Consolation, May 8, 1946
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Contents
Japan as I Saw It
Japanese Homes and Customs
Women of Japan Made Slaves
. Jehovah’s witnesses in Japan '
Japanese Kindness Hard to Understand
Devil, Not the Japanese, Wanted War 8
The Atomic Age
« Lize Meitner and Her New Job
j The Era of Development
Statesmen Desperately Worried
Politicians in a Hot Spot
Philip Wylie Gets It ‘Off His Chest* 14
Rich Men’s Rust
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Need for a High Priest
'The Righteous Flourish as the Palm Tree* 18
The Heavens Show God’s'Glory
“Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge”
What Has Become of Hell?
Mortality in Childbirth Reduced
Some of the Uses of Paper
French Events in Retrospect ,
De Gaulle Out for the Present
When Do You Cut Your Hay?
The Murfreesboro Evangelist
Lived After Beheading
A Series of Public Meetings (Picture).
“Russia and the Battle of Liberation”
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In Brief
Forfeiture of Citizenship •
♦ The earth is 'the Lord’s, all of it, according to the Scriptures, and all the human creatures that live upon it are merely tenants by His sufferance. But have you ever heard any politicians refer to the earth in that way? Certainly not. They have the earth marked off on maps, and with an air of finality say, “You mustn’t cross that line without telling where you were born, and why; whether you have curly hair or ingrowing toenails; whether your father was a man and your mother a woman; how much you are worth, and if there is anything off for cash,” with 27 more questions of like import. Most people go by the rules, because it makes too much trouble to just go across carelessly, without thinking of the future.
Up in the Puget Sound region Philip Stegerer enlisted in the Canadian army, swore allegiance to King George, and after four months was honorably discharged because of physical disabilities. Now he is a man without a country, without a job, and, as he said, without a dime. His only way of getting back into the United States was as an immigrant. He had lost his American citizenship.
Shortly after the closeof World War I, John McNeil, a Canadian war veteran, thought the United States would be a good place to live; so he moved in, with his wife and two little daughters. He got along all right until work got slack and he had to go on relief. Then came the dreaded investigation; his four lovely daughters, born in the United States, were put in Catholic institutions, and the father and mother and one little boy of 6 were shipped back to Canada. Of the two daughters, born in Canada, one, married and an expectant mother, was threatened with deportation and fainted; and the other made a break for liberty and at last accounts was still at large. What a world! -
CONSOLATION
I
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.5. V.
Volume, XXVII Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, May 3, 1946 Number 69S
Japan as I Saw It
Firsthand account of an American soldier’s Impressions of Japan
MY ENTRY into Japan was a late oife. It was in the month of October when we landed in Yokohama harbor, and all of us were very much excited over this new experience. Each of us had been armed prior to our sailing, and this led us to speculate on existing conditions in this country. Many of us thought that our freedom would be restricted to a small area, that whenever we left the building in which we were to be housed we would go in pairs, and that under no conditions would we be allowed out at night. We had very little foundation for these thoughts and many of them resulted from rumors.
We docked in Japan on a cold, rainy day and were told that we would not get off the ship until that afternoon at 6 p.m. That night we were loaded on army trucks and taken to a building about a mile from the docks. It was pretty dark and none of us could see much. We got our first surprise when we saw GI’s walking around the streets alone and with no weapons at all, and the second surprise was when we saw a GI with a Japanese girl.
Upon arrival at the building that we were to call home we were greeted by other GI’s yelling out names of various cities and states in hopes that they might contact someone from their home town. We were as full of questions as they were, and in a little while we learned what the situation was. It was a pleasant surprise to hear that there were no restrictions and we could go and come as we pleased. All modes of transportation were free to the American troops and there was nothing to fear from the people.
The building in wThich we were billeted was a very modern brick structure and one of the highest in Yokohama, being eight stories in height. It was modern in design and equipment throughout, with the latest type of indirect lighting. The bottom floor and stairs were of tile; the other floors were made of wooden blocks. The washrooms were of clean tile, equipped with mirrors and American-style washbowls, and hot and cold water. There were also two elevators, one for freight and the other for passengers. We were very much surprised to find all these things after passing a couple of years in the jungles of Pacific islands.
In the morning we were able to get a good look over the city, being high up, and could see the extent of damage done. We were surprised to note how much of it had been cleaned up. The buildings were either standing intact or were pulled all the w7ay down—much different from the bombed-out areas of Manila, wThere the buildings had been gutted with fire, leaving only a shell. The architecture of the buildings around us was of the familiar Western type, and this made us wmnder, since wre had expected to see a good deal of the old Japanese architecture.
Going downstairs to get my breakfast I saw the pathetic sight of half-starved old people and babies waiting to get what leftovers they could out of the garbage cans. I felt sorry for them, for they had no idea what the war had been about and they were not the ones to blame for it. Most of them were dressed in old, dirty rags; some men had on either whole or part of some uniform.
The streetcars that went by our building -were similar to the ones in the States, -. except they were in pretty poor condi-ttion. They were filled to capacity. Very few autos, aside from army vehicles and busses, were to be seen. The few there were run by charcoal burner.
On the street the people were like ants going about their respective businesses. The women were dressed in their typical kimonos and wooden shoes; most of them carried something on their backs. Babies were strapped to their mothers’ backs, American Indian fashion, which I think accounts for the bowleggedness of the, people. Though the day was chilly, yet there were no hats or mittens for these youngsters; their bare legs were blue from the cold; these kids had to be taught to stand up to the hardships.
