Consolation, July 21, 1943
Download: PDF — Consolation, July 21, 1943
Contents
Flag-Salute Dissenters Vindicated
In the Open Forum of Public Opinion 4
' .Flag-Salute Decision Reversed
" Separate Concurrent Opinions
Sedition Charges Ruled False •
In Further Support of Free Press
. and Worship
I Round the World
* Concurrent with Australian Victory 13
Where There’s a Will (Picture page) 14
Teaching the Deaf-Blind
No Need to Go So Far
Russians Standing Up to It
Grabbing the United States (
“It Required Special Permission”
Ku KIux Too Little and Too Late
Mgr. Sheen Orates for Fascism
The Flag of “Christendom”
Would “Compel” Obedience to Whom?
No Union Except Surrender
Insist on Absolute Control
Addenda
Public Aid for Parochial Schools
Life Article Peeves Hierarchy
Five Years of War in China
Presenting, “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Impromptu Speaking
Transportation Items
Published every other Wednesday b^ WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.
117 Adams SU Brooklyn, ¥., U, S, A.
OFFICERS
President «» • N. H. Knorr
Secretary W. E. Van Amburgh
Editor Clayton J. Woodworth
Five Cents a Copy
a year in the United States $1.25 to Canada and all other countries
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS
Remittances: For your own safety, remit by postal or express money order. When coin or currency is lost in the ordinary mails, there is no redress. Remittances from countries other than those named below may be made to the Brooklyn office, but only by international postal money order.
Receipt of a new or renewal subscription will be acknowledged only when requested. Notice of Expiration la sent with the journal one month before subscription expires, Please renew promptly to avoid loss of Copies. Send change of address direct to us rather than to the post office. Tour request should rrach us at least two weeks before the date of issue wiLi which it is to take effect. Send your old as well as the new address. Copies will not be forwarded by the post office to your new address unless extra postage is provided by you.
Published also in Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian,
OFFICES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES
England - 34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2
Australia " ' 7 Beresford Road, Strathfleld, N. . S. W.
South Africa - $23 Boston House, papa Town
Mexico Calzada de Melchor Ocampo 71, Mexico, Db F. Bcarll' Caixa Postal Rdo de Janeiro
Argentina Calle Honduras 5646-48, Buenos Aires
Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. T.» under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Notapda
French Girl Escapes to Britain
♦ It is difficult enough for hardy men to make their way from any point on continental Europe across the stormy seas to Britain. But a young 20-year-old French girl succeeded in so doing, thanks to the skill and courage of a Guernsey fisherman, and a fifty-hour fight for life in which she was kept bailing constantly while the fisherman steered, the nine-foot fishing boat in which they made the trip. She had tried to get to Britain from Dunquerque, where she was at the time of the British Expeditionary Force evacuation, but did not succeed. At length she got a job peeling potatoes for a German labor force on the island of Guernsey. After months of watching and waiting she finally gained the confidence of the fisherman; they put off at night and at length were spotted and saved by the crew of a Royal Air Force speed launch.
Two Remarkable Facts
♦ Although his striking force, in Libya never exceeded 30,000 men General Wavel! in eight weeks captured 130,000 soldiers. Out of the thousands of ships convoyed by the British navy, less than one out of 200 have been lost.
Society’s Address
Hereafter all communications mailed to the Society should he addressed as follows:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society
117 Adams St.
Brooklyn 1 N. Y.
When writing to the Society at 124 Columbia Heights, the address should be Brooklyn 2, N. Y., as this is in a different district from 117 Adams Street. :
This is required in order to comply with the request by the U. S. Post Office Departs ment to facilitate the handling of mail at the General (Post Office in Brooklyn, New York.
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
Volumo XXIV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, July 21, 1043 Number 622
Flag-Salute Dissenters Vindicated
LAG DAY of 1943 and Flag Day of 1940—what a contrast in the minds of all liberty-lovers! On that national holiday three years ago the “land of the free and the home of the brave” was being swept with a wave of violence, mobocracy and contempt for the principles for which the American flag stands. It hurled its fury against the small band of citizens whose consciences would not permit them to salute any flag, and it quickly rolled across 44 states of the Union, leaving in its wake wrecked civil liberties due to shocking depredations by pseudo patriots and religious inquisitors. What was the boasted justification of the terrorists for all such open lawlessness and disrespect for the national emblem? The Supreme Court flag-salute decision of eleven days previous against Jehovah’s witnesses. Then, to top off this fateful June 14, 1940, Paris, the capital of the French republic of “liberty, equality and fraternity”, fell before the blitzkrieg of the onrushing Nazi hordes. The republic was betrayed, sold out to the enemy by an official and religious Fifth Column. It then seemed to foreshadow what was destined to happen to America by a like totalitarian-minded element hiding under the drapery of the flag. The entire. bloc of democratic nations was deeply disturbed and cast into black gloom.
, Comes the same day in 1943. A far different event takes place, and those who cherish democracy rejoice. The American nation is then at war, yet the event here observed is not the military reverses dealt the Nazi-Fascist powers that day, but reverses against their ideology by democratic victories in the field of civil rights. These were victories scored by those who have tenaciously fought for liberty on the home front, and were announced by the nation’s highest tribunal within the stately white marble walls of the Supreme Court building at Washington, D. C. Of such victories the most outstanding was the court’s reversal of its former judgment and thereby declaring void the compulsory flag-salute as applied to Jehovah’s witnesses who conscientiously object to participating therein because of their worship of and obedience to Almighty God, Jehovah.
