Consolation, May 4, 1938

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Contents

The Tragedy of Germany (Part 1) 3

Natural Phenomena 11

The Roman Catholic Sect 12

In Catholic Newfoundland 13

Fascism 14

Treasury Department—U. S. A. 15

Convention of Jehovah's witnesses for the Northwest 16

Counsel by J. F. Rutherford 17

Photographs and Snapshots 17

Pennsylvania 18

South Atlantic States 19

"In Dixie Land" 20

California 21

The Hermes Misfit en Route to the Exit 22

By Trail and Stream and Garden Path (The Apple Tree) 23

Oslo and Baltic States 24

Central Europe 25

Britain 26

British Comment by J. Hemery 28

The Goosegirl—Cover Illustration for This Number 31

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Appetizers

May Have to Go to Work

A MOURNFUL note from Fr. Joseph Klein, O.F.M., The Franciscan Missionary Union, 1615 Vine Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. He says that business isn't what it used to be. Thus:

Only two months ago I sent out our Christmas stockings, which I hoped would bring us enough to carry on for a year. But as only one stocking out of every twelve was filled and returned, I just cannot do anything but appeal again in order to provide for the long months of summer and fall.

It's just too bad, but it looks as if all there were left were the spade, and pickax, and mattock, and grub hoe, and pitchfork, and such.

Want to Do the Right Thing by Mary

◆ Nothing is said in the Bible that Mary or anybody else was taken to heaven, spirit and body, and so 8 Italian cardinals, 12 other cardinals, 5 patriarchs, 258 Italian archbishops and bishops, 42 other high ecclesiastics and 70,000 children petitioned the pope to declare that Mary was received up into heaven, and that she is much offended by the enemies of the "church" and is now a vehicle of universal mediation in all the graces. Of course, the pope has nothing to do with what goes on in heaven, not the least thing; but he pretends to have, and hence the petition.

Arrested Four of the Crooks

◆ Some months ago, being hard up, some of the crooks at the Vatican stole the pope's ring, the famous so-called "fisherman's ring", with which the pope is wont to seal all papal bulls. A number of other gold objects were taken at the same time, and it is believed the thieves melted down the gold. Only four of the crooks were arrested. It was said in the newspapers that two of them were from Milan and two were from Rome. But how these gents could find their way into the apartment of the Papal master of the chamber, next to the pope's own suite, puts this in this "Appetizers" column.

Present-Day Saviors

◆ Mussolini is saving the Mediterranean, Hitler is saving Europe, Japan is saving Asia, the pope is saving "Christendom", and the Devil is saving the world of which he is the prince and god.

CONSOLATION

"And in His name shall the nations hope."--Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.

Volume XIX Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, May 4, 1938 Number 486

The Tragedy of Germany (In Two Parts — Part 1)

"TOMORROW the world will be ours!" Thus runs the tramping song of the Nazis. What kind of place would the Nazis make of the world if it were indeed theirs? That is a legitimate question, and one which it is not difficult to answer in the light of the kind of place they have made of Germany, and the kind of place they appear to have for some time had in mind making of Austria.

The Nazis do not so much want either their former colonies or the world for their increasing population as they want room for the exercise of their boundless ambition. Not more than 20,000 Germans were in German colonies before the World War. Germany is more interested in Germans in other countries; for it appears to be the notion of the Nazis that wherever Germans set foot, there they must dominate. Their insufferable arrogance seems to equal, if it does not exceed, the arrogance of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, who also insist that the world must be theirs.

It would be puerile to seek to charge to one man the effects that are in evidence in the cauldron of Nazism. The turbulent effervescence of the various ingredients are too great to be stirred by the potentialities of one individual. Yet, that there is in the situation as a whole a "master mind" guiding the developments that shock and dismay the world is evident. That the German people have largely fallen in with the ideas of their "Fuehrer", though with some misgivings, need not be questioned.

There are many who doubtless submit because of necessity and who are only biding the time when the system of oppression will disintegrate and fall apart as a result of its own inherent weaknesses, or be otherwise terminated by unforeseen events.

It is Hitler's contention that he not merely seeks to carry into execution his own ideas and concepts, but that he interprets in his official actions the collective will of the German people. As a spellbinder he doubtless has few equals, and his appeal to the pride and conceit that form no small ingredient of the German make-up has resulted in giving him the backing of the more assertive. The results of Hitler's influence on Germany may be judged on their own merits, and the world is at liberty to draw its own conclusions with respect to them.

This is particularly true in view of the assertion made by Hitler to the effect that "the German race has a right to rule the world"! This claim is hardly subject to misinterpretation, especially when it is reiterated, with emphasis, by his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who, braying still more loudly, said:

We demand that we rule the world. The only instrument with which one can conduct foreign policy is alone and exclusively the sword.

Hitler, his aides and his party can hardly complain when such assertions call forth a response from other nations and their peoples, who, strange as it may seem to these would-be world rulers, are not quite so highly impressed with the right, or the ability, of the German people, or the Nazis, to rule the world.

In Germany itself any criticism of such utterances is highly dangerous; in fact, all but suicidal. On the other hand, those who desire to curry the favor of those in power will not be slow to offer obsequious tribute. This, indeed, is true not only of the rank and file, but of those who occupy positions of ecclesiastical influence. Hence many German pastors on the occasion of Hitler's birthday read from the pulpit passages from Hitler's book Mein Kampf, instead of from the Bible, but Alfred Rosenberg, from the Department for the Ideological Training of the German Nation, went still farther. He said, in one of his confidential letters of instruction, Let no one blame those who believe they have found their God there, where today there stands among us one who has been specially blessed by the Creator. No one has the right to find fault with those of our people who have found their son of God and have thus regained their eternal Father.

One might ask in passing, "If Hitler interprets the will of the German people, why then a Department for the Ideological Training of the German Nation?"

The effort to deify a leader, as is done in Germany, is not a new thing, certainly. In all ages the Adversary has brought forth his "saviors" for the worship of men and the supposed deliverance of men from their oppressors, substituting a more subtle form of oppression for the more obvious by means of religion.

