Awake!, December 8, 1947
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A Thom in South Africa’s Side
Her Indian community presents die thorniest racial problem
Gambling’s Strangle-Hold on Panama
National lottery called "a blessing of God”
Iowa’s Mobocracy Declared Illegal Circuit court upholds rights of Jehovah’s witnesses as it reproves the town of Lacona
Solar Radiation
The sun, and its benefits to earth
DECEMBER 8, 1947 semimonthly
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
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CONTENTS
A Thorn in South Africa’s Side
Indian Coolies Imported
The Trader
India Hits Back
Laws and the Latest Explosion
Gambling’s Strangle-Hold on Panama
"A Blessing of God”
"Beating the Saints”
Australia’s Vanishing Natives
The Bane of Religion
Iowa’s Moboeracy Declared Illegal
Facta of the Case
The Court Decisions
Angry but Chagrined Opposers
Getting the Bird
Bikini Natives "Starving and Forgotten*’ 20
Solar Radiation
Dependence upon the Sun
Destroyer of Bacteria
“Thy Word Is Truth”
The Spiritual Anointing of Sons
Religious Antics
Needling the Pope
Watching the World
®^Now it is high time to awake?—Romans I3:tt &
Voium XXVIII Brooklyn, N.Y., D«c«mter fr 1X7 Number tt
A Thorn in South Africa’s Side
W’C'AST is East and West is West/ Hj wrote Kipling, fervent defender of British white supremacy, “and never the twain shall meet.’’ But in South Africa the twain have met, and the resulting explosions threaten to provide the spark to set the world once more ablaze in flaming war.
The East is represented in South Africa by a bustling Indian community numbering some 250,000 souls. They are the smallest racial group within the Union’s borders, and the latest comers, but th© endeavor to fit them into the framework of a complex, heterogeneous population of 10| million has provided South Africa with the thorniest of its many racial problems. The efforts of successive South African governments to solve the problem have provoked bitter opposition not only from Indians in South Africa but from the government of India itself.
Bitterness has deepened with the years And outraged feelings bubble up in angry threats and excited accusations. “I wish that India was in a position to declare war against South Africa here and now,” said Dr. M. B. Khare, a member of the Indian government, in New Delhi, on November 6, 1944. In 1946 India declared diplomatic and economic war on South Africa, On March 12,1946, Dr. Khare announced in the Council of State at New Delhi that the Indian government had decided to terminate trade relations with South Africa. The Indian high commissioner, to South Africa was also withdrawn.
Shortly thereafter the matter was brought into the arena of world opinion. Pursuing its demands on behalf cf its fellow countrymen for complete equality with Europeans in South Africa, the Indian government charged South Africa before the 1946 meeting of the United Nations organization’s General Assembly with having violated the charter of the United, Nations, to which the South African government is a signatory. The Indian complaint produced the hitterept and most acrimonious debates of the Assembly. In a majority vote South Africa’s Indian policy was tacitly condemned, and the governments of India and of South Africa were ordered to report back to the next General Assembly of U. N. on the steps they have tnken to resolve their differences. In the intervening months little progress has been made.
Indian Coolies Imported
The Union of South Africa consists of four provinces: the Cane Province, Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal. The union of these four provinces is a matter of recent histpry, having been accomplished just 37 years ago. The coastal belt of Natal is subtropical, fertile and well-watered, and in tnifl green coastal belt sugar is king. The South African Indian problem is the noisy child of the Natal sugar industry.
Shortly after Natal became a British colony, sugar cane was introduced from the near-by island of Mauritius. By 1852 it was Natal colony's major crop. But the planters complained that they could not get labor for their fields. The native Bantu were slow to leave their kraals to work for the white man, and when they did come they were heavy-handed and undependable. The embryo sugar barons cast longing eyes at Mauritius and the West Indies, where imported Indian coolies were working wonders with the sweet cane, and cried aloud for brown men to help them.
They met opposition from their fellow colonists and from the government of India itself. But the cry continued and in 1860 the first shipload of Indians landed in Natal. Mostly Madrassi coolies of the lowest castes, they were allotted to masters for three years (later changed to five years) under indenture. Wages wTere 10s. a month, rising to 12s. in the third year, with food, quarters and free medical attention thrown in. A writer has commented that “it was the cheapest labor, short of slavery, in the world”. That is probably true, but it is also a fair comment that recruitment was entirely voluntary and conditions in India must have been pretty had to induce the coolies to accept service on the Natal planters' terms.
At the end of five years the coolie was entitled to a free passage home to India. But he could, if he wished, remain in the colony and live and work as he pleased. If he chose to remain he was entitled, at the end of ten years' residence, to a grant of Crown land equal in value to the cost of his passage home. In 1860, when the first Indian landed, the European population of Natal colony numbered only 7,000. During the next twelve years 30,000 indentured Indians came. When their indentures expired, many of them stayed to form a permanent Indian community in Natal. Natal's sugar prospered, Under nimhle Indian hands the cane flourished and yearly the cane belt crept farther north and south. The planters grew rich, and continued to import coolies, the basis of their wealth. But the rest of European Natal was not so happy. Steadily the permanent Indian population was increasing and soon the alarmed colonists found that they were being outnumbered by the Asiatic newcomers.
