Consolation, May 26, 1943
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Contents
■ Returning to American Fundamentals
They Believed God
, The Servants of the People
The People the Sovereign Power
God’s Law Changes Not
, Jehovah’s witnesses Have Rights
Constitutional Rights Inviolate
4 Glad to Obey the Law
Steps in the Depopulation of Norway
Exterminating Others Also
Other “New Order” Bestialities
Norsemen Take It Bitterly
Tyrants Can’t Take It
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Race Degeneracy, Why?
To Seattle’s City Council
“Universal Su per-Government Advocated”
Is Mary the First of All Saints? .
“Never but One Shadow”
The Celebrated Guibord Case
If Hitler Should Disappear
I From Cyprus, “The Corner of the World” 24 ‘I and My House’
“Blameless in the Day of the Lord”
The Assembly at Johannesburg
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
History of the Bible '
Cargoes by Air
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~ Notanda'1
Taming the Head-Hunters
♦ Ernie Pyle, war correspondent, tells of a conversation he had with a cartoonist about the time of the first great battle in the Solomon islands. The cartoonist said to him:
Isn’t it ironic? For years both our countries have been sending missionaries to such places as those to tame the head-hunters. And now the head-hunters have to take to the jungle for safety, while we civilized people fight it out on their beaches.
That is only part of the problems confronting the head-hunters. They had almost as much reason to flee from the missionaries as from the machine guns. The former came to tell them that their ancestors are all in a blazing hell; the latter, to show them on the beaches what the missionaries think hell is like.
The Ford Bombers B-24-E
♦ The Ford bombers B-24-E, now being produced at the alleged rate of one an hour, weigh 30 tons each, carry four tons of bombs, and can travel 3,000 miles at a speed of 300 miles an hour. It is a military secret how many employees are engaged in this work, but the preliminary estimates are that about 85,000 men and 25,000 women would be needed. The factory producing them was built in 13$ months and cost $58,000,000. It is 3,200 feet .long and 1,280 feet wide. These facts are gleaned from information published in the New York World-Telegram and the New, York Times recently.
Corn Belt vs. Meatless Days
♦ When farmers in America’s corn belt heard talk about this country’s having meatless days, they could not understand it. They thought that, with the most meat animals in history on their farms, and the crops the biggest and best, and 16 percent more cattle and hogs sent to the market in the first six months of 1942 than the year previous, there just must be a mistake somewhere. .
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall .the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
Vofum»XXIV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, May 26, 1943 Number $18
Returning to American Fundamentals
THE fundamental principle upon which the American system of government, a “democracy”, .rests is “the rule of the people”. Abraham Lincoln stated it to be “that government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. That means that the people of the United States are the sovereign power or rulers of this nation—not the Congress, not the president, not the judiciary, not the various state governments, and not the municipal governments of the land. The framers of the Constitution recognized the sovereign power or rulers of the nation to be the people in these words: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice', insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Before a skeptical world groaning under, the oppressive heels of tyrants;, monarchs, czars and emperors these men declared that the people, and not dictators, were the proper ones to rule. It was regarded by such skeptics as an experiment that would soon fail. Although the youngest of the great governments of the world, it has survived many bloody assaults from without and internal upheavals during the past 1.50 years, and it now faces the greatest struggle in all history to determine whether, the “experiment” will remain in the earth until God’s kingdom or government of righteousness is in all the earth. ■
Pitched in Battle against all nations composing “the king of the south” is “the king of the north”, or the Axis powers that stand for dictatorship, and both systems are now struggling for world domination. Dictatorship stands for absolute control of the community by the will of a single ruler or hierarchy. The people are not the sovereign power under such system, but are the “beasts of burden” to sustain the corporate state in its scheme to regiment all mankind. Such governments are saddled upon the people and. rule through fear and dread of sudden punishment or death decrees in secret chambers from which there is no appeal or relief. This theory of government originated in ancient Babylon under Nimrod, who was the first dictator, and has extended down through the centuries of mankind’s history in one form or another. The system has always advocated the “divine right of kings” theory and the people are forced to subscribe to the doctrine that “the kin^ can do no harm” regardless of tyranny.
It is very manifest that the officers of the government of the United States do not exercise their various powers and functions by virtue of any “divine right of kings” theory, but that they are servants of the people and can be discharged at the will of.the people. The nation is a democracy, and not a Theocracy; which means that the people have the controlling voice in the government. The founding fathers of this nation loved Almighty God and did not intend to establish this government as a substitute for or as,a means to fight against God’s kingdom or the establishment thereof. The framers of the Constitution intended the government to be a haven or place of refuge for all oppressed peoples and-those who desire liberty and the right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience. They believed tin the Lord’s prayer ’Thy kingdom come tn earth as in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10), and in the words of Daniel: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”—Daniel 2:44.
