout the land, and the wide publication of the truth has alarmed the clergy, and they, acting under the direction of their supermaster, are attempting to stop the message of truth from reaching the people. Jehovah has many means of informing the people. He can make the very stones to be His witnesses if He so wills.
ESCAPE
If there is a way of escape from the disaster coming upon humankind, no one could avail himself of that way unless he is first informed as to the means of escape. To keep the people in ignorance of God’s Word of truth would mean to prevent them from knowing the way of escape. There are now on the earth millions of people of good will who are not at all in sympathy with the present oppressive rule exercised by the nations. For that reason these peoples of the nations are not desired by the rulers. To these people of good will Jehovah now says: “Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, 0 nation not desired: before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Zephaniah 2:1-3) To “seek meekness” means to be teachable, that is to say, find out what is in the Word of God and take heed to it. “Seek righteousness” means to do what is right, and that means to do harm to no man. Avoid controversies, do not take part in agitations, refrain from all manner of violence, and calmly wait on the Lord. If men attempt revolution or other violence against existing governments, have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Seek the Lord God and His kingdom and do right, because that is the only way of escape and the only safety for humankind.
Every one will identify himself. As Jehu caused all the Baal worshipers to identify themselves before he slew them, so likewise Christ Jesus, the Greater Jehu, will cause all the Devil’s representatives to identify themselves before He slays them. All who oppose God and His kingdom message thus identify themselves as being on the Devil’s side. Jonadab took his stand on the side of Jehovah and righteousness, and in this he pictured the peoples of good will now on earth who take their stand on the side of God and righteousness. These are the ones that will identify themselves as Jehovah’s people and will be carried through the great conflict of Armageddon and be made safe.—2 Kings 10:15-25.
In brief, these are the truths that Jehovah’s witnesses, of which I am privileged to be one, are carrying to the people by radio and otherwise, and these are the truths that the censors are trying to prevent the people from having. Many of these radio lectures are already in print and appear in the books and booklets that are listed below. The prophecy of Revelation is explained in detail in the two books named Light, and the prophecy of Ezekiel and other prophecies are fully explained in the three books called Vindication. Hundreds of thousands of these books are already in the hands of the people. If you have them, read them. If you have not, avail yourself of them as cprickly as possible and read them, together with your Bible, and compare these truths with the facts which you now know to exist and which will enable you to take your stand in a place of safety.
Armageddon will destroy Satan’s organization and will be followed by the righteous and blessed rule mider Christ Jesus, earth’s rightful King. That kingdom will bring unlimited blessings to mankind. The time of the great crisis is here! It is of most vital importance to you that you learn the truth, in order that you may safeguard your own life interests and be brought into endless life and its attending blessings.
If the Radio Commission prevents the people from hearing Jehovah God’s message of truth, that will be their responsibility and they will suffer the consequences. Jehovah will duly recompense them in His own good way. They will not learn from experience of men who in times past have opposed Jehovah God.—Psalm 82: 5.
Members of the Radio Commission of Canada are supposed to be the servants of the people, but they now presumptuously put themselves in a position of dictators by determining what the people shall or shall not hear by radio. If they have the power to censor one speech, they can censor all and keep the people in darkness. Have the people of Canada reached such a state of low intellectuality that they need to have a “wTise” radio commission to approve what they shall hear about the Bible? This censorship order bears the earmarks of the clergy, who have assumed to be the spiritual guardians of mankind. Themselves being unable to explain the Bible truths now in the hands of the people, they want to prevent them from hearing more. The censor order will doubtless cause the Canadian people to be more anxious than ever to hear what these radio lectures contain that is so objectionable to the clergy and their political allies. Be assured that the Lord God will provide the means for the people to hear; if not by radio, then by some other effective means. At this point how appropriate the words of Jehovah’s prophet: “For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult; and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.” (Psalm 83: 2, 3) “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.”—Psalm 2: 2-5.
Let the people who love righteousness and desire to see righteousness established in the whole earth under Christ’s kingdom be diligent now to inform themselves what Jehovah by His kingdom has in reservation for all who love and serve Him. “The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”—Proverbs 18:10, A.R.V.
One of the seiwants of Jehovah,
P.S. Since writing the above my attention has been drawn to a press dispatch appearing in The Telegraph Journal of Saint John, N. B., stating, amongst other things, that the radio commission of Canada had sent a telegram to each radio station of Canada the same as that quoted at the beginning of this statement, and adds: “Hector Charlesworth, chairman of the radio commission, stated a dignified complaint had been received from a group of Anglican clergymen in Saint John”; and the press report names some clergymen who protest, as follows: Rev. Cannon R. P. McKim, rector of St. Luke’s;
Rev. AV. C. A7". Martin, rector of St. Mary's, and Rev. T. Hudson Steward, rector of St. John’s (Stone) church.
