Consolation, November 1, 1939
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Contents
The Pope's Responsibility for the New War (Part 2) 3
Netherlands in the Net 3
The Rape of Czechoslovakia 3
The War "Forced" on Germany 4
Is Britain in Her Last War? 7
"Popery Runs the Roost" 9
Gestapo Are Beasts, Not Men 13
Spanish Inquisition Progressing 14
In Dixie Land
Tampa Discouraged by Gambling 16
Subsidization of Bootleggers 16
Counsel by Judge Rutherford
Plowshares into Swords 17
France and Switzerland
Switzerland Border Closed 18
Nazi Penetration of Switzerland 19
Daladier Scuttling French Republic 19
New Government
Fascism in Fiji 20
Visit Germany 25
Greece, Turkey and Albania
What a Heroic Feat! 26
Foods--A Recipe for Sauerkraut 27
British Comment
Contrasts 28
The Parsons and the War 28
Bishops and Archbishops 30
Central Europe 31
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Appetizers
Picking Flaws in the Remnants
From the time that she was old enough to say her "Now I lay me down to sleep" every night at her mother's knee, Carolyn would end her evening devotion thus: "God, please send me a little baby brother to play with." Years passed and no baby brother. Then Carolyn changed her petition to include, if baby brothers were not available, a baby sister. After a few years the baby sister arrived and Carolyn became her devoted slave. It wasn't long, however, before "baby sister" became so active that she was quite a problem to Carolyn. One day Carolyn was telling her domestic troubles to her grandmother, complaining that she just couldn't manage her little sister. She was almost ready to forsake her job of baby-tending. Her grandmother asked: "Carolyn, didn't you ask God to send you a little sister?" "Yes, grandmother," was the reply, "but this wasn't the kind I wanted." -- Aunt Maud.
Sure Enough!
A London missionary society recently received a report from the interior of Africa telling of a visit of one of its members with an old Negro cannibal of the tribe of Niam-Niam. The missionary was telling the old cannibal about the World War, and how many lives it cost.
"But how could so much human meat be eaten?" asked the astonished old black.
"We whites," answered the missionary proudly, "do not eat humans."
"Well, then, what did you kill them for?" asked the cannibal in great amazement. -- Southern Farmer.
In Deference to the Pope
A hungry Irishman entered a restaurant on Friday and said to the waiter: "Have yez any whale?"
"No," said the waiter.
"Have yez any shark?"
"No."
"Have yez any swordfish?"
"No."
"Have yez any jellyfish?"
"No."
"All right," said the Irishman, "then bring me ham and eggs and beefsteak smothered wid onions. Anyway, I axed for fish."
CONSOLATION
"And in His name shall the nations hope."—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.
Volume XXI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, November 1, 1939 Number 525
The Pope's Responsibility for the New War
(In Three Parts—Part 2)
Netherlands in the Net.
THE Roman Catholic Hierarchy wants nothing less than complete control of the whole world, and no country and no situation is left unnoticed.
The Catholic press of Europe is well pleased with the new cabinet which will govern the Netherlands. The ministers for fiscal and colonial affairs are Catholics. The premier is rated to be an able politician and financier, which means, of course, that he is an opportunist. The Netherlands is now caught in the net. When Catholic pressure overthrew the previous cabinet Queen Wilhelmina asked the Catholics themselves to form a cabinet; but they thought best to have somebody else shoulder the responsibility for their acts, so the choice fell on a politician. They will get what they want and he can take the blame. Good scheme, eh?
The reason why the Colijn cabinet of the Netherlands was overturned was that the Minister of Justice, C. M. I. J. Gosseling, who is a Catholic, hindered legal proceedings in an accusation of moral offense involving two priests. It was a question of standing by his country and his oath of office or by the priests and the Vatican, dirt or no dirt, and he stood by the priests and dragged the whole government down with him.
After his government went down, Dr. Hendryk Colijn, the former premier of the Netherlands, in an interview with Anne O'Hare McCormick, made a statement, as reported in the New York Times, that is well worth reading by any thoughtful person. He said:
Everywhere the forms of government are changing, and the constant characteristic of that change is that government is taking over more power. In a great part of Europe governments have gone the whole way in one leap and taken over everything. I believe this is a period of great upheaval like the first half of the sixteenth century, ushering in a new time whose shape we cannot see. Forms don't matter much, but the substance we have fought for matters, and I who head a government tell you that we have to fight today against being overwhelmed by government or we are lost.
Does it not seem too bad that the Netherlands must lose the services of a man who seems to see quite clearly the Totalitarian Monstrosity lunging breakneck ahead to the enslavement of humanity? But the victory will be short.
The Rape of Czechoslovakia
In the German rape of Czechoslovakia the forests are being destroyed and the lumber carted to Germany; the windows are being taken out of public buildings and the frames and glass transported to Germany; all the gold and all raw materials and supplies have been carried to Germany; factories are being ruined because the machinery is being carried to Germany. The Czechs may open their own safety boxes only in the presence of the Gestapo. Czech specialists estimate that already thirty-five billion crowns ($1,036,000,000) of Czech property "has been robbed and transported to Germany".
A part of the cost of the Munich betrayal was that the Western democracies lost about 2,000,000 of the best-equipped, best-trained and most gallant soldiers in Europe, $1,500,000,000 worth of weapons, $500,000,000 worth of fortifications, and $5,000,000,000 worth of factories and armament works, all of which are now in German hands. Hundreds of medals won in the World War by Czechoslovakians are back in the hands of the British and French legations, returned by the embittered and disillusioned Czechs.
German hunger for everything good is thinly disguised.
The German troops that overran Czechoslovakia ate so much good food that they suffered from indigestion. Only their officers had overcoats; the men themselves were thinly clad in inferior clothing. Their trucks, cars and military cycles often stalled. They seized iron, brass and copper wherever they could get it. In Prague, brass water-closet chains were seized and replaced by ropes.