Nazi leaders in their political addresses call Hitler the one and only perfect German. In some churches Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf, is read from the pulpit instead of the Holy Scriptures. In some rural communities death notices, instead of stating that the deceased died "in the faith of his Lord Jesus Christ", state that he "died in the faith in Adolf Hitler". Poor consolation! At Oberhausen, speaking before a teachers' federation, one Bollman-Moers, a district governor, said:

The oppressed Germans in foreign countries look upon Adolf Hitler as someone sacred, holy.

The undue exaltation of any human creature leads to the proportionate under-estimation and disesteem of the Creator and the principles of righteousness. Consequently, old landmarks are removed and established standards are broken down. New and fanciful ideas are cultivated and superstition grows.

Creature Worship

The trend of dictatorship, the form of government favored, fostered and defended by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, is toward ever-increasing glory for some imperfect, maladjusted mortal, and a correspondingly increasing degradation of the people who are its victims. This trend is well illustrated in Germany, where creature and symbol worship turn the people ever farther and farther from the worship of the Creator.

Reason and principle find no room in a nation dominated by a man whose counselors are devoid of both, and who show not a speck of respect for God.

Children are but instruments to be fitted for the waging of prospective wars of conquest and aggression, which, though denied, are the inevitable outcome of the course pursued by a nation that considers itself superior to all others and destined to dominate. Hence the blasphemous statements referred to foregoing.

The inordinate exaltation of the "leader" is but a reflection of the people's will to power, but results in a compensating degradation of the individual. This is unconsciously betrayed in the utterances of those who seek to glorify the nation, and particularly its dictator. The following is from a blasphemous statement made over all German radio stations:

We believe in our Fuehrer as God's revelation to our people. God said to the German people: If you seek out your leader, then I will change your fate and prevent disintegration. Then a new day will dawn. We believe that the mission of Der Fuehrer is the fate of our people. National Socialism will break open the gates of eternity. You, our Fuehrer, walk among your people as their redeemer. You teach the youth of the country to die for the Reich.

Hitler isn't a full-grown god yet, but is on his way. The Brunswick Court of Appeals said of this infant prodigy among the gods:

The Fuehrer is an envoy whom God has charged with a great mission for his people and for the world. It is therefore the duty of the church not to oppose but to obey the will of God, of which the Fuehrer is the expression.

Childhood Worship of Hitler

At the fifth anniversary of Hitler's accession to power the schoolrooms were turned into chapels in which the children were required to worship before a bust or picture of Der Fuehrer. Among the chants which the children used on that occasion was the following:

Always it must be our duty to thank those who died for us. He who is unfaithful or abandons the flag or den Fuehrer shall lose honor forever. Curse the unfaithful! Fuehrer, we follow thee; Fuehrer, we swear eternal faith with thee. We carry your picture in our heart. You went before us in sorrowful years. You went before us in danger and storm. We dragged our chains in despair and servitude. We followed you blindly, pressing stormily onward. Now, from the Alps to the ocean roars our song. We laugh at worries. We laugh at need. Heil Hitler! our leader to freedom and bread.

Another blasphemous utterance is the prayer issued by the so-called "Christian Publishing Society" of Weimar, as follows: To Germans hast thou ever trusted thine own flag, O God. Therefore are we hated of thine enemies. The prouder floats thy banner o'er our victories, so much the wilder rage the rebel band and the name of Germany strikes them like a thunderbolt, leaves them quivering in fear. Moscow, Jews and Rome all pass away, but the holy Reich shall stand. We are here with hard fist and strong. God commands; we shall obey.

The flag chant of German girls, as they are gathered around the flag poles and the swastika is hoisted, is as follows:

Against our foes both day and night, protect us all, our banner bright. If we win or if we die, our banner shall unblemished fly.

On the Czechoslovakian frontier Germany now has installed new guns that are effective at a distance of fifty miles. After the shell leaves the gun it backfires at regular intervals so that its velocity is maintained. It is, in effect, a shell rocket combination. Before many months have passed Czechoslovakia may have followed Austria.

Nazi Ancestor Worship

One of the significant trends of the times is the definite spread of ancestor worship in Germany. In and around Mecklenburg unused chapels are being turned into halls for ancestor worship, and that by government decree, and children are being formally received into what is termed "the community of all Germans". Marriages and baptisms are similarly ceremonialized.

At the Ahnenhalle in Guestrow, formerly an ancient Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St. Gertrude, there is one of the several new churches for ancestor worship, springing up here and there over that land that is slipping back into rankest paganism. A swastika finds its place in the stained-glass windows; there is a bust of Hitler; instead of the Mariolatry of mother and child there is a German mother surrounded by four children. Names of the ancestors of local families are inscribed on the wall. Creeds are being formulated. The only prayer is declared to be "I will". The songs are songs to Germany, declaring her 'everlastingness' and their own willingness to die for her.

One of the hymns to "blood and soil" being taught at the special Nazi academies in which future leaders are being trained to carry on the work of Hitler and his fellow murderers is the following:

Why search for God in a foreign country, beneath cypresses and palms, when He manifests Himself so marvelously in our own surroundings? It is in the gallery of our marshals that God is revealed to us.

Dorothy Thompson, prominent American newspaperwoman, explains the methods by which Dr. Schacht, admittedly one of the most capable political economists in the world, was elbowed out of his position. He was continually harassed in his work by the Nazi leaders. Little by little, compromise by compromise, he was compelled to do things he did not believe would work out for the good of his country. When conditions became well-nigh intolerable he asked Hitler to give him somebody that would stand between him and the Nazis. Hitler gave him Goering, and Goering used the position for his own aggrandizement and elbowed him out. What happens in Nazidom is that—

Every concession encourages new aggrandizements on the part of the insatiable Nazi party leaders who made the revolution, and who eagerly snap up every scrap of power, regarding every concession as a sign of inherent weakness.

