Consolation, September 18, 1940
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Contents
Notice to Aliens 2
America's Friends (Part 2) 3
Who Will Join Hitler's Crusade? 5
Zero Hour for Catholic Action 6
France a Grim Object Lesson 7
"They Shall Know That I Am Jehovah" (Part 1) 9
Banning Bible Study Books 10
Newsweek Helps the Rioters 10
Gallantry to Women and Children 11
Abusing the Cause of Freedom 12
Chromos for the Boston Post 13
The Haverhill Simpleton 14
Common Sense Here and There 15
Change the World 16
Counsel by J. F. Rutherford
Earth's Coming Rulers 17
Invention 19
Under the Totalitarian Flag
"Catholics Must Teach the Press" 20
France Before the Revolution 21
Demonism and the R. C. Church 22
The Catholic Press 23
Bells and Religion 24
Belgium, France, Switzerland 28
The Fifth Column in Belgium 28
The Degradation of Fascism 29
British Comment
The Threatened Invasion 25
Sensitiveness and Suspicion 25
Published every other Wednesday by
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Appetizers
Cross-Questioned
"Pull over to the curb, Buddy!"
"What's wrong, officer?"
"You just went through a red light. Whatsa matter? Are ya blind?"
"Yes, officer; color blind."
"Not only that, but you were doing 50."
"I was not. My speedometer registered 60."
"Let me see your license!"
"Impossible! I don't own one."
"Well, let me see your owner's certificate!"
"I'm afraid I can't show you that either. I just stole this car."
"Stole this car! What's your name, Buddy?"
"Napoleon."—Selected.
When He Got Them Back
"When I was a little child," the sergeant sweetly addressed his men at the end of an exhaustive hour of drill, "I had a set of wooden soldiers. There was a poor little boy in the neighborhood and after I had been to Sunday school one day and listened to a stirring talk on the beauties of charity, I was soft enough to give them to him. Then I wanted them back and cried, but my mother said:
" 'Don't cry, Bertie; some day you'll get your wooden soldiers back.'
"And, believe me, you lob-sided, mutton-headed, goofus-brained set of certified rolling pins, that day has come!"
In the Trees
He: I may not be so terribly smart myself, don't you know, but my ancestors were educated in the higher branches.
She: I can well believe it.—Labor.
Notice to Aliens
◆ The United States Government, Department of Justice, has requested publicity with reference to aliens registering and being fingerprinted. The law requires all persons in the United States who are aliens to report to the Post Office in the community in which they reside for registering and to submit to being fingerprinted. All aliens should comply with this in obedience to the law.
CONSOLATION
"And in His name shall the nations hope."—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.
Volume XXI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, September 18, 1940 Number 548
America’s Friends
(In Two Parts—Part 2)
IN THE first article of this series the charge was repeated that Hitler is waging a “holy war” or crusade to bring the entire world under the Catholic yoke. This was last broken in 1648 by the Catholic-Protestant Treaty of Westphalia, signed in historic Munster to end the religious Thirty Years’ War. Hence Hitler’s announced intention to bring France and England to Munster to wipe out the ancient Protestant victory consummated there almost four hundred years ago. It was likewise charged that the American Legion is, in effect, a branch of the Gestapo allied with Catholic leaders and commissioned by them to lay this yoke of tyranny upon America. Thus facing extinction America is in desperate need of friends. While the national presses are for the most part silent for fear of offending Catholic dignitaries who wield a mighty influence, Jehovah’s witnesses, alone of all Americans, cry out in warning. They alone obey the laws of the Constitution, for which the flag stands as symbol.
As a result they are hated by the American Legion, the Hierarchy, the Nazis and all others who wish to wipe out the freedom which was forged by Washington and our God-fearing forefathers. All readers are familiar with the outrageous mob attacks during May and June upon Jehovah’s witnesses. These attacks were admittedly at the instance of the priests of the Hierarchy and were usually led by members of the American Legion who branded the witnesses as disloyal and “fifth columnists”. This is exactly the crime that the Catholic Hierarchy has herself been guilty of in every nation on the face of the earth. It is an old trick to find a scapegoat for public indignation. In discrediting and abusing Jehovah’s witnesses, the Vatican’s agents hoped to accomplish two purposes at once: (1) to smear critics who were exposing her useful conspiracy with all the TOTALITARIANS; and (2) to create a smoke-screen to hide her own “fifth column” activities. In this grand coup Jehovah’s name would be smeared, in the eyes of many people, and His message discredited.
The proof in support of these statements is so abundant and voluminous that it could not all be contained in the first issue. More follows herein and it is commended to the public as unbiased and as compiled without regard as to whose religious susceptibilities may be shocked. In its freedom Consolation has a powerful advantage over the great “news-gatherers” of the United States. The term “news-gatherers” more properly describes them than “newspapers”; for they gather, but do not print. The great and insurmountable obstacle to their publishing the facts submitted to them by diligent and even brilliant reporters of unquestioned accuracy must be appreciated. It is extremely difficult to prune every news story of all matter objectionable to the Roman Catholic Church and have anything left to print. Substitution of fiction has become almost a necessity in editorial offices that are compelled to please the exacting demands of religious fanatics. The gigantic presses which go by such high-sounding names as “Times”, “Tribunes,” “Heralds,” have lost their strength to the Catholic “woman”, likened in the Scriptures to a bloody harlot; they have been castrated by the knife of Roman Catholic censorship, and as willing eunuchs are not to be pitied. Let the people listen to those, such as Consolation, that are not afraid of the Hierarchy and are convinced that truth is of greatest public convenience and necessity. Consolation believes that the news is no place for romance, fabrication, nor for the protection of religious subverters of the truth.