Yokohama lies between two hills, for the main part, but it extends back into these hills, which are almost s,olid rock. In these hills people still live in the airraid shelters. Many of the Japanese homes in Yokohama are no more than tin shacks through which the cold winter wind easily blows. But, though they are forced to live under these conditions, they keep their own surroundings pretty clean from filth, a trait altogether different from that found in Manila.
Japanese Homes and Customs
Tn the big cities of Yokohama and Tokyo there is very little Japanese architecture, and they look very much like any city in the United States. But in the smaller towns one sees the native designs. Japanese homes are very interesting, because they are so tiny and fragile. You must take your shoes off, everybody does, upon entering their houses, for on the floor are sections about four feet square woven out of bamboo. The doors are' made of either glass or paper sectioned.off in square designs of various sizes. In the summer these doors are slid back, making the house open. ■
They have very little furniture, decorations are at a minimum, and pictures are few. What furniture they have is very fragile and delicate and reminds one of a little girl’s dollhouse. The table stands about eighteen inches high and cushions are used to sit on. Tea is the national drink and is the first thing prepared, and is served before and during the meal. Their beds are of either mats or mattresses, and for sheets cotton is used by the majority; only the wealthy use silk opes. All the family sleep in the same room on the floor, one next to the other. They have no stoves, but use an urn of charcoal for cooking. In the wintertime it gets quite cold, yet the little children run through the unheated houses barefooted. The homes are, for the most part, clean and well cared for and are surrounded with flowers, bushes and trees.
The gardens of Japan are given the utmost care. People work them from morning till night, paying no attention to rain or hot sun. The soil is very rich and black. Nice fruit is-also grown in that country. The Japanese pear was an interesting thing to me, being of the same color as our United States variety, but round in shape and brittle, like an apple, instead of soft, yet tasting like a pear.
Their foods consist mainly of sweet potatoes and rice. The rice is prepared m so many different ways that I can see how they can get by with it day in and day out without tiring of it. I liked the way they cooked it very much. Fish is another of their main dishes and is eaten both cooked and raw. They like to get the calcium that it contains. The Japanese are great vegetarians, and instead of being light eaters, as I always thought they were, I have ^een them “out-eat” me many times when they had the available food. It is amusing to watch them manipulate a pair of chopsticks. They use them as a knife, fork and spoon, almost! I learned the principle but not the art.
A Japanese Festival
During my stay there I had the opportunity to see one of their festivals. Being the only American present, I was given a chair at the best vantage point. It was quite a spectacle in celebration of the late emperor Miji’s birthday, First was the parade, which included all of their traditional devils, ghosts and spirits. Tojo’s recent attempt at suicide . was made a big joke. The Geisha Girl also got her bit of praise: being about fifteen feet high, she was carried by a dozen men. Following the parade came a marathon race with some fifty contestants. After a couple of laps around the field they took off cross-country and did not get back for forty minutes. In the meantime all sorts of tug-o’-war games were played, and the winners were presented with pencils; this seemed to them to be quite an honor. The traditional Japanese observance of politeness was one of the most outstanding things that caught my eye. The police of the city took part in the affairs as well as the big men of the town. I was asked out of politeness to also take part, but I declined the offer.
The Japanese are much the same as any other people except their customs and way of thinking are different. They are, on the average, very honest. Things that are lost are quickly returned, to the owners. These people are crazy for candy and will pay as high as a dollar for a candy bar, but in spite of that I saw one of them take off after a GI who had dropped a candy bar in order to return it, when he could just as easily have kept it himself.'They are not the money-crazy liars that many of the Filipinos were found to. be. Much fuss is made when a person enters the home of another, but the same person can get up and leave any time that he wants to and nothing is said about it, at times not even so much as a “good-bye”.
The bath system of the Japanese is another thing that is so different from our own that it interested me very much. Each section of a city has a central bathhouse; some are equipped with showers, others have tubs. Both men and women use the same facilities at the same.time, there being no regard for privacy shown, but nothing is thought'of it. The entrance to some of these buildings is open to the street with no door to block the view, with men and women going in and out. They seem to pay no attention, but take such things all for granted.
Language and Education
The Japanese start to read their books from the back instead of"the front. Their alphabet I also found very interesting; they go by the sounds. I thought the language to be very difficult to learn, but I found it is easy to pick up enough to make oneself understood; reading and writing it is the most difficult. Like us, they have many words spelled the same but with different meanings. The Japanese are much more educated than I had given them credit to be. The percentage of illiteracy is very small in the country as a whole. Though they may not be able to speak the English language many of them can, nevertheless, read a good deal of it and write it also. English was at one time a compulsory subject in the schools of Japan.
I went through a Japanese school and learned that their system is much the same as dur own. They start at the same time as American schools, and in the morning everything is Japanese and in the afternoon it is conducted in English. Before,1 the military system of the country had the kids in uniforms and told them even how they.'must wear their hair. In school, as at home, they take off their shoes and leave , them with their coats and hats. After classes they do their own janitor work' In the school.
C ■ ■ ■ s.
Women of Japan Made Slaves
The saddest women in all the world, to
my way of thinking, are in Japan. They are used for little more than slaves and have to haul around loads that would make a horse feel as though he were being mistreated. I have seen women carrying loads on their backs that were heavier than they were themselves. Most . men (there are exceptions) don't seem 1 to care whether women live or not. I once ‘saw a woman come aboard a train with a. load that would have staggered me. There were no vacant seats, and as she eyed about the car none moved to give her a resting place. I happened to get off the train at the same station that she did and I wondered if she would be able to get up the stairs. She tried, but could not, and finally went down on all fours in her effort to make it. No one would help her; so I took hold of her pack and lifted it up and got her to the top. You should have seen her. She couldn’t say “thank you” enough times. Later on it became a practice for the GI’s to assist Japanese women whenever they could. It is seldom that you see a man with a heavy load unless he is single. I learned to have a good deal of respect for the women of Japan, for they are very kind and hospitable and it is not uncommon for them to go to extremes to be of some help to a person.