Deutschland Berichte for December, 1937, sets forth Nazi methods of obtaining revenue as follows:

The getting in of contributions, fees, gifts and donations, etc., in the prevailing conditions is for the most part nothing but taxation in disguise. The sums raised are devoted in part to State purposes and in part to official Party purposes, for the most part, however, to a system of social welfare which is conducted in a highly peculiar fashion for the benefit of the Nazis and their reliable followers. Sums which would otherwise have to be raised by taxation are in this manner made available, and the Reich budget is relieved of expenditure on social welfare so that revenue can go toward armaments.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, even if only a figurative one.

Referring to Hitler's murder of the man, Ernst Roehm, who brought about his rise to power, Liberty magazine had an interesting article showing that an organization styling itself "Roehm's Revengers" so dogs Hitler's footsteps that for two years he has not dared to ride in a railway train, and in one way or another they contrive to get the letters "R.R." before him night and day. Not only do these letters often pop up stamped on his mail, but they were even found in dazzling red on the walls of his bedroom, despite the fact that he is surrounded with 250 picked men whose duty it is to kill immediately anybody who interferes in the least with his health or happiness.

Hierarchy Makes Progress

While there has been prosecution of members of the Roman Catholic organization, to which considerable publicity has been given, the Hierarchy has nevertheless made substantial progress.* The Protestant system, on the other hand, has suffered many reverses, but the persecution of Jehovah's witnesses is far greater. The thought, therefore, that the Hierarchy is essentially in harmony with Hitler and the Nazis is justified.

The Freier Aargauer, Aarau, Switzerland, published lengthy extracts from a letter of Boris Toedtli, a Swiss Nazi, to his superior officer Fleischhauer, Erfurt, Germany, in which, among other things, Toedtli asked for a raise of pay and indicated the working connection between the Nazis and the Papal machine in the portions translated below:

Up to now I have obtained good connections with Catholics for the cause against Bible Students [Jehovah's witnesses]. I was also received by the Papal nuncio, and spoke with him of the entire matter. He gave me two letters of recommendation, one to Zurich and one to St. Gallen. With the approval of Ruef [Nazi attorney in Switzerland] I shall make the trip this week. It would be advisable to publish at once a paper for the information of the press wherein we can make public various things about the Bible Students. The paper ought to appear every second week, and show Berne as place of publication. It would be better not to mention Germany, as this might work against the impression of impartiality.

Those who have cheerfully swallowed the stories of Nazi persecutions of the Roman Hierarchy will be interested in a wireless dispatch from Berlin to the New York Times, dated January 8, 1938, that since the Hitler régime came into power—

The number of Catholic churches and the number of Catholic priests have increased instead of decreasing.

*An instance of this is seen in what happened immediately after the Nazi seizure of Austria. The United Press dispatch from Vienna March 15, 1938, says:

"This morning, after his breakfast he received Theodore Cardinal Innitzer, Roman Catholic archbishop of Vienna.

"It was reported that on the occasion of this momentous visit from the religious spokesman of 90 per cent of Austrians, Hitler gave the cardinal assurances as to the future of the church in Germanized Austria."

The New York Staats Zeitung und Herold published the facts that in 1919 there were but 210 Catholic newspapers in Germany, but in 1937 there were more than 400, and every second one of the 21,000,000 Catholics is a subscriber for one of them. This shows how little truth there is in the oft-repeated stories of "persecution" of Catholics in Hitler-land.

As further evidence of co-operation between the Hierarchy and Hitler, note that German Freemasonry has been destroyed, buildings and property confiscated, and the members are forbidden to communicate one with another, under penalty of arrest and imprisonment. Several prominent Masons committed suicide. It is understood that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy had nothing to do with this!

At Hagen, Hans Kerrl, Church Minister, asserted that of the 8,000 actions so far undertaken against priests, nuns and Catholic Church employees, involving immorality, breaches of currency regulations, and the like, 242 were sentenced to imprisonment for corruption of morals (45 of the number being priests), and 959 more (97 of the number being priests) await trial.

Adverting to the fact that, of the Roman Catholic theologians sentenced to prison terms for offenses of a moral nature against minors, feeble-minded and insane, many were regular priests, the Roman Church issued a pamphlet, distributed at its church doors, in which it acknowledged the following self-evident truth:

Despite the precautions of the ecclesiastical authorities, unqualified persons sometimes become priests or members of religious orders, sometimes merely because the church offers a secure existence, a thought that doubtless exerted a powerful influence during the economic distress, unemployment and professional difficulties of the post-war years.

Subsidies to Religion

It is certain that the discontinuation of subsidies to the church organizations would be far more disastrous to the Protestant group than to the Catholic.

The official figures are that the German government has been paying the churches, Catholic and Protestant, 105,000,000 marks annually from State funds, while it has collected another 200,000,000 marks for them in special church taxes. The Nazi government is now hinting its intention to withdraw all financial support from both rackets, and allow people who wish to pay for their upkeep to do so direct.

Doubtless these subsidies will not be withdrawn until it is concluded that the Roman Catholic Church will, all things considered, emerge stronger than ever.

The Nazi absorption of Austria now also gives the Roman Catholic Hierarchy increased power in the German empire as a whole. The leading figures in the Nazi party in both Germany and Austria are Roman Catholics.

For letting the cat out of the bag that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Propaganda Minister, was reared at the expense of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in a Jesuit institution, Adolf Weinel, a Protestant pastor, was given three months' imprisonment. The destruction of all Protestant institutions goes merrily on. The Jesuits are onto their job, 100 percent. The Protestant clergy are getting what they deserve for hating and betraying the truth. They deserve no sympathy from Jehovah God or His faithful witnesses. They chose the bed in which to lie; now let them try pulling up the covers.

Der Angriff, Labor Front newspaper of Berlin, puts into words a fact that should be obvious to all, and will be more obvious as time goes on. It says:

We are in position to give thousandfold proof that Roman prelates fight not for religion, not for Christianity, but for political ends, and that they are ready to sacrifice the peace of the nation to attain those ends.

The Nazis are determined to rule the world, and the Hierarchy will offer no particular objection, as long as the Nazis are willing to fall down and worship said Hierarchy, at least to the extent of giving her support and recognition.