The Trader
It was not the coolie so much that _ European colonist feared. His value ti the colony was frankly recognized. Even when his indentures had expired and he remained to settle in Natal, a free man in his own right, the coolie served a “useful” purpose. As cunning market gardeners, ex-coolies gave the coast towns an unrivaled supply of fruit and vegetables, as fishermen they brought in a bumper harvest from the sea, and their services as domestic servants, farm laborers and petty Artisans were much sought after. But in the wake of the indentured Indian laborer had come the Indian trader, both Mohammedan and Hindu, It is the trading class among the Indians who to this day constitute almost the whole of South Africa Indian problem.
The Indian trader enjoys a great advantage over his European counterpart Even though he is generally of a much higher caste than the coolie, his standard of living judged by European standards is primitive. Consequently he can trade on a margin of profit on which the European trader would starve. European traders, therefore, regard Indian competition as unfair. But the Indian trader could not be excluded from Natal without cutting off the supply of indentured coolie labor, and the Natal Legislative Council and the planters, almost synonymous terms, were determined that the flow of wealth-making labor should not cease. So Natal’s two Indian populations increased side by side: the coolie, tolerated for his usefulness, and the trader, despised for his' trading methods and feared for his success.
But there can be too much eVen of a good thing, and by 1891 the permanent coolie population had increased to an extent that threatened to swamp European Natal. The now thoroughly alarmed colonists began to agitate for a reduction in their numbers. The first move to this end was the repeal of the old law offering ex-indentured coolies free Crown land after ten years* residence in the colony. But the flow of new indentured Indian labor was not allowed to stop, and the free coolie population kept increasing.
In 1893 Natal was granted responsible gqvernment by the British Crown and at once suppressed anti-Indian feeling found vocal and practical expression. At first the newly-formed Natal government tried to arrange ways and means with the Indian government for the removal of her surplus Indians. When these efforts failed, the colony, now able to legislate in her own right, imposed legal limitations on her free Indians. In an effort to keep out the trading class as distinct from the indentured coolie she applied an education test to free immigrants, denied the parliamentary franchise to all who came from states, like India, which were without representative institutions, and refused trading licenses to traders who failed to keep their books in English, To urge the coolie to go home at the end of his period of indentures a tax of £3 a year was imposed on all those who stayed.
But,‘in spite of these restrictions, the indentured Indian laborer came, and stayed; and still he was followed by the higher-caste trader and a sprinkling of professional men. Among these latter ones in the year 1893 came an unknown Indian lawyer named M. K. Gandhi. A year later Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress.
The Transvaal
To the north and northwest of Natal lay the two Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The Orange Free State had resolutely shut its doors to all Asiatic immigration. Ite doors are shut to this day. The Transvaal republic would have liked to do the same, but under the London Convention of 1884 it -owed certain obligations to and enjoyed certain concessions from Great Britain. And the Indians were British subjects. So President Kruger and his advisers feared to go too far. Nevertheless, in order to discourage the brown flood from pushing across the Drakensberg to the Golden Reef, the Transvaal government passed certain anti-Asiatic laws. Asiatic immigrants had to be registered, they were forbidden to own fixed property and had to reside in special areas set apart for them. This may have discouraged but it certainly did not stop Indian immigration into the Transvaal. .Anti-Indian feeling runs higher in the Transvaal thair anywhere else in the Union. Among the first Indians to enter the Transvaal, was the lawyer, M. K. Gandhi, who acquired a lucrative legal practice in Johannesburg. He soon became the focal point of Indian agitation for the removal of all restrictions.
India Hits Back
The Indian government had never ceased to interest itself in its departed children, and complained constantly against the laws framed against them. The main point of irritation was the Transvaal anti-Indian laws, but the lesser Natal restrictions were also resented. Then, in 1908, when the Natal government parsed a law making it still more difficult for the Indian trader to obtain a trading license the Indian government decided at long last to cut off the supply of coolies. This was not done purely in a spirit of retaliation, for (to quote Walker’s History of South Africa, p. 546):
From 1907 onwards the Viceroy, Lord Minto, and his Council had contemplated ending the whole evil system of recruiting this semi-servile labour, evil in its effects on those parts of India where native touts harried the villagers for recruits, evil too in its effects on the morals of the coolies and, still more, of those luckless women who had to accompany them, one to every three or four men.
The Natal planters, who had recently extended their activities to the growing of tea and who now needed Indian labor more than ever, sent a deputation to pray on its knees to the Indian government for mercy. Simla relented a little. Natal would be allowed to import coolies until 1911 but after that the supply would stop. It was to stop not only for Natal but for the rest of the world as well The planters went home ruefully to make the best of it. Although the last indentured coolie landed in Natal in 1911, the system as a whole did not end until 1920.
Meanwhile, under Gandhi's leadership Indian agitation in South Africa was becoming more vocal and soon the central South African government (amalgamation of the four provinces now having been achieved, in 1910) ,was forced to take notice. Under pressure of Gandhi's newly conceived “passive resistance" and moved perhaps by the threats and complaints of the Indian government, the Indian Relief Act of 1914 was passed. Under this act the hated £3 a year tax was removed and other concessions made, but only a fraction of the Indian's demands was met Nevertheless, Gandhi called off the passive resistance cam: paign and told his followers that the Relief Act must he the basis from which they must work for their further advancement. Then he threw up his flourishing legal practice in Johannesburg, which he now regarded as immoral, and sailed for India to devote himself to the service of his people.