Take a moment to think of the 120,000 little folks, the little Spanish and Jewish and Polish and Czechoslovak children, boys and girls, that are homeless wanderers in the earth as a result of the seizures of Spain and Czechoslovakia and the similar deviltries of Hitler and Mussolini and Franco. Of this number, 34,000 are not even in their native lands. How the great and good God must hate all the men responsible for this state of affairs!
The War "Forced" on Germany
Field Marshal Goering can lie almost as badly as Hitler. He told the 14,000 German troops, on their return from Spain, "We do not shrink from war when it is forced on us." If anybody forced Germany into that war to destroy the Spanish Republic it was the pope. It seems that almost every nation that was on that Non-Intervention Committee felt forced to see what it could do to win the war for Franco. Germany would never have had the chance to rush to Franco's aid two days before he asked for it except for the treachery of a Roman Catholic Briton, who was "forced" by somebody to fly to the Canary islands and turn his plane over to The Butcher.
When German troops returned from Spain, whither they went "to crush Bolshevism", Hitler assured them that they had been used to fight the democracies which had threatened to turn all Europe into a shambles. And then, not mentioning the lying, murderous and hypocritical services he had rendered, along with the democracies, to insure the success of non-intervention in the war, he went over, bag and baggage, into the arms of Stalin—supposedly puzzling the pope, the cleverest crook of them all.
Nobody today pays much attention to the uncovering of old lies, but there was a time not so long ago, back in the days of hypocritical "non-intervention" in the war in Spain, and when Italy was one of the guarantors of such "non-intervention", that it was stoutly claimed there were no Italian troops in Spain: that there were merely a few thousand Italian volunteers. But since the war is over, and the troops are returned home, the official Italian military weekly, Forze Armate, admits that, during the war, 100,000 men were transported to Spain in four months. Also, 6,000 Italian airmen participated in the work of bombing women and children in Spanish cities. All this was denied at the time.
Italy was one of the nations that "helped protect" the Spanish coast from intervention, and now boasts that Italian air pilots carried out 5,318 bombing raids in its destruction of the Spanish Republic.
Canada Will Be in It
It is no news to Canadians that for some time the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has been openly conniving with the enemies of the people to take away their liberties.
In September, 1937, the home of Albert Ouellette, Montreal, was entered by the provincial police late one evening. There was no one at home but the children at the time, but the police read the search warrant to the children and proceeded to search the place. They seized Ouellette's books, papers, records, and even personal letters which Mrs. Ouellette had in a trunk. As the police were leaving, Mrs. Ouellette returned. They told her what they had been doing. Mr. Calder, K.C., who was asked to replevin the material taken, wrote to the commissioner of provincial police demanding the release of the material. He received a reply stating that they had no record whatsoever of the seizure. The Montreal city police denied having made the seizure, and there is no way of proving that it was made by the provincial police. The material taken has not been returned and nothing further can be done.
In April, 1939, the home of Mrs. Raymond, Maisonneuve, Montreal, was raided by the provincial police one evening when a French model Bible study was being conducted in the home. They had a warrant from the attorney general's department to search the house. They took the names and addresses of all present and seized all books, booklets, and one phonograph. The following were taken: 56 books; 342 booklets; 1 phonograph; 30 records; 1 book containing back-call addresses; 1 book containing addresses where model studies had been started.
In April, 1939, the home occupied by the pioneer witnesses at Montreal was raided and a large quantity of literature seized, as well as phonographs and records. Ten days later seven pioneers who were in the home at the time of the seizure, and whose names were taken, were arrested and charged with "seditious conspiracy".
April 26, 1939, the provincial police entered the home of a Mr. Williams in Verdun, Quebec, where the company servant for Montreal lived. They seized his books, phonograph and records, and all his correspondence to and from the Society; also his personal copies of The Watchtower and Consolation, and certain legal documents which were in his possession in connection with previous court cases in Montreal.
There will be no escape from the Totalitarian Monstrosity except in the Lord's organization. Indeed there is almost no escape now. Notice the following sample of impudence by the Canada Steamship Lines. Saguenay is a place where people go for vacations, but the racket follows them even there:
MONTREAL, July —: Special mass kits were placed aboard the S.S. Richelieu before she left Montreal the other day on her first six-day cruise up the Saguenay this year. The special equipment will facilitate the saying of mass aboard the steamer by more than 100 pilgrims to the Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupre. The pilgrims are to visit Ste. Anne under the supervision of Brother Aloysius of the Redemptorist Fathers of New York following their cruise up the Saguenay as far as Chicoutimi. Another pilgrimage-cruise also sponsored by the Redemptorist Fathers leaves New York September 1.
To try to stop the proclamation of the truth by Jehovah's witnesses, the so-called "Holy Name Society" called upon the Ontario government to establish a board of censors and enact a law obliging all publishers, without exception, and all signboard advertisers, to submit a copy of publication or signboard advertisement to the board of censors. They got away with it as respects the Canadian radio, and probably think they can take the next logical step and get away with this too.
"Let them come up"
Danzig Already Gone
Everybody knows that, following a tip from his five astrologers (who represent the demons), Hitler knew as early as the middle of July (July 11, to be exact—a dispatch from New York in the San Antonio Light, reporting an interview with Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia university) that the climax of his career would come in early September, and he had decided then to seize this little "Free" city, the freedom of which was guaranteed by the late lamented League of Nations. But if they do not know of the astrologers' advice, they know that he did seize Danzig on Friday, September 1, and the present war followed that act.
Freedom of worship in the so-called "Free City of Danzig" was guaranteed by the League of Nations, yet in that city, on May 26 last, 32 of Jehovah's witnesses were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years down to six months. Before the arrests, instructions were issued to all Nazi organizations, including the German Maidens and Hitler Youth, that any who would furnish evidence of activity on the part of any of Jehovah's witnesses would be provided with positions for life, or, if already holding such position, with cash sums up to 3,000 gulden ($584). The report, translated from the German Consolation, leaves the impression on the mind that 5 of the 37 arrested turned state's evidence and were acquitted, the state assuming the costs. All O.K. Let the Judases go right ahead until the time comes for them to hang themselves; and then let them do that, too.
