Consolation, March 14, 1945
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Contents
Man’s Best Government
Congress Is Liberal
-Close to the People -
Bureaucrats Resent Rule of People
The Amy of Federal Employees
% Will the Beautiful Netherlands Be Destroyed? 10
I' Queen Wilhelmina
1 She Has Reigned 55 Years
And Then There Is Juliana
The Paeelli-Hitler Concordat Works
, Quislings in Every Laud
How Marked for Destruction?
The Devilish Work Already Begun
. “Thy Word Is Truth”
Why a Trustworthy Government
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
The Greek Language (Part One)
International Language
Some “Latter-Day” Reflections
The Prophet and Seer
Mormon Doctrine
Shake Hands with the “Angel”
Constantine Silvanus, Lover of the Bible
Some Things Constantine Believed '
Light Not Hid Under a Bushel
Kingdom Hall and Watchtower Bible Study at Seagrove, N. C.
Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.
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In Brief
“As a Father, He €«nnot Side”
♦ The. pub lie is fed stories about the pope’s “tender heart” until' it becomes nauseating. In Newark, N. J., the ‘TJev-erend Father” Henry G. J. Beck safd of him: "
Were he to commit himself to one party, he would be guilty of dereliction of his duties toward the other. As a father, he cannot side against any of his children.
How is it that this ‘loving father’, who loves humanity so much, can stand on the side lines and see one of his bishop stooges murder eighty Masons in a single day and not show any sign of possessing what the loving apostle John described as “bowels of compassion”?
Zion Herald, an independent Methodist weekly, published in Boston, Mass., did something that should help the pope when it remarked some time back that during “the late war in Spain” the Roman Catholic Church carried on propaganda throughout the United States against the legally constituted democratic Spanish government, propaganda in which gross misstatements were made and consistently broadcast by such official representatives of the hierarchy as Father Joseph Thoming, falsely asserting that the Republican government of Spain was “communist”, and that thousands of churches had been burned by the Loyalists and thousands of Roman priests slaughtered.
Everyone who knows the facts admits now that bur own government’s failure to lift the embargo against Spain was due to political fear of the Roman Catholic Church, and to the personal intervention of the then Cardinal Pacelli, who came to the United States for the express purpose of convincing the President that an embargo should be imposed upon Spain—this embargo which then finally led to the destruction of the Republic of Spain. It was a clear case where a politically led religious 'minority terrorized the American, majority into the adoption of a foreign policy that wFas detrimental to the best interests of the United States.
consolation
CONSOLATION .
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.S.V.
Volume XXVI Brooklyn, N. ¥., Wednesday, March 14, 1945 Number 665
Man’s Best Government
STUDENTS of human government agree with Horace Bushnell, Hartford’s most farsighted and progressive citizen, that the government of the Papal States, under the pope, constituted the world’s worst government. And they also agree with the Chicago Tribune:
We do not say that the United States is today or at any time was the approximation of the Kingdom of God. All we say is that our form of government provides the nearest approach to it that mankind has seen. Here men hold, their heads higher; here they are more prosperous and more generous; here they are freer than anywhere else in the world to make the most of themselves. That is why peoples from all over the world have flocked here by millions and why few of them have chosen to return to the lands of their birth.
Arthur Penn, a California contributor, has a more detailed view of why the millions came and stayed. It is interesting. Let him tell it:
It is nice to think that the needy. and oppressed of Europe were clamoring to come to the new world in the late 1800’s, and that these gates were generously thrown open to let the eager millions in. It did not happen that way. Actually the great tide of immigration was largely the result of a high-pressure sales campaign. The steamship companies wanted the emigrants’ passage money; the builders and manufacturers wanted their strong backs. But, above all,' the railroads wanted to dispose of the huge quantities of land along their rights of way. But the railroad’s pamphlet, ctHow to Make a Living on a Farm in Kansas,” was not as attractive as the railroads hoped it would be. They had to find a better piece of sales promotion than that, and they did! They translated the Constitution of the United States and spread it far and wide. They were selling land; but freedom and the inspired words of the founding fathers were part of the sales talk.
It is true that the immigrants were attracted to some extent, by the promised opportunity of making a greater material living, but they were attracted to a far greater extent by the hope of living the better life which the United States Constitution seemed to promise them. They had at that time no means of knowing that the Constitution did not mean what it said, but only what the judges of the United States Supreme Court said. For judges are the ones who administer justice, and they are not eligible to become judges until they have practiced law for a certain number of years— and lawyers practice law for a living! Only the rich can employ lawyers steadily enough to enable them to make a living, so wealthy people are their clients and employers. And by the time lawyers become judges they have got the habit of working for the rich! So the poor man’s rights can be considered nearly nil. And he may as well understand that what he is fighting for is for the privilege of making it safe for the rich to run this country in the same manner it has been run for the last two generations. Unity appears to mean agreeing with the ones who are running the country, for those who disagree with them are called defeatists and saboteurs. But are not the real defeatists those authorities who ignore the law because they believe that their own judgment is better, and who conduct the affairs of the country in such a manner that foreign peoples are so disgusted as to make it seem possible that there may be other enemies to defeat even after Germany and Japan are beaten? And however strong a nation may be, no resources will last forever when used at the rate demanded by modern war. -
But the fact that people do not obey their own laws is not a sign of strength, but of 'Weakness. It may be that such people can fight 4s well, but they are comparatively weaker, v for they have more to fight. For how can such people be trusted? For these past 70 years _ constitutional law has been ignored. All three branches of the government have acted as though there was no such thing as a written Constitution that was the supreme law of the land. And the judges of the United States Supreme Court have acted and still act as though the Constitution created a court so that the court could destroy it. Is it not obvious that the Constitution created a court in the expectation that it would be enabled to function efficiently through that court? It seems to me that the United States Supreme Court was created as a guardian of the Constitution, and not as an interpreter thereof.