They Believed God
These men believed in the word and promises of Almighty God and anxiously looked forward to the time when the battle of Armageddon would completely break the yoke of the oppressor and when the sovereignty of all governments would be removed from man and transferred to the duly constituted “King of kings, and Lord of lords”, Christ Jesus, in whom God will vest authority and power to rule over the people. The covenant servants of Jehovah, His witnesses, see the circumstantial evidence of the presence of the time when this authority has been transferred from man to Christ Jesus. They now proclaim liberty throughout the land and in many nations that the people may give their allegiance to Jehovah God and His King Christ Jesus, who now rules from His heavenly throne over The Theocratic Government. — Isaiah 9:6,7; Daniel 7:13,14 ; Psalm 110:2. :
Breaking the Bands of Religious Fear
This message of the kingdom or rulership of Christ Jesus as the sovereign power in The Theocracy is proclaimed By Jehovah’s witnesses to all people of good-will toward God that they may escape the great destructive tribulation at Armageddon, which is very near. This' enlightening message breaks the bands of superstition and religious fear that have kept the people in blindness concerning God’s purposes.. The people become aware that the religious clergy have held back such life-giving message from them through fraud, deception, and the precepts of man, and they are fast abandoning religion for the new world, God’s kingdom of righteousness. This turning away from religion dries up the pastures of the hypocritical clergy who conspire with the enemies of God’s kingdom, and who are enemies of democracy, to stop Jehovah’s witnesses. In order to stop Jehovah’s witnesses it is necessary for these enemy conspirators to destroy democracy itself. While the terrible war rages for world domination the clergy conspirators, “home-grown enemies” of the Bill of Rights, take advantage of the emergency and cause laws to be enacted or misapplied to cause the arrest, prosecution and conviction of such faithful servants of Jehovah God. These laws are enforced contrary to the Constitution, and powerful influence, political and religious pressure and prejudice, is brought to bear upon the judicial officers to sustain them without regard to the destructive effect upon the Bill of Rights, the liberty shield of all men, regardless of color, station in life, or creed.
Under such great break-down pressure the United States Supreme Court gave way and allowed abridgment of the people’s rights when it approved the ' compulsory flag salute forced upon children of Jehovah’s witnesses in public schools of the nation and when it sustained laws requiring the payment of money for a license from local authorities as a condition precedent to preaching the gospel of God’s kingdom in such cities.
These two decisions directly affect the people of the United States, who are the sovereign power of the nation. The decisions directly impair the fundamental liberties of all citizens and persons in
the land, which the Bill of Rights declared could not be permitted. The decisions' and impairment are based upon the theory 4that the government is the sovereign power, and not the people. It ignores the fact that the government is the servant of the people and was created to protect, not impair, the rights of freedom of conscience and freedom of the ■ press and freedom to worship Almighty
God. The sovereign people of the United States are entitled to be enlightened concerning the effect and fallacies of the holdings of the high court sustaining the abridgments and impairment of these liberties. The sovereign people cannot enjoy and exercise their sovereignty under a democracy unless they are enlightened. The purpose of this article is to educate the people as to their rights and the devastating effect of the Supreme Court decisions above mentioned.
•
The Servants of the People
Concerning the American government, it is very manifest that the officers of the government, the judicial,’legislative, and executive officers, in the exercise of their various functions, do not hold power by virtue of a "divine right of kings” theory. Here the governors are solely the servants of the people. At any time that the government fails to operate properly or proves inadequate to the changing conditions of the people, they, as the, sovereign power, have the right to change the form of government by legal and peaceable constitutional means. They have the right to make the change especially , if there is an invasion or abridgment of the fundamental rights of the people, those precious heritages: of. free speech and free press and freedom to worship Almighty God. The primary purpose of the creation and establishment of the government was for the protection and perpetuation of these precious rights. It was conceived and dedi-; cated for this protective purpose. The. Constitution was not fully ratified by all thirtdeii of the colonies until the Bill df~
MAY ai, 1S4S
Rights was proposed as a part thereof. Once the fundamental freedoms are impaired there immediately disappears the purpose stated by the forefathers for the maintenance of a government. The only binding tie and reason for the creation, of the government was to maintain these blessings for “our posterity”.
The wise men who wrote the constitution foresaw and forewarned that troublous times would come upon the nation and the people: that those in positions of authority in the government in turbulent seasons would become restive and, through stress of emergency, depression, war and other perils, would usurp their powers as servants of the people and assume the authority of dictatorial tyrants so as to take away, abridge and deny the fundamental liberties. It was against these, times and seasons that the Bill of Rights was created. It was not a peacetime document, but a wartime document, having been passed in the wake of a terrible conflict that spilled much blood. These men recognized that these fundamental rights are inherent and abide with men regardless of the vicissitudes of life and changing international and internal conditions.
Can the Bill of Rights Be Abrogated?
Among certain elements of the population of the land who believe that the Bill of Rights can be abrogated during time of-war, there is a feeling that on the outbreak of hostilities or upon declaration of war a victory cannot be gained with a full and free exercise of the fundamental rights secured by thedo’cu-ment. There is thus a-growing feeling that the inherent rights of speech, press and worship can be shelved or iced away for the duration of-the war. No more pernicious or alien doctrine has ever been invented by the mind of-man than this-: That any of the provisions of'tliA Bill ^of Rights can -be suspended during a great national emergency or war. Once lost they cannot be regained except by blood-spilling and struggle; hence, ail
the more important is it that these rights should be more fully exercised in time of war than in time of peace. The Constitution of the people clearly and specifically defines what the government shall and can do in time of war. There cannot. '. be found one word that says, or from |which it can be implied, that any person can be denied the exercise of these funda-' mental rights; but, of course, confidential matters of the government itself, par-■ ticularly with reference to the military and naval forces, must not and can not be publicly or privately circulated. These things, in time of war, must, because of their very nature, be kept confidential, lest comfort and aid be given the enemy of this government. Since a Christian is concerned only with preaching the gospel of God’s kingdom, he will not be concerned in giving military advice or secrets and will not exceed his fundamental personal rights along that line. But that’does not mean that he should not and can not exercise these fundamental rights to advertise and show the need of God’s kingdom.