That the decision should come on such a day was no mere coincidence. The court could have chosen no better time on which to honor the principles of “liberty and justice for all” for which the flag stands. All believers in those principles throughout all democratic lands are grateful. The court which the late Judge Rutherford described as the “last bulwark in America against totalitarian rule” still stands. Were it otherwise, it would mock all hope of any establishment of the “Four. Freedoms” after global war.
Today the two articles of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights gleam with greater luster and assurance than ever, namely:
“ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
“ARTICLE XIV. ... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall i any State deprive any person of life, 4 liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. ...”
' The Supreme Court’s own decision of June 3, 1940, had greatly dimmed those fundamental principles of the Constitution. On that occasion, by a vote of 8 to 1 on the notable Minersville School District v, Gobitis case the court overruled the Federal District Court below and ruled that sehoolboards may require public school students to join in the flag’ salute exercises as a condition of attendance at school. Justice Frankfurter was the writer of that decision, and Justice Harlan F. Stone had the honor of being the courageous lone dissenter to compulsory flag-saluting. The majority' decision declared the court’s incompetence to act as the schoolboard for the nation in determining the best means for inculcating patriotism in the school children; it dodged the real fundamental issue of freedom of the worship of God by throwing the burden of rendering judgment into the lap of the open forum to let public opinion decide. It was clearly a case of evasion of responsibility and of non-fulfillment of the judicial commissions of the court. The weakness, unwisdom and error of the decision were earlyr demonstrated by the grave results that followed.
In the Open Forum of Public Opinion
The decision evoked unfavorable editorial comment from newspapers .all over the .land. The decision was greedily snapped pp as wayrapt fog mynand organizations with a religious' grudge and. designs against democracy to indulge in violent persecution and other unconstitutional disorders against Jehovah’s vjvitncsses. Expulsion of children, instructed in the Bible, from free schools for refusal to violate their covenant with God by flag-saluting increased; and such were then treated as truants for not being able to take advantage of public schooling. Their parents were either prosecuted or threatened as contributing to the delinquency of their offspring. Children were taken from the parental care and family circle and put in reformatories for juveniles with criminal tendencies. Jehovah’s witnesses generally in carrying on their peaceable and orderly work of preaching the good news of God’s ^kingdom were abused, assaulted, mobbed, run out of town. Their places of worship were invaded, broken up and burned, and their properties destroyed* Boycotts against their privilege of assembly w’ere applied; free exercise of the right to petition for redress of grievances was denied them. Weak or willful breakdown of official enforcement ’ of law and order and the equal protection of the law showed itself glaringly.
As the evidence clearly' establishes, religious conspirators against democracy', egged on by the spirit of intolerance toward the general education of the people in the Bible, wrapped themselves in the folds of the flag and hypocritically' expressed their venom against Jehovah’s witnesses who exposed them. School boards and boards of education made it their special business now to pass flag-salute regulations and ordinances so as to coerce the conscientious children under threat of punishment.
On January 9, 1942, the West Virginia State Board of Education adopted a resolution ordering the flag salute with oath of allegiance in all public schools and providing that refusal to take part therein be “regarded as an act of insubordination” and be “dealt with accordingly”. •'
State legislatures passed laws, ostensibly' for the purpose of detecting and punishing sedition, but the wording thereof shows that the real reason was to get Jehovah’s witnesses on the grounds of their refusal to do obeisance to the flag and their persistent proclamation of Jehovah’s kingdom as the only hope of humanity. And it got them! On March 20, 1942, the State of Mississippi enacted a statute of such kind specifically mentioning refusal to salute the national and state emblems, and also phonographs, which Jehovah’s witnesses are known to use from house to house and in home Bible studies; and branding preaching activities such as theirs a “felony”, to be “punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary until treaty of peace be declared by the United States but such imprisonment shall nbt exceed ten years”. The real target of such statute is unmistakably identified in that the only ones who have been prosecuted and imprisoned under that sedition law to this date have been Jehovah’s witnesses, of whom more than a hundred have been thus incarcerated and deprived of freedom for their missionary work. Louisiana and Arkansas followed the example of the- Magnolia State in such legislation.
All the foregoing excesses were the outcome of carrying the issue into the open forum ot public opinion and yielding to the pressures of the day. And three Supreme Court justices, who had concurred in the Gobitis decision, stood by and watched the parade of consequences and began to understand. .