These reverend gentlemen pose before the people as the representatives of God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom. I charge that they in fact represent Satan the Devil. I therefore challenge them to select one amongst their number to debate with me the following question, to wit:
That the clergymen of the Anglican church, contrary to their claim, do not in fact represent Jehovah God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom, but that they do represent and serve Satan the Devil and that thereby the people are deceived.
I respectfully request that the radio commission of Canada provide the national radio facilities to broadcast this debate so that the public may determine whether the clergymen represent their best interests or not. The people are entitled to hear the facts. The clergy and the radio commission have no right to withhold the facts and prevent the people from hearing the truth. The radio presumably is to be used to broadcast matters of public interest, convenience and necessity.
LIST OF BOOKS
The Harp of God
Deliverance
Creation Reconciliation Government
Life
Prophecy
Light Book 1
Light Book 2
Vindication Book 1
Vindication Book 2
Vindication Book 3
Preservation
BOOKLETS
War or Peace, Which? Heaven and Purgatory Crimes and Calamities Prohibition Who Is God?
Good News
Hereafter
Liberty
Cause of Death
The Kingdom the Hope of the World
The Final Wai-Keys of Heaven Home and Happiness Where Are the Dead? Life and Health What You Need What Is Truth?
By writing direct to The Watch Tower, 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., or to the Canadian branch office, 40 Irwin Ave., Toronto 5, Ont., you will receive, free, a copy of their 36-page booklet explaining the above books and booklets written by Judge Rutherford, and telling how you may procure them. Or, use the coupon on the last page of this magazine.
Western Canada Resents a Lying Radio Censorship
CENSORSHIP, as practiced during the World
War, proves to have been largely a business of suppressing truth and allowing lies to circulate ad libitum; at least that is what the former censors go to some pains to acknowledge. One of the British censors, visiting New York, boasted of the truths he had strangled and the lies he had circulated, and when the news got back to Great Britain the people were horrified to see how they had been lied to. They then learned the facts for the first time.
The people in general, and the Canadian people in particular, are tired of being lied to. Especially is this true of those that live in the western provinces. There is something about the prairie that tends to make people honest. People that live out in the great wide spaces, where there is plenty of room for everybody, resent having their thinking done for them by people that have ceased to think.
The clergy are such. They see nothing inconsistent in reciting over and over again their astonishing “discoveries” that there is but one God and that he is “not one, but three in one”; that God is love and that there is no depth of cruelty and meanness to which He will not descend; and that we should pray for His will to be done on earth as in heaven, but bend all our energies to glorify the set-up of which Satan is the prince, and which he backs up with battleships, howitzers, machine guns, bombs, flame throwers, poison gas and other methods of destruction lower and worse than those of the tiger, the jackal, the hyena or the boa constrictor.
For many years Judge Rutherford has been comforting the people in the Scriptures and, as a faithful witness of Jehovah God, pointing out where their former teachers have erred by taking their stand on the side of the Devil and failing or refusing to take their stand on the side of the Lord and on the side of the truth as laid down in His Word.
Of the more than 130,000,000 copies of his books that are in circulation nearly 1,000,000 a year go into the homes of the Canadian people.
Of the more than 300 radio stations from which his lectures go out each week to the truth-hungry people, 25 are Canadian, or at any rate were Canadian until three Anglican clergymen in St. John, N. B., concluded that the truth was getting too hot for them, and used their powerful influence with Hector Charlesworth, Canadian censor, in getting a ban put on the radio transcriptions now heard around the world.
It would be good for the Canadian people to have these three clergymen do all their thinking for them, if they desired to have it so, and were incapable of doing it themselves. They (Reverends McKim, Martin and Steward) were so elated at what they had accomplished that the news of what they did got into the Telegraph Journal in their home town. They got full credit for it.
But the credit which the three clergymen obtained in New Brunswick for closing the radio in Canada to the man who has challenged the clergy of the Devil to defend themselves against his charge that they are such—his willing and more or less (mostly less) able ministers and advocates—was discredit when it got to Winnipeg. The Manitobans, having been lied to in 1918 so effectively, are falsehood-shy. Note the following excerpts from the local press.
The first, “Censorship in Radio,” is a very good presentation of the fact that “religious” censorships have had their day. It is from the Winnipeg Free Press of January 20.