The People the Sovereign Power
The strength of a nation in times of war lies in the unhindered and unrestricted exercise of the rights bf freedoin of speech, of press, and of worship of Almighty God by the people, who are themselves the sovereign power of the nation. The men at the battle fronts are fighting, not to keep individuals in office, but, according to the president and the Office of War Information, to preserve the four freedoms and the American way of life which finds its basis in these cherished freedoms. The removal or impairment of any of these freedoms takes away the power, strength, courage and vision which spurs on the people to victory. Without these freedoms they would become blind and an easy prey to the enemy. The clear vision and free exercise of these rights on the home front keeps before the nation the issues over which the fight is being fought. The principle of upholding civilian morale and military strength through the exercise rather than the suspension of any of these rights can best be illustrated in the conditions existing in the South and the North during the Civil War. In the North absolute freedom of expression publicly Snd privately in writing and orally was allowed on all subjects, even in some combat zones. Washington, D.C., was a very few miles from the battle front, but freedom was nevertheless allowed there.
In the South the conditions were much different—the reverse. There the education of the people, particularly the plantation owners and persons of wealth and influence, had been largely left in the hands of the Roman Catholic Jesuits, who had stealthily instilled their ideas of slave and master classes between the peoples. The evil effects of such training had made itself manifest in the course of action taken by officials of the Confederacy. They had been taught the Jesuit and Roman Catholic Hierarchy policy to keep the people in ignorance of what was going on and to set the governors and rulers up beyond point of criticism and scrutiny by the people. This Hierarchy doctrine smacks of the “divine right of kings” and of clergy from which the people rebelled. The people of the Confederacy were denied their rights of sovereignty. Sessions of the Confederate Congress were held in absolute secrecy and the public press was under the direct supervision of the military censors. No person was allowed to criticize the conduct of the war or any other governmental measure. This condition, contrasting with liberty in the North, had as much to do with the defeat of the South as did the strength of the military forces of the North. Suppression of free speech and other liberties suppressed the morale of the people of the Confederacy from which the army received its support. These factors are mentioned here to emphasize the importance of maintaining at all times the fundamental freedoms in times of the darkest hour and most perilous times in war or in peace.
God's Law Changes Not
Jehovah God states: “For I am the Lord, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6) His law governing the conduct of creatures in a covenant to serve Him as His witnesses also changes not. There are no seasons of obedience to Jehovah God’s law and His Theocratic government. His commandments must be obeyed at all times. They change-not in time of peace nor in time of war. His rule of conduct prescribed in the Bible to maintain integrity and preach the gospel is not affected by the action of men and nations. Jehovah jnakes no allowance for any change in the rules of preaching the gospel by His ambassadors in times of war nor in times of peace. Christ Jesus, in His prophecy concerning the time of the end of the world, declared: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: . . . For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. . . . Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. . . . But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”. The founding fathers of this nation did not purpose that the preaching of this gospel should be,stopped in the land, and the modernday persecutors of followers of Christ are acting contrary to the express word of the writers of the Constitution. To protect the people the writers of the Constitution wisely made provision for a place of recourse, the judiciary, the Supreme Court of the United States, the people’s court.
In establishing the national government the people realized that there must be some instrumentality to settle dis
MAY 26, 1643 putes between the sovereign people and their agents and servants, the government and officials thereof. That the constitutional arrangement might operate properly and smoothly and that the government and officials be kept in-their proper field and not allowed to infringe' upon the rights of the sovereign people of the United States, provision was made for the said people’s court, the Supreme Court of the United States, the last bulwark of Americanism and constitutional rights. Its duty is to hold the constitution inviolate. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said: “We must never forget it is a constitution we are expounding.”
A Delicate and Difficult Task
When totalitarianism is threatening to engulf the entire world it is more important in wartime than in peacetime or any other time that the court maintain its absolute independence*from clamor and national policy and strictly adhere to naked principles of righteousness enunciated in the Bill of Rights, because this is the only hope of preserving the American way of life—the preservation of these freedoms. The United States Supreme Court has the definite duty and delicate and difficult task of correcting fundamental errors striking at the very heart of the Bill of Rights in the cases sustaining the license tax and compulsory flag salute. It can regain its balance and proper position in the constitutional life of the government by “returning to American fundamentals” of sovereignty of the people to choose their own speech and their own writings and worship God in a manner acceptable to the dictates of conscience and as directed by Almighty God. The Supreme Court does not have the right to intrude itself into the field of opinion of Jehovah’s witnesses by sustaining laws making compulsory the participation in a religiouspolitical ceremony contrary to their conscience, nor docs it have the right to abridge the right of millions of American citizens to receive Jehovah’s wit-
7 nesses at their doors and into their homes by declaring legal a license-tax law to burden and prohibit such apostolic preaching. *
Fifty-five Million “Churched”
In the United States of America there tare upward of 135,000,000 people, of Svhom only 55,000,000 belong to the recognized great religious sects and cults. There are great numbers of the millions of church members who do not attend regularly; Therefore there are approximately 80,000,000 who have absolutely no means of receiving spiritual comfort and Bible instruction except that someone volunteers to take it to such persons in their homes. Among these millions of persons Jehovah’s witnesses have volunteered and come to the "front” and have carried and are now carrying to the people at thek homes the vital, life-giving message of the Kingdom contained in the Bible. The many millions thus present a great emergency and urgent public need for Bible instruction in the home. These eighty million people are taxed for the. support of the government in behalf of the maintenance of the Bill of Rights; and if the government in behalf of the fifty-five million “religionists”' sanctions the promotion of religions activities and proclaiming “We need more religion” and safeguards religion from curtailment in the exercise of their ceremonies in the edifices of the land and provides for the religious organizations exemptions from taxation, then by great force of reason the majority of the people, approximately eighty million non-religious people, have, a right to demand that the government allow and safeguard the Christian activity of Jehovah’s witnesses,' belonging to no recognized religion, but who are Christians and have volunteered to bring the message of the New World of Christ’s kingdom to the people at their homes in a manner as did the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. These many, many millions of people who belong to no reli-
gion pay taxes, which works advantageously to the protection and maintenance of the religious institutions serving the other fifty-five million people; therefore the majority, or eighty million people, who are not served by the religious clergy, are entitled to be reached and benefited at their homes by the nonreligious Christians, Jehovah’s witnesses, who desire to educate the people in the Word of God. The sovereign people of which this vast majority consist have a legal right to be thus reached by such an educational campaign carried on now by Jehovah’s witnesses through the Watchtower Society. The right to this liberty is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights protecting the sovereign people.