Of course, lies that can be readily detected are not always the best means of deception. Therefore the subordinated press has made use of every subtlety and trick when barefaced falsehood became too risky. They have employed garbling and distortion so as to confuse the reader but still keep without the bounds of libel. They have relegated important matter to obscure inner pages. Unrighteous attacks upon the innocent they have interspersed in sections devoted to accounts of the capture of spies, the apprehension of criminals; and the readers are thus left to infer that all are of the same ilk. Journalism is a tricky business. Editors know many ways and means of even using quotations from reliable sources, and, by changing the sequence or context, transform the intent and meaning. Another little device is to print a story well knowing it is false; and later to retract or correct the error after the damage is done. The effect of the first lie is thus practically undiminished, because only a small percentage of those who read the false account ever see the correction. The New York Times and The United Press employed this method successfully in printing a story accusing Jehovah's witnesses of being Nazis (May 22, 1940). They did not attempt to verify the story, though they could have done so by a five-cent telephone call to Brooklyn; so their later correction of the false accusation can only be considered as self-protection against those who knew the truth.
George Seldes, in his book The Catholic Crisis, has made a study of this subservience of the press to Catholic demands. He contends that the editors that have not felt that pressure do not represent papers of much circulation or sufficient to warrant the Hierarchy's interference. An example is quoted from page 184:
In the recent Spanish War, the war of Fascists versus the people, the American correspondents covered themselves with honor and the American press covered itself with disgrace. The publishers crawled on their knees before the prelates of the Catholic Hierarchy. They exhibited a cowardice never excelled by other business men who deal with the general public. They surrendered their freedom entirely to a minority group. . . . In one instance at least, a Catholic priest and leader boasted of this corruption of our free press. At an anti-Communistic mass meeting in Brooklyn, with Attorney-General John J. Bennett, Jr., presiding, that same Father Curran who heads the International Truth Society (and who is also a defender of Nazi Coughlin) charged that "the newspapers of Manhattan and Brooklyn have been very unfair to the anti-Communistic group in Spain", and asserted that "because I control $20,000 of business with one Brooklyn newspaper I have forced them to take a more liberal attitude." (New York Times and other papers, December 1, 1936.—Footnote)
Mr. Seldes, in his book, devotes a whole chapter to Catholic pressure on the PRESS; another to Catholic pressure on the MOVIES; another to Catholic pressure in POLITICS; and one to Catholic REACTIONARY pressure! To those who wish further details on this line his book The Catholic Crisis is highly recommended.
This same press which has so unconditionally surrendered to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy spends a good deal of time ridiculing Jehovah's witnesses as a 'Bible-dizzy sect', and thus they further forward the Hierarchy's advance to world dominion. Very few newspapers question the Hierarchy's accusation against Jehovah's witnesses. On this point they are about as dumbly obedient as picture of the dog, in Victor Talking Machine advertisements, listening to his master's voice. Thus they are bloodguilty before the Lord for swearing falsely against His innocents.
If Jehovah's witnesses were in fact enemies of the American people they would scarcely risk their lives to bring them warning of the only place of safety. Further, could the servants of Almighty God, in whom alone is salvation, be the enemies of any intelligent creature? Instead of assaulting or abusing them the wise men would follow the example of Gamaliel when the apostles stood before the ancient court. In this case Gamaliel said that if the apostles' work was not of God it would perish; if it was of God the court would be in a bad way if found fighting against God.—Acts 5:34-39.
Some honest people have recognized the integrity and worth of the Lord's servants. Says the Protestant Digest of May 1940: "Members of Jehovah's witnesses are responsible more than all others in recent years for keeping alive in American law the issue of religious freedom. With increasing social and legal control over human relationships it is vitally important for courts of law to reiterate and re-establish this constitutional principle." Only a few realize that "integration", "regimentation," "unification," "implementing of democracy," are but the American equivalents of the European terms "authoritarianism", "totalitarianism," "Fascism," "corporate state"; admittedly only Jehovah's witnesses are standing out against these threats against our democracy.
As for the charge against them as "fifth columnists" an amusing sum-up of all such charges is made under the title of "Our Enemies Within" in The Nation June 22 (1940):
The tinpot Hitlers and their more subtle counterparts in politics and industry have done a quick-change into the regalia of minute men and are off in full cry after the "fifth column" of their choice . . . every genuine anti-Fascist force in the country. . . . The feverish effort of America's fifth-column shouters must not be interpreted simply as an attempt to divert the lighting from themselves. It is deeper than that; it is a flanking movement to divest the country's anti-Fascist forces of the only leadership that can possibly be effective. . . . The first principle in combating Fascism is to put the fight in the hands of anti-Fascists.
As Fascism and Communism are really different names for the same thing, the fight against Communism should be taken away from Coughlin, as his principal, the Papacy, is really favoring Communism; and take the fight against the fifth column away from Dies, Fish, Healy and Hearst if the country wishes to avoid the disaster brought upon France by Catholic "good Marshal Petain" and Weygand; and what befell Belgium through Catholic Leopold; and what befell Norway through Catholic Quisling. If America does not wish to follow in the way of these ill-fated countries she had better heed the warning from Jehovah's witnesses, the friends of the people, the friends of liberty and democracy.
Another unbiased writer sees that Jehovah's witnesses are alone bearing the brunt of the fight for democracy. John Haynes Holmes, writing in The Christian Century of July 17, 1940, under the title "The Case of Jehovah's witnesses" (Holmes is a minister of the Community Church, New York city, and editor of Unity), states significantly:
The only way to understand why Jehovah's witnesses are so unpopular is to go back in history and remind ourselves why the early Christians were so unpopular. If I want to bring clearly before my eyes just how these early Christians must have appeared to the highly respectable and patriotic Romans of their day, I have only to look at Jehovah's witnesses today.
Then and now the words of Jesus apply, "Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." Holmes, in a long article, entirely disproves the malicious charges against Jehovah's witnesses, and concludes with these words:
Are [the churches] going to spring to the defense of Jehovah's witnesses, their fellow Christians? Or are they going to remain quiescent and thus acquiescent, until they themselves are attacked? We may be sure that this terrorism will spread if not stopped.
Who Will Join Hitler's Crusade?