Laws and the Latest Explosion
The years since 1914 have seen two world wars and many changes, hut the South African Indian question remains-a hardy perennial among South Africa racial problems. Although Indian immigration has stopped, the Indian fertility rate is twice that of the European and census figures show a continued steady increase in their numbers. And as they have increased in numbers so has increased in volume their cry for rights and privileges. In this year 1947 it has become a shout that echoes in most of the world's capitals. This shout comes mainly from the trading and professional classes.
Eighty-three percent of the Union's Indians are located in Natal. Most of the remaining 17 percent are in the Transvaal, with an almost negligible number in the Cape Province. In the Cape and Natal there w ^'e until recently no statutory limitations to an Indian's right io buy property where he pleased and to live and trade on equal terms with Europeans, In the Transvaal such limitations have existed since republican days and still exist today. It was the application, in essence, of these statutory limitations to Indians in Natal that provoked the present storm.
In 1943 a government commission reported that Indian penetration in Natal, particularly in its chief town, Durban, was assuming truly aggressive proportions. Alarmed European opinion in Natal clamored for action. The result was the temporary “Pegging" Act of 1943 and its successor, the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian, Representation Bill of 1946. Briefly, this legislation introduces into Natal the control of property deals between Asiatics and non-Asiatics, and confirms it in the Transvaal, Tn this respect the new legislation is related to the old-Transvaal laws, but with this difference: while the Transvaal laws were frankly discriminatory against the Asiatic, in Natal the new laws apply equally to the European and the Indian, An Indian may not buy, live or trade in predominantly European areas, and a European may not buy, live or trade in predominantly Indian areas. The new legislation also provides for Indian representation in Parliament, something they have never had before. Representation is to be on a communal basis, three members in the Assembly and two in the Senate to represent the Indian community as a whole.
But the Indians will have none of it. The land tenure sections of the bill they reject as depriving them of fundamental rights. The Indian representation provisions they likewise reject because such representation is to be qn a communal basi^. They demand to be placed on the common voters’ roll, side by side with the European. The European’s reply to these demands today is substantially the same as the reply they made to Gandhi’s similar demands in 1913. It is well stated in Walker’s History of South Africa, p. 548:
The Indians by reason of their religion and ancient traditions were a class apart in South Africa, despised by the Zulus as servile aliens, able by dint of a low standard of life and incredible industry to undercut European trading rivals, and, in many cases, content with truly Oriental sanitary conditions and a code of business ethics to match. The mass of them were of low caste or of no caste. Yet Gandhi was claiming the rights of Europeanized British citizens in South Africa for men who were “untouchables” in their own country. The claim could not be admitted. That, whether right or wrong, was the view taken by the majority of South Africans of a question which was at bottom economic.
The ludian demands complete equality with the European, politically and economically. The European replies that the Indian cannot receive such equality until his social habits and way of life conform to European standards. For the mass of the Indian population the Europeans’ reply still holds good, in spite of much progress along western lines. The weakness in the European’s case is that no provision for equality exists for the-DECEMBER 8, 1847
Indian who has reached European stand* ards. It is ludicrous that the Indian gentleman of culture and education— and there are many such—should be confined, in European eyes, to the social level of the Madrassi coolie. Many white South Africans are now concluding that the time is ripe for the application of Cecil Rhodes’ dictum: “Equal rights for all civilized men.” “Civilized” in this case, of course, means “westernized” and the application of Rhodes’ stated principle would give to a small percentage of Indians in South Africa full civic rights.
Disabilities
The disabilities under which Indians labor in South Africa are briefly as follows: They lack full ballot rights; they are unable, owing to provincialimmigra-tion barriers, to travel freely from province to province; in the Transvaal and Natal they may not buy fixed property or live or trade except in scheduled areas (in Natal this disability applies equally to Europeans); they are subject to all the petty irritations and indignities of the color bar, which is universal in South Africa.
This last disability the Indian loathes most. The sensitivity of the Indian to insult, or seeming insult, is proverbial and throughout their struggle in South Africa this hypersensitivity has been marked. In the early days of the struggle Gandhi pleaded against a bill providing for the total prohibition of Asiatic immigration into the Transvaal. “Do not dishonor us,” he begged of Smuts, “Do not cast a stigma on us in the laws of your country.” Decades later, in March, 1944, in opposition to the Pegging Act his followers again pleaded with Smuts, “Do not dishonor us,” they begged, “Do not cast a stigma on us in the laws of your country.”
Europeans charge that the Indian leaders are more concerned with chasing the shadow of a theoretical equality than with the desperate need of the mass of their people tor uplitt ana escape irom traditional squalor. It is the European, they claim, who is carrying the burden of Indian education, Indian housing and general welfare. But it is also true that Europeans admit they have not done nearly as much in this respect as they might have, or as much as they are morally bound to do under the Cape Town Agreement of 1927.
The Indians have latterly prejudiced their case in South Africa by ill-advised and sometimes hysterical action. South Africans resent the Indians’ appeal to Mothd’f India. If the Indians in South Africa are South Africans, they say, then they should work for the fulfillment of their demands by constitutional methods within the framework of the country’s laws. They should not call upon a foreign country to bring pressure to hear upon their homeland. If, on the other hand, they are still citizens of India then their claim for civic rights in South Africa is baseless.