The Constitution is written in the simplest kind of language, and so it seems obvious to me that the founding fathers made a sincere effort to write something that could be understood by anyone capable of reading it. With what seemed like divine inspiration George Washington warned in his Farewell Address:
“If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation, for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always overbalance in permanent evil any partial Or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”
. But as a whole the founding fathers did not believe that the time would soon come when the population would look upon the country merely as a place in which to make a living, and not as a nation dedicated to a better way of life; that people would place their own interests above the interests of the nation; and lawyers, believing that the United States Constitution may interfere1 with their efforts to make a profit from the law, created a court procedure that strangles the Constitution. But the lawyers could not have done this if the people had not been complacent.
I understand that before an alien can become a citizen of this country he must swear that he has read the United States Constitution; that he understands it; that he is willing to obey and uphold it. But how many citizens uphold the Constitution or even attempt to uphold it? flow many are acquainted with jurisprudence or the manner in which arrested persons are defrauded of their legal rights? And this is not considered any crime; it is not considered malfeasance or dereliction of duty on the part of anyone. When made acquainted with these conditions the stock answer of the ministers of the gospel is: “To err is human, to forgive divine; we must forgive those who sin against us.” Why do not these ministers of the gospel go before Congress and tell the lawmakers that they should forgive sin and so should rescind all punishment for breaking the law?
But docs anyone have the right to forgive sin before a sinner has done judgment? Does it not make one an accessory of the other, and both equally guilty? Is being in a position of authority so important that they no longer need to obey the law? My understanding of the law does not make me believe that the authorities were elected to do as they please. Neither do I believe that there can be any real republican form of government where the duties and responsibilities of citizenship are ignored. [Quotation ends]
Congress Comes First
_ The American system of government is that Congress makes the laws; the president executes them; and the Supreme Court decides if he executed them in accordance with the Constitution; so Congress is the proper place to start a little study of American government. Congress is the American people in action as a lawmaking body. Congress may make laws, "but they are null and void if unconstitutional. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy is always trying to get laws passed that arc against freedom of speech; the reason for that is that it does not want publicity of its shameless attacks on liberty. In many states it has tried to get state laws to the effect that—
The publisher of any false or malicious statement intended to promote hatred of any group of er sons shall be guilty of libel and subject to fine and imprisonment.
If such laws could be passed, Roman Catholics could go out and arrest any Protestant that dared open his mouth, take him before a Roman Catholic judge, get him fined, and march him off to a prison which had a Roman Catholic warden, and the Dark Ages would be on • again.
Rhode Island passed one of tjiese Roman Catholic Hierarchy-inspired bills, to try to cut off public information about its crooked, cruel and tyrannical practices. One would think that in an enlightened commonwealth like Rhode Island the legislators would have known better than to try a thing like that But politicians are slow to learn, and plenty of them are foolish enough to think that they can pass .laws, and get them enforced, whether they are constitutional or not. Little do they know the spirit of the true American people. It is one thing to deprive an illiterate people of their rights, but quite another and different thing to bully an honest-to-goodness American into doing the will of the politicians whose work centers at Vatican City.
So, despite the fact that the Hierarchy wants silence about its teachings and history, the truth keeps coming out, more and more. America isn't Catholic; not yet. Of the 96 members of the senate only 7 are Roman Catholics; and of the 434 representatives only 58 are Roman Catholics. In joint session, out of 530 senators and representatives there are but 65 Roman Catholics, or 12.3 percent.
This is about right, as about 15 percent of the population of the country are of that sect. Don’t believe all the fairy stories and the free advertising so continually and nauseatingly spread before you.
Congress Is Liberal
It is of the nature of public congresses to be liberal; and though the American Congress is afraid to do anything constructive for the 10,000,000 that are prevented from voting because they are poor or black or not socially desirable, yet it is to its credit that with 934,100 German, Italian and Japanese citizens in the land, it caused but a few thousands to land behind barbed wire as dangerous to American safety. Congress believes in democracy.
To be sure, there are differences of opinion. Why not? Senator Reynolds, of North Carolina, became infected with Russophobia some years ago, and even yet he is afraid, though everybody knows that but for the Russians Britain would have been wiped out and Hitler would have won the war long ago. Senator Reynolds once said:
England, our closest ally, has led us in condoning the Russian world plan for the sake of temporary expediency. We see nothing of determination being done to check any of Russia’s very obvious purposes, and our’ abhorrence of such purposes was the thing that brought us into position where we had to accept war from Japan and Germany.
And England has just given another striking example of the state of affairs in the Allied camp by announcing that after Germany is beaten, England’s great conscript army of the present will be demobilized, and volunteers alone will be available to help the United States fight Japan. Thus stands the United States, pouring out her treasury to the bottom, rapidly running up a national debt of 500 billion dollars, pumping dry her oil wells, stripping her forests, preparing to supply the bulk of the soldier-power for the European invasion, making ready to feed and finance the whole world.
Martin Dies, much-advertised former member of the House of Representatives, will not be there again. His so-called “investigations of fifth columnists” were as complete a waste of money as were ''the salaries which he caused Uncle Sam to pay to his family. He was small enough and mean enough to drop the names of 1,121 federal employees in the . lap of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That hard-working and capable bureau had to look these people up and run them down, and when they had finished the job there were but two who had to be dismissed from their government jobs.