CENSORSHIP IN RADIO
It is perhaps well that the problem of censorship has projected itself so early into the domain of national broadcasting and perhaps also fortunate that it should have concerned itself with a question so almost academic as the broadcasts of “Judge Rutherford, of the Watch Tower International.’’ It seems, according to the statement of the Commission that there has been “dignified complaint” from a group of Anglican clergymen of St. John, N. B., and at the same time, the Government had called the attention of the Commission to the “subversive character” of the broadcast. So the Commission rushed to Canadian broadcasting stations an order to discontinue the broadcast until further notice.
Obviously any owner of a set who has a yearning to hear Judge Rutherford—and that number will be augmented by the Radio Commission’s action—has but to turn his dial on to an American station which carries this message. All that the Commission has done by its action is to effectively advertise Judge Rutherford’s lectures.
Back of this, however, stands the place and policy of censorship. A group of Anglican clergymen at St. John have a right to protest exactly commensurate with such a group of Anglican clergymen and no more. That right, however, is scarcely so powerful as to place its dictum on a national vehicle. Government interference is, if possible, a more gratuitous expression of misplaced ego. Exactly what Canada’s broadcasting commission must be free from is Governmental interference.
Admittedly, Canada’s Radio Commission is more than a machine for putting broadcasting in motion. It must take the final responsibility for what goes on the air. With the power of choosing what goes on comes the corollary of willing what shall be left off. Therefore, the necessity of the Commission establishing for itself at onee a policy of censorship. Broadly, it is generally agreed that Canada’s radio should not carry broadcasts offensive to public decency.
Within that light Canadian hearers have the inalienable right of listening to all sides of questions, whether those views coincide with those of the Government or of groups of citizens anywhere. Canada’s Radio Commission must face the fact that its clientele is for the most part used to thinking for itself, and will not tolerate judgments handed down as to what views it shall hear and shall not hear. The best and safest plan for the Commission is to make up its mind that it is dealing with a free people and, therefore, despite any ideas in high places as to what is good for the license holders, will proceed to present as many facets as possible of world opinion. And the first step on its course should be to point out to Government members that the Commission was appointed to run the Radio, not as an instrument under Governmental control.
The second, headed “Bible Student Talks Allowed by Commission”, from the Winnipeg Tribune of the same date, shows that the censor, Mr. Charlesworth, does not feel quite sure of the ground beneath his feet, and is trying to placate the indignant liberty-lovers of the West.
Mr. Charlesworth even goes so far as to repudiate the declaration that the Rutherford transcriptions were stopped at the instance of the clergy. Well, somebody has lied. It is barely possible that the three clergymen of Saint John, N. B., lied when they said they had made “a dignified complaint” to Censor Charlesworth. We -would consider such a course a normal procedure on their part.
It might be possible, but not at all probable, that the Telegraph Journal lied when it said that Hector Charlesworth admitted (or boasted) that he had received such a complaint from Reverends McKim, Martin and Steward, but the chances are that it is Mr. Charlesworth himself that lied, being aided, assisted and abetted, of course, by those who make their living by lying about Almighty God, namely, the clergy of the Devil, whose they are and whom they serve.
BIBLE STUDENT TALKS ALLOWED BY COMMISSION
Ban on Rutherford Records Not Extended to “Non-Abusive ’ ’ Speakers
Local members of the International Bible Students’ Association were “on the air” Thursday evening, explaining their teachings though the gramaphone records by Judge J. F. Rutherford remain under the ban —until sanction for their use is issued by the federal radio commission of which Hector Charlesworth is chairman.
Mr. Charlesworth issued instructions Thursday to all radio stations to discontinue the Rutherford broadcasts pending their being passed by the commission as “not abusive of other religions or governmental institutions. ’ ’
With the limitation Mr. Charlesworth permitted local stations to allow Bible students to speak on the air Thursday. The head of the movement in Winnipeg, F. C. Almond, gave W. II. Backhouse, manager of CKY, and D. R. P. Coats, of CJRW, the necessary assurances that the commission ruling against abuse of other religions or governments would not be violated and he was permitted to broadcast an address.
“It is regrettable,” Mr. Almond said, “that the federal radio commission, at the instance of the clergy, should curtail the message of Jehovah’s kingdom—as given by Judge J. F. Rutherford by electrical transmission. In the meantime the Winnipeg company of Jehovah’s witnesses will continue to broadcast the messages of truth for the comfort and instruction of the people.”
Mr. Charlesworth in a wire to Mr. Coats repudiated the charge of Mr. Almond that the stopping of the Rutherford transmissions had been “at the instance of the clergy.” “We have had no complaints of Bible Students’ programs,” he commented tersely.
Is This Strangling Free Speech?