South Africans resent, too, the charges blazoned throughout the world that Natal Indians “are kept in a state of slavery . . . are segregated in locations, bazaars, concentration camps or ghettos”. South Africans point out that the Asiatic Land Tenure ■ Bill, which the Indians have duhbed the “Ghetto Act”, separates communities which are incompatible in order to avoid communal friction and strife. Europeans view the act as a restriction on Europeans and Indians alike. The hypersensitive Indian sees in it an insult aimed at himself. However, an impartial fairijess must grant that “restrictions” on Europeans entering the Indian sections is actually no restriction at all and only made to look good on paper, as it is the European demanding segregation from the very elements be once imported for selfish advantage.
But on the other band, and understandably, the European finds it difficult io sympamize wim me in man h senaruv-ity to segregation for the following reasons : First, “uut ouch ability” as practiced in India is segregation of the worst kind; and, second, the Indian’s attitude toward the other non-white races of South Africa is not consistent with his protestations. For the Indian regards the native African as a man vastly inferior to himself and of another color, and is reluctant to concede equality with himself even to the 750,000 Colored (mixed-blooded) South Africans whom Field Marshal Smuts has described as an “appendage to the European race” and whose habits and way of life are more closely-fillied to those of the European than are either the Indian’s or the African’s. This is true in spite of a partial coming together of the leaders of all three sections.
It is noteworthy that most commentators point to the Indian’s religion as the main factor that separates him from the European and keeps him in a state of depressed squalor. This is true particularly of the Hindu. In South Africa the Hindu’s religion does not bind him as tightly as it does in India, but its shackles are still strong and at every turn it bars his struggle upward. Its general effect seems to he to prevent him from thinking clearly and objectively, and it certainly provides no incentive to social progress.
The Indian in South Africa today feels that his greatest need is political and social equality ■with the European. He is wrong. His greatest need is to receive a knowledge of Jehovah’s Word and kingdom, that kingdom which, under Christ the King, and not under the Europeans or any other men, will shortly institute its rule throughout the earth and which will put into operation the divinely stated truth (Acts 17: 26): God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth”.— Aivake! correspondent in South. Africa.
Q ambling’
ngle'Hold
Connecting
North America and South America is a narrow strip of land xjalled'the Isthmus of Panama. Two mighty oceans beat upon its shores, the Atlantic on the north and the Pacific
on the south.
At its narrowest point the Panama Canal cuts through to link the oceans. Ships from every part of the earth converge upon Panama, transit the canal, and continue their voyages to other parts of the earth. Air traffic is also quite heavy. A steady stream of strangers comes and goes. Because of its location ana its canal Panama has heen termed the “crossroads of the world”.
Panama depends largely upon the visiting strangers for her livelihood Her principal cities are located at each end of the canal, Panama on the Pacific end and Colon on the Atlantic end. These two cities are equipped to entertain. Many cantinas apd harrooms dot the city areas, there being one on nearly every corner, with music box blaring forth day and night to attract thirsty travelers. Then there are the cocktail lounges and the many night clubs, where elaborate and sensational floor shows are presented nightly, shows imported directly from New York and other centers of the entertainment world. Horse racing, prize fighting and bull fighting are enterprises to attract the visitors and their money. On May 15,1947, Panama’s first gambling casino was opened in Panama City’s Hotel Internae? onaL In its attempt to still the storm of protest that arose from the more' conservative element and the university students as to the ill effects that the casino might have upon the mor-fled it on the ground that through it the national budget could be balanced. However, the main gambling project of the country is the government-o pe r ated national lottery. Into it is poured not-only much tourist money, but also a large portion of the native workers’ wages.
als of the country, the government .that
operates the gambling enterprise^ justi- ■ WO goes into the national treasury week-
Originally the lottery was a private concession, but in 1919 it was taken over by the national government? and since then has been run on a national basis, with all profits going to the government There are two kinds of lottery tickets, ordinary and chances. Each week 10,000 ordinary tickets are issued, ranging in price from 50 cents to $28, with many more of the cheaper chance tickets, costing from 20 cents to $5, being sold throughout the republic. The ticket vendors are particularly in evidence in th§ principal cities of Panama and Colon, There they are grouped on the busiest street corners and sometimes as many as a dozen ticket sellers are strung out along the sidewalk. They are constantly surrounded by a crowd of- persons seeking the numbers. Though a law prohibits children nnder the age of 18 years selling tickets, it is generally ignored and one encounters children of all ages on the streets so employed.
Every Sunday morning at 11 o’clock the weekly drawing takes place and the winning numbERS are immediately announced over the radio and posted in store windows and other public places for all to see. The many prizes range from $1 to $56,000. The total amount paid ont weekly is $450,000. This sum of prize money is 75 percent of the receipts, which means that approximately $150,-ly, $600,000 monthly, or $7,800,000 yearly, from this one source of gambling; and this in addition to all other money collected in taxes.
a, iw 9
“A Blessing of God"
This money is dedicated to administration expenses and to the building and maintaining of numerous hospitals and asylums,! homes for the aged, Reformatories, the national Red Cross and other institutions of a public and charitable nature, many of which are Catholic. It is claimed that, without the proceeds of the lottery, such charitable institutions could not be maintained by the republic. Because of the use to ■which the money is put the lottery is called “The National Lottery of Beneficence” and is widely advertised over the radio as “a blessing of God to our country”. On this basis the people are urged to support it. The fact that God is tied in with the lottery reveals the' hand of religion behind it, and a closer scrutiny shows that its main offices are located in a part of the bishop’s palace in Panama city and that many of the Catholic institutions of the republic are supported by the gambling revenues.