The United States Will Be in It
It will be a big shock to the American people when they wake up and find themselves hemmed in on all sides by a Totalitarian Monstrosity taking its orders from Vatican City; but that is what is prophesied to occur, and there have been hundreds of evidences that such will be the case, in the things that have been done to the "watchmen", Jehovah's witnesses, and the "Warning" they have given the people. Hundreds of millions of books and booklets have forewarned the people of good will.
As a sample of what America is in for, notice this item regarding the state of New Jersey, which is completely under the domination of the Roman Catholic dictator Frank Hague. It is well known that the so-called "governor" of the state is merely Hague's appointee in all essentials, and merely does what he is told to do by the Jersey City boss. The so-called "Religious News Service" sent out the following dispatch, and it is as plain as the nose on one's face what the real objective of the machine was. The bill mentioned was another bill passed on purpose to "get" Jehovah's witnesses, the "watchmen", and for no other reason.
In Trenton, N. J., Gov. A. Harry Moore has signed a bill which will make any person, society or corporation which attempts to influence a school pupil in New Jersey against saluting the United States flag guilty of a misdemeanor. The maximum penalty for a misdemeanor in New Jersey is three years' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. The importance of the new law becomes apparent when it is realized that under its terms the entire New Jersey membership of the Jehovah witnesses sect, as well as similar believers, will be open to charges of committing misdemeanors.
It is possible that "Father" Coughlin may be the tool of the Hierarchy that will be used to bring the Totalitarian Monstrosity in the United States, as Hitler brought it in Germany. Or it may be Roosevelt or Farley. It is anybody's guess, but, because Coughlin uses the Hitler propaganda and Hitler methods, there is here published an article in regard to him which originally appeared in the Sozialistische Warte, Paris, with footnotes by the translator.
Coughlin is known everywhere as a cheap propagandist, Fascist and liar, who also preaches race-hatred. The question is not where he stands, but how many people are supporting him, and what is his position within the Catholic church.
About the number of his followers there are only guesses; it is not even known whether they have increased in number or decreased. Many of his listeners are merely sensation hunters; and since his talks are a mixture of anti-Semitism and pseudo-social reform plans, and since he frequently criticizes social injustice and even claims to be friendly toward labor organizations, he can easily confuse heads, especially by touching the sore spots of his listeners. The Christian, patriotic, humanitarian show which he is putting up, and his pathetic, quivering voice with which he makes commonplace expressions sound important, grip the minds of such people who have not found their way. His talks are a mixture of sentimentality and vagueness. He is similar to Hitler before his ascension to power, when the latter promised everybody everything, if only they would follow him in his destruction of the Jews and the "Marxists". [Coughlin] denies the charge that he is sympathizing with Hitler. But not only does he appropriate whole parts of Goebbel's speeches as his own, but his followers have fellowship with the Nazis in meetings and in other propaganda activities. His publications are sold at "Bund" gatherings.
Since Americans do not like uniformed discipline, and also the streets there are not made for marching columns of troops, it is not much out of the way to assume that Coughlin is holding himself forth as a Fuehrer* after the American fashion who is gathering together the masses for Fascism in the event the political and economic situation becomes opportune. He does not want to gather the masses with military shows; rather the 'line-up' is adapted to American modes. Americans love the radio, and Coughlin may well dream of how he will call upon the 'nation' through the microphone to send telegrams and letters to their congressmen demanding a Fascist régime.
While we hold Coughlin as one of the chief threats in that country, we have to examine whether he is acting as a private person or has the approval, yea, even the support, of the Catholic church. That he is a priest is the most important part of his prestige.
Representatives of the church, bishops and cardinals, have expressed themselves against him and have asserted that he speaks as a private person and not as spokesman of the church. This assertion would be satisfactory were it not for the fact that the Catholic church is a HIERARCHAL institution: a priest as well as a layman has to obey, or else be
* His followers are now carrying banners in the streets of New York, which read, "Father Coughlin, the Savior of America."
excommunicated.* The church has kept Coughlin in her pale till now. As long as the Hierarchy does that there is little hope that his enemies will be able to defeat him. Therefore the Catholic church, by permitting Coughlin to continue to function as priest, is in fact abetting Coughlin in the establishment of Fascism in that country.—F. Williams, in Sozialistische Warte, Paris, France.
Is Britain in Her Last War?
Britain has had a stormy voyage among the nations of the earth, with hardly a year of real peace anywhere. But down at its latter end it tried too hard to make peace. Ferdinand Kuhn, Jr., New York Times correspondent, tells why it was that Chamberlain pursued such a weak-kneed policy toward Hitler, when rigid firmness for the right would have left Czechoslovakia intact. Mr. Kuhn observed:
The "class bias" of Mr. Chamberlain's policy toward Germany and Italy—and by implication toward Spain and Czechoslovakia and Russia—springs from the fear of the propertied groups in this country that a war would shake them from their present comfortable positions of leisure and power.
They are not pro-Fascist, although they have fewer nightmares over Fascism than over Communism; they simply want things as they are.
One must not imagine that this attitude is peculiar to the Clivedens of England. The "county families", who live on their dividends, dread anything which would cut those incomes off and perhaps force them to sell their hunting-and-shooting acres.
The business men dread a war which would limit their profits or raise taxation still higher.
And the middle-class suburbanites, in their little stucco cottages, dread war for precisely the same reasons. They lost pitifully in the last war, and they dread having their menfolk killed or their homes destroyed by bombs in the next; but they also dread being pushed down into a lower social and economic layer.