Jehovah’s witnesses Have Rights
Jehovah’s witnesses are taxpayers and a part of the sovereign people or power of the nation. This fact cannot be denied even though they may not avail themselves of their political privileges nor actively participate in the affairs of this world. They have a liberty to abstain from such according tv their understanding of the Bible, which shows God’s commandments requires them to devote all of their time and energies to preaching the gospel, a higher calling above all the strifes, political, religious and social. They cannot turn aside from this tremendous task and emergency of serving the many millions of people in the land, with the truths of life in the kingdom of Almighty God. They must therefore remain entirely neutral and remain separate and apart from the worldly affairs so that, all their time can be devoted to this great job of preaching the gospel. Amidst war, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, peace, prosperity, and depression the preaching of the gospel of God’s kingdom must go. on unabated unto the end of the world at Armageddon. ■ .
Although the members of the judiciary may not agree with Jehovah’s witnesses as to whatL the Bible teaches,- as- it is
■ CONSOLATION
their right before Almighty God, the judiciary are bound by their oath of office to agree with Jehovah’s witnesses that the Bill of Rights gives the right to disagree on what the Bible teaches.
The Right to Disagree
Jesus recognized this principle of freedom to disagree, when He said: “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” (Matthew 15:12-14) This illustrates that the real unity of the people of the nation does not rest upon unity of religious thought and opinion but upon unity as to what are the fundamental rights for which the nation is now avowedly fighting the Axis powers. The judiciary and the government cannot settle differences of opinion between the people as to what the Bible teaches—indeed that is beyond the authority of the judiciary. Mr. Thomas Jefferson said: “. . . that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty . . . truth is great and will prevail, if left to herself; that she is proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”—Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
In ruling against Jehovah’s witnesses the Supreme Court has permitted itself to become entangled in precedent from which there is only one way of escape, to wit, cutting away and returning to fundamentals. The founding fathers of the court and nation did not'wait until a theory had become entangled in precedent before they abandoned it as error: they immediately avoided the disastrous consequences by immediately denying the principle. The fundamental rights
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guaranteed by the Bill of Rights cannot be taxed, because, as Chief Justice Marshall said, in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 113, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” If an activity can be taxed, then a law can be passed prohibiting it. No law^can be passed prohibiting “religion" or abridging the free exercise thereof. Many un-American officials have branded Jehovah’s witnesses as “peddlers”, “canvassers,” “hawkers,” and other odious names, for the purpose of justifying their illegal imposition of the license tax. When they sober up long enough to realize what they are .* doing they will discover that Jehovah’s witnesses, when disrobed of such popularly conferred “garments”, are true, law-abiding American citizens, a part of the sovereign power of the United States, exercising fundamental, inherent rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which cannot be abridged by taxation or license. The Supreme Court has held that the federal government created by the Constitution to protect the fundamental freedoms cannot be taxed by the . state nor can any agency of the government be taxed by the state. By similar token and double force of reason the “fundamental rights” guaranteed by the First Amendment and secured by the Fourteenth against abridgment by the state cannot be taxed. If the freedoms can be taxed, then the federal government created to protect the freedoms , can be taxed and thus all of such creatures of the Constitution be destroyed.
Constitutional Rights Inviolate
A minister of the gospel cannot be denied his constitutional rights because he engages in some secular work during the week to maintain himself and family and avoids being a burden upon the ' people he ‘serves with. God’s . Word, neither does he have to be a graduateof some seminary or parochial school. The apostles were .fishermen, tentmakers, etc., and even.Ghrist Jesus was a carpenter, but this did not disqualify them
' 9
for preaching the gospel. They were declared to be “unlearned and ignorant men”, yet they confounded the mighty, the noble and th'e wise with their knowledge of the commandments of Almighty God.—Acts 4:13.
i *
) To Err Is Human
It is not impossible for members of the Supreme Court to commit mistakes in deciding the cases before them. They are but men, nine imperfect men, who are human. It is often said it is human to err but divine to forgive. The members of that august body have frequently acknowledged that they were previously in error and have changed their decision to correct their mistake. Their mistakes in decisions acknowledged by them to be error are too numerous to mention. In June, 1942, three .members of the court publicly confessed that they were in 1 error in deciding against Jehovah’s witnesses in the Gobitis flag case. A more unstatesmanlike decision cannot be found unless it be the Dred Scott case, . in which the Supreme Court refused to liberate a Negro slave prior to the Civil War, This decision was the match applied to the dynamite that blew the nation to pieces in the Civil War. The Gobitis case also was like a match applied to dried grass. It set the nation aflame with violence against Jehovah’s witnesses. Ever after such decision Jehovah’s witnesses were constantly throwm into the fiery furnace of public opinion, scorched and singed by mob violence, hatred, death and destruction, in thousands of instances, in hundreds of communities, and in every state of the.Union.
The decision and its effect were a test upon Jehovah’s witnesses, but they did not break in their integrity during the three years of “civil war” prosecuted against them in all the spates of the Union. God miraculously delivered them and gave them strength to push on in the battle to again present to the United States Supreme Court the identical problem involved in the Gobitis case, that it might clean its records and redeem itself. The experiences that Jehovah’s witnesses have had in the fiery furnace of mob violence forcibly reminds one of the almighty power of Jehovah God demonstrated in behalf of the faithful Hebrew Jehovah’s witnesses Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego iri the furnace of Babylon for their failure to bow down to the golden image representing the state.