Jehovah’s witnesses, however, demonstrated that they have a more reliable guide than shifting popular opinion and do not yield to the pressures of the day, and that they abide by a higher law than that of imperfect men. So their children refused to play the hypocrite (which is the resort of traitors and fifth columnists) by outwardly conforming but in the expectation of afterward disavowing “as publicly as they choose to do so the meaning that others attach to the
gesture bf salute”, a la Frankfurter. Such might go with men; not so with Almighty God, who despises hypocrites and favors and approves only those who faithfully keep their integrity toward Him and obey His commandments without double-dealing. For such cause they openly obeyed the law of Jehovah God: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1. John 5:21) “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, ilee from idolatry.” (1 Corinthians 10:14) “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:10) “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shaft not bow down thyself to them', nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”—Exodus 20: 3-5. '
The children held to their integrity toward the Great Judge, and the parents continued to teach them in the Word and law of the Supreme Lawgiver. They took the punishment for their adherence to the divine rule. They established Kingdom schools of their own to which to send their children for basic education. Resolutely all of Jehovah’s witnesses pressed forward in spreading the Kingdom gospel and braved arrest, dragging into court and jailing. They did not show the un-American spirit of their persecutors and lower themselves to acts of aggressive violence, but showed respect for law’, order and the principles of the flag by using their rights and privileges as American citizens and carrying their grievances into the courts and defending themselves there. Freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, and of worship were at stake; and no time or expense was spared in behalf of these rights and privileges, to the end that God’s name might be honored and the people at large might be enlightened and comforted by the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom by Christ Jesus. Hence it was that cases worked their way through orderly legal processes up to the nation’s supreme tribunal for adjudication,
* First Court Reversal
June 8, 1942, was a dark day for civil liberties in the court’s annals. By a majority of just one its decision in the Opelika (Ala.) v. Jones ease went against Jehovah’s witnesses. The opinion as prepared and read by Justice Reed declared that the gospel-preaching of these Christians from house to house accompanied with the distribution of literature fell under a commercial classification and was therefore subject to license-tax ordinances. Chief Justice Stone and Justices Murphy, Black and Douglas dissented. More than this, these last three justices took occasion to announce that they now believed the Gobitis case had been wrongly decided. The adverse majority ruling raised a great furore among publishing circles throughout the nation as being an encroachment upon freedom of press as well as the worship of God. Since then one new justice took his place on the high bench, to wit, Justice Rutledge. >
An appeal was now made for a rehearing of the Opelika v. Jones ease,, On May 3, 1943, the newly constituted court handed down a 5-to-4 decision reversing itself on that case and vacating its previous judgment thereon. Such a reversal of itself, and that within so brief a time, was most exceptional, but it was hailed far and wide as a grand victory for civil rights and notably for the freedom of the press in America.
Flag-Salute Decision Reversed
. Just six weeks later the most brilliant victory for civil rights followed, and on a most tender issue. The West Virginia State Board of Education had appealed from the ruling of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, which ruling was in favor of the appellees, Barnette, Stull and-McClure, these being Jehovah’s witnesses whose children had been expelled from school for non-compliance with the state board’s flag-salute regulation, and who, as their parents, were prosecuted therefor. Now by a split decision of 6 to 3 the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling of the lower court which forbade enforcement of the board’s flag-salute ordinance against Jehovah’s witnesses. Thereby the Supreme Court reversed itself again, and this time as to its position taken in the precedent-making Gobitis case. .
Mr. Justice Jackson, the second-last of the newcomers to the bench, delivered the court’s opinion. It cut through the confusion of precedent and went right to the heart of the issue, the fundamentals of the Bill of Rights. Reading the opinion, Justice Jackson said, in part:
This case calls upon us to reconsider a precedent decision, as the Court throughout its history often has been required to do. Before turning to the' Gobitis case, however, it is desirable to notice certain characteristics by which this controversy is distinguished.
The freedom asserted by these respondents does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. But the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. The State asserts power to condition access to public education on making a prescribed sign and profession and at the same time to coerce, attendance by punishing both: parent and child. The latter stand on a right of selfdetermination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal attitude. ...
There is ho doubt that, in connection. with the pledges, the flag salute is a form of utterance. Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas. The use .of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a short cut from mind to mind. Causes and nations, political parties, lodges and ecclesiastical groups seek to knit the loyalty of their followings to a flag or banner, a color or design. The State announces rank, function, and authority through crowns and maces, uniforms and black robes; the church speaks through the cross, the crucifix, the altar and shrine, and clerical raiment. Symbols of State often convey political ideas just as religious symbols come to convey theological ones. Associated with many of these symbols are appropriate gestures of acceptance or respect: a salute, a bowed or bared head, a bended knee. A person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man’s comfort and inspiration is another’s jest and scorn.
Over a decade ago Chief 'justice Hughes led this court in holding that the display of a red flag as a symbol of opposition by peaceful ’ and legal means to organized government was protected by the free speech guaranties of the ' Constitution. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359. Here it is the State that-employs a flag as a symbol of adherence to government as presently organized. It requires the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas it thus bespeaks. Objection to this form of communication- when coerced is an old one, well known to the framers of the Bill of Rights.
It is also to be noted that the compulsory flag salute and pledge requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind. . . . But here the power of compulsion is invoked without any allegation that remaining passive during a flag salute ritual creates a clear and present danger that would justify an effort even to muffle expression. To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind. . . .
1. It was said that the flag-salute controversy confronted the Court with “the problem which Lincoln cast in memorable dilemma: 'Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people,' or too weak to maintain its own existence and that the answer must be in favor of strength. Minersville School District v. Gobitis, supra, at 596. . . .
Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support. Without promise of a limiting Bill of Rights it is doubtful if our Constitution could have mustered enough strength to enable its ratification. To enforce those rights today is not to choose weak government over strong government. It is only to adhere as a means of strength to individual freedom of mind in preference to officially disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end.
The subject now before us exemplifies this principle. Free public education, if faithful to the ideal of secular instruction and political neutrality, will not be partisan or enemy of any class, ereed, party, or faction. If it is to impose any ideological discipline, however, each party or denomination must seek to control, or, failing that, to weaken the influence of the educational system. Observance of the limitations of the Constitution will not weaken government in the field appropriate for its exercise. . . .
The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures—boards of education not excepted. These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights. That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of constitutional freedoms of the individual, if We are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of pur government as mere platitudes.