* The recently published utterances of some members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy apparently disapproving Coughlin's anti-Semitism seem to be a subtle Jesuitic scheme to conceal the fact that Coughlin, "the Savior of America," is the spokesman of the Hierarchy, who as inveterate anti-Semites during all their bloody history have made the Jews the scapegoat for all the crimes of the Hierarchy and their allies. Furthermore, by their denials that Coughlin is their mouthpiece, the Hierarchy schemes to increase his popularity amongst his dupes by making him appear as the "fearless priest" who in the interest of "Americanism" does not hesitate to speak his mind regardless even of the opposition of his powerful superiors.—The translator.
It was this same "class bias" that caused the British Government to submit quietly to the loss of 14 vessels engaged in the trade to Government Spain, with the loss of 33 seamen. There is no question that Britain knew the ships were sunk by Italian bombs. None of these vessels carried arms, and each had aboard one of the so-called "Non-Intervention" officers to see that the cargo was above suspicion. Very little seems to have been said or done about these sinkings and murders, and sympathy with the Franco government has probably had much to do with the silence. Franco is in Chamberlain's class.
It was this same "class bias" that held Russia off so long, trying to figure out how Russia could be used, but without any benefit to that country itself, until Russia surprised the world by jumping into Hitler's outstretched arms.
Within Sight of Totalitarian Unity
Some have seen that Britain must eventually drift into a form of Fascism. J. A. Williams, Lithuania, writing on this subject said:
For several years past, in his writings and lectures, Judge Rutherford has given Biblical evidence to prove that Great Britain and the United States of America will ultimately be controlled by governments similar in style to the Totalitarian monstrosities now rampant in Europe.
Some of those who formerly associated themselves with the witnesses of Jehovah have ridiculed the idea. Others, fed on the slop dished out by a prostituted press, believe that the governments of Great Britain and America are seriously concerned in guarding the freedom of the people, and that therefore Fascism, Nazism or Bolshevism would be impossible in those lands.
Certain students of the present political situation in Britain are beginning to see, however, that in order to fight Fascism that country may herself adopt a similar form of government. H. N. Brailsford, writing in Reynolds News on the 1st of January, goes into this matter in some detail and states that "under spirited leaders of the old aristocratic class there will be a national rally" which will sweep the Labor Party into its current, if possible, and that this would bring England within sight of totalitarian unity.
Times have changed for Britain, as they have for all the rest of the world, and there are probably a good many Britons that lie awake nights now wishing, in their hearts, that Britain had never bombed the natives of Waziristan, even though it did seem that that was the only way in which they could be kept in subjection. No nation is safe from air raids today.
Almost up to the time war was declared the British people could not believe they would be so soon again subjected to its horrors. After the last previous scare thousands of gas masks, made at public expense, were found in the dustbins, and one housewife some time back even offered to trade two of them for a fern.
To try to justify its absolutely unjustified war on Poland the German government put on an immense amount of noisy propaganda about Britain's policy of encircling Germany. Most of the arguments were probably dug out of the newspaper files for 1914 and merely rehashed for the new generation.
Foreseeing the probability of conflict the British government passed a conscription act April 25; and since then, until war was declared, the British people have been in an anxious state because Britain, war or no war, air raids or no air raids, is a maritime nation and must import much of its food from overseas. Other essentials have to be imported, too. For instance, there is the timber supply.
Britain is the largest timber importer in the world, last year importing £70,000,000 worth of cut timber. Home grown supplies constitute only 5 percent of national timber consumption. Most of the lumber used has to be shipped long distance by sea, a difficult matter in time of war.
Conscription Sequences
◆ Along with conscription Britain has enacted a law placing a new tax on armament manufacturers to prevent, at least ostensibly, their piling up fabulous profits. Other laws make it incumbent upon the employers of conscripted youths to re-employ them at the end of their six months of military training. Payment of rent, mortgages or insurance premiums cannot be enforced during a man's period of service. The extent of armament profits has been excessive during the past year or more, those of certain large manufacturers being as much as from twenty to nearly fifty percent on the capital.
The speech of Lord Halifax in the House of Lords in early June was one of far-reaching consequence. It stated definitely that Britain will fight force with force, but if dictator nations are willing to submit their claims to negotiation, Great Britain is ready to discuss even such questions as "living room" and colonies. The speech definitely committed Britain to go to war at once in the event of further aggression, and temporarily interrupted the drift toward war which seemed to go forward with fatal certainty.
Millions for Defense . . .
Sir John Simon, April 25, announced in the House of Commons the greatest appropriations for armaments ever made by the British government in time of peace. £630,000,000, nearly a half of the budget, was set aside for the purpose of defending Britain against the threat of German aggression.
The May Day manifesto of the British National Council of Labor dealt with the conscription policy of the "National" government. They objected that conscription is an unnecessary violation of solemn pledges made by the government. They pointed out that "the voluntary response for service has been far in excess of the government's provision of the necessary equipment and supplies". This business of violating "solemn pledges" seems to be getting under their skin. But the government probably knows what it is doing. They are at least getting the people used to the idea of submitting to Fascist measures and tactics. The Welsh Nationalist party called peacetime conscription "the yoke of totalitarianism".
Not for Strike Breaking
The British Conscription Bill contains provisions that those who have been conscripted under its requirements may not be used for strike-breaking, nor may they, as in France, be required to return to their jobs, under military discipline. The bill further provides heavy penalties for employers who refuse to keep jobs for men conscripted. They may be fined $250 and made to pay men four weeks' wages if they do not hold jobs open for them during their six-month training period.
Of the 220,018 Britons who registered under the first peacetime conscription in Britain's history, 3,775 registered as conscientious objectors. These are subject to service in non-fighting units or nonmilitary work.
The British Military Training Bill provides for tribunals to consider claims to exemption from conscription on the grounds of conscientious objection. During the World War these tribunals became the worst enemies of conscientious objectors, hunting them down by fair means or foul.