The Hierarchy's "quick-change" into the regalia of "minute men" would be ludicrous if it did not bode so much ill for all America. What of the Hierarchy's flock, the Catholic population ranging in numbers up to twenty million in the United States? Though a minority of the population it is quite a potent weapon if it can be wielded for Catholic Action. It has been affirmed that the Catholic people are loyal Americans but they are Catholics first. So, what happens when the Hierarchy makes a quick change into their Nazi uniforms and commands the flock to do likewise? Nobody who understands Catholicism, with its terrible grip on the hearts and affections of its subjects, will deny that most Catholics will obediently don the Nazi uniform. They will join Hitler in the Catholic crusade.
The chief reason for this is expressed by The Converted Catholic, January 1940 issue, page 3, which states: "Obedience to the Pope of Rome in spiritual matters, necessarily implies obedience to his dictates in matters of vital concern to the political and social well-being of the State." The Converted Catholic should be considered authoritative on this matter, as it is written by former priests. But that there be no doubt they give as their authority the words of Mr. Hilaire Belloc "(whom no true Catholic would gainsay)", quoted from The Contrast, page 160:
"The Roman Catholic Church is in its root principle at issue with the Civic definition both of freedom and of authority. For the purpose of the State, religion is either a universally admitted system, or a matter of individual choice. But by the definition which is the very soul of Catholicism, religion must be for the Catholic first, a supreme authority superior to any claim of the State . . . "
Commenting on this The Converted Catholic continues:
That is the way it was before the Protestant Reformation, and as it would be today in a Clerico-Fascist State. Its re-establishment would mean the end of our democratic idealism. Roman Catholic leadership strains every effort to bring it about. The supremacy of the Pope's authority is axiomatic with true Catholics. Their own statement of this rule is similar to this: "The Church which was established by God cannot but demand as her right full liberty and independence of the civil power."
Dr. Gilbert O. Nations, writing in The New Age, issue of June 1940, gives some historical data as to how this power has been exercised: It was the international sovereignty of the Popes before which powerful rulers like Henry IV of Germany, Philip Augustus of France and John of England cowered and surrendered. That sovereignty has no territorial limits. It encircles the earth. It extends to every Roman Catholic in the world. It was their sovereignty over the millions of Catholics in Germany, France and England that enabled Popes to depose rulers and paralyze those nations with papal interdicts.
Indeed the bulls hurled against rulers of past centuries specified that the Pope was absolving all subjects of the rulers from their ties of allegiance. Obviously, no one can thus sever ties of allegiance except one holding the paramount allegiance of the same subjects. It thus clearly appears that his sovereignty over all Roman Catholics throughout the world is the source of his international power.
It is with this international sovereignty that diplomatic envoys are concerned.
Let Americans get this straight. Mr. Myron C. Taylor is not accredited to Vatican City. His mission is not to that small state of a little over 100 acres of territory and a population of less than eight hundred souls. That State has no interest to the President or the American people.
It is to the Pope as sovereign ruler of 300,000,000 people that Taylor is sent. Of his 300,000,000 subjects, 22,000,000 are in the United States. It is with their status and privileges that the Pope is concerned. It is his paramount sovereignty over the millions here and in Germany and Austria and Poland and Italy and other lands that enables him to exert vast political influence in international affairs.
The treaties and concordats fix and specify rights and privileges of Roman Catholics as against their own government wherein they vote and hold citizenship. Other governments care for their citizens when abroad and temporarily under foreign governments. But the Papacy alone exercises that right on behalf of its subjects when at home and against their own government. Its concordats so stipulate.
Zero Hour for Catholic Action
In sending Taylor to Vatican City the president made a hitherto unprecedented step. He assisted in paving the way for the zero-hour advance of Catholic Action. This un-American act on the part of Roosevelt is in line with his original plan. A copy of the New York Sun which is now impossible to obtain, issue of March 8, 1934, stated:
◆ A definite agreement has been reached by President Roosevelt and the Vatican that diplomatic relations be established between the United States and the Holy See as soon as public opinion in America can be brought around to the idea, it was learned here today.
This later suppressed issue of the Sun relates how the idea was worked out through Cardinal Pacelli (now Pope Pius XII) and Postmaster James J. Farley. It was further stated that Coughlin was even then an instrument in the pope’s hands to drive in the wedge.
This is the year 1940, the zero hour. It is a far cry from the year 1861, when Lincoln said:
The history of the last thousand years tells us that wherever the Church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck and a ball to her feet, to paralyze her ... Though not a prophet, I see a very dark cloud on the horizon, and that cloud comes from Rome. It is filled with tears of blood ... A cyclone such as the world has never seen will pass over this country, spreading ruin and desolation. ... After it is over, there will be long days of peace and prosperity, for Popery, with its Jesuits, and merciless Inquisition, will have been for ever swept from our country.
Thus spoke Abraham Lincoln four years before he was foully murdered by a Catholic.
That president was a reader of history. He knew the words of the famous historian Lecky: "The Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind." President Roosevelt is deliberately throwing our heritage to the Papal wolf.
In 1873, Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) saw the same menace: "We are sinking beneath a power before which the proudest conquerors have grown pale, and by which the nations most devoted to freedom have become enslaved—the power of a foreign priesthood."
In 1936 Dr. Jam writes in The Catholic Church, a Menace to the State:
The lust of the Catholic Church for World Control is an arrogant challenge of the most insolent kind, ... moral degeneracy and repulsive criminality are written on her forehead as her unerasable characteristic mark.
The president of our little island possessions in the Pacific knows the Hierarchy: "We did face, ... and we do face now one of the most menacing evils that can confront the Government and the peoples of the Philippines, namely, interference of the church in affairs of state."—President M. L. Quezon (1938). Meanwhile Roosevelt, with "My friends" on his lips, leads down the road to the enemy.