Close to the People
• Congress is close to the people, and the American people seem now to- be convinced that they must back up the Moscow four-power declaration for an international organization to keep the world at peace. In the senate the vote was 85 to 5, with the above-named Senator Reynolds and four others voting against the new league of nations. In the House of Representatives the vote was 441 to 34. It remains to be seen whether Reynolds was right or wrong. He seems not to be afraid to talk out in meeting. And he has ideas which he may express.
Two little things that make the common people appreciate congressmen. One is about Congressman John E. Sheridan, of Pennsylvania. He gave up his time as a lawyer and a public official to defend a man charged with salvaging 10 potatoes which had been thrown out of a ship’s galley. The1 charge was patently to discourage the man from making application for citizenship. It failed, and the judge on the bench complimented Sheridan for the free service he had rendered, saying that it was something for the country to be proud of. And, moreover, the man defended made application for citizenship the satne day.
The other little thing was an effort by Senator Andrews, of Florida, to restrain attendance of children at movies which, as he put it, are “rootin’ shootin’ cowboy movies”. His proposed law is to empower Federal agencies having access to social security funds to detain such children and return them to their parents. A good work, surely.
Protect the Public
Congress appropriates the money for everything, and occasionally checks up to see what the people are getting for their money; and the results sometimes would make one’s hair curl. Thus the Truman committee made exposures of the Curtiss-Wright Aviation Company which shocked the nation. The company was -accused of palming off defective engines by an elaborate system of fake tests. Its first 65 planes cost the government $1,277,000 each; this was $1,210,-201 more per plane than had been anticipated. It was also accused' of Spending fabulous sums for newspaper advertising, to protect its reputation, and charging all that advertising expense to the government, At the moment, one does not recall reading about any girl that was crooked going down the street with a sign on her back, “Do not believe the stories you have heard about me," and then using her influence with government officials to get back the money she spent in advertising. Should such a thing take place, the local newspapers would probably jump on both the girl and her boy friends, not because they were all crooked together, but because they chose a form of advertising of which Big Business- does not approve.
Another expensive place to build planes would seem to be the Fairchild Aircraft plant, Burlington, N. C. In a little over two years Riis concern had spent $13,000,000 and had produced one plane. The concern had plenty of plant
guards getting $225 to $325 monthly; it had sold unused material to Burlington junk shops; it had leased experts from St. Louis at $48 a day; it had expended $91,206 for stationery and office supplies and $52,365 for travel expenses; so witnesses testified- before a special House military affairs subcommittee.
Bureaucrats Resent Rule of People
Grafters resent rule by the people; and so do bureaucrats. America expects the administrative departments to use their powers in administration, not in tapping wires and in seeking to prevent the publication of facts. Drew Pearson, accused by the president’s office of being a chronic liar and spreading diabolical lies, retaliated by. listing six statements put out by that office which were also in reverse of truth. America believes in freedom of speech and in telling the truth without fear or favor.
Congressmen have noted that in some instances where they have created bureaus to render certain services, as soon as those bureaus had been filled with politicians, the latter seemed to think that Congress (the people, the taxpayers) had no business to summon them for information as to their activities or anything else. George Morris, veteran Washington correspondent, put it this way:
With a few exceptions there is no bureaucrat in Washington who was ever elected to office, or who was not repudiated by the electorate. Under such a system you cannot have representative government, because those who direct your affairs do not represent any one or anything except an inordinate craving for dictatorial power.
But the real trouble starts when the bureaucrats, asked by Congress to do something, and paid liberally for doing it, start in to.make laws. From March 14, 1936, to October 7, 1939, only three and one-half years, 115 agencies of the federal government issued 14,889 rules, regulations and administrative decisions which have the effect of laws. An early collection of these made 17 volumes averaging 1,100 pages each, or a total of some 19,000 pages. That was only down to June 1, 1938, and the new system of government by edict instead of by law had only gotten well under way. By now it may be several times as large. This is exclusive, of course, of the United States Statutes at Large. So to speak, “It is the law written by downtown Washington after Congress goes home.” Concerning that peculiar form of government Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney, of Wyoming, after saying that “it is the characteristic mark of totalitarianism”, says also:
It is the road to national socialism where such arbitrary, concentrated power becomes the master of the people.
The Army of Federal Employees
Of course, if you are going to have 19,000 pages of new law's in 264 months (outside of what Congress enacts), then you have to have somebody to do the writing. And you have them all right. Thus, in Jefferson’s day there was one federal employee to every 5,308 persons. But that was in the horse and buggy days. Now there is one civilian government employee to every 45 persons; and unless they told you about it, how would you know that you now have a government that is 117 times as good as that of Jefferson’s time? In World War I the government had 917,760 civilian employees; but in April, 1943, it was already past the 3,000,000 mark and still climbing. Stating it otherwise, in World War I there was one civilian government pay-roller for every five men in uniform, but in this war there is one for every two and a half. .
Britain has operated a price and rationing agency successfully for several years. It used ten lawyers on the job. But the United States w’anted the work ’ ’ 7
done 270 times as well (maybe), so they put 2,700 lawyers on the job; and if you know anything about the Office of Price Administration, you know what a great success it is. Its regulations fill five fat volumes and take 11,000,000 words. The British can't show anything like that. Going into this matter of ■words the St. tLouis Globe-Democrat explains that in x Genesis the story of the creation of the world is told in 400 words; the Ten , Commandments account for 267 words, and the OPA just mentioned uses 2,500 words to announce a reduction in the price of cabbage seed. Those 2,700 lawyers have to have something to do, don’t they?