On the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the coronation of Pope Pius XI the German government was represented at the pontifical mass at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin. Everything is all right, and the bluff that Hitler and the pope are at serious odds is working out fine in bulldozing the whole German populace.

Intolerance and Persecution

Dictatorships do not foster either tolerance or liberality. Germany demonstrates this fact in its persecution of those who conscientiously hold views considered undesirable by Hitler or the Nazis. The German persecution of Jews is so thorough that notices are sent out all over the world warning German firms against employing Jewish representatives or Jews in any capacity, even as lawyers.

Aryan birth certificates are in such demand in Germany that a nice business has sprung up. A German from Frankfurt was arrested in Prague, Czechoslovakia, for copying priests' names from church archives with that end in view.

History never recorded a more systematic, efficient, devilish obliteration of Jews than at present in Germany. First were thrown out the professional classes, some 20,000; next, the tradesmen; now, the Jewish employees, some 50,000, compelled to make way for Aryans. It is calculated that 40 percent of the Jewish population of Berlin is on relief and that in another two years the only Jews left will be the aged. Probably, by then, the ‘brave’ Nazi troopers, so ‘courageous’ in battling with women and children, but not with men, may get ‘courage’ enough to line them all up and shoot them.

Hitler's incredible smallness of soul may be seen in the fact that he ordered obliterated from the World War memorials the names of 14,000 Jews who perished fighting in German armies during 1914-1918.

Jewish merchants extend credit to Gentiles at their own risk. A Westphalia district “court” ruled that a German Aryan does not have to pay debts incurred by his wife in a Jewish shop.

Hatred of the Jews is inculcated in the schools, the minds of children being poisoned against inoffensive members of this race and so warped that they are likely to prove unequal to the task of facing any question honestly and fairly.

The corruption of the minds of children evidences the absolute and indescribably low cowardice of the Nazi crowd. At Nuremberg, Streicher, the Jew-baiter friend of Hitler, asked a thousand children, “Do you know who the Devil is?” Back came the expected and well-instructed answer, “The Jew, the Jew.” Then Streicher continued, “Yes, the Jew was the Devil. After the war he took everything.” He then circulated among them a “Christmas” booklet, the first poem in which, illustrated by a red, cloven-hoofed beast with a Jew’s head, is entitled, “The Devil is the father of the Jew.”

The length to which this hatred of the Jews goes is shown in a case at Dahlem, a suburb of Berlin, where a public-school teacher told his class that "Jesus Christ was a scalawag of a Jew fellow (Judenluemmel) who tried even in Gethsemane to renege".

The intolerance of the Dark Ages is revived in the manner in which the Nazis hound the Jewish people. Says Deutschland Berichte:

In addition to the direct attack on Jewish enterprises, a definite role is played by the pillorying, persecution and punishment of those Aryans who do any business with Jews, even if it is business merely in a private way. The Stuermer, for example, regularly published the names of lawyers who act for Jewish clients, of Aryan clients who allow themselves to be represented by Jewish lawyers, of Aryan patients of Jewish doctors, of Aryan farmers who do business with Jewish cattle-dealers, of Aryan customers who make purchases in Jewish shops, and even the names of Aryans who greet Jewish acquaintances in the street. In every case the full name and address of the pilloried person is given. The Baden Administrative Court in October, 1937, removed a burgomaster from his office because in April, 1936, the man had sold a cow to a Jewish cattle-dealer.

The Condition of the People

Taken as a whole, the condition of the people, and particularly the workingman, has progressed backward. A feature of Nazi rule not widely known is that within the past few months 700,000 small shopkeepers have gone to the wall, and the heads of these little enterprises, who hoped for so much from the Nazi régime, and were promised relief from the oppressions of Big Business, are now seeking jobs in factories, while the Big Business crowd that put Hitler in power is grabbing everything in the country.

Labor Union reports are that the number of railway passenger cars is 5 percent lower than in the depression year of 1932, and the number of freight cars 10 percent lower. Locomotives are in much worse condition. In the manufacture of shells aluminum guide rings are used instead of copper, but the use of the cheaper metal damages the grooved spirals of the gun barrels, so that they lose their precision after the fourth shot. These and many other reports show that the Hitler program of armament "prosperity" is rapidly impoverishing the country. Something must explode soon. Food rationing began January 1, and since then nobody can obtain lard, margarine, fat bacon or cheap cooking fat unless previously registered. Everywhere wages are being forced down. Soldiers now get 15c a day. Everybody buys on credit, and nobody has the money to pay. Rents are seized by the government and turned into armaments.

A fitting capstone for so noble an edifice

Raymond Clapper, newspaper correspondent, tells of visiting a factory where the workers, to mitigate their lot, obtained permission to create a flower garden in unused factory grounds. All but one of the workers in the factory donated one hour of his time to the flower garden. That one declined, claiming other use for his spare time, whereupon a Nazi official took away his "labor passport", thus automatically depriving him of his job or of any way to get another job.

Fish in Their Sausage

Scarcity of materials, and the necessity for using substitutes, makes Germans complain that there is fish in their sausages, that the bread is worse than in 1914, that boots are made of paper, and clothes of textile substitutes. In many cities there have been food riots. Hitler's generals have warned him that hunger can frustrate victory, and that the fighting spirit of the German army waned after the effects of hunger became noticeable in 1915.

There is a scarcity of leather that has led to the production of “fish leather”, which is used in the making of shoes, gloves and other articles ordinarily made of leather.

National economy has also resulted in the manufacture of “chocolate” bars made out of coal tar! The bars look more like soap than like chocolate, but anyone who musters up sufficient courage to bite into them is rewarded by a taste more or less resembling the real thing.

Hamburg chemists, working on the industrial production of albumen from fish for baking purposes, announce that they expect to provide a product that will take the places of more than 400,000 eggs annually.

The use of artificial wool has so greatly increased that in four years the purchase of fine Australian wool declined from 100,000,000 pounds to 37,000,000 pounds, and it is now so satisfactory, and so inexpensive, being less than half the price of real wool, that it is even being used in the regular army uniforms.