UNDER THE TOTALITARIAN FLAG
A number of British Catholics are beginning to wonder whether their religious principles can be reconciled with participation in certain features of modern warfare. The London Universe (Roman Catholic), commenting on this subject, says, "This attitude of conscientious objection towards military service is, we believe, an entirely new phenomenon among the Catholic body. . . . Any attempt to identify the Catholic Church with the conscientious objector's attitude is, we believe, utterly alien to the teaching of the Church."
Evacuation of London
Plans for the evacuation of London in case of an air attack make it possible to get 3,000,000 State-organized refugees, including children and their teachers, out of the city within forty-eight hours. The refugees will be supplied with knapsacks and "iron rations" and blankets and leave London by trains scheduled to leave at the rate of a hundred trains an hour.
All set for an air raid blackout in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, it was discovered that the special oil lamps to be used for the occasion were marked "Made in Germany". The Air Raid Precautions council called off the rehearsal, pending investigations.
Freedom of Speech
While the duke of Windsor's speech from France was not permitted to reach the British people via the British radio, it reached them nevertheless. The duke had the satisfaction of speaking as an individual and not merely as a mouthpiece for the political party which may happen to dominate British national policy for the moment. Among other things, he said, as reported in the Manchester Guardian, "The statesmen who set themselves to restore international security and confidence must act as good citizens of the world, and not only as good Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Americans, or Britons." The war opened the way for the duke and his duchess to return to Britain.
In England freedom of the press is greatly circumscribed by a drastic libel law and the Official Secrets Act. The latter, supposedly directed against spying, has been made to cover matters not at all connected with national safety. The Ministry of Information also considerably hampers the publication of uncensored news. The exigencies of the times, even before the war, were deemed to justify restrictive measures in many directions.
Meanwhile, a group of prominent Britishers, meeting at the home of Lady Astor, and known as the Cliveden set, continued to be suspected of pro-Fascist sympathies and activities, and some rather strong inferences were drawn from their supposed connection with Hitler and other leading Nazis. Lady Astor, in an article in America's Saturday Evening Post, sought, not altogether successfully, to refute these statements.
"Popery Runs the Roost"
The Vanguard (Glasgow), commenting on the fact that Roman Catholics are selected for many of the foreign embassies, stated, "Popery practically rules the roost in the Foreign Office. The Unionist Government are entirely responsible. To a large extent the Unionists are controlled by Rome's secret agents." It is surprising that in a country where Catholics constitute a mere five percent of the population they should manage to occupy so many of the most responsible positions. England should know better.
The extent to which Britain is kowtowing to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is evidenced by the following statement by Chamberlain, received by the House of Commons with cheers:
No account of this visit of ours to Rome would be complete without some reference to our reception by his Holiness the Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State at the Vatican on 13th January. It was a privilege which neither of us will easily forget, to hear from the lips of his Holiness the expressions of admiration and affection which he entertained for their Majesties the King and Queen and for the peoples of the British Empire. Nor could we doubt the sincerity and depth of his Holiness's preoccupations with many of the problems which are troubling in these days the peace of Europe and the conscience of mankind. We were deeply moved by the courage and humanity which animated his hearing and outlook.
It should be added that the pope subsequently further expressed his humanity by "blessing" Franco's murder bands.
The demands of Chamberlain upon the House of Commons, particularly in connection with the passing of the Conscription Bill and associated legislation, though complied with, met with some opposition. James Maxton of the Independent Labor Party predicted that the time would come when the Commons would assemble only on the prime minister's birthday to say "Heil Chamberlain!"
The primate of England, archbishop of Canterbury, is doing his bit to deliver England over to the Roman pope, expressing his willingness and that of the Anglican Church to follow the lead of the said pope in a "great Christian crusade against the aggression of dictators". He also said the Protestant church, for whom he had no right to speak, would give their support. The archbishop is in his dotage, but he should have known better than to express his submission to the chief of dictators in such a ridiculous appeal. The Roman pope knows only one peace, and that is the peace of servile submission to his own person.
The bishop of Birmingham, Dr. E. W. Barnes, didn't think much of the resolution linking the Roman pope and the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury in a call for "prayers for peace". He didn't think any man should be called "His Holiness", and reminded the Convocation of Canterbury that neither Pius XI nor his successor had been very conspicuous peacemakers when Italy took Abyssinia, attacked Spain in co-operation with Franco, and overwhelmed Albania on "Good Friday".
The expectation by the archbishop of Canterbury, that Protestants generally would follow the pope in a peace move, was disappointed. He said, at a convocation at Westminster Abbey, May 23, "From my own recent experience, I believe that among many Protestants in Europe there would be a great reluctance to follow a lead taken by the pope."
When Czechoslovakia, the only strong democratic obstacle to the realization of Hitler's ambitions, was destroyed at Munich, the archbishop of Canterbury said, "This is the hand of God!" He failed to explain that it was the "god of this world", Satan, who had a hand in that affair.
The Glasgow Vanguard refers to the archbishop of Canterbury as one of the most dangerous Romanizers in the Church of England, and an enthroned Judas. It used these unflattering titles as a result of a visit made by the said archbishop to Athens, where he attended "high mass" in the Greek cathedral.
The Scots are suspicious of Chamberlain. They were not particularly anxious to have him speak at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh, though their objections were set aside.
There were also demonstrations against Ambassador Kennedy at Edinburgh on the occasion of his being presented with "the freedom of the Scotch capital in an impressive ceremony". Impressive ceremonies for Catholics do not appeal to Scots.
Catholic Headed Publicity Department
Sir Eric Drummond, earl of Perth, a Roman Catholic, consistently in favor of Fascist countries, was the first placed in charge of the new British foreign publicity department. He was especially to counteract the propaganda of Goebbels in Germany. He was lately ambassador to Rome.
Meanwhile other tools of the Hierarchy at Rome are busy in a different manner.