RADIO station KGEF, in California, was used vigorously until about two years ago. Then one line day its owner-licensee, Reverend Doctor Robert P. Shuler, received from the Federal Radio Commission the news that his application filed in September, 1930, for renewal of the station’s license had been denied “upon the ground that the public interest, convenience and necessity would not be served by the granting of the application”.
Exercising his privilege under the federal radio act, the clergyman appealed from this ruling of the commission to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Near the end of last November came the decision that the court heartily agreed with the radio commission; and that “some of the things urging it to this conclusion were that the station had been used to attack a religious organization— meaning the Roman Catholic Church.”
These last-quoted words are the exact ones used in the court's decision, as delivered by Associate Justice D. Lawrence Groner, most recently installed member of that august body. For this Mr. Groner is entitled to the blessing of Achille Ratti, his oiliness, il papa, Vatican©.
Additionally, the court said that it thought the operation of KGEF “constituted interstate commerce” and “that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitation, other than such as prescribed in the Constitution”. The court also thinks, as stated in its decision, that if one so authorized to broadcast uses a station
“to obstruct the administration of justice, “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic dis-“cord, or offend youth and innocence by the “free use of words suggestive of sexual im-“morality, . . . then this great science [radio “broadcasting], instead of a boon, will become “a scourge”.
Commenting on this case, the anti-clerical writer H. L. Mencken very appropriately said: “If the commission has a right to prohibit speeches which it believes will cause ‘religious strife and antagonism’, then it has a right to prohibit speeches which cause any other kind of strife and antagonism. In other words, then it has the right to decide at all times, and on whatever grounds it may deem sufficient, what shall and shall not be said on the air. It would be hard to imagine a more outrageous censorship. And it would be hard to imagine putting it into worse hands.”
In the effort to break the radio commission’s strangle hold upon his windpipe, the “Reverend Bob” Shuler asked that the adverse decision of the appeal court be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court. On January 16 last the nation’s highest tribunal announced its refusal to consider the final appeal of the pastor.
What it was that any “dumb dogs” (Isa. 56: 10,11) of the Methodist Church South said over KGEF we do not know, and care less. But if a radio broadcasting station can be ruled off the air in the U. S. A. because something has been or is being published by means of it that may “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands”, then we do care, a little.
Furthermore, when federal judges become powerful enough to dispatch a broadcasting station to gehenna because it has been or is being used to publish something that can be claimed to “attack a religious organization” or to “offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands”, then such judges are, in our judgment, more powerful than the supposed-to-be rulers of this country, the common people, ever intended judges to be, and more powerful than their own instrument, the Constitution, allows judges to be. Seems not to have occurred to some of the judiciary that a simple and certain remedy for any sensitive listener who begins to hear something which to him may be unpalatable is to reach for the dial knob and gently turn it.
Taking China,
A S TIME goes on, the details of the Japanese plan of taking over China, a piece at a time, become more manifest. Evidently the Japanese have studied the history of the western nations to advantage. First was the seizure of Korea. That was nearest home and easiest to take. Last year came the rape of Manchuria. This year it is to be Jehol.
There is always an excuse. Last year there was the trumped-up charge of the Chinese destroying their own railway tracks at Mukden; this year bombs were discovered in the Japanese barracks.
The business of discovering things that you wish to discover, in the place where you wish to discover them, is an industry in itself, sometimes called “the detective business”. First you plant your stuff; and then you find it. It is not a difficult business. A crafty mind and an entire absence of principle are qualifications.
The bombs having been “discovered”, the first step was not a step of inquiry or of conciliation, but 2,600 Japanese shock troops, using nineteen field guns, assisted by seven bombing planes and two destroyers, easily reduced the Chinese city of Shanhaikwan to ruins. One wonders if the planes used included those stolen from the Chinese when Manchuria was grabbed.
The grabbing of Jehol opens the way to the heart of China. Peiping may go at any time now, because from the province of Jehol there are numerous passes into China through which, in ages past, her conquerors have entered, and been swallowed up. The Great Wall was built
Piece by Piece
to keep them out, but it is about as effective today as if it were a pale fence.
Japs Invade Jehol at 10 Below Zero
NO OTHER armies ever carried on the invasion of a foreign country at such low temperatures as the Japanese faced in Jehol, Manchuria. With incomparable fortitude these little brown men marched, fought and camped in an enemy country when it was 10 below zero. It would be next to impossible to get white troops to move, and sleep in the open, in such weather. But we do know of many companies of Jehovah’s witnesses moving into action in obedience to the command of the Most High God, about the same time, in this country, at 17 below zero.