Germans must now have at least 10 percent rayon in the composition of their underwear. The object is to keep the rayon plants operating, so that in case of war they may be made instantly available for chemical purposes.

Silken toothpaste tubes have made their appearance, along with crowns for teeth made of artificial resin instead of porcelain.

As a fitting capstone of the German national structure a piece of legislation has now been passed which makes it incumbent upon German shirt-makers to see to it that shirt tails are abbreviated. Men’s shirts may not be longer than 90 centimeters (35 1/2 inches) in front and 95 centimeters (37 1/2 inches) behind. Previously they could be 95 centimeters in front and 100 centimeters (39 1/2 inches) behind.

Germany slow to learn

German hairdressers have been asked to collect human hair regardless of how short its length. It has been found that even the shortest hair is useful in the making of felt. The bulk of the human hair will go into carpets. It is estimated that the supply may run to 1,000,000 pounds annually.

The Nazi neglect of workers may be seen from the fact that in the year 1933 there were only 7,133 cases of silicosis, lead poisoning and weavers’ lungs, but in 1936 there were 13,944 cases.

Some Accomplishments

Accomplishments of Germany, even during Nazi domination, must be acknowledged but need not be credited to the Nazis. Undoubtedly more accomplishments of the kind would have occurred without them.

Germany’s big bridge across the Elbe will have a span of 2,240 feet, and is improperly described by Hitler as the world’s largest. Two of the spans of the San Francisco - Oakland bridge are each 70 feet longer. The George Washington bridge is 1,260 feet longer between its towers, and the Golden Gate span is 4,200 feet—almost twice as long.

The new German automobile highways are double-tracked and devoid of crossings, making them nearly fool-proof. Motorists may not drive upon them continuously for more than eight hours without several hours’ compulsory rest.

The Reichs Autobahn, or national automobile highway, is a double concrete highway, passing over or under all crossroads, taking the shortest way between cities, crossing valleys on high bridges, and built to last. It is of concrete two feet thick, and intended to resist bomb attacks.

The periphon, a German device for recording depths and obstructions by sound, enables one steamer to pass another with as much accuracy in a fog as if each could see the other perfectly.

Control of German Farmers

The Press Summary, Deutschland Berichte, by the Social Democratic Party of Germany, states that a favorite trick of the control of persons is to purchase a fowl from the farmer and kill it on the spot. If they find grains of corn in the crop, then the farmer is convicted of having used bread-grain for feeding purposes, which is forbidden. . . . Like every other form of necessity, the necessity born of oppression is inventive in this as in all other fields. In spite of threats of punishment, there are secret stores, and milking and butter-making go on surreptitiously in the night. It is remarkable how often now an ox or a cow breaks its leg. In such a case the animals may be slaughtered at once at the farm, a thing otherwise strictly forbidden. If everything that is done in defiance of the regulations were punished, then the prisons and the concentration camps would have been filled to overflowing long ago.

The uniformed farm inspectors of Germany have every farm under closest surveillance. The inspector may come any day, milk the cows, tabulate the weight of milk, and check up to make certain that the farmer retains not a pint for his own use. Skim milk for his pigs the farmer may buy back from the milk control station, but at a price fixed by the inspector. When he has a holiday he must tune in and listen to Hitler or go to a concentration camp. At any time the inspector may put in a new man as operator of his farm. When the operator comes he takes over the farmer's books, including his bank book, sleeps in his bed, eats his food, and orders the farmer and his wife about like serfs. And if the farmer inherited his farm, and is without debt, he is not permitted to borrow money on his place to buy another farm.

Munition Makers Prosper

One industry that prospers under a dictatorship is that of the munition makers. For the first time in twenty years the Krupp gun works paid a dividend. They now have 100,000 men on their pay roll, with an annual wage and salary bill of more than $60,000,000.

For fifty years the firm of Krupp supplied armaments and munitions to both sides of every war; hence it was peculiarly appropriate that Fritz Krupp committed suicide. In the world today there are probably a hundred hypocrites to every honest person; both the hypocrites and the honest will be interested to know that the Krupps most recently armed the Chinese and also supplied the Japanese with the guns that demolished Shanghai. In the first two years of the World War Krupp supplied France (through Switzerland) with 150,000 to 200,000 tons of steel every month. But, of course, most of his tonnage went to Germany.

Both the army chaplains and the officers' corps of the German army expressed regret at the official admittance of the neo-pagan German faith to the army barracks, for the reason that the so-called "Christian religion" makes the best and most courageous murderers. Since the neo-paganism came in there are many more suicides and desertions than before.

Protestant chaplains in a lengthy petition to Hitler drew his attention to the fact that in the World War 36 percent of the students of Protestant theology fell in battle, which was the largest percentage for any group or profession, and then told that gent something that ought to make a dent even in his head of solid ivory, and that is that in a new world war, such as Hitler plans, the comradeship experienced in the World War will also be lacking. It is impossible for Christians to feel fellowship with those who have been systematically trained to speak of Christ as a swine and a Jewish tramp, and to flaunt their power. The official war propaganda also will suffer, because a not unimportant section of the population will believe not a single word after what they have experienced in the church struggle.

In reckoning up the great victories of the "mighty" Hitler, space must be allowed for the efficient propaganda work in Palestine which is reckoned as one of the principal reasons for the disorders there in which 700 Jews and Arabs were killed during the past three years.

The new kind of warrior.

Judge Michael J. Henderson, in the Kansas City Star, said, not without considerable truth:

Germany is dangerous. The people are unhappy. They live in brutal poverty to support a huge army. They seldom smile. The characteristic German gesture now is a shrug and a move to tighten the belt. A powder-keg; soldiers everywhere; tension. If they had the dough, they'd be carving throats tomorrow.