All this has gone before. Now we are about to see the supreme effort of Catholicism. Several years ago Judge Rutherford quoted the words of Catholic priest O'Brien, who stated that the Catholics were "ready prepared for 1940". In spite of denials the menacing threats of Coughlin are secretly backed up by Rome. Here is corroboration. In May, 1940, "Rev". James M. Gillis, C.S.P., in an address given at the Wilshire-Ebell Theater in Hollywood, on the subject "This Changing World", revealed the Catholic intention:
The Catholics are ready and able to take care of themselves in 1940 or any other time. Do you know . . . that in nearly every large city in the East and in the basement of nearly every big building in those cities, are tons and tons of war materials, and most of those buildings are connected with secret underground tunnels? Yes, we are ready for anything, anytime.
This speech was a clever piece of strategy in line with Hitler's use of the truth to deceive. Most of the boasts by Hitler as to what he intended to do were not believed; but he carried them out just the same. So it is that Americans generally will not believe that arms are stored in buildings and cathedrals for the use of Catholic Action. But they are, and in his speech Gillis was informing the fifth column of Catholic Action of the fact. He was also counting on the amazing nature of the revelation to prevent its being believed by others.
The zero hour has now struck. Washington has become so friendly to Catholic aims that on March 25, according to an Associated Press dispatch, it became, together "with other capitals of the world, an archdiocese of the Catholic Church. The Most Rev. Michael J. Curley was named the city's first archbishop". Roosevelt has opened the flood gates for Catholic pressure. The aims of the Hierarchy are stated by Professor E. Boyd Barrett in his book Rome Stoops to Conquer: "Catholic Action in practice is the Catholic Group fighting their way to control America." As for the results of a Catholic victory we are furnished with several grim object lessons.
France a Grim Object Lesson
If any doubt remained that Hitler's European conquests were abetted and inspired by the Hierarchy, that doubt should be dispelled by the plight of France. Before France, the world was treated to the spectacle of a totally Catholic country, the Spanish republic, bled white by a civil war which was fought against his own subjects to satisfy the pope's greed for absolute power. Franco put an end to Free Masonry, invoked the terrible Catholic anti-Semitism, and ended all freedom. Says S. R. Herbert in an article published in the June-July issue of the Protestant Digest under the title "Franco's Counter Reformation and the Jews": "Spanish anti-Semitism is rooted in the dogmatic intolerance of the Spanish Catholic Church. . . . This is based not wholly on race, . . . but on the Jews' failure to accept the Catholic Church as the final repository of truth. The clerical mind in Spain links the Jew with the liberalism of the modern mind, with Masonry, with 'French ideas', with democracy." What happened to Spain has now happened to France, namely, the destruction of the four institutions hated alike by the pope, by the Jesuits, and by Hitler as agent, Jewry, Masonry, democracy and liberality. These are the four Catholic hates.
Now if in France Jewry, Masonry, democracy and liberality are destroyed, and a Fascist government installed by the victorious Nazis with Catholics at the head, you would think that even the New York Times could see that Hitler was in cahoots with the pope. Now that is the exact situation that has come about in France, and the pope is gleeful in praise of "good Marshal Petain". "The Vatican's official support was given to Henri Philippe Petain's totalitarian government on July 15, and the Papal nuncio to France, Mgr. Valerio Valeri, was instructed to aid in the work of French reconstruction.
The announced aspiration of the [Petain] regime to create a new civil conscience, the [Osservatore Romano, official Vatican newspaper] said, was also "the desire, aspiration, and program of the church." The Vichy government is led by the Catholic and ultra-conservative Marshal Petain, the exceptionally devout Catholic Gen. Maxime Weygand (who could have had little heart for his former position of defender of the French republic which went down under his leadership), and the anti-Marxists Pierre Laval and Adrien Marquet, Minister of the Interior." (Quotation from Newsweek, July 29, 1940)
So the Petain government suits the pope and it suits Hitler. Those who differ, please take note:
The fundamental revolution which the government of Marshal Philippe Petain has outlined for France is partly a program borrowed from foreign totalitarian sources, partly original, of an anti-British trend in its foreign policy, and frankly geared to the Nazi economic machine. (Associated Press dispatch quoted from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 29)
On August 3 the French government continued eye to eye with Jesuit popery by the abolition of Free Masonry. The Detroit News of August 3 carried with many other newspapers the AP account of this act of the Petain-Vichy government.
Charging that Free Masonry methodically applied their international orders to the constant detriment of France, Le Nouvelliste said "they not only worked to de-Christianize the country but also to corrupt and destroy the three principles Marshal Petain has decided to re-establish in all their essential virtues: Work, family and fatherland".
The press said the Free Masons had got their representatives into public office where they wielded their influence against the nation's Catholic faith. . . .
The German radio said Friday that anti-Jewish demonstration had been reported at Nice, France, Thursday, quoting the newspaper Eclaireur de Nice as saying plate glass windows of Jewish-owned shops had been smashed by demonstrators who wrote "Down with the Jews" and "Free Masons" in large red letters on entrances.
And so in France Jewry, Masonry, democracy and liberality are done up. It is no wonder that the Catholics held a huge celebration and parade in Vichy on the Catholic holiday, Assumption Day, August 15. Nazi guards protected the vast holiday demonstration. "Prominent in the procession was the Papal nuncio, Mgr. Valerio Valeri, in full canonicals, for whom the guards lining the route presented arms as the dean of the diplomatic corps. Nearly every head was bared in the vast throng lining the route of several miles, while many by the wayside joined in the singing.
The demonstration was all the more remarkable since in Vichy, as in many other French municipalities with Left city councils, religious processions in public streets have been banned for years past.