Also, and this is odd, they want to stay on the pay roll, and, in order to do so, have organized and conducted kangaroo courts all over the country. A victim appealed to the federal court at Dallas, Texas, for relief and got it. The well and favorably known Judge W. H. Atwell, in rendering the decision, made this statement about this 2,700-lawyer-kangaroo-court crowd:
The [OPA] hearing administrator, unknown to and unprovided for by congress, presumes to conduct a court. He acts without fear of consequences for malfeasance or misfeasance. If. he can suspend for two weeks, he can suspend for two years. He is not only unknown to the congress but he is unknown to the Constitution. What the hearing administrator does is beyond the reach of executive forgiveness. He himself is beyond reach of any constitutional removing power. He is a modern instance of pure dictatorship.
The people of San Francisco do not seem (o think anything more of this 2,700-lawyer-kangaroo-court crowd than did Judge Atwell in Dallas. At least, one may draw that inference from a three-column story in the San Francisco Examiner which, under the cheerful headlines “Hitler-Type OPA Court Set tip Here; Powers Absolute; Bureau
Picks Own Judge to Enforce Orders”, set forth the following:
In Hitler-like disregard of the already established courts of the land, the Office of Price Administration (OPA) has established in San Francisco, as elsewhere throughout the nation, another system of courts of its very own, courts so all-powerful that they could summarily put firms out of business, close up an industry’s doors, take away an individual’s ration cards and right, and, technically, actually deny an American citizen the right to food!
Heading this trick new court here in San Francisco is Everett C. McKeage, former superior court judge. And his powers are such that even McKeage himself says, in so many words:
“No courts in American history ever had such power as this!”
In McKeagc’s court the right of trial by jury is denied. When all foods come under rationing, he could sentence any man, woman or child to death by starvation. McKeage is a New Deal political ‘dame duck”, twice appointed a judge in San Francisco by former Governor Olson and twice defeated when he came up for election. Thus the man whom San Franciscans wouldn’t have as either a municipal or a superior court judge becomes more powerful than any supreme court judge.
Other Important Bureaus
No one working for the something like 150 other bureaus should get jealous because the OPA chances to have so much attention in this story. Senator Byrd, of Virginia, explains:
What we now have in the United States is not our former government grown bigger. What we have is a different kind of government. It is ceasing to be government of three co-equal parts, Legislative, Executive, Judicial. Because the Executive branch has grown so vast and exercises so many powers, real and assumed, we are coming more and more to be ruled by Executive and bureaucratic directives.
It is well known that there need have been no sugar rationing since July, 1943, except for government interference with production in Cuba and in the United States. It is well known that there need have been no meat shortage in 1943 but for similar mismanagement. The shortage began when the government started to establish quotas and ceiling prices; it began that very day, though there was actually a surplus of 15,000,000 head of cattle in the country.
For some inscrutable reason, the proper bureau to do such a fool thing sent to Nome, Alaska (which has 400 citizens in the winter), 350 tons of butter, 175 tons of coffee, 78 tons of salad oil, 58 tons of soap, and 78 tons of toilet tissue paper. Suppose, now, you were one of the 100 homeowners or homekeepers in Nome. Wouldn’t it make you love a government that loved you enough to send you in the fall a ton of butter to see you through the winter, and, say, half a ton of coffee, and other things to match? The same bright minds sent 150 cases of canned salmon to Nulayo, Alaska, the sole industry of which town is the catching and canning of salmon. The politicians who sent this constitute what is called the “Civilian Reserve Food Supply office”; they have just enough sense to feed themselves (at public expense) and to cross the road (by automobile, at public expense). They should set up a court, kangaroo style, and call this statement contempt of court, which it is.
Waste Paper Excitement
■ The most interesting thing about a politician who never did a useful thing in his life is the effort he will make to keep the gravy boat at his plate as long as he breathes. This may be deduced from the following tale from the Fort Worth Press:
The Press sold 500 pounds of waste paper the other day. This was not unusual, for spoiled and out-of-date newspapers pile up.
Such paper usually is sold to a salvage company which comes and gets it and pays for it. But this-500 pounds was sold to an electrical company which has a subcontract on a government project in Fort Worth. We don’t know what an electric company wanted with waste newspapers, but they did want them and paid $1.75 for the 500 pounds. But the Press learned that selling to a government contractor isn’t as simple as selling to an ordinary junk man. First came five copies of a request for bids. Then came three copies of a printing form confirming the purchase order. Next came the bill, and there had to be nine copies of that. There was a telephone conversation about the deal too, and the mail brought a form verifying that matter. One of the documents in this transaction, appropriately enough, was a mimeographed sheet of instructions, telling how to make out the forms and to whom they should be sent. It furnished a good 15 minutes of reading for the office - manager, who fortunately is a patient man. All added up, there were 19 pieces of paper to be read, filled out and mailed, all to sell 500 pounds of waste paper for $1.75. If it takes that much wasted paper to transfer a little waste paper, how mueh detail is involved in buying materials for a bomber? '
Don’t get too much excited about that waste paper deal. It might lead you to get all stirred up because a dozen officers in the war department were told to scrap 332 obsolete machine tools at Detroit, and, while they were at it, they scrapped 445,998 more. The net result of this high intelligence was that $1,721,136 worth of machine tools were sold as scrap for $36,924. The government managed to get 95 percent of these tools back, but the point is that a reasonably bright boy ten years of age would have known better than to do such a fool thing in the first place.
Every day brings fresh evidence of the need of Jehovah’s promised Kingdom. Only under its blessed reign will men of good-will find rest and security.