(To be continued) Natural Phenomena

Fish Did Not Like the Chlorine

THE makers of chlorine gas and other poisons have to live, and one of the ways they live in peace times is to poison all the drinking water for humans, at so much per. The idea is to sell as much chlorine as possible. The result is that the water is not fit to drink and nothing can live in it; and the people that drink it are in hard luck for the same reason. Twenty-five prize rainbow trout were shipped from Wolf Lake, Mich., and placed in a 2,000-gallon tank of drinking water such as is used by the people of Cleveland, Ohio. Into this water was put all the chlorine that the makers could persuade some softhead of the municipal administration to buy. In 4 1/2 hours 12 of the 25 fish died rather than try to live and swim around in the poisoned water. The 13 others were saved by putting them in water that had not been poisoned in the manner in which the Cleveland people love to be poisoned.

Never See Their Parents

◆ There are five species of salmon taken by fishermen in the Puget Sound region: sockeye, spring, coho, pink, and chum. All are born in fresh water but spend their mature life in the sea. When spawning time comes the female salmon, guarded by the male, ascends to the place where she was born, and deposits her eggs to the number of several thousand in a little basin scraped out in the river bed with snout and fin. When the eggs are fertilized they are covered with gravel. With that the life cycle of the parent fish is ended. Children never see their parents; one generation is dead before the next arrives.

Had His Telephone Removed

◆ Dr. H. Spencer Jones, astronomer royal of the Greenwich Observatory, was so pestered with inquiries after his announcement that the moon is moving off its calculated position that he had his telephone removed.

Earth's Temperatures Slowly Equalizing

◆ Studies of Soviet scientists indicate that in seventeen years the mean annual temperature in the Arctic regions adjoining the Atlantic ocean has risen by two degrees and the tropics have become correspondingly cooler.

36,000 Milky Ways

◆ It helps a Christian to a still greater appreciation of Jehovah God, the great Creator, to know that 36,000 galaxies of stars have been photographed and counted. Each of these galaxies contains the approximate number of stars contained in the Milky Way; i.e., the number of stars in each galaxy runs into the billions. It is estimated that when the big new telescope is installed at Mount Palomar at least a half million of these galaxies will be seen, and photographed by their own light.

28,000 Miles of Oil

◆ It is calculated that the annual consumption of oil, at 10,000 gallons to the tank car, would make a continuous train 28,000 miles in length. This tremendous consumption can continue for only a few years longer. Meantime the earth is growing noticeably lighter, forecasting possible permanent changes in its orbit, in the length of the year, and in climatic conditions.

Biggest Star Galaxy of All

◆ The biggest star galaxy of all, the so-called "metagalaxy", lies opposite the South Pole. Estimated to be located 100,000,000 light-years away from the earth, it is itself 50,000,000 light-years long and 20,000,000 light-years wide, being 50,000 times the size of the Milky Way, in which our sun and its retinue of planets has its habitat.

Puzzled by Irregular Course of Moon

◆ London dispatches report the astronomer royal of Britain, Dr. H. Spencer Jones, as commenting on the present irregular course of the moon. He states also that the departure from the mathematically prescribed course continues to increase and is now greater than at any time in the past 250 years, and that no reason for the deflection is known.

An Oasis in the Desert

◆ An oasis in the desert is merely a big depression in the center of which is a comparatively small fertile area. If the depression is large enough, and the rainfall is sufficient, the lowest part of the oasis may be a small lake, or even a large one, like Lake Tchad, of the Sahara.

The Roman Catholic Sect

AS THE exposure of the "refuge of lies" must be accomplished in this day of revelation, the following facts are relevant to the uncovering now in progress.

The Orthodox Church of Greece clings grimly to the word "orthodox", and an examination of its history gives it prior claim as a religious organization. The circumstances that ushered in the pope of Rome may be said to have taken a concrete form when Mauritius the emperor was slain at the hands of Phocas, a centurion of his army. Now, what would induce Phocas to slay his master but the desire to take his place. And what could help him better than scheming, ambitious religionists.

Mauritius the emperor favored the claims or pretensions of John, bishop of Constantinople, and turned a deaf ear to the appeals and entreaties of Gregory of Rome. John of Constantinople was claiming true apostolic succession and the right to the title of universal patriarch. This stirred Gregory's ire, and he wrote the emperor Mauritius complaining bitterly of the arrogance of John and the presumptuousness of his claims.

It requires little knowledge of the religionists to realize that this was virtually an ultimatum to Mauritius. Shortly after his refusal to interfere with John, Mauritius was murdered by Phocas. Gregory condoned this act and consecrated Phocas as emperor; and thus we see these two religious organizations vying for supremacy. Both were endeavoring to "exterminate heretical impiety" by the rigor and discipline of secular power.

Phocas now sought to reward Gregory, his benefactor, but the sickle of death took Gregory to that place where there is 'no wisdom, knowledge or thought'. Phocas, however, must justify his consecration; so he rewarded Gregory's successor, Boniface the Third, with the title of "Universal Patriarch", A.D. 606 (see Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol. 8).

The schism was now becoming apparent and the orthodox church of Constantinople found a growing rival in the sect of Rome. In consequence of the refusal of the Roman sect to obey its parent, the bishop of Constantinople excommunicated Leo IX, bishop of Rome, and the schism of the Roman sect was completed, in A.D. 1054. The Eastern church, however, in spite of its early pretensions, has never recognized a universal head and is still known as the "Greek Orthodox" church.

Let me enlarge a little on the claims of this religious body. All the early councils belong to the Greek church, were held in Greek cities (Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon), and they were summoned by Grecian emperors and composed of Greek bishops. All the leading ecclesiastical terms in the Roman sect are Greek; viz., pope, patriarch, synod, ecclesiastic, heresy, catechism, church, diocese, trinity, catholic, canon, etc.

The Roman sect now began its machinations to obtain temporal power; and this is how it came. Pepin the father of Charlemagne was a counselor of Childeric, who was king of France in the eighth century. Childeric was weak; Pepin, ambitious. Pepin claimed a princely lineage, and now began to turn his eye to the advantages that might be gained by having a religious backer. Accordingly he visited the bishop of the sect now styling himself as "universal patriarch" and propounded this riddle: "Who should reign, one who is king in name, but weak and powerless, or a bold, courageous prince who is powerful and strong but is without a kingdom?"