The simple issues, fundamentals, involved in the flag salute ease and the license tax case should have been decided unanimously by the high court in favor of. liberty, thus contributing to national unity. The failure of the court to rule in favor of liberty has thus split the court; righteous judges on the court dissented in favor of Jehovah’s witnesses’ rights; and the court’s throwing Jehovah’s witnesses to the lions of public opinion, misrepresented by the press, has resulted in splitting the nation on the burning issue of right of conscience. These decisions have contributed greatly to disunity of the nation. How can there be national unity on, more complicated matters pertaining to the war being fought for the “four freedoms” among the people when the most trusted and most highly honored of all men .charged with the preservation of the greatesthuman document of liberty, the Bill of Rights, cannot agree among themselves as to measures to be taken on the court to preserve such simple, plain and fundamental liberties? The decisions against liberty have not been followed unanimously. On the contrary, many lower courts of the various state judicial systems have refused to extend the principles of the Gobitis decision and the opinion in the license tax cases. Many courts have flatly refused to follow the Supreme Court, and have ruled contrary to that high court; thus such low’er courts have preferred to be found in contempt of the United States Supreme Court rather than to violate their oath of office and their owm conscience by approving the
violation of the conscience of Jehovah's witnesses.
Glad to Obey the Law
In reference to the laws of the land, Jehovah’s witnesses are willingly and joyfully obedient to and do not refuse to obey any law unless it directly violates the law of Almighty God and their con* scientious allegiance to Him. They obey the laws of the land not because such laws have penalties and prescribe punishment—they do not obey to avoid punishment—but they obey the laws of the land because it is right and just. All laws for the good of humanity derive their authority from Almighty God. So states the famous Justice Blackstone of England and Judge Cooley of the United States, authorities for Anglo-American courts the world over. Jehovah’s witnesses rightly divide the word of truth and render allegiance to whom allegiance is due. They follow the rule, “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things which are God’s.” This is the rule stated and followed by Christ Jesus, as shown in His consistent course of action. Jehovah’s witnesses refuse to change from such rule. They will not render unto the state that which properly and solely belongs to Jehovah God. School boards, mobs and lower courts of the nations have advocated that Jehovah’s witnesses ‘render to Caesar the things which be Caesar’s and to caesar the things which be God’s’.
^Special Privileges for Clergy
Throughout the land the nation takes steps to protect and confer special privileges upon the clergy of recognized religions, above that of the ordinary citizen, and also protects them and members of their flocks in the freedom to exercise their religion. Comparatively speaking, the members of the recognized religions are a minority compared with the vast majority of the population w*ho are nonreligious and . which population depend upon Jehovah’s witnesses for Bible education. Why cannot this majority of the sovereign power with the small minority of Jehovah’s witnesses together have the protection of their constitutional rights to give and receive Bible education al the homes of the people without interference in the exercise of this right by the local police? The Congress of the United States has gone on record in a codification of the rules of respect to the flag so as to allow the flag of the Roman Catholic Church to fly above the Stars and Stripes during Catholic church services on the ships of the Navy of the United States. This was done in recognition of the supremacy of conscience in matters of religion and worship over the political obligation to the state. Why cannot Jehovah’s witnesses, who have no banner or flag and who show respect to the flag and the things it stands for, be permitted to put their allegiance to Almighty God ahead of the demands of the state and thus be permitted to exercise freedom of conscience in worship of Jehovah?
Timely Counsel
The granting of these two liberties, that is, liberty of conscience and liberty to preach, to this small minority will Ho much to prove to all nations that this country remains a democracy as originally designed by its founders, with sovereignty with the people and a free exercise of the freedom to worship Almighty God. The manner of treatment given Jehovah’s witnesses on these issues determines the fate of the nation, that is, whether it goes entirely totalitarian in its effort to defeat the Axis powers or remains a democracy. Above this issue is the much higher issue stated by Judge Gamaliel centuries ago: ‘And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will ■ come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”—-Acts 5:38, 39.
Steps in the Depopulation of Norway
IT IS difficult to measure the supreme _ viciousness with which Hitler made the following statement accredited to him in Rauschning’s Gespraech mil Hitler.: * It is our duty to depopulate. We shall have t to develop a technique of depopulation. What do you mean—depopulation--you were going to ask? Did I intend to exterminate whole nations? Yes, that is probably what it wnli amount to. Nature is cruel, so we may he cruel as well. Should 1 not have the right to exterminate an inferior race that increases like vermin? After a lot of nonsense has been talked about the protection of the poor and miserable for centuries, it is about time to stand up for the protection of the strong against the inferior. The natural instinct of every living thing demands not only that it should conquer but also exterminate its enemy. In former times it was considered the right of the victor to exterminate entire tribes, entire nations.
Carried away with this effort of Adolf Sehicklgruber to think of himself as occupying the place of Almighty God, two of Hitlers henchmen, a few years back, walked into the office of the Ameri-cap newspaper New Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold and told the proprietors that they had come to assume control of the German language press in the United States, and, among other interesting things, told them (producing certain documents meanwhile), “From now on, you will no longer be allowed to publish your pro-Jewish articles in your paper.” Thereupon one of the proprietors, Bernard Ridder, addressing the German spokesman, Spanknoebel, replied, “All I can tell you, Spanknoebel, is to get the h- out and 'Stay out.” Spanknoebel accepted the advice. His “depopulation” scheme for the paper died right there.