While the Masons and "all other secret societies in France" have been dissolved, this did not have any reference to Catholic secret orders. The separation of church and state completed in France in 1905 is thus annulled. Early in July, 1940, the Carthusian monks, exiled since 1901, were permitted to return to La Grande Chartreuse. No doubt wanting to get in line ahead of time, the government of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on July 30, forbade all Masonic activities. (N. Y. Daily News, July 31)
This is the Nazified France. If it were not for the cowardice and treachery of the American press this nation would have been plainly informed that the pope was using Hitler as the spearhead to destroy the hated Reformation and all who serve God with a free conscience. Does anyone think that it is coincidence that Salazar is Catholic and dictator of Portugal, Franco "Defender of the Faith" and dictator of Spain, Catholic Petain dictator of France, Catholic Mussolini big shot of the Mediterranean, and Catholic Hitler bloody "Sword of the Church"? The most hypocritical organization on earth has ordained Europe to become totally Papal-controlled, and this without concern at the millions of Catholic lives that must be lost in the accomplishment. Catholics of England and France have been thrown against Hitler the Crusader without knowledge of what they fought for, without power to save themselves, simply to sate the Monster-of-Rome's lust for world domination. Its cost in destruction of property and oceans of blood does not faze the cruelest, most heartless organization that ever festered the earth, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Is it not the height of justice that God will utterly annihilate this beastly combination? Jehovah has decreed that even her allies will turn against her and tear her and rend her without mercy.—Ezekiel, chapters 16 and 23; Revelation 17:16; 2 Chronicles, chapter 20.
It is not for the purpose of preventing the Hierarchy from gaining world control that this information is published. Words could do little. But the purpose is to point out the physical facts which are evidences that God's day of reckoning at the Battle of Armageddon is near, in order that the honest people, the people of good will, may flee this beastly combine. No matter how rosy the promises, for their own protection they must seek THE THEOCRACY. Protection does not lie with Hitler, Franco or the pope, nor with his other totalitarians; "salvation belongeth unto Jehovah."
Flee Now
The Catholic totalitarians have overrun Europe. They have drenched the continent with blood and filled its overflowing graveyards. Sorrow and desolation lie in their wake, and nought but despair is the portion of both victors and vanquished. The totalitarians stand on X marking the spot. For all their vaunting and bellowed boasting they have been mere pawns skillfully maneuvered by Jehovah into the place where He will destroy them. They are in the place where they have no right to stand, claiming they can bring peace and salvation to this miserable earth, whereas Jehovah declares the Kingdom, or THEOCRACY, alone will bring peace and prosperity, after He has cleaned out the wicked at Armageddon. (Revelation 16:16) The usurpers who are grabbing the world for the pope shall not prosper for long. They stand in a fatally dangerous spot, in the path of Jehovah’s great Executioner, Christ Jesus. They shall go down like a harvest of grapes before the sickle. “And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.” They shall be annihilated, and even their memory shall rot.—Proverbs 10: 7.
Those who see the monstrous totalitarians standing in the holy reserved for God’s THEOCRACY are admonished in these words by Jesus: “But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not [stand in the holy place (Matthew 24: 15)], (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judæa flee to the mountains.” (Mark 13: 14) This means that when they see the totalitarians defying God and claiming the right to rule the earth, then the spectators, if they desire salvation, are to seek refuge under God’s Kingdom, represented by “the mountains” in the above text. Now is the time to flee. This is the message brought to the people by Jehovah’s witnesses. For this reason, as Jesus foretold, they are hated by religionists and their allies, including the American Legion. But they are the people’s friends.—Elton Groves.
“They Shall Know that I Am Jehovah”
(In Two Parts—Part 1)
JEHOVAH’S witnesses are the most law-abiding people in the world, because they hold sacred every law of God and every law of man that is not out of conformity to the laws of the Higher Powers, Jehovah and Christ Jesus.
It is four weeks since this theme was last approached in these columns. In the meantime 347 newspaper stories have come to hand about Jehovah’s witnesses. They are making the headlines. Now to see what it is all about. Here goes:
The Bangor Daily Commercial, May 12, has a letter from “Reverend” Robert Mayhew, in which he deplored attacks upon Jehovah’s witnesses in the state of Maine, saying:
Mob violence constitutes a greater threat to our Democracy than the refusal of the sect known as Jehovah’s witnesses to salute the flag. I have known many members of this religious sect. Their patriotism would compare favorably with those self-appointed patriots who trot around our communities trying to stir up trouble for any who disagree with them or have a new or original thought. Any one at all familiar with the literature of this group must have had a hearty laugh when it was reported that pictures of Stalin and Hitler were found on the premises. I have pictures of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini in my home—on the covers of Time magazine.
The Hereford (Eng.) Times, May 25, 1940, says a meeting of Jehovah’s witnesses consisting of about 600 persons was broken up by about 300 persons who sang “Roll out the barrel” and other ribald songs, stamped their feet, whistled and cat-called. The matter was reported to the authorities. The disturbers came into the hall in groups of 20 to 30. It is illegal to break up a Christian assembly. The disturbers claimed to be soldiers.
The Greensboro (N.C.) News, May 25, 1940, says:
The committee on the Bill of Rights of the American Bar Association has condemned legislation requiring school children to salute the flag in violation of their religious scruples. The committee declared that such legislation strikes at the heart of religious freedom.
Running Americans Out of Town
The Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 27, states that in Georgia the previous week three of Jehovah’s witnesses “who travel about the country selling a booklet called ‘The Watch Tower’ ” were run out of town, after being threatened with violence. The interesting thing about this is that no American has the right to run another American out of town because he doesn’t like the way he combs his hair or shines his shoes or believes in God, and if the people who were run out of town had shot and killed their mobbers, and had a fair trial, there would have been nothing else to do but decide that it was justifiable homicide.
The Cleveland Press, May 28, 1940, has a letter from W. E. Brusman in which he explains why it was that the mob picked on Jehovah’s witnesses at Del Rio, Texas. The witnesses were distributing a booklet entitled “Fascism or Freedom”. The United Press had sent out a vicious lie that the booklet was pro-Nazi. Brusman mentions that on page 11 of the booklet are these sentiments:
In Germany the common people are peace-loving. The Devil has put his representative Hitler in control; a man who is of unsound mind, cruel, malicious and ruthless, and who acts in utter disregard of the liberties of the people. Hitler has imprisoned thousands of Jehovah's witnesses, the true followers of Christ Jesus, who have been guilty of nothing but advertising the Kingdom of Christ.
Many of these witnesses have been foully murdered while in Hitler prisons.