The pope answered him according to his will (i.e., Pepin's), and in consequence the feeble old king was overthrown and Pepin seized the crown. Reward was now necessary to the sponsor of Pepin, and certain lands were conceded to the pope by the usurper king. These lands were augmented by Charlemagne, the son of Pepin, and the Roman sect became a world power until the time of Napoleon.—F. L. Brown, London.

Vatican Finance

◆ When Mussolini made his deal with the Vatican, the consideration was the equivalent of $80,000,000. The interest on that, at 3 per cent, is $2,400,000 a year, and that is $500,000 a year more than it costs to run the Vatican government. The pope, therefore, has money to burn, and is well able to lend a hand in Ethiopia, Spain, or anywhere else where the outlook is fair for a good return on the investment. $80,000,000 is a bagatelle to the Hierarchy. Twenty-five years ago they had so much money they did not know what to do with it, so the present Cardinal Pacelli said.

In Catholic Newfoundland

ON OUR arrival in Newfoundland the Daily Telegram published the following skit:

INVESTIGATING. It is stated that three foreigners who arrived here a few days ago are distributing literature likely to cause a disturbance of the peace. The matter has been reported to the authorities and it is understood the police are investigating.

Well, we received a visit from the police the same day, and gave them a statement of what we intended to do; also a little advice regarding the Kingdom. We also played a couple of records, with the result that one of the police is now reading the literature. One of the officials ordered our papers held up and examined, which gave me another opportunity to witness to some of the higher-ups. They have nearly all the literature at the police station and say they are still investigating as to whether they will deport us. They have tried to bluff us in every way, but we all know it is hard to bluff one of Jehovah's people. Some time ago they seized another witness' records on "Separating the Nations", and still have them.

In February, 1936, one of the stations here agreed to broadcast the lecture, and was stopped after fifteen minutes. The man doing the broadcasting has since left that station and has a station of his own, and is quite favorable, having all the books.

The population of Newfoundland is half Catholic, and the Hierarchy has the people in complete subjection. The people are far more destitute than anything we ever saw in the States. They have to depend on what they get out of their fish at the end of the season, which is not much.

Girls doing housework get from $3 to $10 per month, rarely over $5. Men get $20 to $30 per month for labor of all kinds. Living is from 20 percent to 30 percent higher than in the States. We are practically living on rice in order to get along, but are getting a great kick out of our experiences, rejoicing in being a little closer to the front lines.

Many of the people here are illiterate. Such a thing as sanitation is unknown. Few have toilets. Everyone uses a pail, and where the pails are emptied is uncertain. Little of the town of St. John's (23,000 population) is covered by a sewer. There are no squares or blocks, the streets running every which way, the same street changing from one name to another as it twists and turns this way and that. The streets are very narrow and rough. There are a couple of streets that are paved and have sidewalks.

We are on what is called the Avalon peninsula; there are about 600 miles of road on this peninsula, such as the roads are. The rest of the island can be worked only by boat, except along the one railroad line that extends across the island; there are no roads on the mainland of the island.

This is a great place for codfishing, and if you saw how they handled them you would not want any dried cod; but they are sure fine when eaten fresh, and one can get a fish weighing 2 1/2 or 3 pounds for 5c. This is the only thing in the line of food that is cheap. Rice is 7c per pound, coffee 80c, potatoes 12c to 14c per gallon.

We are lucky to leave three or four books and a very few booklets each week, and have to live on this, and replace our clothing as it wears out; but this is no doubt the Lord's way of preparing us for the final struggle. We know there are serious times ahead and we must be prepared. No doubt many of the brethren in Germany are lucky even to get bread and water, and with terrible physical suffering to top it all.—Ernest E. Ellis and party, Pioneers.

The Flag-Salutin' Nations

◆ Let anyone perform a Fascist salute in Moscow or a Communist salute in Berlin or Rome, or let any citizen of Russia, Germany or Italy fail to perform the proper salute at the proper time, and he is at once regarded as a suspect and criminal. Americans ought to keep as far as they can from that sort of fetish worship.—Sherbrooke (Quebec) Daily Record.

No Liberty Left in Quebec

◆ In an address at Sherbrooke, Quebec, R. L. Calder, K.C., of Montreal, and himself a Catholic, in condemning the padlock law, with its opportunities for secret accusation and secret information, and all its other bedevilments, made the statement:

There is not one vestige of British liberty left in Quebec. There are no free men except by tolerance, and freedom by tolerance is no freedom at all.

Fascism

The Totalitarian State

THE Totalitarian state, or Fascism (Catholic Action), is thus described by Ogden L. Mills:

A planned economy calls for an all-powerful government; for, if government is to regiment people as producers and ration them as consumers, it must have complete control over their lives. And this sort of government calls for something which to all intents and purposes is a permanent administration. Hitler was voted in by a majority of the German people in an apparently honest election. But just let the German people try to vote him out. Thus autocracy in government is the inevitable consequence of collective planning. Ballots may put the planners in. Only bullets can put them out.

Fascism (Catholic Action) in Practice

◆ The president did not mention Fascism (Catholic Action) by name in his address at Chicago, but described it perfectly when he said:

The present reign of terror and international lawlessness began a few years ago. Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians, including women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air. In times of so-called peace, ships are being attacked and sunk by submarines without cause or notice. Nations are fomenting and taking sides in civil warfare in nations that have never done them any harm. Nations claiming freedom for themselves deny it to others.

A Few Prominent Fascists in the U. S.

◆ A few prominent Fascists in the United States are Basil Harris, of the International Mercantile Marine, Kelley Graham, president of First National Bank of Jersey City, Ogden Hammond, Jersey City banker, Joseph P. Grace, shipping magnate, and Thomas F. Woodlock of the Wall Street Journal. All these are reported to have served on the pope’s Fascist committee to raise funds for Franco’s baby-killers.

Claim to Be Working with C.I.O.