France Arms Japan
THE conclusion that France is arming Japan is drawn from the fact that in the first eight months of 1931 the value of arms, powder and munitions exported was 58,576,000 francs, while during the first eight months of 1932 it was 124,857,000 francs. Additionally, it is learned that French exports to Japan in 1932 included great quantities of raw materials and articles useful in war, such as machines, machine parts, medical and chemical products, and scientific apparatus.
Technocracy By Judge J. F. Rutherford
IN RECENT weeks the newspapers and magazines throughout the country have given much space to technocracy. Many are wondering what it means. Those who have walked in the light in recent years, and have a vision of Jehovah’s organization and Satan’s organization, well know that the metropolitan newspapers and the leading magazines are owned and controlled by Big Business. Everything that is presented to these publications is carefully scrutinized before it is published. If it has any semblance of truth relative to the reconstruction of the world on a line of righteousness it is omitted oi' turned away. Every attempt to get Jehovah’s truth published through the magazines and the leading newspapers has failed because Satan’s agents are against such truth. Technocracy, in brief, claims that the price system is entirely done, and must be supplanted by a different system, which would require no medium of exchange such as is now used in the United States. Big Business owns almost all of the money that is in the banks or elsewhere. It has built its tremendous power upon the price system. It would be wholly inconsistent to say that Big Business would permit such a thing as technocracy to take over the government.
Why then does Big Business permit such a wide publication of the matter concerning technocracy? The correct answer, in harmony with the Scriptures, seems to be this: Big Business has been trying for some months to find an excuse to have a dictator in the United States and to control the affairs by one man or a very few men. A wide agitation of technocracy throughout the United States would likely produce a desire to try it. The unemployed would welcome anything that would seem to bring to them a better condition. An uprising of the people demanding technocracy could be easily seized upon by Big Business as an excuse or pretext for the appointment of a dictator in the United States. The Devil is a wily foe. His diplomatic agents on earth, following their father’s course, always put forward the very thing they do not want. Big Business does not want technocracy. Technocracy will never be in force in the United States, but it may be the camouflage for the appointment of a dictator. Let no one be deceived by Utopian dreams that are endorsed or even given notice through the public press and the subsidized magazines. The owners thereof, Big Business, without a question of doubt have some ulterior motive in permitting this wide publication of a thing that they are certainly against.
Chips
Farm Relief in Poland and Holland
T)0LAND has extended a moratorium to the farmers in respect of payment of their debts. In Holland, where 47 percent of the farms are rented, any tenant who signed a lease prior to January 1, 1932, may ask any district judge for a reduction of the rent.
“Echo Dell Castle”
JF. Paksons and wife, both over 70, owners
• of the heated and wired but not quite completed “Echo Dell Castle”, Pullman, Michigan, wish to make contact with some who might wish to help them complete and share their “castle”, raise poultry and vegetables on the estate, and heli) the owners to a share in the witness work of Jehovah’s witnesses. [Please do not write to The Golden Age about this.]
The Cheltenham Express
ORDINARILY the Cheltenham Express is booked to do the 77fj. miles between Swindon and Paddington Station, London, in 65 minutes, but the other day it did it in 62 minutes. It is now the fastest train in the world.
Drifting Mass of Roamers
THE report of the Welfare and Relief Mobilization of 1932 states that in the drifting mass of roamers now traversing the highways of the United States there are to be found expectant mothers, sick children, young married couples and old men and women without homes and without jobs. Many of the children traveling with migratory parents have never been in school a day in their lives. Of the wanderers 200,000 are mere youths.
Japanese Mills in India
T ARGELY shut out of India’s markets by the recently imposed tariff, Japanese capitalists are now erecting their own mills in Calcutta and it is predicted that a real war for control of the Indian piece-goods market impends.
British Markets Closed to Ireland
A NGERED because of De Valera’s repudiation of obligations incurred many years ago for the redemption of Irish lands, the British government has moved the duties on imports from Ireland up to 40 percent, thus virtually closing the Free State's best and almost her only market.