Jehovah's witnesses in Japan
I found that Jehovah’s witnesses in Japan were the best people I came across, and this was also the case while I was in Manila. They had all been imprisoned because of their affiliations with the Watchtower, whose publications were branded by the government as very dangerous to the people and the state. All of them that I met had served at least three years in prison. The Watchtower office in Tokyo is now the house of the chief of police, and another of their buildings is now used as a hospital. The representative of the Watchtower in Japan for many years, Mr. Akashi, served eight years in prison and was still a prisoner in the northern part of Honshu when I got there, but the edict • of MacArthur to release all political prisoners was his means of freedom. However, the time that he spent in prison so weakened and hurt him that he was unable to do any traveling. I did not gdt the opportunity to see him, but I met his son and other members of his family and in that way learned a lot about him and Jehovah’s witnesses in Japan. Mr. Akashi was a middle-aged man, wore glasses, had a good education, and spoke English very well. From his picture I saw - that he was a very healthy .and robust man before he was put in prison.
I learned that in 1938 the Jap government confiscated all of the literature and property of Jehovah’s witnesses and threw them all in jail. Most of them stayed there for three years. Mrs. Akashi died there in 1943, and so did another. The others were released and given civilian jobs and kept under such sharp surveillance that if three of them were caught in a group talking about the weather they were dragged into the police station and questioned. There were about a hundred of Jehovah’s witnesses prior to 1938, and forty of them were pioneers. They all served time in prison and none of them backed down on their stand. Though the number of witnesses; may seem small, yet it is considerable when it is realized that these people are heathen and puppets who aye not allowed to think for themselves.
To get to see Jehovah’s witnesses I had to travel into the rurals outside of Tokyo. The place was very difficult to reach on a rainy day, as I had to go through rich garden country that was laid out in rice paddies, and walking on the dikes it was plenty muddy and the wind really hit me. It was a two-mile hike through this country, and getting back in the dark was no fun. It was an inky blackness, and if it had not been for one of their children I would have gotten off into some of those gardens. I still think that the Japanese can see in the dark.
On one of those trips I met two other families of Jehovah’s witnesses. On another occasion I met a pioneer (fulltime Kingdom publisher) from Osaka, who was up there on. business with an engineer concern. He spoke pretty good English and we had a nice time together. They were all surprised and sorry to hear of Judge Rutherford’s death and were interested in Mr. Knorr (former and present presidents of the Watchtower Society). I gave them a couple of Consolations and they were glad to get them, since they are entirely without literature. They dug up some of the type they had buried and it was in pretty good shape; but it takes more than type to print.
Those experiences that I had with Jehovah’s witnesses in Japan I would not trade for anything. I did all that I could to help them, and they needed it, too.
Japanese Kindness Hard to Understand
I was told that in one B-29 raid 80 percent of Yokohama was destroyed; and from the looks of things the estimate was about right. There must have been thousands that died in the fires and explosions, and more will die from the direct and indirect results. Many will die of malnutrition and exposure too. God didn’t put man on the earth to live under such conditions, and rather than live in such poverty and want, a person would he much better off dead. It will take many years to rebuild Yokohama, and that is only one of the cities of Japan.
After all of the damage and loss of life, it was hard for me to understand how they could have treated the American soldier as they did. When approached by an American they did ail they could to make him understand. Many a ’ time I have been taken and shown when I did not understand their directions. Another thing I could not understand was why those people invited Americans into their homes to eat and drink and entertained them and sent them away with their arms full of pres-
MAY 8, 1M8
ents. After all, those people did not know that they were wrong as far as the war went. They were not responsible for it, and when it came they thought they were just as much in the right as the American, but, now that it is over with, there is no outward sign of enmity for the American on the part of the Japanese. It is true, a good deal of the kindness that they showed us was out of fear, but there was also a good deal of it that was not. I know that had things been the opposite, I would have acted differently from the way the Japanese did, I have been approached while oh the street and invited into their homes to eat and drink, knowing that the food I ate was hard for them to get, and they would have to go without to make up for what I had eaten. Upon leaving there was always some sort of gift as well as an invitation to return whenever possible. It w’as as though they had been our allies rather than our enemies.
I had the occasion to look up some Japanese people on business whom I had never seen before. I had only their names and addresses. When I got off the train in that particular town an elderly woman, noticing that I was a stranger, took it upon herself to help me to find the ones for whom I was looking. She could neither understand nor speak English but she saw to it that I contacted a person that did. The man to whom she took me went out of his way to take me to the address I sought, and when we arrived there we found that the people no longer lived there. He borrowed a bicycle from one of the kids near by and took me to the police station and spent the afternoon as my interpreter. When we got to the police station my guide fell all over the chief of police to be forgiven for his presence, and it was pretty comical to witness. A detective was sent to get in touch with the people I was seeking, and when they were located he guided me to them, and then waited to bring me back. I could not understand this type of hospitality. Even
in the United States it is seldom that a person who is a stranger to you will go out of, his-way to show you directions and then spend the afternoon trying to help. It is a strange people that live in those islands of Japan.