Let the United Press straighten that out with Almighty God, in whose presence they stand condemned for all the sufferings it brought upon innocent people since the original pack of lies went out from Del Rio and was popularized by Harlan Miller of the Washington Post.
The Buffalo (N.Y.) News, May 31, 1940, wants to know why, in the name of defense, Jehovah's witnesses are seized as Nazi spies. The answer, of course, is that Jesus was crucified for sedition because the religionists had a good chance to "get" Him, and now again they are "making hay while the sun shines". Jesus exposed the religious rackets of His own day; Jehovah's witnesses do the same now. And it is just as popular now as it was then, and no more so.
The American Guardian, May 31, 1940, said truly:
The persecution of the organization is chiefly due to its unrelenting attacks upon the Roman Catholic church.
Banning Bible Study Books
The West African Pilot, Lagos, Nigeria, June 1, 1940, has a five-column headline "Censor Bans 15,000 Yoruba Books". An editorial explains that 20,000 copies of the English edition of Judge Rutherford's book Enemies are in circulation in Nigeria and it cannot understand why the Yoruba edition of the same book should be mysteriously held by the customs authorities for three months. The columnist of the paper said he read the book, and was interested and amused. He saw nothing wrong in this book for advanced study of the Holy Scriptures.
June 2, Cincinnati Enquirer had Associated Press dispatches revealing in a marvelous manner how little The Associated Press knows about subjects on which it has full information at its disposal. A column story relating to anarchy in Odessa, Texas, and Waxahachie, Texas, directed against Jehovah's witnesses terminated with the following, which is beneath contempt in every line, and malicious in every word. The object of this dispatch was to arouse further mob violence:
Auburn, Calif., June 2—(AP)—An unidentified group of men and women who attempted to distribute literature from what they called a "religious" organization was hustled into automobiles by a group of irate citizens last night and told to get out of town and stay out. Copies of the offending pamphlets were torn up and scattered in the streets by unidentified persons who said they were of a subversive nature.
June 3, New York Journal and American had an I.N.S. dispatch from Odessa in which was conveyed the interesting information that but for an electric storm there might have been some lives lost in the riot led there by the city officials. The storm scattered the attackers and resulted ultimately in the deliverance of Jehovah's witnesses.
The Lyons (Kans.) Daily News has a headline "Unamericanism Here?" followed by a subhead "City Attorney Has Words with Members of Jehovah's witnesses" in which a covert threat is made by W. F. Barber, Sterling city attorney, that the American Legion would seek to stick their nose into the business of Jehovah's witnesses. They would be well advised to keep it out. The witnesses take threats from no one. This shining example of Americanism referred to the witnesses as "Judge Rutherford's gang". Probably Mr. Barber is a member of the American Legion, whose destruction of property is so great at every national convention that no city wants to have them come.
"Newsweek" Helps the Rioters
Newsweek, June 3, 1940, helped the rioters with the pungent statement, "In Del Rio, Texas, three members of the Jehovah's witnesses sect were driven out of town by 400 angry citizens because they were distributing religious pamphlets bearing the swastika." Newsweek omitted to state, and probably did not know, that the pamphlet in question contains the bitterest, most pungent, pointed attack against Pacelli and Hitler of anything ever written.
The Hudson Dispatch, June 4, 1940, ignoring the dissenting opinion by Justice Stone, thinks that now Jehovah's witnesses should unqualifiedly accept the majority opinion of the Supreme Court on the flag-salute issue "or move on to some country where they may find a measure of freedom that fits in with their scheme of worship—if there be such a country". What silly twaddle! No such land exists!
Was Jesus Fingerprinted?
The Chicago Daily Tribune, June 5, 1940, had an interesting arrangement of two items. The top item, called "The Crime Clock", showed that in five months there had been 70 killings and 14,289 other crimes known to the police in the county of which Chicago is the metropolis. The item next below it was from Moweaqua stating that a mob of angry citizens there had jailed four of Jehovah's witnesses "where they were fingerprinted and held without charges being placed against them". One wonders, mildly, if the 14,359 criminals of Cook county will be fingerprinted if and when arrested; also if Jesus was fingerprinted by the mob sent out by the high priest with orders to bring Him in. Incidentally, the headline of the last item above mentioned contained the lie that "4 sect members scorn the flag". That was merely a dirty crack by some newspaper hound that hopes for the favor of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
The Cleveland News, June 5, has a letter from C. J. Woodworth, Jr., in which, defending Jehovah's witnesses and the WATCHTOWER literature, he said:
I have read much of their literature. It is distinctly anti-Nazi, anti-fifth column, and in accord with the sentiment found on our national currency: "In God we trust." Nothing in the WATCHTOWER literature would incite anyone to call the flag "a dirty rag". Let's not sully American patriotism with the bigotry of ignorance.
The Durango (Colo.) Herald-Democrat has this to say in its issue of June 5:
Authoritative spokesmen for Jehovah's witnesses are unanimous in condemning Hitlerism and Nazism. In fact Hitler is referred to authoritatively by such spokesmen as "one who has no thought other than to do all possible to dishonor the name of Jehovah". Hitler is further referred to as "a child of the Devil and the world's most renowned madman, so low in the scale of bestiality as to be devoid of conscience and proud of it." These people may be mistaken a bit, in their attitude toward the flag, but assuredly they are not Hitlerites, and have no part in any fifth column activities. We should not allow any present moment patriotic hysteria to be the cause of unjustly persecuting them. Their attitude toward the flag is one of respect, but they draw a line between respect and reverence. They revere—if our understanding is correct—only that which relates to Deity, and, regarding our flag, as a respectable and exalted symbol of man's achievement, they accord it just that place in their affections. Our country is in no danger from the activities of this sect.
Gallantry to Women and Children
The United Press had a contribution to the Los Angeles Times of June 5. It is dated Cottonwood, Arizona, June 4. Under a mischievous and untrue heading it said that twenty persons, including women and children, had fled from a mob there which burned hundreds of their "religious leaflets denouncing the practice of saluting the American Flag". This description of the literature is the meanest kind of dirty lie, deliberately intended to cause further mob attacks elsewhere. If a skunk were to meet the man that wrote that story it would have to hold a handkerchief to its nose until the man got by. The account went on to say that a deputy sheriff had arrested one member of the group for striking a man who had objected to the distribution of the literature. The wrong man was arrested and the deputy sheriff himself is a lawbreaker.