Southern Prison Company
THE Southern Prison Company of San Antonio seems to be well named. In this machine shop, engaged in the manufacture of steel prison cells, if reports of the Machinists’ Union are to be believed, employees on duty ten hours a day are paid for eight, they must report for work fifteen minutes before the starting whistle blows, they may not talk at their work, if they are injured at their work they are fired. It is claimed that men assigned to fire duty are docked for time spent in responding to practice alarms, and on one occasion were docked three hours’ pay for the time spent in extinguishing a fire in one of the company’s buildings.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Does the Trick
HF HE Smoot-Hawley tariff was going to make everybody in America rich by keeping out foreign competition. The duty on wheat was fixed at forty-two cents a bushel. The American farmer was told he would get the world price, plus forty-two cents, for every bushel he raised. As a result he has been offered as low as twenty cents a bushel in some places, and in many other places the elevator men will not take his wheat at any price. The tariff has made all our regular customers mad, and as most of them owe us borrowed money, and a creditor is almost always hated by a debtor, we are out of luck. John Bull has gone over to a protection basis, and, finding it lots of fun, is now negotiating preferential tariffs not only with Canada and all other parts of the British Empire, but with Sweden, Argentina and other countries. The American eagle, with his tail feathers all pulled out, is a sorry-looking object.
The Sudd to Be Short-Circuited
THE sudd section of the Nile is to be short-circuited. A fresh channel will be built around the sudd-filled section, in connection with the new dam at the end of Lake Albert. Thus all the water of the Nile can be used. Now three-fourths of it is absorbed and wasted by the sudd.
An Honest Judge in Jacksonville
Judge I. M. Anderson, of Jacksonville, Fla., answering the accusation that he did not bring in as much money in fines as his predecessors had done, explained that such moneys come from the poor, not the rich; that thousands of the influential citizens pass stop signs and traffic lights, park by fire plugs and commit other offenses, but they never have to pay fines. Their political friends intercede for them, and their traffic tickets never show up in court. Said Judge Anderson: “I have yet to have an arrested banker brought before me. The speeders usually are fruit or fish peddlers or other kinds of poor devils who are barely making enough to buy gasoline to peddle their wares. They have ancient autos that are about to fall apart. The eight-cylinder cars, it seems, are always within the speed limits. Only the 1925 models with four cylinders are speed-crazy.”
Training Camps for Unemployed
THE New York American makes the excellent suggestion that instead of waiting till next summer to conduct citizen’s military training camps the federal government should at once cooperate with state and municipal authorities in opening training camps for the unemployed. The government has had large experience in the planning of military camps and could care for the unemployed and make wise use of their services under better conditions than any other present agency. And it is its duty to so do. To have the streets of the richest country in the world constantly filled with begging men and even begging women is a national disgrace. Now let the National Guard be put to use. In Ohio a respectable young woman arranged to be sent to the workhouse for five months so that this winter she could earn $15 a month with which to care for her two boys, eight and nine years of age; she knew no other way to insure their being fed and sheltered during the winter months.
Africa — A Continent in the Making
In Four Parts — Part IV
WHAT was once the Orange Free State, but is now a part of the Union of South Africa, is mostly a table-land 3,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level, with a little over half a million people scattered over an area as large as New' York state.
Before the Dutch trekked into the country, in 1835-36, it was thinly settled with Bushmen and other natives; now7 there are 203,000 whites and 360,000 natives. Orange is cold in winter, and in summer is liable to violent thunderstorms and long droughts, but is healthful.
When diamonds were discovered in the w’est-ern part, at Kimberley, the British wanted the region, and took it, but subsequently paid $450,000 compensation for so doing.
The natives have no political rights in Orange. The Boers, fearful of the loss of theii- own liberties, and not inclined to be sentimental as respects their treatment of the natives, keep everything in their own hands. They are a Biblereading, praying people. When they first settled the country they were not accompanied by any clergy. On one occasion the British seized the land, to put a stop, so they said, to Boer outrages upon the natives, but after a time gave back the reins of power.
Natal w7as taken from the Dutch, in 1839, because it affords the only really good port on the South African coast for nearly a thousand miles, and the British w’anted that port for themselves. Situated on the border of Zululand, and, in fact, including Zululand within its present boundaries, Natal has had a stormy career.
Most warlike of the Negroes, the Zulus were able to put up a powerful resistance against the advance of the whites. Their higher type of vigor and physique is by some supposed to be due to a strain of Asiatic blood, common to all the Bantus, of wThom the Zulus are an advanced type.
The Zulus do not like taxation without representation. Occasionally they manifest dislike for their present masters, and somebody gets killed. They feel the want of employment, and resent the poor whites’ and Hindus’ taking their jobs. Half the population of Durban, the principal port, are of Hindu parentage.
The Town of Weeping
In the year 1838, in February, the then Zulu king Dingaan treacherously murdered Piet Retief and 70 of his fellow’ voortrekkers or pioneers while ostensibly entertaining them. Then warriors weie sent on farther, to exterminate their wives and children. They came upon them at what is now the town of "Weenen” (weeping), where 400 or 500 Boers came to their rescue and gave the Zulus one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in South Africa.