Most Americans hate the Japanese as 'they never hated anyone else and they ■tant to get even with them for the wrong they have done us. But after a few days in Japan it becomes apparent to any American that the Japanese people are not the murderers and haters that Americans have been led to believe from the propaganda. The ruthlessness of the Japanese soldier is typical of the militarists since the entrance of the Shoguns into'Japan years ago. The people themselves of Japan were mistreated the same way and were thankful their country has been helped to get back its freedom. The Japanese are much like a flock of sheep: where their leaders go they follow in blind faith. They did not know the reason for the w*ar other than that the emperor wanted it. They were not told the reasons for it, nor did they have the right to question the actions of the government. They were brought up to believe that they were to serve the emperor even if that meant war with Americans. The American army Intelligence Bulletins pointed out that many Japanese knew that they would lose the war when it first began, and wanted to see their leaders thrown out of the government.
Devil, Not the Japanese, Wanted War
I found the Japanese just like I imagine the average German, Russian, Italian, Frenchman, and every, other nationality of people on earth to be: not a nation of people wanting to fight all the time, but peace-loving and haters of war. for the misery that it brings. They want to live and let live, for the, most part. The average person all over the world wants this and is not to be held responsible for what their governments do. The government of a warring nation
has to whip its people into supporting a war, since most wars are a fight between the leaders of nations and not between the peoples. The peoples are only the tools used by the leaders.
Summing up the whole thing in my mixed-up head, I don’t think this war was of man’s doing, but was of the Devil himself. The Japanese army didn’t have the equipment to compete with the American army, nor did they have the fighting men, nor the resources. The Devil just worked on the minds of the few who were in control, giving them the idea that they were superior and better than others and could rule the world.
My stay in Japan was so short that I did not get the chance to really study these people as I would like to have. They are hard to understand and it takes more than a few months to get an idea what they are really like. Many of the things that I have said in here might be wrong and some of the things that I touched on very lightly should have been emphasized more, but everything that I have set forth is my honest opinion and is what I have seen and experienced myself. It is needless to say that I enjoyed my stay in Japan. Though they were the enemies of our country, it is my honest conviction that they did not know what it was all about, and the atrocities committed are not the fault of the Japanese people, but rather that of the military government that was in control.
Hot Propaganda
♦ In the New York Times on February 22 under the heading, “Power of the Press,” appeared the following in a letter from one of its subscribers:
In very cold weather ordinary bedclothes are not enough. By spreading newspapers between the blankets one can keep warm on the coldest nights.
It is nice to learn that somebody has finally found a practical use for the daily propaganda sheets.
consolation
The Atomic Age
“As time marches on, more and more honest persons are bound to perceive that the secret of life in happiness and peace Ues beyond the power of politicians, businessmen, and religious priests and clergymen, even with all their Atomic Age advantage.”—The, Watchtower, January 15, 1946.
ON August 5, 1945, an airplane flew over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, 343,000 population, and dropped a package, an atomic bomb. The results were fabulous. The city was 60-percent obliterated. Of its 6.9 square miles only 2.6 square miles remained. Glass was broken up to twelve miles from the explosion, roofs were torn off up to five miles, a forest fire was started at four miles, and within a radius of two miles everything was blasted. In a building a mile from where the bomb fell, plush chairs burned behind a window which, so it happened, remained unbroken. The official figures compiled by the United States army state that the result of the bomb in Hiroshima was 70,000 to 120,000 dead or missing men, women and children, with 75,000 to 200,000 injured.
Five days later another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, 253,000 population, occupying twelve square miles. The effect of this was much the same as the other. About four square miles of ,the city was destroyed. The official figures compiled by the army are that here there were 40,000 to 45,000 dead or missing and 40,000 injured. In the two cities, some 290,000 were made homeless. ■
At Hiroshima (and probably also at Nagasaki) virtually all persons within about one mile of the bomb who were not killed by mechanical causes were burned fatally or seriously. At the instant of explosion there is emitted a huge quantity of radiation. These radium-like waves killed inhabitants of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were directly under the bomb, affecting the bloodforming tissues and causing the blood to seep out through apparently undamaged skin and to drain into internal cavities.
Lize Meitner and Her New Job
It seems that the physicists discovered uranium in the early thirties, but they had been making relatively little progress until the German Jewish woman mathematician, Lize Meitner, made calculations to prove that for years the scientists, without knowing it, had been splitting the uranium into two equal parts. It turned out that she was right. It also turned out that when one pound of TNT explodes it releases five electron volts of energy, but that when a single uranium atom is exploded it releases two hundred million electron volts of energy.
Forgetting that the pope has unhesitatingly blessed cruisers, the London Catholic Herald four days after Hiroshima was bombed said:
The Holy Father has persistently maintained a Christian distinction between legitimate and illegitimate weapons of war.
What this expression really means is that it is perfectly all right, in the pope’s eyes, to blow the entrails of a fellow man all over the landscape, provided it is done with a sixteen-inch gun, from a battleship, but to do it with an atomic bomb from the skies just doesn’t, make sense. Warming up, the Herald, probably thinking about the pope’s fellow ‘king of heaven’, Hirohito, went on to say: ' ' ■ ■ .
The use of such a bfimb is utterly indefensible.
That went very well, as a tryout for British readers, but in the United States it would never do at all. So Lize has been added to the faculty of the Catholic University of America, in Washington, and what the Boman Catholic Hierarchy doesn’t soon know about how to make atomic bombs nobody will know. One .can almost hear the Hierarchy talking V* itself and saying: ‘This is the coming filing. We cannot live in the past. Battleships were very nice in their day, but they are on the way out. At first we didn’t like this idea of a cheap little airplane dropping a small package on a city and blowing it off the map, but now let’s hire that Jewish woman, no matter how much it costs, and maybe we can get a big enough start to blow all our enemies to smithereens before they know what it is all about/
The Era of Development
The. atomic bombs in the United States were made in a plant in Tennessee which covers 59,000 acres, or more than 92 square miles. Within this reservation the government built a city to accommodate 78,000 workers and their families. At another plant, built for' the same purpose in the state of Washington, the area covered was 430,000 acres, or over 670 square miles; the government-owned town here had quarters for 17,000 workers and their families. The testing ground was in New Mexico. All together, there were 125,000 employed at the peak of the atomic bomb project. Among these were thousands of leading scientists and engineers, including the leading atomic scientists of all Allied nations.