Cruelty and Conceit ‘
The actors in the foregoing betray at once both their cruelty and their conceit, And they betray it elsewhere. One of these places is Norway, and there the Jews are being obliterated as they are elsewhere. This goes hard with the liberty-loving Norwegians. Sixty brave men protested to President Quisling (probably signing their death warrants as they did so):
For 91 years Jews have had the legal right to reside and earn a livelihood in our country. Now they are being deprived of their property without warning, and thereafter the men arc being arrested and thus prevented from providing for their propertyless wives and children. These Jews have not been charged with any transgression of.the country’s laws, much less convicted of such transgressions by judicial procedure. Nevertheless they are being punished as severely as the worst criminals are punished. They are being punished'because of their racial background, wholly and solely because they are Jews.
A supplementary report mentions a list of 795 Norwegian Jews that were forced to surrender all their property to the Nazis. This isn't exactly murder, but it is on the edge of it. The same “men” that take all a man’s property and leave him and his wife and children without anything, would not hesitate in the least to kill them all. And they have done so, elsewhere.
Exterminating Others Also
As a matter of fact there have been actual shootings of prisoners in Norway, and on a large scale, though mostly of Serbians and Russians. In midsummer of 1942 900 Serbian prisoners arrived at Narvik, Norway, and, though many were ill, they were all forced to march fifteen miles over mountain roads. Some died .of exhaustion .on arrival. A month' later typhus broke out and all prisoners suffering from the disease were shot-said to be 3.00.
.So that' they might be fed at the expense of -the Norwegians, the- Nazis are interning some of their Russian
CONSOLATION prisoners in Norway. A few escaped into Sweden, whereupon it was decided to ship 400 of the prisoners to Germany for greater safety. They were accordingly locked in boxcars and at length were ferried to Germany. There it was decided to send them back to Norway, which was finally reached after a total time for the round trip of fourteen days. In that time, food was thrown into the cars four times. When the cars were opened in Norway, 337 of the 400 Soviet prisoners were found dead. This information comes from the American Friends of Czechoslovakia, 8 West 40th Street, New York.
Two Russian doctors escaped from Etterstad prison eamp near Oslo, Norway. One was captured and sentenced to 200 whiplashes, but died at the 60th stroke, whereupon bullets were poured into life corpse. All the 300 prisoners in the camp were forced to stand at rigid attention while the whipping was in progress.
Among the Russian prisoners in Norway are some boys of 10 to 12 years of age; so says a telephonic dispatch from Sweden to the New York Times, two months after the boxcar tale. Manifestly, there is a great shift of populations going on in Europe. Those that can at once be made into slaves will be made into slaves; those that can not will be destroyed.
At Trondheim, Norway, 10 hostages were forced to listen to broadcasts of their own executions, which did not take place until two days later. After the broadcasts they were kept standing at attention for a whole day, were given no food, and were not allowed to talk to one another. In the evening they were forced to listen again to reports that they had been executed. They were then subjected to severe questioning, and on the next morning were led to the execution place, then stripped naked, and shot, October 7, 1942.—From News of Norway, December 18, 1942.
Other “New Order” Bestialities
At Hovedya six Norwegians caught trying to flee the country died before a German firing squad. Many similar deaths have occurred. The death penalty is also inflicted for assisting others to escape. At Bergen a man was executed for failing to turn in his radio. Thirty fathers and brothers of Norwegians serving in England were sent to the Eastern Front, and there incorporated in Nazi work battalions.
When teachers, 10,500 in number, were ordered to bring the classroom instruction into line with the Devil’s “New Order”, 9,000 protested in writing, and at length ,670 were selected for punishment. In bitter weather they were taken for a 14-hour ride in open coal cars, landing at a railroad station at midnight, after which they were marched ten miles to the military camp at Joer-stadmoen. At the latter place one of the “exercises” required was to creep on their stomachs through ice water, snow and slush, whil§ keeping their hands upon their backs. Under the horrors of the camp twenty of the teachers broke down and agreed thenceforth to be good quislings. 150 became seriously ill and were sent back to another concentration camp for further “treatment”.
The 500 remaining teachers were loaded into a dirty old coastal steamer, the Skjerstad, the maximum capacity of which boat was supposed to be but 250. There were but two closets for all. The ship was taken to the far north. Congestion was so terrible that when any of these teachers collapsed from fatigue, they fell on top of one another or sprawled among the feet of those still able to stand.
These 500 teachers earned for themselves great fame among the people of Norway. Their offense was that they told little Norsemen that they would never ask them to do anything wrong, nor. would they teach them anything that they believed to be not in accordance with the truth. For this they were
kicked, beaten, and repeatedly jabbed with gun butts. Often they were without food for twenty-four hours. Some were . forced to crawl through the slush of latrines. At last accounts many of these teachers in their prison camp, far beyond 1 the North cape, were suffering with * pneumonia, ulcers, asthma, and bronchitis. Perhaps by now they have all been exterminated. These cruelties make one swallow hard.
At Oslo, Norway’s former capital, 100,000 German civilians were “located”, by the simple process of turning that many Norwegian citizens out of their homes, to make places for them. The excuse was that the Germans had been bombed out of their homes by the British, and those friendly to the British must pay the penalty.
One young housewife of this number was forced to stand at attention for eight hours. She was then placed in a closet, where she lost consciousness. She was then carried to an office, stripped of her clothing and beaten until five teeth were knocked out. An American was forced to make 300 knee-bends in succession.