Dingaan Day is an annual public holiday in the Union of South Africa now, and serves as a great national reunion of Dutch-speaking South Africa, somewhat similar to the American Fourth of July. Fighting continued, off and on, until July 4, 1879, when British soldiers finally put an end to Zulu power to make trouble.
There is now7 little or no cannibalism among the Zulus, though the flesh of a dead wizard is popular. It is supposed to carry with it some of the dead man’s magic powers.
A Zulu expects to pay his father-in-law seven or eight cow s for his wife; the fatter she is, the more cows he has to pay. A chief’s daughter may cost him as many as thirty cows, and the cows about $10 apiece. A job with a white man will pay a Zulu in the country districts not more than 35c a day, so that a cow a month is the most he can expect to earn.
Zulu children often work as herd boys on white farms. Without fear they run among a herd of cow s to drive them in the desired direction ; and when tw7o bulls are fighting they separate them by twisting their tails. As older boys they do plowing. Eventually they have kraals or homes of their owm, and some of them, the older men, as many as twenty wTives. A Zulu in prison at Atlanta had the given name of Forty ; he was his father’s fortieth son, a bright and capable man, too, in prison for life for killing several men.
Zulu fathers teach their boys to bat one another over the head with clubs called knobker-ries, and to continue tomorrow7 the fight which starts today, in the hope that the loser today may be the winner tomorrow. The men fight with heavier clubs, and consider it all right to hit a man even when he is down.
In war time the Zulu warrior carried two clubs, one to fence with, and the other as a w’eapon, and the memories of what the w’arriors of a generation ago could do with their assagais makes it illegal to this day, in Natal, for a Zulu to be seen in public with two sticks in his hands.
Zulus Not Too Kindly Treated
A hundred years ago, when the Zulus were on the warpath, they are estimated to have slain 2,000,000 natives of other tribes, and to have eaten about 300,000 of them. British colonial administrators know all this, and it somewhat colors what they do to keep the Zulus in control.
In the city of Durban the Zulus have to live in barracks in a crowded area of streets. At present, 40,000 natives are living in barracks originally constructed to hold but a fraction of that number. For the privilege of living under these conditions they have to pay a poll tax of one pound a year, or about half a month’s wages.
In 1929 several hundred could not or did not pay their poll tax and the entire barracks was surrounded at night with police armed to the teeth, ready to let off tear-gas bombs which were in readiness. But not a drop of blood was spilled, though six hundred of the natives were arrested.
Prior to 1913 the Zulus found homes on European-owned farms as share-paying squatters. Now they may hold farm land only if they give ninety days a year of “labor service”. The farms of the Europeans have been cut up into smaller holdings, with no room for squatters, even if squatting were now legal, which it is not. As a result they have been crowded into the reserves and barracks in ever more cramped conditions.
Economic conditions in the reserves are so bad that fifty percent of the adults have to be away from home constantly in order to keep the rest of the family alive. The Mandates Commission suggests that five percent away from home is the maximum compatible with social stability. In the Belgian Congo they aim at a ten-percent maximum.
We would not like to say that the Zulu exwarrior in Natal is five times as badly off as the oppressed natives of the Belgian Congo, but it may be that guilty consciences, as well as memories of the Zulu wars of long ago, have something to do with the rigidity with which the imperialists of Natal treat the men that were there before them.
Basutoland and Swaziland
Basutoland, larger than New Jersey and Delaware, is the Switzerland of South Africa, as Abyssinia is of North Africa. This little native state, surrounded on all sides by the Cape province, Orange Free State and Natal, is very fertile, and well watered, and has a fine climate. The natives have increased from 40,000 to 500,000 in a century and are said to be the most intelligent of South African natives. No white man may own land in Basutoland. The scenery is said to be magnificent.
Swaziland is a reservation for the Swazis, one of the Zulu tribes to the north of Natal. It is larger than the combined area of Rhode Island and Connecticut, but it has only about 125,000 population and is undeveloped. Wild game and the most poisonous snakes in Africa, the mamba, are plentiful. A few minutes after you are bitten by a mamba you are on a one-way trip to the cemetery. Swaziland is well watered, well timbered and healthful.
Basutoland and other portions of South Africa have ancient and unknown scripts chiseled into the surface of the rocks. Within the past two or three years 12,000 photographs of these scripts have been taken, and are now being studied.
The Transvaal, the End of the Great Trek
The Great Trek, which began in 1833, when the Boers tried to get away from their British rulers in Cape province, ended when several thousand of them crossed the Vaal river (the north branch of the Orange river) and settled in what is now called the Transvaal.