When the initial bomb was dropped at the proving grounds in New Mexico it was made to explode at 100 feet above the earth, and pushed the solid ground straight down for a distance of 300 feet across, turning it into an unbroken expanse of jade*and-turquoise-eolored glass, as a result of the intense heat and pressure. This pressure was estimated to have been millions of times greater than that of the atmosphere, which is 14j pounds per square inch at sea level. Within a ring a mile in diameter all small life died. A bat, miles away, and apparently unharmed, was so shocked that it made no attempt to escape from man. Hight weeks after the test the soil was still so radio-active that the investigators wore canvas footbags over their shoes, so that no radio-active soil would cling to them. The test bomb was exploded in a desert part of New Mexico at 5: 30 a.m., July 15, 1945.
Peacetime'Possibilities
To the scientists themselves it seems ludicrous that either the politicians or the Big Business crowd should think that the manufacture of atomic energy could remain a secret; yet a dozen bills have been introduced at Washington proposing the maintenance of secrecy, the control of research in atomic energy for any purpose whatever, censorship on the publication of new information about atomic energy, making it a crime to engage in nuclear research without official permission, and in one instance one politician proposed the death penalty for indulging in nuclear research or publishing new discoveries on the subject without permission.
Dr. Ernest Orlando Lawrence, University of California scientist, is very certain that atomic energy can be used to drive locomotives and ocean liners, and that it could even now be used to heat vast quantities of water and pipe it all over a city. He thinks also that the running of cars and planes on batteries charged by atomic energy is not at all far-fetched. That batteries might have to be used as intermediaries seems not to have occurred to an editorial, writer in the Bulletin of the American Association for the. Advancement of Science who made the disquieting observation, “No one would want an automobile that from a standing start would go a mile in the first two seconds.”
The London Sunday Express of November 18, 1945, contains an interview
with a 71-year-old inventor named J. Wilson which seems to show that the problem of the atomic propulsion of vehicles of aYy kind has been solved. Mr. Wilson says that his device is so simple that it can be manufactured for $10; that he fills a metal flask with liquid air, and keeps that under the dashboard of his car; that under the hood of the car he has a cylinder within which are suspended a fragment of uranium and four secret chemical elements; that when the liquid air is introduced into the cylinder it releases atomic energy which produces oxygen and hydrogen; that bypassing the carburetor, these two gases are fed directly into the cylinders, where combustion takes place in the ordinary way. Mr. Wilson went on to say that by his method it costs only a dollar a week to drive a ear; that he is in touch with the British government; that he can propel any type of machinery, including railroad engines, ships and planes; that for many years he has been experimenting with and acquiring stocks of uranium and conducting experiments in Great Britain, Belgium, and Germany. If his statements are correct, he is in possession of secrets for which others would be willing to give him billions of dollars, without any hesitation at all.
Dr. Reuben Gustavson, vice-president and dean of the faculties of the University of Chicago, is one of those who has expressed himself as quite convinced that there is a possibility of driving vessels and trains with atomic power, and that smokeless cities may become a reality, as a result of the atomic researches under -way.
The scientists are all agreed that by the use of atomic power dams could be built and canals could be dug in a fraction of the time hitherto necessary. In their enthusiasm some have even proposed demolishing the icecaps at the poles, but others have decried this. They have pointed out that the sudden and complete melting of the icecap now resting upon Greenland alone would completely submerge New York city and other towns along the Atlantic seaboard, and if all the icecaps in the world were to be suddenly disposed of the waters of all the oceans would be raised from 100 to 160 feet. So, better let the icecaps stay.
Difficulties and Advantages
Watson Davis, director of Science Service, explains that peacetime utilization of atomic energy is practical, for the reason that the nuclear reactions producing energy can be produced at a slow, nonexplosive rate. He mentions that one of the principal difficulties in the way is that the nuclear reaction gives off large quantities of powerful radiation that are extremely poisonous or damaging to human life. It is for that reason that uranium power plants, as was the case with the government’s $2,000,000,000 plants in Tennessee and Washington, need to be surrounded by great masses of concrete and metal to confine these radiations. He mentions that the power-production entails the production of all the material that can be used in the making of atomic bombs, and thus every peaceful atomic power plant is an atomic bomb factory. Mr. Davis adjudges that the discovery of how to make atomic bombs will eventuate in about five thousand new and improved products and procedures, and that the improvements in pumps alone will in twenty years repay the cost of the plants in Tennessee and Washington. All this in the World Almanac for 1946. '
Mr. Davis also points out what is universally admitted: that, due to its destructiveness and small size, the atomic bomb carried to its destination by jet or rocket planes is a weapon of attack for which no adequate countermeasure is apparent. He agrees that by the means stated the bulk of the population, industry and military strength of any nation could be wiped out within a few weeks, without the possibility of retaliation or defense. And he also mentions, as do other writers, that the principles of the bomhs are known in other countries, and that the bombs themselves could be duplicated there within a very few years.
4 Statesmen Desperately Worried
\ All the statesmen of the world are 4 desperately worried about the atomic bomb; and that includes all the American statesmen. One of these, Representative Arends, of Illinois, and a member of the military committee of the House, made this statement:
I am advised on the most competent authority that our scientists and technicians have now [two months after Hiroshima] created atomic bombs of such prodigious and multiplied destructive power that the explosion which killed 150,000 humans and obliterated the city of Hiroshima was only a small firecracker by comparison.