Will the Beautiful Netherlands Be Destroyed ?,
FORGETTING for the moment the _ 72,000,000 dark-skinned Mohammedans who constitute the population of ■ Netherlands East Indies, and consider-'ing only the 8,728,569 Europeans that |ive in the Netherlands proper, there is r here, astride the many. mouths of the
Rhine, one of the most beautiful and most interesting countries on the planet. The area (12,862 square miles) is that of New . Jersey and Connecticut combined. Onefourth of it is below sea level, protected from inundation by 1,500 miles of dykes. Not only is it one of earth’s garden spots, but its village of Boskoop, with 600 nurseries, is admittedly the largest center in the world for (lowers and ornamental plants. ,
New York is interested in the Netherlands. Why? Because the Nether landers were its first settlers. It was they that drove the bargain with the Indians, of $24 and a barrel of firewater for what is now Manhattan island, the center of New York city. If New York has an aristocracy today it is the descendants of those settlers- who followed in the path of Hendrick Hudson. Ever hear of the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts? The Netherlands is the Venice of the world.
The pictures of the newer homes of the Netherlanders, published in the London and New York papers, are all that one could expect of a land so famous for its flowers and so famous for its artists, and so neat and clean that the housewives make a regular practice of putting curtains to the windows of the cattle barns.
They have a saying that good housing makes good people. Flats may not be built more than four stories'high, and each flat has its own private staircase and outside door. There are or were different kinds of dwellings for old people, for single women, for large families, for artists, and even for undesirables. Most houses are built so that there is a little garden attached. In a fishing village the houses have a charming ark shape. There is plenty of brilliant blue and yellow paint Washings are hung in the balconies so that they can be seen only sideways. Special provision is made for homes for the very old, so as to keep them out in the sun as much as possible. The building material is of brick, of every color, glazed and unglazed, set vertically, horizontally, or at an angle. A visitor there said:
Having laid out a new zone of expansion, the Netherlanders bring in bargeloads of yellow sand to raise the ground ten to fifteen feet over the whole zone. Then they sink forty-foot piles down through the sand, the sea shells and the herring bones to get a foundation deep down in the blue elay. The result is that when a new suburb has been finished, you can stand at the back windows of the outermost houses and look out on a Rembrandt landscape of cows and clouds and busy windmills far off on the horizon. It is all done with a foot rule, as everything is done in the Netherlands. It is pretty expensive, but it produces the best-planned suburbs in the world.
The Netherlanders Go Places
Don’t think, because the Netherlanders wear wooden shoes when they go after the cows in the damp pastures, that they don’t go places. In 1933 there were 35 bicycles to every 100 men, women and children in the country (a world record in bicycle ownership). And 99 percent of them were made in the Netherlands.
As late as 1939 there were hundreds of pensions and small hotels in the Netherlands where bicyclists (and there were thousands of such tourists) could get a clean, comfortable night’s lodging and a breakfast of bread, cheese, jelly, dried beef, egg and gingerbread for a dollar in American money. Special paths for cyclists run parallel with even the
largest motor highways. In those days a good secondhand bicycle could be had in any city for $12 and sold at $5 to $7.
But the Netherlander take to, watercraft, as well as to bicycles. In times of peace the papers contained a picture of “Schipper Hein Sehilperoort”, who sailed 40 miles in a barrel through a North Sea storm. The barrel traveled on its side, and was equipped with oars and a sail.
As one of the greatest maritime nations, the Nethefland ships are, of course, seen in every sea; but especially are they noticeable in the traffic between the homeland and the Netherland East Indies. When the Japanese seized those great islands (Java, by the way, is the most thickly settled land in the world) the great merchant fleets of the Netherlands were rented to the United States and Great Britain for the duration of the war.
Queen Wilhelmina
Queen Wilhelmina’s mother was a German princess only 20 years of age when she married King William III, who was then over sixty. As a wife and mother she had tact, understanding, dignity, and kindness of heart. Queen Emma lived a quiet life, and, from the time Wilhelmina was 18 years of age, never interfered in politics in apy manner.
Wilhelmina had been queen three years when she married as her prince consort the German prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At the time of his death, eleven years ago, a wireless to the New York Times said:
Prince Henry’s position when his marriage was arranged by the interested nations of Europe in 1901 was particularly difficult in the Netherlands because he was the fourth and youngest son of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, an independent State which had joined the German Empire in 1871. The Dutch people knew that Germany needed and coveted their ports and they feared the marriage would serve to draw them more under German influence.
At the age of 25, when it was officially announced through the Foreign Office of the Netherlands that “a marriage has been ’arranged”, the prince, who was then a duke, was a soldierly looking young man, fond of hunting and mountain climbing. He was naturalized as a Dutch citizen a month before the marriage, and the title Prince of the Netherlands was created for him. He began to grow a spade-shaped beard in the Dutch fashion.
His sole function in connection with the State was to provide the Kingdom of the Netherlands .with an heir—-preferably a son.
Henry handled himself well, kept out of the limelight, kept out of politics, and, at the time of his death, “had grown stout and looked entirely like a Dutchman.” Wilhelmina had no reason to be ashamed of him.
She Has Reigned 55 Years *
Queen Wilhelmina has reigned since she was 10 years of age. She is now nearing 65 and has had a much longer reign than any other sovereign on a throne today. Indeed, it is -one of the longest in history. She is a real ruler, understands all subjects connected with the Netherlands as well as her ministers, and it is admitted that most of them stand in awe of her anfl realize that “it is not always wise to differ with her”. Reporters say of her (and she looks the part):
She is serious both in her talk and in her work, but she is also master of the royal art of being extremely pleasant. She is very religious and very strait-laced. She tolerates no frivolities. She takes a minimum of interest in food, dress and social life.
While still in her homeland, she was admitted to be the hardest-working crowned head of Europe. She shrinks from publicity and public functions, but attends strictly to every duty. She is intolerant of short skirts, rouge and lipstick, is strong-minded and self-willed, and cannot be bluffed. Most persons hesitate to oppose her, and it is said that “the only thing that impresses her is knowledge”. Her diversions are gardening, horseback riding, and watercolor painting. She is described as “austere” and “capable”..