The effect of the lottery itself on the minds and lives of the people is unquestionably bad, and this fact the government admits. However, it excuses itself upon the grounds that the people are accustomed to gambling, and they have ail overpowering urge to gamble, and that it is better that it be done openly and legally and let the government benefit by it rather than to have it done illegally, with private individuals reaping the benefit. They also point to the public good done by the money derived from the lottery ticket sales. But by taxation the government could raise the same amount and distribute the burden much more equitably.
Now let our examination probe a little deeper into this ‘^blessing of God” to see its effect upon the minds and lives of the people. The effect is little upon the tourists and visitors. Passing through, they indulge in whatever the country has to offer. They have the money to spend just on that occasion for the novelty, and if they lose no harm is done. The real damage is to the natives who live with the lottery week iii and week out and who all but stake their very lives upon it. With them it becomes a vicious habit and with some an obsession, as week after week they buy their numbers, hoping against hope that they will win. Debts and needs for food and clothing are made to wait as weekly wages are used to buy lottery tickets, in the elusive but glittering hope of winning enough to pay off the entire debt or be able to meet family needs for months or years to come.
The majority of the people are quite poor. Wages are low, living costs are high. So, in order to have money for the weekly lottery numbers, something must be sacrificed. And it is amazing to see the lengths to which some go in order to regularly buy the tickets. Many will take their last cent; others will borrow money, and this regardless of whether there is food in the house for themselves and their children or not. If they lose it means going hungry until the next payday. Most families live crowded up in one or two tiny rooms, families that may include eight or ten persons, and yet, instead of finding better living quarters and using their money in that way, they spend from five to twenty dollars weekly on the lottery and continue to go hungry, half-clothed and poorly sheltered. Some will save for years in order to make one plunge into the lottery, thinking that they have figured out the winning number, only to lose their life’s savings. It is useless to try to point out to them that it is only a huge racket, that God has nothing to do with it and that if they were to save the amount of money each week that they pour into the lottery they would have the essential things that they need.
“Beating the Saints”
Not only do they pour their money into it, but, having done so, they look to God to make their numbers win. Feverishly they implore Him through their favorite “saint” not to let them down. Many are the tales one hears of how the “saints” have answered their prayers in this regard. One that is typical and amusing and pathetic is of an old lady who always prayed to her “saint”, her prayers being directed to his image. If he was believed to have answered her prayers and she won on the lottery, well and good; but if she lost, she beat the “saint” and put him behind the door.
Of course, there are those who do win large stakes, and that perhaps on the purchase of only a few tickets, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Then, too, nearly everyone will win small amounts as he goes along. Nothing compared with what they have put into it, hut it is just enough to keep them buying tickets in the hope that they will win a substantial prize. Though each week’s failure leaves them sick with disappointment, it also brings them a fresh hope of winning on the next week’s drawing, and one dare not fail to buy his numbers lest that be the week they are drawn.
Imagine, if you can, the effect upon the mind of one who has bought a certain' number for weeks, months or even years, without having won any appreciable amount of money and decided tp quit buying it, only to have it turn up as the winning number a week or two later. Or perhaps one has dreamed a number, which so often is the case, and then did not play it and it turns up as the winner.
■*re<------
The fear not to play the lottery builds up within the native inhabitants, and hoping against hope they continue week after week to throw away their meager earnings. A desire of something for nothing, or a lot for a little, is so strong that it overpowers reason. Indeed, the “national lottery of beneficence” has clamped a strangle-hold upon Panamanians.
The most incongruous aspect of the whole thing is the fact that God is tied in with this. Honest-hearted persons can readily see that the god who blesses it is not Jehovah, the true and living God, but is the god of this world, Satan the Devil, and that the entire thing is an example of his old world in operation, to make dupes and fools of the people, while at the same time they are made to believe that it is God’s arrangement for their blessing. The politicians have legalized the racket, the commercialists advertise and push it, and the religionists also keep watch over it and bless it, while the poor people pour into it their very lifeblood, all to the reproach of Jehovah, who the people ignorantly believe is responsible for everything that takes place On this globe, including the lottery. Then, when they lose, their faith wanes.
Paying less attention to'the misleading clergymen in Christendom and giving more heed to God’s Word, the Bible, people in all nations could quickly learn that Jehovah God is not the god of gambling, neither do His blessings come as a result of chance. His blessings come with certainty to those who love and serve Him, and they come free of charge, and not through lottery tickets.—Awake! correspondent in Panama.
Jesus “entered into the temple, and began to east out them that sold and them that bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, , . .
and said unto th^m, 7s it not written, 3ft/ house shait be calied a house of prayer for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of robbers. And the chief pAests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him”.
—Mark U:15-18y Am. Stan. Ver.