Postal employees were injured and thousands of pieces of mail destroyed by bombs as a result of the religious activities of the Irish Republican Army adherents who are thus peacefully trying to persuade Britain to turn Protestant Ireland over to the tender mercies of the anarchistic part of the island, whether they like it or not. These terrorists are scattered all over Britain and Scotland, and some of them have stolen explosives to carry on their religious enterprise.
Setting off bombs in the midst of unsuspecting crowds of people, wholly innocent, is the idea some cowards have as being a good way to gain their ends, whatever they may be. Between thirty and forty persons were injured in such wanton bombings in London on June 25. The Irish Republican Army is suspected of the contemptible work. These bombings were the worst up to that date.
British justice is prompt, and therefore much unlike the American variety. The men who started a campaign of terrorism by causing explosions in the mails were apprehended, tried in jig time, and given twenty years in prison in less time almost than it takes to tell it. A woman was given seven years.
Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster or the Six County area, is in a tough spot. It is not a part of the Irish Free State, and does not want to be. But it is dealing with a neighneighbor that is cunning and unscrupulous, always willing to use religion to stir up the bitterest animosities. Protestant Ulster will not yield readily, although one would think the people of that section would almost be justified in moving out en masse and leaving the subjects of the Italian pope to their own resources. That is the best treatment of the bellicose Romanists. Give them enough rope to hang themselves, but watch that they do not use free institutions to circumscribe the liberties of others.
De Valera, tool of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy (he recently visited the pope), insists there must be no conscription in Northern Ireland, but the representatives of Northern Ireland itself want to be included in the conscription provisions, having no desire to be part of the Hierarchy-controlled Irish Free State. De Valera says there will be trouble if conscription is applied to Northern Ireland.
The separation of Ireland from England has resulted in making a number of Catholics rich, but the majority are as badly off as ever, or worse. E. J. Coyne, Jesuit priest, mentioned in a lecture that certain Dublinites had gained a very great deal from recent changes, the new rich being mainly Catholic.
Ireland is suffering from a strange social blight. More than half of the men in the 26 counties of National Ireland are unmarried, and in the country the proportion is four-fifths! What is more, for every three persons that die, one emigrates. The rate at which young women are leaving the country areas for the towns will make them desolate inside of twenty years, meaning the country areas, not the women—who seem to be desolate already. Kinda sad—No? Many Irishmen are emigrating to England. One wonders why?
The popularity of priests is waning in the world, and candidates for the racket are decreasing. So the Hierarchy is beginning to look to Ireland, one of the last strongholds of ignorance, to furnish priests for such countries as France and Spain, where the religious racket has gone to the bowwows. It strikes one as just a little ludicrous to think of Irish priests in Spain.
A New Empire
The London Catholic Herald carries an item stating that a solution of the Irish partition problem would be that the "democracies"—Great Britain, France, the U.S.A., and Canada, South Africa, Australia, Eire, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland—all having approximately the same standard of living, should agree to give up a little of their absolute independence and form a customs-free trading area, to have one currency, and to amalgamate their Defense Forces under one command". It is suggested that the capital of the proposed Union be in Ireland! Some solution!
Diplomatic moves on the part of the Vatican aimed at bringing the Axis and the two great democracies of Europe, Britain and France, together in a four-power negotiation. Strange as it may seem (to some), this same proposal has been made by Mussolini and Hitler on a number of occasions. It was the Munich line-up, excluding Russia as before.
At the time the war began Great Britain was a sort of compromise between authoritarian and democratic setups. A co-operative commonwealth did not seem to be on the program, if the investments of the Co-operative Wholesale Society were an indication. Three-fourths of its funds were invested in capitalist securities rather than in co-operative enterprises.
Diplomats in Britain
Just before the war the number of members in the German diplomatic staff in Britain had more than doubled since 1933, and German newspaper correspondents had increased to fourfold the number in Britain in that year.
The activities of these Germans in Britain were not above suspicion. The German consul at Liverpool was reported to have connived with an armament worker in the obtaining for his government vital secrets of a royal ordnance plant, the great shell factory at Euxton, Lancashire. A crowd of indignant citizens of Liverpool invited the consul (Walter Reinhardt) to leave the country, and were emphatic about it.
In view of the strained relations with Germany at the time, the British Government deliberated long before deciding that the king should send birthday greetings to Hitler. As in America such greetings are sent on the occasion of national rather than personal anniversaries, President Roosevelt did not send Hitler birthday greetings.
Britain returned her ambassador to Berlin four days before the date set by Hitler for his reply to President Roosevelt’s peace appeal, hoping thereby to favorably influence the Fuehrer's frame of mind. But it did not stop Hitler.
The anti-Semitism aroused by this covert tool of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has created refugee problems of unusual magnitude. Shortly before the war began Britain was seeking to meet this problem by opening up settlements in various parts of the empire, Northern Rhodesia, British Nyasaland, Dominica and British Honduras being considered as possible locations. Provisions for numerous Jewish, Ethiopian and Spanish refugees were made in England itself.
Refugees Replace British Workers
It is inevitable that some of the refugees finding their way into Britain and other countries would take the jobs of others. It is found in Britain that refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia are taking the jobs of Britons at much lower wages, sometimes accepting as little as half the usual wage.
The tradition that the "upper classes" should not ride subways or buses is weakening in London. Consequently cab drivers find their income considerably reduced. Many of them make less than £3 weekly, or about $13.
The great sport of gambling attracts millions in both men and money in Great Britain. A survey shows that in the course of a year more than ten million persons took a fling and over $250,000,000 was paid out in so doing. Over a hundred million pennies a month are poured into what is called a "penny points pool". Outdoor sports figure prominently as betting institutions. Football authorities oppose gambling in connection with that game, without success.
The total number of houses built in England and Wales since the first World War has now passed the 4,000,000 mark. Approximately half of the entire population has been rehoused. Government subsidies made possible the building of 1,500,000 houses. It was enabled to do this partly by the novel expedient of not paying its debts to a certain creditor. Since 1919 something like $3,500,000,000 has been spent in putting up low-rent houses. The worst of the slums have been eliminated, and the building program has helped to pull Britain out of the depression.