MARCH 14, 1445
1' In 1942, when - she had to shift her court to London, Wilhelmina came over to the United States and while here addressed the United States Congress. She mentioned her some 76 million subjects, the Netherlands’ great maritime - strength, the Netheriand peoples’ love of liberty, their increasing self-govern-,ment, and their desire to leave others alone and to have others do the same with them. There are 60 various languages spoken in Wilhelmina’s realm.
And Then There Is Juliana
The princess Juliana came into the t world April 30, 1909. She is the heir-apparent, and very active. Like her ‘mother she had to have a marriage “arranged” for her; also to a German. Juliana drew Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterf eld. As aforesaid:
His sole function in connection with the State was to provide the Kingdom of the Netherlands with an heir—preferably a son. The couple have three beautiful little girls that came along two years apart, one of them in Canada actually, but technically in the Netherlands. When the first one, Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, showed up on January 3.1, 1938, her papa (the next evening) took her in on a cream silk pillow to show her to the Netherlands premier, Dr. Hendrick Colijn. If you are a papa, you like to show off your little girl, especially if she is supposed to be the prospective future queen of the thousand-year-old House of Orange. Bernhard acquired an income of 200,000 guilders ($80,000) annually by becoming Juliana’s prince consort.
When Juliana and Bernhard were married they publicly agreed to be “faithful and true in all things as taught by Holy Scripture”. At the conclusion of the ceremony each was presented with a large Bible. The wedding prayer said that “difficult days” were at hand, and the prayer didn’t miss it much.
Juliana is a good wife and mother. She takes complete care of her babies and does her own marketing. When in New York, in 1943, she enjoyed walking unattended in the streets, studying the faces of the people and windowshopping. She speaks Hollandish, French, Spanish, English, and German, and has a college degree from Leyden University. Like her mother she has little patience with the glamour of royalty but takes pomp and ceremony as a duty.
Advent of the Paper-Hanger
Without reason and without excuse the Jesuit-trained Hitler sent his bombers over the Netherlands, May 10, 1940, shattering a peace that had been unbroken for a hundred years. In five days one-fourth of the Netherlands army had been killed and the Allies considered further resistance fruitless. The invasion by the Nazis was without warning and without any attempt at negotiation. When the German parachutists came flying down into the country they adopted all kinds of disguises, including Netherlands national uniforms. The motorized units also entered the country in disguise.
One-fifth of the people of the Netherlands made their living on the land, on small holdings. From these holdings came the famous cheese, butter, tulips, cereals and other crops which rewarded industry on a fertile soil. Another fifth lived by commerce; from all the world came raw materials. Another two-fifths lived by making things. Ships were built, textiles woven, coal mined, tin smelted, diamonds cut. The people were busy, prosperous and contented, until the Jesuits started out on their plan to grab the world. And besides all that the
Netherlanders are Protestants, and Hitler is what is called a "practical Catholic”, i.e., a religious gangster, an adept at murder.
Rotterdam was demolished by bombing squadrons which Hew over the city with wing tips almost touching. In an area of six to eight 'square miles not a house remained standing. Of the population of 509,000 it was estimated that 100,000 perished. Thereafter, so say the Motherland underground papers, the monthly executions of citizens not sufficiently enthusiastic for rule by Schickcl-gruber and Pacelli was a mere 4G0 a month, with the usual amenities of Nazi culture. James MacDonald, in a wireless dispatch to tin? New York Times from Vught, Netherlands, prison camp, November 12, 1944, gives details:
Two Motherland women prisoners squabbled and it developed into a screaming, hairpulling match. Guards separated the women and reported the affair to the camp commandant, who decided to teach all the women in the camp a lesson in discipline. The two culprits, together with ninety-two other women ehosen at random, were marched off to the airtight, concrete cells. Sixty-seven were bundled into one, which, I saw, measured about nineteen by eighteen feet, so small that the women were squeezed together standing. The twenty-seven others were similarly packed into the smaller cell. The doors were firmly secured and the women were left for fortyeight hours. Twenty-three women died of suffocation and one who survived was a raving maniac.
All Jews who could possibly be rounded up in Holland were brought to this eamp. Sometimes the dogs were turned loose on the Jews, but more often the Jews were shot and their bodies burned. Violation of young Jewish women by prison wardens was a common occurrence.
Drew Pearson, in his November 1, 1942, column told What happened to one caught printing one of the Netherland underground papers: ,
MARCH 14, 1M5
One victim was forced to place his feet in a tub of water, which wras brought slowly to the boiling point. Another patriot, who had been arrested in midwinter, was compelled to undress and was placed upon a chair in the open courtyard of the prison, surrounded by warmly dressed Gestapo men who questioned him as long as he could stand if. Whenever he fainted, they poured hot drinks down his throat and rubbed his numb body until the interrogation could be continued. Still another Hollander had his fingernails torn out, and a very common method of torture was the use of dazzling light directed upon the eyes of the suspect.
The Pacelli-Hitler Concordat Works
The Pacelli-Hitler concordat gets results. The London- Catholic Herald explains that anyone is liable to be taken prisoner without any definite accusation; to be detained without trial; to be deprived of his liberty indefinitely. This is Catholic Action in action.
Everything was planned ahead. The 2,000 best officers of the Netherlands army were interned, so that they would not be available for use of the Allied armies, if, as and when the Netherlands should fall into Allied hands. ‘The wisdom that is from beneath is earthly, sensual, devilish,’ and the Nazis have that wisdom in great measure. Deportation of slaves to Germany was on a huge scale. Fifty thousand men and boys between the ages of 17 add 50 were taken from Rotterdam alone. Up to January, 1944, the Manchester Guardian estimated that 000,000 Netherlanders had been imprisoned, deported, or otherwise uprooted.