Americans must now understand that the whole conception of military attack and defense has been completely changed. There are no more soldiers and civilians. In the next war the contest will be between populations.
Mr. Arends thinks that the only present answer to the threat of the atomic bomb lies in the decentralization of cities and production facilities, and the provision of underground shelter for-both populations and industries. Though it would be no fulfillment, it reminds of Revelation 6:15: “Kings of the earth, the nobles, the officers, the rich, the strong-—everybody, slave and free—hid themselves in the caves and among, the rocks of the mountains.”—Goodspeed.
The newspapermen are as much worried as the statesmen. The editor of the Altoona Tribune said, in part : :
Think what would have happened-had the Germans won in their frantic race to discover the long-sought secret of atomic power! ... How can man from henceforth go his old way, seeking strife,, courting misunderstanding, pridefully thrusting aside others so that he and his nation can be first, can be richest, most powerful J . , One atomic bomb is said to be equal.fto 20,000 tons of TNT. . . . The perfection of the radio-controlled aerial bomb or torpedo would- make conflict among men tantamount to sel.f-destruction. Man cannot survive any greater horrors than these he is contriving for himself.
I
All Things Are Now Ready
The English physicist Professor M. L. Oliphant delivered Iwo notable addresses in Birmingham. At the first one, October 18, 1945, he stated that the atomic bombs used against Japan, equivalent to thousands of tons'of TNT, were already out of date; that even then bombs equivalent to 2,000,000 tons of TNT could be produced; that he thought it would be but a short time until a single bomb could be produced that would be equivalent to 2,000,000,000 tons of TNT, and the poi-soned-gas products that would be exhaled therefrom could render 2,000 square miles uninhabitable. (This is more than the combined areas of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Buffalo.)
In his second Birmingham address, delivered November 3, 1945, Professor Oliphant said that the value of the secret held by the Allies was about six months’ effort on the part of any industrial country, and that within about a quarter of an hour of war’s being declared all the cities of Britain or other country engaged in war would be laid in ruins; also that the bombs would be delivered perhaps not by aircraft but by rocket.
Devere Allen, editor of the Worldover Press, explains that it would take but a very small bomb to finish off New York and Brooklyn, The bomb would be just dropped in the ocean off Manhattan and six feet of water would sweep across the highest point of the island, cutting off power and drowning everybody in the subways. :
The Swedish physicist, Professor Manne Siegbahn, laughed at the idea of the manufacture of atomic bombs being a secret. He said that “Ml ffie leading specialists of nuclear physics know ail there is to know about the bomb” aijd that he himself could make one in a few months if he had the necessary equipment.
Many Like Opinions
In an address at Newcastle Sir Stafford Cripps, member of the British cabinet, and president of the Board of Trade, said:
I do not believe that the people of the world have yet realized what the atomic bomb means for the future history of the world. It is idle to imagine that it can be preserved as a secret, or that its manufacture will be too difficult or costly. ... A very small object, carried by aircraft or rocket many hundreds or thousands of miles, can now destroy a city and its inhabitants: a few of them ean destroy a country in a moment. This completely new factor in our lives must make us think out again our whole approach to the future of the world. This is an absolute first and overriding priority for every people in the world, great powers and small. We have reached the stage where two countries can be sure of mutual destruction. "The atomic .< bomb is at the same time the most disastrous and destructive discovery ever made by mankind. ... It is the ultimate proof of the absolute need for that way of international life and of individual life which Christ preached to the world 2,000 years ago.
Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press science editor, said:
It is easy to see how atomic power could be used to destroy most of mankind.
Said Waldemar Kaempffert, science editor of the New York Times, in his summary of scientific news for the year 1945:
The outstanding event not only of the year but in the whole history of science and technology was the splitting of the uranium atom, with consequences in Japan which have appalled physicists, statesmen and the common . people. Indeed, so appalled were the physicists that they banded themselves into a federation which has been prodding Congressional committees into a realization of what it means to release energy from the atom for good and evil. For the first time science has been shocked into an awareness of the social consequences of its discoveries. It is now either co-operation or vaporization, the millennium or destruction, or, as Louis Adamic [statesman and publicist for Yugoslavia] puts it, ‘‘one world or no world.” .,
Politicians in a Hot Spot
Richard Law, former minister of state, in an address in London, said that the real danger is not that the world will suddenly blow up and dissolve in smoke, but that the next war, if any, will be waged with extreme efficiency, and at the end of it there would be nobody at all left on one side, and only the chief of staff, the war cabinet and a few thousand people on the other side. He also said that the scientists having evolved this horrible weapon were now showing every sign of climbing out from underneath it very noisily “and leaving it on the laps of politicians and people who have to live in the world of men and make the best job of it they can”.
It is the expressed view of Professor Harold J. Laski, chairman of the British Labor party, that every implication of the atomic bomb means planned internationalism. His statements, made at a dinner in the Astor ballroom, closing a three-day atom-bomb forum, show a strong leaning toward Sovietization. He said, December 3, 1945:
It is an international discovery. The planning of its application has been international. The organization of its future use must be international also. There is no nation-state fit to be trusted with the development of atomic energy. It is clear to any honest observer that a society dominated by business men could not be trusted to create the mental climate in which the development of atomic energy would be confined within the framework of peace. They would not give the eom-mon people the education because they fear its outcome. It is the business man who has split our society in two, the political society and the economic society. They have made the policemen the sanction of the first and the threat of starvation the sanction of the second.