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 5, 1940, William F. McDermott, referring to the mob attacks upon Jehovah's witnesses, said:
It seems to me that the action of the crowd was as irrational as the provocation which called forth the action. The refusal of the salute was made on religious grounds, not because of a lack of national loyalty. You cannot change convictions based on faith by acts of violence. You cannot instill patriotism with your fists, and even if these unconformable folk were forced to make the required gesture by physical violence what meaning would the gesture have?
The San Antonio Express, June 5, 1940, had over a column explaining that while Mayor Maverick was quite willing to grant the Municipal Auditorium to the Communists, and to protect them from the mob, yet he could not think of letting 5,000 Christians have the use of the same auditorium. He did not say that he was under direct orders of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, tied hand and foot, and without sufficient courage to stand by the contract previously entered into. The excuse was the now standard flag-salute excuse.
Quick to Recognize Their Masters
Most newspapers today are quick to recognize their masters, and so it is not to be wondered at that the Houston Post of June 6, 1940, had a full quarter of a page entitled "Father Carney Not Guilty in Un-American Row" with a three-column cut entitled "Dickinson priest cleared of charges". The account was written by Johnny Murphy; so all is regular.
Mr. Carney is the priest at League City. He met a group of Jehovah's witnesses and told them to get out of town. They reminded him that they were law-abiding American citizens, whereupon he told them, "To hell with the law! I am the law here, and you had better get out of town." The priest was arrested for starting the assault. On the witness stand he lied and cursed, but the charges against him were dismissed and one of the witnesses was fined for contempt of court. It is a big wonder that the justice of the peace on the bench did not compel everybody in court to kiss the priest's feet, so that his triumph in cussedness could have been complete.
The Uniontown (Pa.) News Standard, June 6, 1940, contains the grand, inspiring news that two boys 15 and 13 years of age, West Mahanoy township, Pa., can have no more education because they are unwilling to disobey the Second Commandment, Exodus 20:3-5. What a grand triumph for American patriotism! The boys' names are Michael and Alex Tmlacki. The country is now saved (for the pope)!
In the Raleigh News and Observer, June 6, 1940, an editorial entitled "Patriotism by Force" explained that there is no reason to believe that Jehovah's witnesses are any less patriotic than many who salute the flag with ostentatious vigor; that what the country needs is patriotism from the heart, not the legally enforced patriotism of the hand; and that if there are traitors among us (and there are) they would be the first and most ostentatious in patriotic display. (And that also is the case.)
The Chicago Daily News, June 7, 1940, had a letter from Ernest Bradshaw, not a subscriber for either The Watchtower or Consolation, in which he said (remarkably):
Our country would be much better than it is today if all our people were as true to their consciences as are the cult of "Jehovah's witnesses". Many of the most enthusiastic flag wavers and saluters have always been conspicuous for their absence on the fields of battle. The state has rightful jurisdiction only in matters of positive social conduct. The state has no rightful jurisdiction over the mere refusal to salute the flag on account of religious scruples, regardless of any decision of our Supreme Court to the contrary.
Abusing the Cause of Freedom
The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, June 7, 1940, in an editorial entitled "Free Country; Free Flag", said that "when it comes to forcing any child to salute the flag in violation of that child's religious convictions we still feel that the authorities responsible for that compulsion are acting in utter disregard of the principles the American flag represents".
The Pittsburgh Press, June 7, 1940, carries a dispatch from Dallas, Texas, in which Judge Atwell severely reproved the authorities of Ellis county (at Waxahachie), Texas, for arresting and jailing Jehovah's witnesses. He stated that the citizens who attacked these men, women and children should be put in jail, and, from his point of view, the witnesses had shown all due respect when they came to ask for protection of the government in the exercise of their rights.
New York Herald Tribune, June 10, 1940, has characteristic headlines glorifying mob action against Jehovah's witnesses, carefully calculated by the Devil to cause more mob action elsewhere. An act of arson, the burning a man's home to the ground, was set out as "Religious Sect's Hall Is Burned by Maine Mob". Is there anything about that to cause you to sympathize with a man's losing his home? The next subhead is "Jehovah's witnesses Held in Shooting"; you have to read very carefully to learn that the shooting was in self-defense when their lives were threatened by a mob of 2,500 persons. Next is a subhead "Maps and Hitler Picture Seized". You are told that the maps are "maps of the Maine coast and industrial areas". That is 100-percent a lie; the maps merely show the areas within which Jehovah's witnesses call from door to door with the proclamation of God's Kingdom. The only picture of "Stalin and Hitler" ever published was a cartoon bearing the title, "Lookit who's here," and shows Pacelli, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini grouped together. Every person that has ever read any of the WATCHTOWER literature knows, as well as does the editor of the New York Herald Tribune, that there is no literature in the world as bitter against Pacelli, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin as that of the WATCHTOWER.
About the shooting. Six persons at the headquarters of Jehovah's witnesses at Kennebunk had been advised that they were about to be attacked. What would you do if you received word that your home was about to be wrecked? At midnight an automobile drew up in front of the door and stopped. It just "happened" to stop at that particular house at that particular time of night. Also (and this fact the Herald Tribune carefully concealed) it was loaded with stones. The men in the car were looking for trouble and got it. Continuing:
The crowd, now increased to 2,500, marched to the Robb dwelling, where torches were produced. Before setting the headquarters on fire the crowd threw furnishings into the street to be smashed and set aflame. The house was wrecked and blazing before police reached the scene.
Proclaiming The Theocracy at Loikaw, Shan States, Burma
Why, sure! What do you think police are for? You had the idea that they were to preserve order, did you not? That shows that you were born in the days of simple innocence. The police, of Kennebunk, must have known all about that mob; they did nothing to stop its illegal activities. They showed up after all the fun was over and then distinguished themselves, as is now common procedure, not by arresting any of the mob; mercy no! They arrested the ones that had defended themselves! None of the mob were interfered with or even chided in any way.