Such boards are numerous and their terri' torial jurisdiction, often small. But small and local authority may feel less sense of responsibility to the Constitution, and agencies of publicity may be less vigilant in calling it to account, The action of Congress in making dag observance voluntary and respecting the । conscience of the objector in a matter so vital A as raising the Army contrasts sharply with these local regulations in matters relatively trivial to the welfare of the nation. There are village tyrants as well as village Hampdens, but none who acts under color of law is beyond reach of the Constitution. . . .
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
In weighing arguments of the parties it is important to distinguish between the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an instrument for transmitting the principles of the First Amendment and those eases in which it is applied for its own sake. The test of legislation which collides with the Fourteenth Amendment, because it also collides with the principles of the First, is much more definite than the test when only the Fourteenth is involved. Much of the vagueness of the due process clause disappears when the specific prohibitions of the First become its standard. The right of a state to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to imposc all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a “rational basis” for adopting. But freedoms of speech and of press, .of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed on such slender grounds. They are susceptible of restriction only to prevent grave and" immediate danger to ‘interests. 'vh'e.r. the state may lawfully ^protect. It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears directly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case. ...
Conditions have changed vastly since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, and the federal government has concentrated greater regulatory power into its own hands. Remarking this, Justice Jackson continued:
We must transplant these rights to a soil in which the laissez-faire, concept or principle of non-interference has withered at least as to economic affairs, and social advancements are increasingly sought through closer integration of society and through expanded and strengthened governmental controls. These changed conditions often deprive precedents of reliability and cast us more than we ■would choose upon our own judgment. But we act in these matters not.by authority of our competence but by force of our commissions. We cannot, because of modest estimates of our competence ih such specialties as public education, withhold the judgment that history authenticates as the function of this Court when liberty is infringed.
4. Lastly, and this is the very heart of the Gobitis opinion, it reasons that “National unity is the basis of national security,” that the authorities have “the right to select appropriate means for its attainment,” and hence reaches the conclusion that such compulsory measures toward “national unity” are constitutional. Id. at .595. Upon the verity of this assumption depends our answer in this case.
National unity as an end ■which officials may foster by "persuasion and example is not in question. The problem is whether under our Constitution compulsion as here employed is a permissible means for its achievement.
... As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing.- Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a, disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
It seems trite but necessary to say that the . First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. . . .
■ ... To believe that patriotism will not
flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ ak to things that touch the heart of the existing order.. t
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to. reserve from all official control. ■
The decision of this Court in Minersville < School District v. Gobitis and the holdings of those few per curiam decisions which preceded and foreshadowed it are overruled, and the judgment enjoining enforcement of the West Virginia Regulation is
Affirmed.
Separate Concurrent Opinions
■ Justices Murphy, Douglas and Black, up harmony with their courageous confession of 1942 regarding the Gobitis decision, not only concurred in the above, but rendered separate opinions of their own. In his added opinion Justice Murphy said, in part:
. . . But there is before us the right of freedom to believe, freedom to worship one’s Maker according to the dictates of one’s conscience, a right which the Constitution specifically shelters. Reflection has convinced me that as a judge I have no loftier duty or responsibility than to uphold that spiritual freedom to its farthest reaches.
The right of freedom of thought and of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution against State action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all except insofar as essential operations of government may require it for the preservation of an orderly society,—as in the case of compulsion to give evidence in court. Without wishing to disparage the purposes and intentions of those who hope to inculcate sentiments of loyalty and patriotism by requiring a declaration of allegiance as a feature of public education, or unduly belittle the benefits that may accrue therefrom, I am impelled to conclude that such a requirement is not essential to the maintenance of effective government and orderly society. To many it. is deeply distasteful to join in a public chorus of affirmation of private belief. By some, including the members of this sect, it is apparently regarded as incompatible with a primary religious obligation and therefore a restriction on religious freedom. Official compulsion to affirm what is contrary to one’s religious beliefs is-the antithesis of freedom of worship, which, it is well to recall, was achieved in'this country only after what Jefferson characterized as the “severest contests in which I have ever been engaged.”
I am unable to agree that the benefits that may accrue to society from the compulsory flag salute are sufficiently definite and tangible to justify the invasion of freedom and privacy that is entailed or to compensate for a restraint on the freedom of the individual to be vocal or silent according to his conscience or personal inclination. The trenchant words in th» preamble to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom remain unanswerable: “. . . all attempts to influence [the mind] by temporal punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, ...” Any spark of love for ' country which may be generated in a child or his associates by forcing him to make what is to him an empty gesture and recite Words wrung from him contrary to his religious beliefs is overshadowed by the desirability of preserving freedom of conscience to the full. It is in that freedom and the example of persuasion, not in force and compulsion, that the real unity of America lies.
Justices Black and Douglas, in their separate joint opinion, declared, in part:
. . . Long reflection convinced us that although the principle is sound, its application in the particular ease was wrong. Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 623. "We believe that the statute before us fails to accord full scope to the freedom of religion secured to the appellees by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The statute requires the appellees to participate in a ceremony aimed at inculcating respect for the flag and for this country. The JehovahJs witnesses, without any desire to show disrespect for either the flag or the country, interpret the Bible as commanding, at the risk of God’s displeasure, that they not go through the form of a pledge of allegiance to any flag. The devoutness of their belief is evidenced by their willingness to suffer persecution and punishment, rather than make the pledge.