The Nazis seized control of the press and made it a mockery. The Nether-landers lost interest, and took the emasculated papers only for what they could tell them about the latest food regulations. The Leyden university was closed because it was not sufficiently enthusiastic for Nazi rule. All Netherlands firms were ordered to dismiss all Jews in their employ. No Jew might attend a motion
picture. An order was issued that all Jewish husbands who had married non-Jewish women must submit to sterilization. All church bells were seized for their metal. And how about this one 1 from the Vancouver Province?—
Vin the town of Velzen, near Haarlem and . got far from the North Sea coast, the best-equipped rolling mill in all Europe was completely destroyed, not by explosives or other . destructive means, but simply by pulling it , down methodically, and carrying the spoils to ‘ the. Reich. No less than 5,000 electric motors, an equal number of steel rollers, many miles of cable and four traveling cranes of high capacity were in this way “acquired” by the Gormans.
In other words, Adolf, the idea is that if you want anything from a Protestant country the sensible way to get it is to take it by force, as was done in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. How do you expect to help install the “new order” and make the world Catholic if you don’t go at it in a style that has papa’s approval? And meantime papa can (in the newspapers) cry and whine and literally “die for peace”, provided it is the kind that he wants. -
Netherlanders Not Pleased
Perhaps from what has been said, one may get the idea that the Netherlanders are not pleased with the “new order” from Vatican City around via the paperhanger. And that is the truth. They have tried to square the account and keep on living, and that is not easy. The coal miners have never before sent to the surface so many stones along with the coal; the cleaners have never cleaned the coal so poorly; the furnaces have never been choked so often; the textile yarns have never broken so. often; and the crops have never been left to ruin so many times as they have since Hitler came into Netherlands affairs.
Students found clever ways of letting the Nazis know they were despised. One w;iy was to buy quantities of Nazi
papers, sit on them and then read aloud, from books, of how the Netherlanders broke the Spanish yoke; then the reader would arise, kick the papers in the gutter and walk carefully away with his books. Another story is this:
In The Hague a Dutch Nazi, attached to a unit defending the coastal area, and a loyal Hollander were waiting for a shave. When the owner of the place asked “Who is next?” the loyalist replied with an ingratiating smile, “Well, I really am, but you had better attend to this gentleman first, because the Americans and English may arrive any minute.”
Quislings in Every Land
Quislings have been found in almost every land. The one found in the Netherlands was Anton Mussert. This man, who distinguished himself by marrying his aunt, 18 years his senior, explained to the Netherlanders that Hitler had been “sent by God”. All that is needed to make the subject clear is to refer to 2 Corinthians 4:4, where it is shown that “the god of this world” is the Devil; and that Hitler was sent by the Devil there can be no question.
Seyss Inquart, Catholic ruler of the Protestant Netherlands, was educated ' by the Jesuits. He, or somebody for him, tried to persuade the Netherlanders to start a new Nazified organization which was to have been entitled “The Order of Christ’s Witnesses”. How he made out is unknown, but he was Jesuit-educated and declares that he will be a loyal Nazi as long as he lives; so he has something up his sleeve.
Who the real Quislings were in the Netherlands no reporter would dare state, and even if he stated the blunt truth the American newspapers, with one or two exceptions, wopld not dare to print it, but one with a good guesser ought to be able to guess what was meant by the latter part of the following paragraph, published in the New York Post of May 15, 1940, marked “Exclusive, Special Cable to the Post”, from London,
' CONSOLATION
and marked "Copyright, 1940, New York Post and Chicago Daily News, Inc.”:
Roughly 60,000 members of the German colony in Holland lent unquestioned assistance to the parachutists, but the most disturbing factor is the conviction of Dutch officials that Holland’s Nazis were not the most important element in its fifth column.
How Marked for Destruction?
To understand how the Netherlands faces its greatest catastrophe in history, one must know something , of polders, what they are, how they are made, and what they cost in time and effort. A polder is a salt-drenched field reclaimed from the sea for purposes of cultivation. The Zuyder Zee dam, protecting the great polders where once were the waters of the Zee itself, took twelve years to build and cost $600,000,000. The dyke is 18| miles long. The polders thereby made cover an area as large as the state of Rhode Island, or some 550,000 acres. The dyke, it should be explained, is 300 feet wide and (at 23 feet above sea level) carries A railway track, a highway for fast traffic, a cyclists’ path, and a road for pedestrians. The polders made from the Zuyder Zee will be about 10 feet below sea level. They will create about 5,000 parcels of farm land, and provide homes for about 250,000 people, and support for 3,000,000.
After a dam is built it takes two years to rid the soil of salt. Innumerable trenches catch the soft rain water. Even then the soil is too soft for horses, and caterpillar tractors must be used. It is another two years before buildings can be built. Everything is under one roof, the house being joined to the great barn, the cowshed or stable. Cows water themselves; by pressing the nose against a spring water gushes out. Their tails are tied up loosely with string to prevent them from getting soiled. The farmhouses have every comfort possible.
Some of the Netherland polders are fifteen feet below the level of the sea, and some of the dykes are 40 feet above high-water mark, and, besides carrying roadways, carry canals, and date back to Roman times. The Noord Zee canal has navigation locks that are larger even than those of the Panama Canal.
All the works described are threatened with malicious destruction, and if the Nazis carry out their threat it will mean in effect that the Netherlands people are to be starved, frozen, or drowned. Already the German demolition troops have destroyed the port facilities of Rotterdam. Flooding the polders will wreck the sewer systems, and pestilence on a huge scale will be inevitable. Many coastal places have already been demolished and the farmers driven from their homes and their most fertile fields sacrificed.