Scotland, and particularly Glasgow, has not had a building boom, like England and Wales. Its slums are still bad—very bad. Often large families are crowded into a single room, the children sleeping on the floor. Some 70,000 families are in need of better housing.
Buckingham Palace Well Run
Buckingham palace has a staff of 400 servants. It is cleaned thrice annually, all furnishings and ornaments being replaced according to photographic records and plans.
The visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth to America, and more particularly their visit with members of the Roosevelt dynasty (whose heraldic emblem was published in American papers), made quite an impression on the English, who are not as well informed about America as Americans are about England. English newspapers carried amusing articles about the United States. The free and easy manner in which Americans hobnobbed with the royal pair was not featured. Films of the event were cut drastically.
The Week, a London magazine, reports Kennedy, American ambassador to Britain, as saying, "It will be my friends that are in the White House in 1940," adding that the British Government need not worry about what Roosevelt may say, in view of this early and, according to him, certain change. Kennedy's friendly relations with representatives of Franco are common knowledge in Britain. For double-crossing, it is generally safe to select a subject of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. But why does Roosevelt want Kennedy in Britain?
Richard H. Waldo, editor of the McClure Newspaper Syndicate, at a meeting of the State Hotel Association at Atlantic City, stated that England is flooding America with propaganda designed, as in 1914-1917, to draw Americans into war.
If war should break out between Great Britain and Japan, it would involve Canada. Britishers think the United States would have difficulty in keeping out of the fray. Lord Beaverbrook told the two and a half million subscribers for his Daily Express that in the event of such a war the United States would join Great Britain.
◆ Gasmasks when worn by nuns in their black robes do not look altogether out of place. A.U.F.S. picture shows four of them thus arrayed, and the superscription sayeth, "Pledged to peace, these nuns, nevertheless, take a course at All Souls' School in Hillington, England, to qualify as air raid wardens." That nevertheless feature is interesting. The pope is for peace, but nevertheless, and so on. The Hierarchy believes in democracy—nevertheless, and so on. Get the idea?
The Spirit of the Devil
The spirit of the Devil breathes in everything that emanates from the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and manifests itself in every country where it has full or nearly full power, and in any manner that the mind of man or demon can suggest. Consider a few of the unspeakably mean, petty rules or laws in effect in Germany.
The Nazis banned a book written by the deaf, dumb and blind Helen Keller because she stated truthfully that Nazi Germany—has reverted to the darkest of the Dark Ages, denying personal freedom to the young, suppressing all opinions different from those it prescribes, prohibiting all criticism of drama, films, books, painting and sculpture except those views which are handled from the Nazi point of view.
The fall of 1939 witnessed the closing of three of Germany's Protestant theological schools, including those of the universities of Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Rostock. The closing order was issued by the Reich minister of education, with no explanation offered as to why it was done. Meantime, Roman Catholic theological institutions have increased in number and in attendance, as recently announced in these columns.
Table prayers have been prohibited by the government in an Evangelical institution near Potsdam and in institutions in East Prussia. Do you remember the time when the Medo-Persian government made the pronunciamento that nobody in the entire realm might make any appeal to any god or man for thirty days except to the king? It appears that such a situation is gradually ripening, and bitter will be its fruit for all not fully on the Lord's side.
The blight of the "Abomination That Maketh Desolate" rests on Germany so completely that since the Nazis' rise to power more than 1,500 persons have been ousted from journalism and the number of daily newspapers has been reduced from 4,703 to approximately 2,000. Only Nazi ideas are permitted expression or survival.
The former premier of Austria, Kurt von Schuschnigg, has been so ill-treated by Hitler's minions that he is now hopelessly insane, cannot sleep, has to be fed artificially, and cannot be seen by visitors.
Baron Louis Rothschild, Vienna banker, imprisoned one year on the top floor of a former Viennese hotel (along with von Schuschnigg) emerged from his prison with his former dark-brown hair turned white. That tells its own story.
Gestapo Are Beasts, Not Men
The Nazi Gestapo, most of them directly or indirectly Roman Catholic trained, show by their conduct that they are beasts, not men; for real men would not do the things they do. Only some accursed religionists would be mean enough.
A prisoner escaped from Buchenwald states that while he was there no place for washing was provided for eight days, but only on the ninth day were eight washbowls provided for 500 men.
A former prisoner at Sachsenhausen told of the Inquisition at that place of horrors. He said, as published in the London News Chronicle and Philadelphia Record:
There were three different kinds of punishment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where I was taken November 10, 1938. These punishments were aside from blows with the butt of a rifle, blows in the face, and kicks which were inflicted without rhyme or reason. Official punishment was recorded in the "Punishment Book." The three punishments were:
(1) "Door standing." The prisoner had to stand outside the door for four hours with his arms raised above his head. The weather made no difference.
(2) "Hanging" or "Crucifixion." The prisoner's hands are bound behind him and he is hung from a high beam for one to two hours. This torture generally ends with sprained or dislocated joints. There are twelve "hanging beams" in the camp, which are all in use daily. If the torture lasts long, thirst is added to the victim's suffering. It is forbidden to give a drop of water, but the "Earnest Bible Students," whenever they could, brought water to those suffering, at the risk of terrible punishment for themselves.
(3) "Twenty-five strokes with a steel-cord whip." In this whipping the whip tears through the flesh. In some cases the victims die during or after the whipping.
The camp commandant or his representative is always present during the carrying out of such punishments, which have been officially approved by the highest chief of the "Death's Head Black Guards", Commander Eicke.
The Sachsenhausen Black Guards belong to this formation. There was not one single day on which we did not witness the "hanging" of some of our comrades and hear the terrible cries of those being whipped.
Prisoners with high fever and unable to work were sent to the hospital barracks, where they lay until they died or got better.