. . . Decision as to the constitutionality of particular laws which strike at the substance of religious tenets and practices must be .made by this court. The duty is a solemn one, and in meeting it we cannot say that a failure, because or religious scruples, to assume a particular physical position and to repeat the words of a patriotic formula creates a grave danger to the nation. Such a statutory exaction is a form of test oath, and the test oath has always been abhorrent in the United States.
Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions. These laws must, to be consistent with the First Amendment, permit the widest toleration of conflicting viewpoints consistent with a society of free men. ’
Neither our domestic tranquillity in peace nor our martial effort in war depends on compelling little children to participate in a ceremony which ends in nothing for them but a,fear of spiritual condemnation. If, as we think, their fears are groundless, time and reason are the proper antidotes for their errors. The ceremonial, when enforced against conscientious objectors, more likely to defeat than to serve its high purpose, is a handy implement for disguised religious persecution. As such, it is inconsistent with our Constitution’s plan and purpose.
Such reversal of private opinions does not denote instability on the part of-these three justices. It displays honesty, and proves they had watched the operation of the Gobitis decision and now admitted its iniquitous fruitage to the nation and most painfully to conscientious Christians. The about-face of the Supreme Court is likewise no occasion for alarm because occurring after such a short interval. It gives no reason for fear that the court will henceforth show itself intellectually incapable of rendering decisions that will long stand the test of time and developments. It shows rather that the present court includes men who are prompt to right a wrong and to act in rest6ration of fundamental freedoms and righteousness. Such is the safe and right step for a fallible court to take, regardless of elapsed time for afterthought.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter remained adamant in support of his opinion rendered in the Gobitis case, and tendered a 19-page opinion of dissent from the reversal of it Justices Reed and Roberts dissented with him.
Sedition Charges Ruled False
Freedom’s bulwarks were further buttressed by the decision immediately following the above. On this, strangely, although the flag-salute issue was involved, there was unanimity of opinion by all nine justices. This dealt with three cases, being appeals from the Supreme Court of the State of Mississippi by three of Jehovah’s witnesses, Taylor, Benoit, and Cummings, who had been prosecuted and imprisoned under the 1942 anti-sedition law of Mississippi. Mr. Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court. The conclusion thereof reads:
, In the West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, No. 591 of the present term, the court has decided that a state may not enforce a regulation requiring children in the public schools to salute the national emblem. The statute .here in question seeks to punish as a criminal one who teaches resistance to governmental compulsion to salute. If the Fourteenth Amendment’ bans enforcement of ' the school regulation, a fortiori it prohibits the imposition of punishment for urging and advising that, on religious grounds, citizens refrain from saluting the flag. If the state cannot constrain one to violate his conscientious religious conviction by saluting the national emblem, then certainly it cannot punish him for imparting his views on the subject to his fellows and exhorting them to accept those views.
Inasmuch as Betty Benoit was charged only with disseminating literature reasonably tending to create an attitude of stubborn refusal to' salute, honor, or respect the national and state flag and government, her conviction denies her the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Her conviction and the convictions of Taylor and Cummings, for advocating and teaching refusal to salute the flag, cannot be sustained.
The last mentioned appellants were also charged with oral teachings and the dissemination of literature calculated to encourage disloyalty to the state and national governments. Their convictions on this charge must also be set aside.
The statute as construed in these eases makes it a criminal offense to communicate to others views and opinions respecting governmental policies, and prophecies concerning the future of our own and other nations. As applied to the appellants it punishes them although what they communicated is not ' claimed or shown to have been done with an evil or sinister purpose, to have advocated or incited subversive action against the nation or state, or to have threatened any clear and present danger to our institutions or our government. What these appellants communicated were their beliefs and opinions concerning domestic measures and trends in national and world affairs.
Under our decisions criminal sanctions cannot be imposed for such communication.
The judgments are reversed.
In Further Support of
Free Press and Worship
Finally, as a sort of anticlimax, Chief Justice Stone announced a per curiam decision on the case of Jehovah’s witnesses who were convicted of “selling, on the streets of the District of Columbia, magazines” without a license or payment of license tax according to the local code. In view of the court’s decision of May 3, 1943, reversing itself in the Jones V. Opelika case, they vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia below and remanded the cause back to that court to enable it to re-examine its rulings As respects Jehovah’s witnesses in the light' of the Supreme Court’s decisions. If the District of Columbia court fails to rule now that the local license and taxation ordi-
nances do not apply to Jehovah’s witnesses, then the Supreme Court will throw out the entire code regulation as unconstitutional. The district attorney for the District of Columbia has already conceded the constitutional infirmity, of . the statute; hence to save face the appeal i court of the District must revise its 1 application of the statute.
In reality, then, June 14 marked the winning of three cases before the supreme bar of the United States by Jehovah’s witnesses, and that with incalculable benefit to the civil liberties of all Americans. ’
Decision Hailed
The reaction country-wide to these vital decisions was preponderantly favorable, and news articles and editorials in the leading newspapers and magazines of the nation appeared for days thereafter. A Miami Daily News (June 15) editorial on “The Real Patriotism” says: “The new decision is a victory for the four freedoms right here at home.” Said the New York Times editorial of June 19: “Whether or not Jehovah’s witnesses leave a mark on the religious history of the United States, they are certainly leaving one on its constitutional history. . .. The voluntary principle is the essence of civil rights as of common sense.” On June 20 the Times editor under “Salute to Freedom” said: “The decision was hailed by many, including those unsympathetic to Jehovah’s witnesses, as a triumph of civil liberties in wartime.” An accompanying article was headlined: “Civil Liberties Gfiin by the Flag Decision—Restraint shown by authority is in contrast with first World War.” On June 15 a Times news commentator spoke of it as “The Supreme Court at Its Peak”.