Norsemen Take It Bitterly
The Norwegians, instead of being dismayed and submissive to their conquerors, show great bitterness, as illustrated in a paragraph from a private letter, published in News of Norway, January 8, 1943:
Private civilians from Germany are pouring into the country by the tens of thousands. Norwegians are simply ordered out of their own homes on a day or two of notice. And,you can only take with you what you can carry. Your furniture and household goods, beds, supplies, ete., are all to be left for the ‘‘guests”. You think this Poland? No, sir. This happens in Norway every day. My home has been registered for requisitioning when required. What can I do? Nothing. We have'no laws, no justice. I can burn it. But then they shoot me and my family. . . . The food situation is precarious. The Germans eat like pigs and take everything they need from us. The (German) soldiers drink the good milk. They are. good and fat. I have many friends who have lost 40 pounds and more in weight in the last 12 months.
The following is the standard eviction notice to which reference is made in the above:
1. You have to give up your house to the homeless. By 9 o’clock tomorrow morning you must have left your house. 2. All n«rns in your house must by then be in habitable condition. 3. Male and female servants must remain. 4. Fuel, like wood, coal, etc., must remain in house. 5. You may take with you personal laundry, clothes, toilet, necessities and jewelry; food only for immediate consumption, but no hoarded food. 6. All expenses on house must also in future be paid by owner. 7, You must, compile inventory lists in three copies and hand over all keys. 8. In case you do not obey these instructions you must reckon with punishment from Security Police.
The Hirdmen of Seibu
The village of Seibu, in Trpndelag, Norway, came into notice of the Quisling storm troopers, owing to the fact that hiss than 1 percent of the 4,500 population had affiliated themselves with the Nasjonal Sanding, which is Quisling’s party. Accordingly, a day was chosen for a raid at a Seibu farmhouse, rightly suspected as being a sort of center for liberty-lovers. Four large automobiles loaded with Hirdmen (Norwegian name for the Gestapo) drove up and told the owner they intended to stay for a few days. They sent out and gathered in 40 hostages, ranging in age from young boys to men of 60, all known to be libertylovers. These were kept without food for 24 hours, were forced to sleep on bare floors, and then were forced to crawl long distances on their stomachs, while the Hirdmen hovered menacingly above them calling them “swine” and “idiots”. Subsequently, 15 of the hostagep were compelled to march long distances, calling out constantly “Order, Justice, and
Peace”, The Hirdmen accompanied them in automobiles. Citizens who did not get out of the way were struck with clubs as the cars passed. Restaurants were closed and the patrons chased away. Several citizens were locked up in pigpens and later were chased back and forth on the roadways. The entire object of the whole visit by the Hirdmen was terrorization. Anybody who thinks to gain permanent benefits to himself or to anybody else by such procedures is as big a fool as the one who said in his heart, “I will be like the Most High.”
The Norwegians are in a tight spot. There is not much that they can do to show their independence, but they do what they can. Thus, when Quisling ordered all persons in industry to join trade unions, and all professional men * to join professional organizations (the motive being to better control the workers through their leaders), the labor leaders, representing 350,000 workers and members of the Norwegian employers’ association, asked their membership to resign en masse, which they did.
Again, when 65 workers were ordered to leave Oslo for Germany, and were instructed to be at the railway station in time to catch a certain train, only 3 of the 65 showed up; the others vanished.
Incidentally, one of the things that makes Hitler grind his teeth is that more than 80 percent of the Norwegian merchant fleet are now operated in the Allied cause, and though in the first year of the war 200 of the Norwegian ships went down, taking 1,300 Norse seamen to watery graves, yet 30,000 of their old comrades continue to sail .on. ■
An American view of Hitler’s concentration camps in Norway was afforded by Dr. Frank Nelson (born in the United States), who chanced to spend some time at one of them. In an address at Cleveland he stated that he had “once a week a mush that tasted like a low-grade wallpaper paste gone bad”.
At the concentration camp at Grini, Norway, Bibles are prohibited, and per
MAY 26, 1643 haps this may eventually be the Nazi rule everywhere. Now is the hour of the ‘prince of darkness’, but he and his whole devilish outfit are headed for the sewer.
Mental and Physical Escapes
The mental escape from tyranny is the greatest of all. At Bergen, Norway, the children of the city were ordered to attend a Hitler youth exhibition. They marched past the door singing the Norwegian national anthem and shouting “Long live the king!” Thereupon they were arrested. In these arrests one six-yeat-old was overlooked, but he ran up to one of the Hirdmen and shouted, “Long live the king! I want to be arrested too!”
At Oslo, Norway, Sverre Riisnaes, a Quislingite, called in one of the leading lawyers of the city and said to him in a solemn, voice, “It is my duty to inform you that your license to practice law has been revoked for life.” The attorney looked him coldly in the eyes and inquired, “Whose life?”
There are some remarkable physical escapes too. On a lonely forest roadway near Finhskogene a 23-year-old Norwegian girl was pedaling her bicycle, intent on escaping to Sweden. She met one of the Hirdmen, also on a wheel. He threatened to shoot her if she tried to cross the border, not far away. They rode silently for a few moments. Suddenly the girl made a burst of speed across the border, and the Hirdman, not realizing what he was doing, also crossed the border and, jabbing the muzzle of a revolver into her back, ordered her to return to Norway. She only laughed at him; and when the Swedish officials arrested him and told him he would not be permitted to return to Norway, he burst into tears. The Swedes gave the girl her liberty and gave the Hirdman four months in prison. •
The young men of Norway, energetic, intelligent, capable, are trying by every means in their power to escape to Britain, or, failing that, to make their way
to Sweden. In a single week in the latter part of 1942 no less than 30 Norwegian seamen, serving aboard German-controlled boats plying between Norway and Germany, jumped overboard as their ships passed the Swedish coast, staking their all on their ability to swim ashore.- Only two of them drowned. On the first day of the week following, 15 reached Sweden and safety in a single day.