Australia’s Vanishing Natives
HOW long ago the Australian aborigine set foot on . the island continent neither archeologists nor historians can tell as. It is conjectured that two different races settled there in the long ago, and that from the various blendings of these two, the black and the yellow, the present tribes, of Australian natives have sprung. Modern civilization dawned with the coming of the white man, and the establishment of the city of Sydney iu 178d. In the intervening centuries evidently few have visited these remote shores. Isolation separated the Australians from the great civilizations of the East and the West. When European civilization finally did hurst in upon their isolation it found these forgotten tribes living in a manner about as fa removed from the civilized as can wel be imagined.
The unsettled areas of the continent that now harbor a number of the native tribes are those around the Gulf of Carpentaria, aud parts of the Northern Territory, north Western Australia and the arid deserts of central Australia. Rem-
Hants cf once great tribes struggle to live in certain southern areas also.
The Physique
The nomad hunting life of the Australian natives demands that they have as little surplus weight, as possible. Their spines are flatter than those of any other race. The hip hones seem remarkably close together in both sexes. Their arms and legs are long. Many have thought that their arms are longer than their legs, but that is not so.
The nose and forehead are striking facial features. Brown eyes are sunken and overshadowed by overhanging beetling brows and bushy eyebrows. A bony ridge makes a natural eyeshade for them from the glare of a powerful and evershining sun. Their noses arc broad and flat. When a native mother finds that the nose of her child is not growing flat naturally she will massage it until it is flat. In some tribes, however, the aquiline nose is found, and tnis is taken by some to be an indication that in the dispersion Jews found their wav to Australia, as well us to China. The lips of the Australian native are thick, jaws projecting, chins weak.
Skulls are thick and strong. Husbands have found that the quickest way to silence an angry, nagging wife is to hit her several times over the head with his heavy war club. This is very effective in dealing with a spouse wbo persists in broadcasting her troubles and her opinions of her husband a: high level to the camp. After a few well-directed blows peace is restored in the household. Fears of being thus manhandled do not defer wives from giving vent to their feelings. Seldom does the rough treatment bring serious effects. Skulls are also favorite targets in duels.
Unusual Skin Color
Though the Australian native calls himself a “black fellow", he is actually brown. The color tends to vary with environment. Ou bright days it is dark and dingy; on cloudy days, a chocolate brown; and on the clear open sea, coppery and no darker than that of the Javanese. The skin of a newly-born pickaninny is very much paler than that 'of its parents and lias a sort of rosy tint, but within a few weeks it turns dark.
The pigmentation lies very' close to the surface. Thus if the outer layer peels off, as occurs in the preparation of a corpse for burial, the flesh has a pinkishwhite color. Little wonder, then, that the natives regarded the first white visitors to their shores to be their own dead warriors returned to life. Their idea of reincarnation led them to save the lives of many a white man, inviting such to live with them. The dark hereditary pigmentation, weaker than with other colored races, disappears in a few generations of mixed marriages and, so far as is known, does not reappear.
The natives select camp sites where the ground is level and close to a river, creek or water hole. A number of not tfery inviting huts dot the cleared camping space. These huts, “wurleys” or “gunyahs”, are much the shape of the Eskimo igloo and measure some five feet high and up to nine feet in diameter. Curved sticks worked around a center pole provide a framework for the roof, which is made of grass, twigs, bark or whatever is available. Tribe folk build these huts only on permanent camping spaces or where mosquitoes are troublesome, While on a “walk-ahout” (moving between permanent camps) frail lean-to’s or “miamias” do for protection against the weather.
The nocturnal visits of mosquitoes have induced some tribes to make the entrances of their huts as small as possible and to sleep enveloped in smoke from a fire inside the hut The only furniture of the hut is rugs of opossum or kangaroo skins. Sometimes the tribe sleeps outside on platforms under wThich fires are kept burning whose eurling, billowing smoke protects the sleepers from the marauding mosquitoes. Repeatedly during the night the fire has to be given attention to keep up the smoke. When on
Others squat with their heels together l and close in
a walk-about” this means of protection is missing, so they sleep covered with sand or mud and dare the mosquitoes to
natives sleep out. One eaunot blame them.
DECEAfBEJi s, 19^7
Preparing the Food
Every household has a set of grinding stones used in a rough handmade wooden bowl to grind roots and seeds. For cooking food a small, glowing mass of coals is used. The women, “lubras* or “gins”, cook on these fires the small game they have caught, such as snakes, lizards, grubs and fish. Roots and seeds are also utilized. The natives are omnivorous in their tastes. When big game, such as kangaroo, wallaby, water buffalo, dugong or sea cow, iguana or crocodile, is on the menu the men of the camp set to work. They light a big fire and by a combination of hot sand, hot ashes and hot stones cook the game whole. Cooking loosens the skin and intestines of the game so that the men have little difficulty in removing them. They then pull the cooked carcass to pieces and hand it around to the diners. Europeans who have tasted their cooking say it is a little underdone to their taste. All of the animal is eaten at one sitting.
The women, in addition to catching smaller game, collect seeds and roots and prepare them for eating. They also gather firewood, which is scarce around many of the camps. When a woman finds a stick she grasps it between two toes of one foot and lifts it up behind her body high enough for the opposite hand to grasp it, while the other hand keeps the sticks already piled on her head from falling.
The colored tribes have two unique ways of sitting. Some double tbeir shins under their tbighs and rest on them and the balf-uptumed soles of their feet. against their buttocks, at the same time keeping their knees well apart and clashing them with their hands. The men have a stance that enables them to stand for long periods with the minimum of exertion. Standing on one leg, they lean on a stick or spear to keep balance, while the free leg is bent so that its sole rests against the knee of the upright leg. When one leg tires they change to the other.