Said the New York Herald Tribune (June 14) editorial .under the heading “Welcome Reversal”: “Three years ago the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in an 8-to-l decision, that state laws requiring school children to salute the American flag were valid. . . . Naturally, therefore, we deplored the surprising decision of the Supreme Court and today welcome its reversal.” Said the Chicago Sun (June 15) editorial “ 'Salute or Else’ Is Out”: “The Supreme Court did what was expected of it Monday when it reversed its previous decision in the Jehovah’s witnesses 'flag salute’ case. . . . Chief credit is due Chief Justice Stone for his dissent three years ago. That won both the public and the three justices.”
Said the Pittsburgh Press (June 15) editorial under “A Freedom. Is Reinstated” (as also repeated in the Cincinnati Post): “It is a healthy thing, especially at a time when we are fighting for the-four freedoms, that the judiciary should revoke its unwise and ill-seasoned acquiescence in local infringements of the freedom of religion.” The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (June 16) expressed itself editorially as “proud that we have a court so anxious to preserve the fundamental liberties that it will run the risk of reproach of inconsistency and instability in seeking to maintain them”. The Philadelphia Record (June 16), editorialising under the heading “The Flag Salute Decision: An Example to the World”, stated that the reversed decision “offers the most dramatic example of legal protection for minorities that has occurred in our lifetime”. The Baltimore Sun (June 15) editor put it this way: '^The Supreme Court Strikes a Blow for Religious Freedom,” under which he says: “Certainly this solution is to be applauded—all the more in times like these, when we are reasserting our faith in the civil liberties by force of arms all over the world.”
Only one sour note has thus far been heard, and that is from New Jersey, concerning which the New York "Herald Tribune carried an article (June 15) under the headlines: “New Jersey Advised to Ignore Supreme Court on Flag Salute”; also the New York Journal-
American .(June 16): “Schools in N. J. to Insist upon Flag Salute.”
Round the World
_ Like the shot at Concord fired for liberty in 1775, the report of the Supreme Court decisions was heard round the world. The following are. cablegrams received within that week by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, at Brooklyn, N. Y., under whose supervision the instant cases of Jehovah's witnesses were fought even to the highest court:
London, England: “Thankful for flagsalute victory reported British press.”
Stockholm, Sweden : “Rejoicing in Jehovah's act of deliverance through Supreme Court ruling reported in press. Family sends warm love.”
Cape Town, South Africa: “Rejoice exceedingly in Supreme Court decision.”
Sydney, Australia: “Joy at High Court victory overflows on receiving news American triumphs. Jehovah’s praises resound as Australian witnesses inarch forth under all-conquering King Christ Jesus. Have cabled British, Canadian, New Zealand governments urging similar recognition and freedom.”
Concurrent with Australian Victory
The joy and eventfulness of the day were further heightened by the news transmitted by the Associated Press from the “land down under”, the island ; continent where Jehovah’s witnesses have been decreed an “illegal organization” and suppressed as “subversive” since January 16, 1941. Nevertheless, those Christians, in faithfulness to their commission from on high, kept on preaching 'the glad tidings of the divine Government of the New World, though permitted only to use the Bible without Watchtower helps, They carried their case into the court, in a like fighLfor: freedom of worship. The results :of the., fight of-almost two years, and a half were reported in the New York Sun on Flag Day, in an article headed: “Jehovah’s witnesses Win in Australia”:
Melbourne, June 14 (A.P.).—Suppression of the Jehovah’s witnesses, religious organization, under the National Security Subversive Association’s regulation, was declared invalid' today by Australia’s highest court. The 3. to 2 decision, handed down by the full court, in effect set aside the entire set of regulations relating to subversive associations under the national security act.
In delivering the majority decision, Justice Starke characterized the regulations as “arbitrary, capricious and oppressive” and held that corporate and unincorporate bodies were wiped out of existence on the mere declaration of the executive branch of the commonwealth government without due process of law.
This hard-fought victory was further confirmed by cablegrams received shortly thereafter by the Watchtower headquarters at Brooklyn, N. Y., as follows:
Sydney, Australia : “High Court action successful. Regulations invalid. Three judges wholly with us. Two partly. Mailing copy sixty-page judgment. Grateful Most High this victory for freedom.”
London, England: “Daily Express news service quote Melbourne correspondent June 14th Australia High Court decides suppression Jehovah’s witnesses under National Security Subversive Associations Regulations is illegal. Decision means whole of regulations relating to subversive associations are invalid.”
With gratitude to the Right One for all these victories gained by the operation of faith and obedience, Jehovah’s witnesses say: “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Quoting from 1 Corinthians 15:57) They will more practically express their thankfulness by increased zeal in fulfillment of their divine com-ini^sj^m All persons of .good-wiji toward, ,rO;;Gv;di, ,GQd .an<i <he kingdom -of illjs Chiust are- certain to reap lasting bene-* fit therefrom, unto life eternal in the New World.