Still more like the Vikings of old, six young Norwegians seized a coast steamer, the Galtesund, plying between Oslo and Bergen, and took the entire ship, the captain, the crew, the passengers and the freight across the North sea and landed safe and sound in Britain.
Returning to their homeland to get information, many young Norwegians have been put to death, with all their relatives, and with many others who had nothing whatever to do with their exploits. Two of them landed at the fishing village of Tellevaag on Sotra island. The Hirdmen were informed. They came and shot one of them, but the other one killed two of the Hirdmen before he himself was fatally shot. Thereupon the entire village of Tellevaag was obliterated, or, as Hitler would put it, “depopulated.” All of the fifty or sixty houses were burned to the ground. One of the prisoners taken by the Hirdmen was an infant four days old.
What will be the end of this depopulating process which “the king of the north” is*carrying out all over Europe? The Scriptures show what will follow this accursed time, Armageddon! The thing that will follow, after Armageddon has done its cleansing work, will be that Satan will be chained: the demons that worked with him will be destroyed; the Hirdmen and the Gestapo will be silent in the Bible hell, along with all the other accursed nuisances which have made this beautiful earth an inferno. Righteousness will enter. Peace will be there. Everlasting life will be at hand. Sickness will be gone. Health, vitality, love, music, sweetness, wisdom, justice, will be everywhere apparent. Th,e old world will be for ever gone, and in its place grateful humanity will have the desire of all nations, the New World.
Tyrants Can’t Take It
A TYRANT can’t take ridicule. It burns him up. The Danes have found that out and are tormenting their tormentors. The British blew to smithereens a munitions factory at Skive. The Germans published a fact that a cow had been hit; whereon the Skive Journal kept within the law and caused tittering all over Denmark by publishing the statement, “A cow has been hit, and the cow burned for four days.” The paper was suspended for fourteen days.
A fish hawker in Copenhagen went tbrjougb the streets shouting, “Lovely fat mackerel, beautiful fat mackerel, as fat as Goering himself.” Thereupon he was jailed for two weeks; and when he came out he shouted, “Lovely fat mackerel, beautiful fat mackerel, just as fat as a fortnight ago,” and nobody could stop him. Moreover he probably sold enough more fish to pay for all the time he lost behind bars.
Tyrants Are Always Cowards
Tyrants are always cowards, and so it was but natural that a German court at The Hague should fine a young Netherlander forty guilders for wearing in his buttonhole a small orange-colored lion. The orange color, it was said in court, stands for the House of Orange (and thus for Protestantism) and therefore it is not permissible to wear it. Probably it is now unsafe in The Netherlands to buy or eat an orange, wear an orangecolored tie or scarf, or look at an orange sunset.
. Race Degeneracy, Why?
THE most precious thing possessed by any creature is life. Without life everything else ’ would be useless and could not be enjoyed. Even now we observe that a man with but a small spark of life clings to that with desperation. It is only when a creature is perfect and enjoying complete life and the right to it that he can properly glorify his great Creator, For thousands of years man’s Creator has been working out His purpose to rescue humankind from race degeneracy and annihilation. God’s great arrangement must ultimately bring glory to His name.
God .created Adam, the first man, in His own image and likeness. He created him perfect; for all the works of Jehovah God are perfect, "as the prophet Moses testifies, at Deuteronomy 32:4. God gave to man life and the right to life. Life means any conscious existence. Right to life means the full authority to maintain existence. Adam and his wife, who was made after him, were perfect in their bodies, without pain, without sorrow; and were the most beautiful creatures in Eden’s garden. They had not a scar nor a mark upon them anywhere. They enjoyed life and all the blessings incident to that life. Their home was perfect; and even all the animals and birds of Eden were subject to them, and they had absolute dominion and control. God gave them all these privileges to enjoy eternally, upon one expressed condition, namely, that they be obedient to His law and thereby honor Him. He informed man that a violation of this law would bring upon him loss of life, loss of his right to life and loss of all the blessings incident to it.
Satan then appeared and induced Eve to ^believe that God was keeping back something from them, and. Satan, by deceiving Eve, induced her to violate God’s law. There was no real wrong in the forbidden fruit which Eve ate. The wrong was in disobeying the Lord. When Adam found she had violated God’s law, he, knowing that she must die, preferred to be w’ith her in death rather than to be separated from her. So he also became a party to the transgression by voluntarily and willingly violating God’s law. Jehovah God, in the exercise of His perfect justice, sentenced man to death. This sentence deprived Adam and Eve of the right to life. They were driven out of Eden and in due time lost life itself. For 930 years they were compelled to go about in the earth and earn their bread by digging in the soil and partaking of such food as they produced, which was imperfect and deficient in life-sustaining qualities. In this manner they were put to death.
This sentence of death passed upon Adam had an indirect effect upon his offspring. Before he was driven from Eden he and Eve had not exercised the power given to them by Jehovah God to beget and bring forth children on the earth. This they did exercise after being driven from Eden. Being now under the sentence of death and undergoing that death penalty, it was impossible for their children, born under such conditions, to come into existence perfect. It would follow, then, that when the children were born they were degenerate. While they would have a measure of life and the rights incident to that measure of life and which their fellow creatures had no authority to violate, yet they would have no right to live at all from God’s standpoint. Adam having now no right to life could not bring children into the earth who would have greater right than he had. . '
Any human creature that exists on earth possesses equally with others the right to food, air, light, and certain privileges in human society. These are called “life rights"; that is to say, they are incident to animation as humans, privileges belonging to creatures that live in any measure. On the other hand, the right to live,’ then, means a just right of existence which cannot properly be taken away without sanction from God.
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