The Herald Tribune followed the Kennebunk story with an account of police action in Claremore, Oklahoma, where four men and two women were chased out of town by them for doing what the United States Supreme Court states they have a perfect right to do. The story shows the shameful state of American civilization, in this sentence:
Police intervened when the crowd edged toward the automobile of the circulators, one of whom was a sixteen-year-old girl.
Yes, you guessed it! The police did nothing to interfere with the mob. Oh no! Certainly not! Indeed they rather desired to have the mob go ahead and interfere with the work of those whose lives are devoted to the honoring of God's name. They stepped in only when it looked as if the clergy-incited and newspaper-incited mob might attack a sixteen-year-old girl. Fine citizens of Claremore. How proud you must be of your country and its institutions! You disgrace all the flag stands for.
Chromos for the Boston "Post"
It seems that almost all papers covet a chance to stir the passions of their readers against Jehovah's witnesses. They think that if they can do something to cause the people to hate the innocent some progress has been made. The Boston Post is entitled to at least a chromo for its efforts in this direction. Can you imagine the malice in the heart of the liar that sent these statements to the Post?—
The trouble here has been brewing for two weeks since members of the order were charged with halting school children and telling them to refuse to salute the American flag.
According to the police, this trouble has been on the way since workers for the Witnesses were seen on the street in North Kennebunk telling the children not to salute the flag at school.
Every person that knows anything whatever about Jehovah's witnesses and their work, and this includes the Kennebunk police, knows perfectly well that there is not a word of truth in either of the above sentences, and that the only object of their publication is to cause bitter hatred of those who love God and are faithful to His Word. (Boston Post, June 10)
The Post shows the wreckage after the mobs had completely destroyed everything in the headquarters and twice set it afire. Not only are the police of Kennebunk worse than useless; they are a positive curse and detriment to the community.
The story as published in the Boston Herald shows that one of the State police, Sergeant Granville Seamons, has some intelligence. Referring to the shooting at 2:30 in the morning of the car occupants who just "happened" to have car trouble in front of the witnesses' headquarters, "on their way home from a dance," Sergeant Seamons said that this particular car was one of several that had been cruising the streets during the night "looking for trouble". In other words, they were part of the bloodthirsty, police-encouraged mob, and got just what they deserved.
The Associated Press story of the riot at Kennebunk shows that Jehovah's witnesses had done their full duty by notifying the police hours before the riot occurred that they had been threatened. It was the duty of the police to protect them under the circumstances, but they received no protection at all, and after they had had all their books and other property destroyed, and their home and meeting place had been burned, they were arrested and held under high bail for defending themselves against this carful of rowdies who drew up in front of their place at 2:30 in the morning, with a car loaded with stones, and "looking for trouble".
Not only did Jehovah's witnesses report to the Kennebunk police that they were being threatened, but they also appealed to Governor Lewis O. Barrows to the same end. They declared that before the rowdies with the car-load of stones finally stopped in front of their place "at least seven cars had been cruising up and down", "looking for trouble."
The police of Kennebunk, Maine, were probably not in the mob that burned the headquarters of Jehovah's witnesses in that city, but they should be interested in the offer of $500 by the American Civil Liberties Union of New York for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those that did the actual firing. Without a doubt the police know who did it, and may even have told them to go ahead and do it and they would protect them.
Theocracy sound-car, Bristol, England
Pasting information bills on the "free" posting sites in Belfast, Ireland
The Haverhill Simpleton
That is not the name of the paper. The name of the paper is Haverhill Evening Gazette, June 12, 1940. It thinks there is something sinister about Jehovah's witnesses because, when they had been warned that they would be raided and their property and meeting place would be destroyed (as was actually done at Kennebunk), they not only notified the police and the governor of the State, but they actually used shotguns for their protection against the mob. What has America come to, sure enough, when a mob can't go ahead and beat people up, and burn their books, smash their furniture and burn their houses, without their acting in self-defense? So The Haverhill Simpleton lets out this one:
Even if further investigation fails to establish the sinister aspect of the sect that has been presented in Kennebunk, there is this to keep in mind: The Witnesses evidently are of the mentality that makes them malleable material for influences hostile to American principles and policies.
With that the editor of The Simpleton probably gave a mad yank at the hardware around his neck, counted off ten more beads, went and confessed and handed over a couple of bucks to the rooster who dominates the hen-house where he "worships".
◆ The Simpleton should be interested in information published in the Boston Herald of June 12. It seems that there were four men in the car loaded with stones which drew up in front of the Kennebunk headquarters of Jehovah's witnesses at 2:30 in the morning. The headquarters had previously been stoned and these four men were about to repeat the performance when they got the buckshot that caused one of them to lose his leg. The four men included Ralph Labarge, who was oh so glad to bear witness against the men he was about to attack. But he was embarrassed when he was identified by the county attorney, Joseph E. Harvey of Biddeford, as one of the men who burned the Kingdom Hall a few hours later, and was hustled off to jail under a charge of arson. Mr. Harvey also imprisoned Everett Nadeau, father of another of the four men in the car. It seems that Nadeau also helped light the fires. The names Labarge and Nadeau are suggestive of the accursed religion that these arsonists and would-be murderers profess.
Common Sense Here and There
◆ Under the head "Run of News" the Arkansas Democrat, Little Rock, Arkansas, June 10, notes the mob violence being practiced against Jehovah's witnesses from Maine to California, and regrets that Arkansas is included. It sees the "witch hunt" trend and denounces the conduct of the mobs that have done far worse things than Jehovah's witnesses have done. It thinks, and rightly, that Stalin and Hitler are Fifth Columnists, and has sense enough to see that because Jehovah's witnesses believe in God's Word they manifestly could not be part of Stalin's crowd. One wonders that there are so few who are willing to use their reasoning faculties.
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