Where There’s a Will
DOUBTLESS every one taking part in the work of advertising the Theocratic Kingdom of Jehovah God has some difficulties to overcome. Some have more, some less. Here is a page of pictures of some who have more to overcome than most others. (1) Lester Wolf, war veteran more than 50 percent disabled, puts in 150 hours a month regularly, making good use of his display case, shown in the picture. (2) Deaf-mutes at a recent assembly found a way to take part in the witnessing. (3) J. Nordaune, witness of Williston, N, Dak., lost a limb just recently, but is back in the work. (4) This worker, Sarah Blake, Welasco, Texas, has not put foot on the ground for over twenty years, but manages to devote sixty hours a month to, Kingdom activity.. (5) This lady, of Knoxville, Tenn., entirely deaf, manages to ‘‘hear” the good news by placing her hand on the phonograph. (6) O. C. Frazier, witness shot by “Little Reich”, Ark., mob last September, is recovering and is still putting the Kingdom interests first. (7) Witness of National City, Calif., had a stroke (before she became a witness ),■ reads with difficulty, due to impaired eyesight, and is opposed by all ' the family, but witnesses to the Kingdom nonetheless. (8) And this crippled witness, Charlotte, N. C., manages to place many a magazine explaining The Theocratic Government.
Teaching the Deaf-Blind
IF IT is a misfortune to be either blind or deaf, it is a double misfortune, and more, to be both blind and deaf. One’may well suppose that persons so afflicted would be better off dead, and yet there hre cases on record where such have accomplished wonders; and here the word “wonders” can be used without misgiving or fear of exaggeration. The two outstanding cases on record are those of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. Almost everyone knows something about Helen Keller, or has heard the name. Laura Bridgmah is perhaps less famous, and that possibly because she belongs to a previous generation. Helen Keller has made herself a notable influence in the present one.
Laura Bridgman was born in Hanover, N. H., Dec. 21, 1829. She was a bright and intelligent child but had her hearing and sight, and her sense of smell as well, destroyed by a terrible sickness when she was but two years of age. Thereafter she followed her mother about the house, and learned to identify things to her own satisfaction by feeling of everything and determining in this manner what things were and what purpose they served. She even learned to find her way about the neighborhood, and could do some simple tasks. When she was eight years of age she was taken to the Perkins institution for the blind, at Watertown, M.ass., at the invitation of Dr. Howe, who gave his personal attention to her training. He was faced with the problem of instructing her to identify things and actions so as to bring her more completely into contact with the world with which she was so remotely connected. She knew certain things and indicated them by signs which those near and dear to her understood, but which others not of her immediate circle of acquaintances would not be able. to recognize. She must learn the common language of the world in which she lived, but how could this be conveyed to her mind when she could neither hear nor see and had only the sense of touch to guide her?
The teacher decided that the thing to do was to paste on various articles labels (with raised letters) which identified them. “K-n-i-f-e” on a knife, “b-o-o-k” on a book, and so on. It did not take Laura long to match labels, laying labels marked “book” on the article similarly marked, but she still did not understand . that the printed word stood for the name of the article. She also learned the different letters separately and could combine them into words, but without thinking of it as more than merely a game which had no practical significance. This continued for many weeks.
Then, one day, Laura suddenly realized that she could combine letters and spell out something in her own mind and let somebody else 'know about it, by conveying the letters to them in the order in which she had arranged • them.: This made all the difference in the world, and her face lighted up not only with pleasure but with understanding. It now lost its formerly blank look and took on the expression that is characteristic only of the human soul. Laura had, as it were, found herself.
‘ But there was a great deal more to learn. She knew the names of concrete , objects, or learned them readily, but had 1 to learn also the terms used to express 4 abstract ideas, such as “height”, “courage,” “beauty,” etc. This she learned readily enough, as time went on, just as other children learn, imperceptibly, marvelously through the ability that “God giveth”, we know not how. Yet at first Laura’s progress was seemingly slow. At the end of the first year of instruction her doctor or teacher wrote, “She is nine years of age, and yet her knowledge of language is not greater than a common child of three years. There has been no difficulty in communicating knowledge of facts, positive qualities of bodies, numbers, etc.; but the words expressive of them, which other children learn by hearing, as they learn to talk, must all be communicated to Laura by a circui-tons and tedious method.”
Laura was very eager to learn, ever reaching out for ways to put herself in mental touch with the world that surrounded her, and which she knew more or less by physical touch. She made steady progress.
Then came a very happy day of her 'life; for another child, Oliver Caswell, also deaf, dumb and blind as she was, came to the institution, and Laura had the joy of helping him as she had herself been helped by kind friends. And as she helped him she profited herself, for Tie that watereth others, shall himself also be watered [blessed]’.—Proverbs 11:25.
As she grew older she learned to sew and knit and even do fancy work; for what other blind people had learned, she could learn also, now that the great additional obstacle of her deafness had been overcome. In the course of an active and happy life she met many notable persons who were interested in her accomplishments, and was able to aid and encourage many who w'ere less handicapped than herself.
Helen Keller’s case followed that of Laura Bridgman, who died May 24,1889. Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880, and lost her sight and hearing, and also her sense of smell, when she was less than two years of age, by illness. Like Laura Bridgman, she continued active and interested in things about her, expressing her wants and hemmed-in thoughts through little signs and tokens which her mother readily learned to understand. When she was just about seven, arrangements were made for her education, her parents having heard of the case of Laura Bridgman and sending to the Perkins institution at Watertown for someone to come and instruct Helen. The institution sent Miss AnnieM. Sullivan (who subsequently became Mrs. John A. Macy). She continued with her charge and friend until the day of her death, in 1936, after which Helen continued bravely on with the helpful association of other friends.