There is only one country in the world । today where this dichotomy [division by 1 pairs] has been transcended. There is only one country, also, where science and technology can be developed without sacrificing the education of man and fearing the breakdown of social well-being or community consciousness. It is significant that only in the new world of Russia has the business man ceased to count. It is also significant that one of the major preoccupations of the great vested interests is how to keep the ‘secret’—which is no secret—from the knowledge of Russia. [This statement is the more remarkable because Professor Laski was formerly a lecturer at Yale and Harvard universities, Big Business strongholds.]
Another world-famous teacher, Albert Einstein, voiced the general thought of hopelessness in the present outlook when he said:
The great powers, united in fighting, are now divided over the peace settlements; the world was promised freedom from fear, but in fact fear has increased tremendously since the war ended.
Philip Wylie Gets It ‘Off His Chest’
The best take-off we have seen regarding Uncle Sam’s new code of morals, illustrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is by the columnist Philip Wylie. Under the engaging title “Off My Chest” he had this analysis of the situation, published in The Gazette and Daily, York, Pa., January 12,1946. Doesn’t it seem to suggest that the world needs a new engineer? Well, cheer up; the new engineer has been appointed, but he is on a brands new engine, on another train, on another track, and with another load of passengers, instead of the maniacs aboard Lucifer’s Special. Wylie says:
We are on board a wild train. The brakes are broken. Ahead, are miles of downgrade, curves and cliffs. We are picking up speed. The train is called the United States of ''America. We have had runaway disasters on this same grade before: World Wars I and II. A lot of people were killed in those wrecks. This time the train also carries dynamite— tons in every car. If we have another wreck, there won’t be even a whole corpse left.
What’s happening on that train? Well— the engineer is worried, perhaps not badly and perhaps without enough understanding of the situation, but he keeps twiddling things, hoping they’ll slow the ears. The firemen hqave on coal, blow the whistle for the devil of it, and shy anthracite at everything they pass—farmer’s bull, rabbit or a switchman.
The windows of the mail ear are so dirty that the civil servants cannot see out. They don’t know anything’s wrong.
In the baggage ears, some of the men are working. One or two, however, are looting the most promising packages. Next comes a dusty car crowded with laborers. They have not noticed the abnormal gain in speed. They never will notice, until it’s too late. Because they’re holding a meeting—a noisy meeting —at which they have agreed to send a delegate up to the club car where the bosses are riding, to demand a one-third pay raise. They threaten to wreck the insides of the train— or at least the club ear—if the raise isn’t granted.
Then come the coaches. Kids are tearing . up and down the aisles among orange peels and candy wrappers. Adults are reading pulp magazines and comic strips and listening to a soap opera on somebody’s portable radio. A very intelligent-looking man has just hurried through the coaches announcing that there’s something the matter with the brakes. Mostly, human din drowned him out. The few people who did hear told each other that he was a crazy professor and pointed out that broken brakes are problems for the train crew and responsibilities of the railroad managfjnent.
This same gent has spread the news. The men in the club car were in conference. They scowled annoyedly. One or two decided to get drunk, on the chance that there was something in it. The others went back into session—planning to lock up the laborers’ coach and starve them out of the wage demand. They keep thinking of slogans like, “'Threat to Private Enterprise!” Every time they think of one they design an advertising campaign for it.
In the Pullmans, people who heard decided to be calm, whatever happened. Some college presidents, sipping highballs in a compartment, began arguing about how to teach better railroad operation to future generations. In a drawing room, a half dozen clergymen discuss technological progress, which they regard as a sin. One dining ear waiter has put on his cleanest jacket, walked to the train’s rear platform, and is looking up silently at the blue sky.
The train is now hitting ninety. It is barely possible that if every single person on board went to work as best he could and at the risk of his life, the train could be brought to a stop. If they broke the windows and hung out, holding each other’s legs so they could jam golf clubs between the wheels and the brakeshoes—if they made ropes of Pullman sheets and the safety cord and threw out the furnishings to act as drags—if the ministers set unanimous examples of grim self-sacrifice— if the college presidents went up to aid the engineer—if the firemen banked the fires and leaned overboard to burn ‘ off their shovels on rail and whizzing wheel—if the radiolisteners would try to signal ahead for a sanding of the track—if the clerks stood on the cowcatcher and dumped out the letters to increase traction—they just might stop.
The scientist hurries through with his warning again. And more people note it. These now meet on a platform between cars. One wants to throw the dynamite overboard. The others point out that it will land on track below, where they’ll hit it for certain; they’ve reached the cliffs, on the runaway train. They finally agree to pass a law against carrying dynamite on trains. Then wrecks (or wars, as fools like me call them) at least won’t kill anybody.
What I mean is, how do we Americans, who use atomic bombs, have the maniacal may e, iMe
gall to propose they be “outlawed” ? Do We imagine we can make that hypocrisy stick? Don’t we realize that man must change, nations, the world—if we are to save the hides of most of the people, in all likelihood, who are alive this very day? Evidently not. Evidently, guys like me on the train can merely keep “Notes on the Last Few Minutes”, in the preposterous hope that somebody, ten thousand years from now, will dig them out of a mess of molars and femurs—to learn nothing . useful, perhaps: just that back around anno two thousand, some men could write. Write —and even read, when the letters were big , enough and printed on walls, in fire.
Rich Men’s Rust
♦ The Treasury Department publishes an annual report listing those who dwell in the stratosphere when it comes to annual incomes. During 1943 twenty of those who received salaries from corporations had incomes totaling up to the staggering figure of $7,471,850,000. One man alone, Louis B. Mayer, the movie magnate of Hollywood, received from Loew’s Ine. $908,070 for “personal services" rendered to the company.