◆ Communists in the United States are but a handful, and therefore not of great importance in American affairs of any kind, but the New York correspondent of the Moscow paper Pravda claims that the American Communist party is actively supporting the C.I.O.; at least so claims Mr. Green of the American Federation of Labor.

What Is Americanism?

◆ Are the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, chiefly distinguished for their recent bonus-grab, representative of Americanism? Does the faculty of Harvard, which signed away its academic freedom in the best Heidelberg manner, exemplify the “spirit of Americanism”? Is the labor of small children in mills and canneries, as recently endorsed by the New York State Legislature’s refusal to ratify the child labor amendment to the Constitution, Americanism? Perhaps the direct, or Tampa, method of getting rid of Reds would fall within the definition. Or the tactics of every Washington administration in turning natural resources over to private commercial interests. Can it be that Senator McNaboe’s ideal American is his distinguished fellow-Democrat, Jim (To-hell-with-civil-service) Farley?—William Vogt, in New York Times.

The Drive to Control the World

◆ The drive of the Roman Hierarchy, and of Italy, Germany and Japan, to suppress Communism, and fight it wherever it shows its head, is merely an outward expression of an inward determination on the part of the Devil to destroy all liberty in the world. The boast is openly made that the three nations have 2,000,000 tons of warships and 200,000,000 men at their disposal, and it is also truthfully said that their descriptions of Communism are sufficiently loose to include France, Britain and the United States as being under Communist control. Anybody who disagrees with Ratti, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, or any other of a score of the world’s dictators, is conveniently labeled by the word “Communist”.

Pegler on Hitler and Mussolini

◆ That lovable rascal Westbrook Pegler, commenting on the demands of the Fascist countries that America must revoke freedom of speech for fear of offending those bloodthirsty and conceited murderers, said, thoughtfully:

In both cases there is only one thing to do. The free countries must look them dead in the eye, stamp on their corns and tell them to go to hell. Otherwise they will run us ragged, apologizing, explaining, curtailing our rights until we shall be no better off than they.

Treasury Department — U. S. A.

If You Are Rich

◆ If you are rich, and live in the United States, and want to dodge paying taxes, so that they will all be paid by those least able to pay them, the way is now clear. The Government finds that rich men fix it up with the Bahamas Standard Life Insurance Co., Ltd., Nassau, Bahamas. It is all very simple. Thus Richard E. Dwight, obtained a $4,000,000 insurance policy on his life. There was no medical examination. The premium payment was $2,793,720, payable in advance. He paid it. Next day he borrowed $2,832,540 on his policy, for one day. The net result of his financial jugglery was that he had expended $8,361 in cash and had effected a reduction of $53,448 in his income tax. He is a lawyer, 58 years of age, and only one of many doing everything humanly possible to avoid paying the taxes which other people are supposed to pay cheerfully.

Channing Pollock's Bitter Words

◆ We believe that voters can be bought—are being bought—with our money, and that there are enough of these voters to do as they will with us. We have no faith in our leaders, nor in Congress, nor in most of our courts. We believe that any organized group can grab as much as it wishes out of the treasury. We would not take our nation's word or its bond, or its word on its bond, nor will any nation take any other nation's word. Repudiation of debts and contracts is commonplace. Everybody suspects and hates almost everybody else. Class is arrayed against class, section against section, and labor against capital. Everywhere is confusion, alarm and uncertainty. We grow slack because there seems no virtue in, or reward for, our best efforts. We spend profligately lest it be taken from us.—Channing Pollock, in The American Mercury.

Federal Employees as Tax Dodgers

◆ Referring to the fact that in Washington, D.C., there are 127,000 federal employees who pay no taxes, Representative Dirksen, of Illinois, who wonders how it comes that members of Congress and of the Cabinet, and others of the "high and mighty", get off scot free, let in considerable light on a dark and mysterious subject when he said: You know and I know that many of them have lived here twenty years and more. They use all of the services that are supplied by the municipality. When we suggest that they ought to pay something like a fair share of the cost of operating this municipality they throw up their hands in horror as if we were proposing to confiscate their property and their earnings.

Slum Clearance Becomes a Racket

◆ The Fellowship Forum (now The Nation's Forum) presents evidence that the government plan for slum clearance turned into a racket, partly because friends of the Administration had lands which they wanted to sell, and partly because the buildings, when erected by government methods, cost so much that the rents, in the end, were more than poor people can pay. The net result is that real slum clearance, providing better homes for the poor, where the little they can pay for rent will be sufficient to give comfort to the occupants, is a failure.

Resettlement Throwing Money Away

◆ United States Senator Byrd, referring to the fact that the average home in the United States is of the value of $4,400, calls attention to the scandalous feats of the Resettlement Administration which made 880 homes in the Greenbelt or Tugwelltown project in Maryland cost $16,182 per unit. Trying to make a hit, by spending as much public money as possible, the neat little sum of $456,603.50 went for landscaping this project, $120,819.81 for surveys, and $198,850.17 for land preparation. All together, $14,000,000 of public money has been spent on this project, and "the end is not yet". Equally interesting evidence of Farley statesmanship may be seen at the Hightstown, N. J., project and the Newport News development for Negro families.

The Check-mailing Machine

◆ The government uses a check-mailing machine that takes a package of several hundred checks, opens envelopes of the window type that do not need to be addressed, feeds the checks into them one at a time, moistens the flaps and seals the envelopes, and if a second check is accidentally fed into the envelope the additional thickness breaks the contact and stops the machine. The checks are written at the rate of 267 per minute.

Convention of Jehovah’s witnesses for the Northwest

SEATTLE’S million-dollar civic auditorium (see above) will house the next convention of Jehovah’s witnesses in the United States, this convention being intended especially for those living in the northwestern states and western Canada. Dates, June 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Judge Rutherford, who has just completed a radio and lecture tour to Australia, stopping also to address a large audience at Honolulu, Hawaii, will be in attendance at the Seattle convention. As principal speaker he will address the conventioners and the people of Seattle (as well as an extensive radio audience) on the subject “VIOLENCE”, on Sunday, June 5, at 3 p.m. It is anticipated that some 16,000 persons will attend.

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