When game is plentiful camps have many unwelcome visitors desiring to sample the stored provisions, and the na-tives, to forestall thieving by dogs and vermin, store provisions on high platforms. But that does not stop the hawks, which are absolutely fearless, swooping down ont of the blue sky and taking what they can tear off. Their depredations are countered by heaping branches over the stored carcasses.
Dogs in Abundance, Goods Few
Every native family has a number of dogs, fifteen to a family being abont the maximum. In the wild parts they catch and tame Australia's native dog, the “dingo*, while a pup. Closer toward civilized parts they breed European types of dogs in large numbers. Families so spoil and pamper their dogs that they cannot be used for hunting.
Personal possessions are few and consist mainly of shields, spears for hunting and fishing, spear throwers or “wom-eras”, boomerangs, clubs variously called “waddies” or “nulla-nullas”, and stone axes. Domestic equipment is a digging stick or two, firesticks and, in certain tribes, fishing nets and plaited baskets. Firesticks serve as matches between camps. Should the' firestick go out they kindle a fire by the fire-whisk or fire-saw method. Where goods for barter are plentiful, such as the narcotic pitjure leaves and red ocher, they spend much of their time preparing them for exchange. Having a nrinimujn of possessions, they have little to load them down when deciding on a “walk-about”.
Men, women and children are naked except for oMamental coverings hanging from their loins. These coverings are at the same time symbols, indicating whether the map has attained official tribal manhood, or the woman is married or nnmarried.
The Bane of Religion
Religion intrudes into every activity of the natives' daily existence. It has a corner on marriage, which is circumscribed by many restrictions. Each tribe has built a complicated system of family relations within which a man may not marry. Such relations, however, are not limited to the actual blood relatives but have tribal implications too numerous to mention here. Violation of marriage laws, unless with the consent of the “medicine man”, the native “priest”, brings swift punishment, generally death. Behold the power of the priest!
The men religiously decorate their weapons in certain well-defined patterns, which they believe makes them sure , and never-failing. Of course, there is generally an explanation when they do fail.
The natives celebrate “kobong7', religious ceremonies to ensure increase of plants and animals required for food. Other ceremonies dramatize mythical stories concerning possessions and traditional ways of safeguarding them. They term the religious objects entering into these ceremonies “tjurunga” (chu-ringajh Particularly holy to the native is the bull-roarer. It is a thin blade of wood about three feet long and five inches wide. This blade is twirled on a long cord and produces a noise which fills men and women with superstitious dread. In all these ceremonies the participants don weird costumes. Some of the rites have phallic significance. The tribes call all these ceremonies “bora”, but the ones in which dancing and singing largely feature are called “corrob-ore^”. The “corroboree” is common to all the tribes. So demon-worship dominates the lives of Australia’s natives as it does the inhabitants of all other lands.
In one elaborate ceremonial, known as "boning” a man, they point a bone, usually a human one, in the direction of the man they desire to kill and command the demons they invoke to dispatch him. The news that he is “boned” (excommunicated) mesmerizes the victim, with the result that his natural desire to live is overcome. Death ensues from terror and self-inflicted starvation. A "medicine man” will break this spell if summoned in time. He can remove the "bone”, which is supposed to have lodged in a vital organ of the victim. Going to great length to find the “bone”, the "medicine man” commences biting and sucking to draw it out. With a great shout of triumph he produces a bone by some sleight-of-hand means. The patient meanwhile suffers great agony and loses much blood, but almost immediately after the bone has been “found” he calls for water and is on the way to recovery, thanks to the power of the native priest.
The natives believe that a great Evil Spirit roams abont at night, tracking down wandering natives. They believe in spirits of deities who can assume human or “kobong” shape at will, spirits of departed ones seeking to re-enter human skeletons to come to life again and great evil creatures called “Erinyes” and “bunyips”.
The advent of European civilization has piled many additional burdens on the shoulders of the natives. Today there are only about 50,000 of them, to compare with 300,000 some 150 years ago. Early white settlers murdered many thousands in retaliation for native slaying of. a few settlers or stealing some of their cattle and sheep. Intoxicating liquor and disease have exacted a heavy toll. European habits of life without European hygiene have also decimated the ranks of the tribes close to “civilizing” influences.
Changing a hnnter and nomad into a farm worker, station hand or other settled worker has its difficulties. Changing a life-long camping existence into living within four walls does not come easy. Tribal laws and punishments mostly conflict with European laws; so, no matter which one a native obeys, he is in trouble. Tribal authority and morality are disappearing without the colored race's assimilating European laws and morality. Under government or mission control, the Australian colored people are a dwindling race. As the farming and grazing areas of the whites extend into the unsettled portions of the continent the natives are thrust more and more into parts where even to them living is a losing fight. Those who take to living in the settled areas face the color prejudice of the majority of Australians, not to mention the difficulties of adjusting themselves to an entirely changed mode of living, some of which have been mentioned. Nor does the troubled state of the “civilized” world contribute to their peace of mind, what with the threat of great wars, appalling destruction dropping from the. skies upon all and sundry. In some respects the Australian natives have fighting rules that are more just and fair. Surely no great improvement in standards can come to the native when he takes note of such things.