Only in a world of selfishness and greed is it possible for a few men, who neither labor nor toil, to own and control practically all the wealth of the earth. But it shall not always be this way. James, the apostle, so declared in no uncertain terms: “Go to now’, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and-the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers wTho have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” (James 5:1-4) So, beware! O ye rich men, of the fust which shall eat your flesh.
Need for a High Priest
SENTENCES to death are common in human experience. Man’s first sentence to death was that of Adam, and was because of his sin in the garden of Eden. Sin is the transgression qf God’s law. (1 John 3:4) Simple justice re--quired the entering of the judgment of death against the willful sinner Adam, and the execution of it. That judgment , was entered by Jehovah God in heaven itself. In due time the giving up of the life of the perfect man Jesus corresponded exactly with the value of the perfect human life which Adam had forfeited for all his offspring by reason of his sin and God’s penalty for sin. But the death of the perfect man Jesus could in itself not work good to the undone offspring of Adam unless the value of it were presented before divine justice as an offering for sin and as a ransom for humankind.
God could not appoint someone els'e to present the value of Jesus’ perfect human life in heaven as a sin-offering, because God had appointed Christ Jesus to be His High Priest, and the High Priest must enter into God’s presence with the sin-offering. Jesus as a man could not do that. His human life was laid down on earth. The value of it must be .presented by granting the High Priest access to heaven. It pleased God to give to His tried and faithful Son the honor of thus presenting the value of the perfect human life as a sin-offering. Carrying ' ■ out His purpose, God raised up Jesus out of death to the “divine nature”, and the divine Jesus now had access to the courts of heaven. When Jesus ascended into heaven He appeared in God’s presence and presented the value of His human life as a sin-offering. It was received in behalf of humankind, but the first benefits from its application began coming to those who became members of the church, which is the “body of Christ”, the later benefits coming to all other believers of humankind who will gain eternal life on earth.
The sin-offering by Jehovah’s High Priest had been foreshadowed by the ceremonies which God caused the Jews to perform annually in connection with -their Atonement Day as required by the Mosaic Law. The animals were slain in the court of the sacred tabernacle, and their blood was taken by the high priest into the Most Holy of the tabernacle and sprinkled before God’s mercy seat. The tabernacle court pictured this earth, where the sacrifice of Jesus was made. The Most Holy pictured heaven itself, where the value of His perfect human life was presented as a sin-offering. Concerning this it is written, at Hebrews 9:22-26: “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these [animal sacrifices]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us : nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entere.th into the holy place every year with blood of others [animals]; for then must [Jesus] often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” So God has provided for us the needed High Priest.
God had foretold by the prophet Isaiah what should be done as to the sacrifice of His beloved Son. Isaiah 53:10-12 reads: “Yet it pleased the Lord [Jehovah] to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shait make his soul an offering for sin . . . He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall he satisfied : . . . for he shall bear their iniquities. . . . because he hath poured out his soul unto death: . . . and he bare the sin of many.” Just as God had foretold, Jesus died for man’s sins and was raised out of death for the Justification of huinan-kind.—1 Corinthians 15:21; Romans 4:25.
Note the above quotation: “Without shedding of blood is no remission for forgiveness!.” (Hebrews 9:22) The, shedding of the blood of a perfect human creature was the only possible way whereby God could be just and the jus-tifier of mankind. The life is in the blood, as stated at Leviticus 17:11,14. The judgment sentence of God required the lifeblood of Adam because of sin. As a redemption for Adam’s offspring, who were not sentenced but who came under condemnation because of sinful birth, divine justice accepts the lifeblood of the perfect jnan Jesus, to the end that in due time the value of that sacrifice may , be made available for the benefit of all believing men. During this so-called - “Christian era”, during which time God ' is selecting the members of the “body of Christ*’ or church, the value of Jesus’ - perfect life poured out on earth is applied in heaven as a purchase price for the benefit of those who become consecrated to God as underpriests of Jehovah’s great High Priest. Later, at the " completion of th$ membership of the “body of Christ”, the merits of Jesus’ perfect human sacrifice will be made available and applicable as a purchase price for the benefit of all believers among men. As a proof of that fact and showing that the blood of Jesus is a price of great value paid that believers might live, it is written to those now members of Christ’s body: “Ye are , bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23) What is that price? The apostle Peter answers: “Ye know that
MAY 8, 1946 <
ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”—1 Peter 1:18,19. ;
To be brought into harmony with God man must know something of God’s pro- ’ vision. He must repent of his wrongful course. He must believe that the blood of Jesus was shed as a purchase price for sinners, and then God’s mercy must be extended to him because of his faith. The basis of restoring humankind to relationship with God as His children is the lifeblood of the .perfect man Jesus Christ. Hence the due time ha^come for men to be brought to a knowledge of this truth and thereby have an opportunity to become sons of God.
The enemy, Satan the Devil, by means of religion has misrepresented Jehovah God by claiming that He is so cruel that He must have the blood of someone and that llis wrath is appeased by the blood of Jesus; and therefore, only when thus appeased, is the angered God willing to forgive the sinner. That is entirely untrue. God is just, and hence the execution of his law in harmony with plain justice cannot be ignored. Instead of a vengeful lust for blood, it was the love of God that provided a way for the requirements of His own justice to be completely met; and this was done by the willing obedience of Jesus His beloved Son even unto death. The pouring out of His lifeblood in behalf of sinful humankind forms the basis for bringing Adam’s offspring into ■ harmony with God. Now, because of exercising repentance and then faith in God and in the shed blood of Christ Jesus, the obedient . believer who dedicates himself to "God receives justification from sin and con-denination. God is therefore both just and the justifier of them that believe .and whom He makes Llis spiritual sons and . heirs.—Romans 3 : 26. ;
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