There have been other treks since, but they have been fruitless. Only a few years ago seven hundred of these harried liberty-lovers left the Transvaal and went two thousand miles up the east coast of Africa through a trackless and dangerous wilderness, only at last to settle in what is now Kenya, British East Africa. They might better have stayed where they were.
The turn up the steep, almost impassable mountains from Natal into the Transvaal was made necessary because great hordes of Bantus (Zulus) were headed down the coast, and the vast plains beyond the mountains seemed easier to conquer than the warlike savages.
The vehicle which took the Boers into the Transvaal was the ox-wagon, the counterpart of the prairie schooner of America. These oxwagons are now mostly gone, having been supplanted by railways and automobiles, but are still occasionally seen at the annual Dingaan celebrations and the quarterly gatherings for “nagmaal” (the Lord’s Supper).
The Curse of Gold
But for the discovery of the greatest gold mines in the world, the Boers would have been permitted to retain their new country. In the effort to resist its being taken from them they put up one of the stiffest fights the British Empire has ever had to face. Their leader, Oom Paul Kruger, said the British might win, but it would be at a price that would stagger humanity ; and it was.
The heroic fight put up by a handful of men, mainly farmers, against the hosts of the powerful British Empire for almost three years is one of the pathetic stories of human history. In May, 1902, the Boer forces had to lay down their arms, having lost about 4,000 men on the field, with many more lingering in prison camps in India, Ceylon, St. Helena and Bermuda. But the chief cause of their surrender (not without conditions) was that more than 26,000 of their women and children had perished in the war and many more were in danger of perishing.
One of the reasons the British wanted to enter the World War was to square the account with Kaiser Wilhelm for congratulating Oom Paul when he suppressed the Jameson Raid (supposedly engineered or at least sanctioned by Cecil Rhodes), intended to seize the republic, in 1893.
Gold was discovered in the Transvaal in 1854, and by the end of 1928 more than one billion pounds sterling of gold had been taken out of the mines. As the output increased the need of better means of getting supplies in and gold out became evident. Railroads were built, paid for with the gold taken out of the mines, the Uit-landers (strangers) came in ever-increasing numbers, and the Boers were unable to govern to their satisfaction, and probably did not try.
At first the Boers did not wish the mines developed. They wanted to keep their country. They sensed what would happen when the mining experts of other countries came in. They would want to run things themselves; and that is what happened.
The Witwatersrand mines, or the Johannesburg mines, as they are more generally called, have an annual output exceeding £40.000,000, about half the world’s production. The gold mines benefit much by the fact that Great Britain has gone off the gold standard, and figures that they would stand to gain still more if the Union Government did the same.
It is predicted by experts that the present spurt in Witwatersrand gold production is the last, that by 1940 it will be but 60 percent of what it now is, and by 1950 but 25 percent. At the Village Deep shaft, near Johannesburg, gold is now being extracted from a depth of 7,600 feet. This is one of the deepest mines in the world.
So deep are the mines and so extensive their operations that they often cause slips of rock, similar to light earthquakes. These are often felt in Johannesburg. Ore is extracted from an area fifty miles long, extending twenty-five miles east and west of the city.
Gold Mine Labor Problems
The natives do not like to work under ground. They can hardly be blamed for that. It sometimes happens, therefore, that the mine owners cannot get enough native help to work below ground at the wages they are willing to pay. At one time, when Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer, living in London, he participated in shipping thousands of Chinese coolies to these South African mines. The experiment was not a success, and those that survived the treatment they* received were repatriated.
A capable Negro may earn as much as ten pounds a month in the mines, while his wages on a farm may be a pound a month or less, yet he prefers the farm. Europeans are paid six to eight times as much as is paid to natives. Maybe this general knowledge is one reason the natives do not press forward to secure employment under ground.
The Union Government system of railways, of which Johannesburg is the center of administration, as well as the hub, is the longest in the world under one general manager. In regularity of service and comfort provided for the passengers, it is rightly regarded as a model of efficiency. This is the more notable when regard is had to the long distances covered in a land so sparsely populated.
Johannesburg, with a population of 300,000, is an up-to-date modern city. The revenues flowing in from the gold mines have brought in a variety of manufacturing enterprises, the climate is excellent, and there are rich diamond and coal deposits, and agricultural possibilities. Oranges and other fruits are grown to some extent and could be grown in immense quantities.
Birj Game Is Plentiful
Big game is plentiful throughout the Transvaal. In the Kruger National Park, distinguished by 250 miles of good motor roads, the tourist may witness lions stalking in search of their prey, leopards slinking through the undergrowth, monkeys chattering in the tree tops, and bucks and zebras in abundance.
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