Helen was no ordinary child, it would seem. She had zest and eagerness for learning, and her education once begun progressed rapidly, aided by her capable and resourceful teacher. Miss Sullivan first put Helen in possession of the alphabet, spelling word letters into her hand, and associating them with various objects. First of all a doll was placed in Helen’s lap, and “d-o-1-1” spelled into her hand. She would pour a little water on the child’s hands and then repeatedly spell “w-a-t-e-r” into her palm, until the thought was fixed and the connection understood. It was a fascinating game to Helen to associate the curious markings that she felt made in her hand with definite objects with which she was already acquainted by her own feeling of them. For some reason Helen learned in a week what had penetrated .Laura’s mind only after three months of patient effort. In a few days Helen learned all of the alphabet spelled into her hand, as well as the names of a hundred objects in her immediate environment. She enjoyed it all immensely. Then verbs, and even prepositions, had to be taught. This was done by associating them u'ith action. Helen had no difficulty in mastering these either.
Then came the letters of the raised alphabet, the Braille system, and other accomplishments, such as learning the deaf-and-dumb language by touch, and . to write by using a special typewriter. And, most marvelous of all, Helen was taught to speak with her own lips, though she could neither hear the words that fell from the lips of others nor see the movement of the lips. She learned it all by touch, placing her fingers upon the lips, tongue and throat of her instructor, though she was then but ten years old.
When she was sixteen years old she entered a school for young ladies in order that she might be prepared for college. Her faithful companion, Miss Sullivan, went with her to all classes and repeated the lectures and discussions by touch. Helen graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904, wTith honors. She not only had kept up her studies, with the aid of Miss Sullivan, but had taken an active part- in the social life of the school.
Miss Keller now became active as a lecturer and writer. Her book, The Story of My Life, as well as other books she has written, has been translated into several languages. Her lectures, in which she addresses thousands of people, register with telling effect. She has traveled -widely, lecturing in England, Yugoslavia, and Japan. The literature on the life and career of Miss Keller is very extensive, and there are two special libraries devoted to these writings alone, one at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, Watertown, Mass., and the other at Washington, D.C., at what is called the Volta Bureau.
Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman had illustrated in their lives the important fact that with eoilrage and patience even the most disheartening obstacles can be overcome. They have been an example to many others who were either blind or deaf, or both, and who have gained courage and contentment by emulating the example of these afflicted but indomitable women.
, No Need to
THE Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 4, 1942, under the title “’The Shame of Eire”, berates southern Ireland for allowing the Nazis to maintain a legation in Dublin from which to direct espionage andxto gather vital weather reports, and adds:
There is more than a suspicion that the recently discovered plot of the outlawed Irish Republican Army to attack American and British troops in northern Ireland was inspired and financed by Nazi agents across the border in Eire.
That is all very lovely in what it states and what it covers up, but there-is no need to go so far to learn what is at the bottom of it. The Plain Dealer should send an honest newspaperman to JULY 21, 1943
Go So Far
. t
Detroit. There he will find that Coughlin is using the mailing list of Social Justice to peddle the same stuff through the mails that Attorney General Biddle denounced as violative of the espionage act. lie is doing this after promises both to his bishop and to the government to stop, quit, Cease, and desist from his proNazi political activities. But he can’t stop. Like every other fully-taught representative of the Hierarchy, he is totalitarian in spirit and as long as he can talk or write he will be as alert to do the will offihhs master Paceili as is Hitler himself.
. Qn pA.miey^ki.n; office r ifi Ir elan d yaffil, “The ERA provides a very good intelligence service for the Nazis.” That is stating it mildly.
Russians Standing Up to It
IF AND when the newspaper glory is handed ont to the victors of this - present war, it is certain that a large part of it must go to the Russians. This will be hard for the capitalist papers to admit, and some of them will follow < Hearst’s example, and cover it up, or hide it; but the facts'stand out like a sore thumb, and some of them are being admitted in advance. The lifting of the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad showed that the Russians were better prepared for this war, in munitions, and especially in morale, than any others that have had to face the German war machine. ■
Leningrad (once called St. Petersburg, apd afterwards Petrograd) is the ninth-largest city in the world, as shown by the following table of the world’s largest cities:
London 8,700,000 Moscow . 4,137,018
Tokyo 7,904,600 Shanghai 3,489,998
New York 7,454,995 Osaka 3,394,200
Paris 4,933,855 Leningrad 3,191,304
Berlin 4,332,242
It is a big job to keep so many people alive through two terrible winters, and in one of the worst winter climates of the entire earth, and to have the city all that time under siege by the most mili-’ tary power in the world, Germany. But the Soviets did that in the case of Leningrad, though it is estimated that half the population died of starvation, wounds or disease or (in the case of children) were evacuated.
The Great lee Highway
The city would have fallen to the Germans but for what is sometimes called “The Great Ice Highway”', across Lake Ladoga. But by means of this highway, staked out on the night of November 16, 1941, munitions and supplies were brought in. The track was kept open by three-ton trucks towing big wooden triangles to sweep away the snow’. Ice houses w’ere built along the route. Traffic signs were set up. Traffic officers stuck to their posts through the blizzards, and made their homes in the little ice houses whose floors were piled high with the branches of fir trees. Sometimes 2,000 trucks passed a single traffic post in a day. All together, they took in to the beleaguered city 100,000 tons of supplies, and, although the German bombers destroyed some of the trucks, the trick worked. The siege was finally lifted in the latter part of January, 1943. During the summer season the people of the city had to live on fish from the lake and what garden truck they could raise.
…