(The doctor of the Black Guards, Dr. Ehrsam, did not treat patients, and a few first-aid men—in civilian life chemists or dispensers—looked after those in the hospital ward.) The death rate was, of course, high—10-12 percent. Of roughly 12,000 prisoners delivered into Sachsenhausen camp after November 10, 1300 were dead three months later—that is, on February 10, 1939.
In December, 1938, when the temperature dropped below zero—the hands, feet and ears of scores of prisoners were frozen. They did not receive medical treatment. Some of them underwent amputations after being discharged.
Czechs in Prison Camps
Senator Vajtek Benes, brother of Dr. Benes, former president of the Czechoslovakian Republic, claims that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 Czechoslovaks in German prisons and concentration camps. In some districts more than half of the male population have been locked up. The invaders have spared nothing, not even the women, and restrictions of every sort are becoming daily more ruthless. No information from the outside world can come into Czechoslovakia except what comes through German official sources. The complete subjugation of the Czechoslovak people was entrusted to 23,000 German officials and 700 specially chosen Gestapo, known for their brutality. Everything in Czechoslovakia that is worth taking is being carried off into Germany. Thus is “peace in our time” brought to the British and French people.
The oppression of Jews in Czechoslovakia proceeds in typical Nazi fashion. They may not enter the best public houses. In such houses where they are admitted they must enter only the Jewish section of the house. Houses owned by Jews must be so marked. In certain cities they must not pass through the parks. They are excluded from swimming pools altogether. Prague Jews have been compelled to register their valuables, preparatory to their theft by the state.
Petty persecutions of Jews in Italy continue. Children of a non-Jewish mother, but with a Jewish father, can take the mother’s name. Jews must be given Jewish names. There are tight regulations regarding the number of Jews that may continue in the professions and the special taxes they are to pay.
Spanish Inquisition Progressing
The Spanish Inquisition is progressing nicely, along old familiar lines. Five months after the “civil war” ended, in Madrid alone, 62 were condemned to death in three days’ time, 4 of them women. No one who sympathized with the Spanish Republic is safe; friends and relatives are betraying one another to death. It is estimated that ten percent of Madrid’s population has been killed through these retaliations, carried out by one side or the other in the “civil war”, and this does not include those who died fighting or from hunger. Men known for their moderation and trusting to their innocence were given sentences of up to thirty years. Franco is a beast and a devil in human form, and the bankers that loan money to his “government” are betrayers of their fellow men in every sense of the word.
Ramon Serrano Suner, Spanish minister of the Interior, had a private interview with the pope on a Friday. Over Sunday he had time to think things over, and on Monday he made a statement that the Spain under Franco would break the “rings that a hostile Judaism is trying to place across their path”. While the pope is grabbing again his fabulous treasures of wealth in Spain, he is eager to turn the attention of the people of the world to the Jews. It is like a burglar hollering “Stop, thief” and getting the people all excited so that they will not notice the real culprit.
Following the Usual Nazi Lines
Following the usual lines of a state gone Fascist, anti-Semitism has broken out in the province of Quebec. The Canadian Jewish Review has a two-column article on the subject entitled “Anti-Semitic Drive in Laurentians Receives Support of Local Roman Catholic Clergy; Campaign of ‘Education’ Opens in Ste. Agathe on Nationalistic Note”. Notices were posted all over the town of Ste. Agathe, in both French and English, warning the Jews to scram while the scramming was good. Many Jewish people of Montreal have cottages in Ste. Agathe where they spend the summer. A young Jewish woman, a pianist of some note, walking quietly on the street was lashed with a horsewhip by a young French-Canadian driving a milk wagon. The “Reverend Father” J. B. Charland is credited with being the moving force in the antiSemitic drive. It is part of the general scheme of taking everything away from the Jews and giving it to the Catholics, wherever that can be done. Reporters trying to take photographs of anti-Jewish signs on houses and churches at St. Faustin, fifteen miles away from “Reverend” Charland’s prison-house, had to flee for their lives. Of course, nothing will be done with the son of the Devil that is at the bottom of all the trouble.
The Montreal Daily Star tells of a Jewish rabbi and a handful of his congregation who met at 5755 Waverly street, in St. Michael’s ward, in that city, to pray, and that in doing so, without getting a permit from the Executive Committee, they violated City By-Law 1323, section 4. That is something new. Now another question, Do Montreal BY-LAWS permit people to believe as they wish? Probably not.
The conquering hypocrites and butchers of Spain. Butchers, shown with swords, and hypocrites, are giving the salute to Fascism.
Jehovah’s witnesses Misused
Fifty of Jehovah’s witnesses are involved in court cases in the province of Quebec for preaching the gospel, mislabeled “sedition” in twenty-two of the cases. Two French witnesses were given six months in prison by a solid French Roman Catholic jury.
In a case in northern Quebec there was a disagreement of the jury. Nine of the twelve jurymen were Catholics, but they announced, “We believe what the book [Enemies] says; the statements are true.” In this case the publishers on trial were English and hence there was an English jury and a fair trial.
Wherever possible the Roman Catholic Hierarchy tries to select juries of French Roman Catholics, and in such cases rarely misses getting a conviction. A vow on the Bible means nothing to a devout Roman Catholic. The canon law comes first.
In a case in Sherbrooke two publishers were working together, one English and the other French. Both were taken to police headquarters and questioned. The French publisher was arrested, and the English publisher working beside him and doing the very same kind of work was freed. The object was to get the case before a French Roman Catholic jury and thus secure a conviction. Mixed juries do not look good to the Hierarchy.
(To be continued) In Dixie Land
Tampa Discouraged by Gambling
◆ Tampa, Florida, whose police found they could commit murder with the approval of the Florida Supreme Court, is now threatened with losses of $10,000 to $20,000 a day to gambling. Charges against city and county officials were not pressed, because they did not disclose that such officials "received rewards for not making arrests". A new reason for encouraging crime, surely.
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