The Devilish Work Already Begun
Already the Germans have slowed down or stopped the pumps in some sections; already the citizens are on the trek, permitted to take 400 pounds of personal belongings and to take their cattle, but not their horses. When the dykes are cut or blown up, 4,000,000 Netherlanders will lose their homes, and years of labor and huge sums of money will have been sacrificed. The Netherlands will be ruined.
The columnist William Philip Simms, writing on this subject, said:
Already [October 16, 1944] thousands are homeless and the number is increasing daily. Within two weeks the major cities will be “without food, without lighting and without heating of any kind. "Within four weeks they will be without drinking water”.
What is happening, according to Premier Gerbrandy, in London, is the “systematic destruction” of the country. If the Nazis can’t have it they don’t want anybody else to have it". They wish, he said, “to destroy an entire civilization, eliminate a nation and its livelihood, wipe it off the earth.”
How manifestly the demons are loose and seeking human extermination 1
feWORI) is Truth"
, —John 17:17
I
i ■
Why a Trustworthy Government
THE Kingdom promised in the Bible will be a trustworthy government.
Why? Because suffering is a part of the training the Kingdom heir must undergo to prepare him for the kingdom of God. When such a Christian does right and suffers therefor at the hands of the Devil’s representatives, then he may have reason to rejoice. Said Jesus: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10) The Christian is aware of the fact that the Devil has reproached Jehovah God’s name ever since man’s fall in Eden. It is written concerning Christ Jesus: “The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” (Psalm 69: 9) The Devil reproached Jesus when He was on earth. The followers of Christ Jesus expect the same thing, and the apostle of Christ plainly states, at Romans 15: 3, that these same reproaches that fell upon their Master and Head must fall upon His body members.
The apostle Paul then goes farther and points out that it is a privilege for the Christian thus to suffer with Christ, saying: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also* to suffer for his sake.” (Philippians 1: 29) It is a privilege for the reason that it is a condition precedent to entering into the Kingdom. “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22) That saying of Paul is emphasized when he writes: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12) Such is the manner in which Jehovah God has been pleased to select and give the Christians an opportunity to prove their loving devotion to Him who calls them to the Righteous Government.
One who is willing to endure all manner of persecution, and even death, for righteousness’ sake can be trusted with power and authority. The apostle points out that persecution for righteousness is one of the signs by which those in line for the Righteous Government may know that the Lord God is dealing with them as followers of the King of the Government, when he says: “The spirit [of God] beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together”; that is, in the,Kingdom.—Romans 8:16, 17.
This may be followed as a safe rule: When one claims to be a Christian and then indulges in the persecution of another in the name of Christ, that one is a hypocrite, and not a Christian. The Lord Jesus did not revile, even when He was reviled. The course of persecution and reviling, pursued by the religious systems of “Christendom”, is therefore proof that they are of their father the Devil and his will they are bent on doing. —John 8: 44.
The true Christian does not think it strange that the fiery trials come to him because of his faithful devotion to Jehovah God and His cause of righteousness. He relies upon the inspired testimony concerning persecutions, as stated at 1 Peter 4:12-14, to wit: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is ‘to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”
When Jesus was about to be hanged on the tree under the charge of claiming to be “The King of the Jews”, He addressed those faithful disciples who had been with Him through His trials, and said: “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations [trials]. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Luke 22:28-30) Thus the Master showed that the Government class would be. made up of those who are faithful to Him. It is not expected that there would be a great multitude of these. On the contrary, the Master said: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” —Luke 12: 32.
The religious clergy that hypocritically deceive the people have made them believe that billions will be of God’s kingdom. It is safer to follow the words of the Lord and Master, Christ Jesus. In corroboration of what his Master said, the apostle Paul states: “It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.” (2 Timothy 2:11, 12) In admonishing His followers not to fear the tribulation brought upon them by Satan the Devil, Christ Jesus gave them this assurance: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”—Revelation 2:10.
In the Revelation the Devil’s organization is designated under the symbol of & wild beast and also an “image of the beast”. Those -who are promised membership in the royal Government family are the ones who refuse to give’ any allegiance whatsoever to the “beast”, the Devil’s organization. Hence it is written of them: “I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”—Revelation 20:4. .
At Hebrews 2:18 the apostle shows that all the members of the royal line, both Jesus and His followers, are subjected to the same temptation. The same temptation which was presented to Eve in Eden, and to which she yielded and fell, was also presented to the ecclesiastical element which acts as spiritual advisers to the governments of this world; and to this temptation these ecclesiastics have likewise yielded and fallen. A like temptation was presented to the Lord Jesus, but He resisted it and won. All the members of the royal family under Him are subjected to the same temptation. Only the overcomers are granted membership in the Righteous Government, the kingdom of God. “Overcoming” means gaining the victory over Satan’s organization by an absolute refusal to render allegiance to any part of it, and, on the contrary, to manifest loyalty and faithfulness unto God down to the end. To such overcomers these promises are made by the King Christ Jesus:
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” (Revelation 3:21) “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my -works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them'with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.”—Revelation 2: 26, 27.
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
The Greek Language
_ (In Three Parts—Part One)
OUR interest at this time in the , Greek language is due only to its ^relationship to the written Word of God, the Bible. First of all in our discussion ' of this subject, let us consider the homeland of the Greek language, which is on , the Balkan peninsula and today known as Greece. The Greeks call their homeland “Hellas”; which name occurs in the Greek translation (LXX) of the Hebrew Scriptures, at Isaiah 66:19 and Ezekiel 27:13, and also 'in the Apocrypha.
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