Obviously the hope of the Australian nativei, like that of all earth’s peoples, is the New World of Jehovah God wherein He has promised to bring to an end the demonic influences that bave dominated earth’s affairs and to destroy those that destroy the earth. The reign of the Son of God, Cbrist Jesus, will bring in proper environmental conditions in which all men and women, white or colored, will be able to live in peace, happiness and brotherhood. Then love and devotion to God and His righteous Kingdom will bind all men and women in one (tree* global family.—Awnlf.nl correspontent in Australia.
Iowa's Mobocracy Declared Illegal
The United States Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees with the officials of Lacona, Iowa, who thought that they could legalize mobocracy by deputizing the mob
AGAIN one of the higher courts of the land has planted itself squarely across the path of petty tyrants to block their push against civil liberties. The small town officials of Lacona fathered mob rule as a means of choking off the free speech and assembly and worship of an unpopular minority, namely, Jehovah’s witnesses. Week by week they had steamrollered along, powered by the fanatical zeal characteristic of those whose horizons are narrow and whose understanding of constitutional guarantees is nil. And then when Judge Dewey of a United States District Court obligingly flashed them a green light, the flattened constitutional guarantees seemed to have had the last breath of life crushed from them. But not so, for now a United States Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed Judge Dewey, the green light has turned red for the small-time dictators, and civil liberties are once more rising to their feet and breathing the air of freedom.
Facts of the Case
The facts of the altercation between Jehovah’s witnesses and the officials and some citizens of Lacona, Iowa, were presented in the article entitled “Mobocracy Legalized in Iowa”. (November 22,1946, issue of Awake!) Briefly sketched, Jehovah’s witnesses obtained permission to hold a series of Bible lectures in Lacona’s small park, the permission coming from Councilman Ripperger. The first meeting was held September 1,1946. But on that occasion a fever of flag-waving and ostentatious patriotism hit some of the townsmen. They picketed the lecture, heckled and harassed the speaker, and hurled dire threats as to the consequences of holding the remaining scheduled meetings. Joining with these delinquents in democracy, Mayor Lo Goode’s parting words to the Witnesses were: “If you come back there will be trouble.”
On September 8 the second meeting was to he held. When the Witnesses arrived the bandstand to be used as platform was occupied by the ringleaders of a mob. The sound equipment for the Bible lecture was therefore set up some distance away, but the mob converged upon the Christian meeting from all directions and their assaults precipitated numerous fistfights. After the rioting had died down officials conveniently absent put in their appearance, Marshal MacFarland sauntering to the park from across the street, to be followed by Mayor Lo Goode, whose majestic contribution to restoring order was to sagely observe to the Witnesses: “I told you not to come back.” Then came Sheriff Johnson, and lastly the highway patrol, which had managed to kill two hours and fifteen minutes getting there after being called.
During the week that followed the officials freely waggled their tongues in threatening the Witnesses and warning them not to return to Lacona the next Sunday. But liberty is not won running away; so sixteen car groups of Witnesses sought to enter Lacona on September 15 of last year. Sheriff Johnson had sworn in some one hundred deputies, many of them heing mobsters of the previous Sunday, and with this manpower and several trucks blockaded for five hours the four roads entering Lacona. This action was done on the pretext of avoiding violence, and to be sure there would be no violence Sheriff Johnson’s lawless deputies were armed with canes, rubber hoses and clubs. When the halted Witnesses protested the highhanded action as a denial of constitutional rights the shortsighted little sheriff decreed: ffThe Constitution does not enter in hereI"
The Court Decisions
But the three judges of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals have judged that the Constitution does enter into the case and into Lacona. However, before they passed on the case it was heard by Judge Dewey of the District Court at Des Moines, Iowa, starting November 25, 1946, On December 30 the court rendered its decision, denying the injunction and declaratory judgment sought by the Witnesses so that their constitutional rights of free speech, as-sembly and worship might be safeguarded. The court did say that the resolutions passed by Lacona to prevent the Witnesses' using the park were unconstitutional, but that the actions of the officials “were slight and inconsequential" and that the resolutions <fwere not sufficient and are too inconsequential to warrant a federal court of equity in restraining" them. Judge Dewey admitted that Sheriff Johnson's blockade was an interference with the Witnesses' rights, but opined that he was “acting within the scope of his authority to preserve the peace",
Jehovah's witnesses appealed from the decision of this court, and on October 20, 1947, Judges Sanborn, Thomas and Johnson of the Circuit Court of Appeals handed down their decision, Judge Sanborn delivering the opinion. It is a splendid lesson safeguarding cherished freedoms. Some of its high lights follow :
The theory that a group of individuals may be deprived of their constitutional rights of assembly, speech and worship if they have become so unpopular with, or offensive to, the people of a community that their presence in a public park to deliver a Bible lecture is likely to result in riot and bloodshed, is interesting, but somewhat difficult to accept. Under such a doctrine, unpopular political, racial, and religious groups might find themselves virtually inarticulate. Certainly the fundamental rights to assemble, to speak, and to worship cannot be abridged merely because persons threaten to stage a riot or because peace officers believe or are afraid that breaches of the peace will occur if the rights are. exercised.,
Then, quoting from a brief filed in a U.S. Supreme Court case (Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization), the opinion says:
“It is natural that threats of trouble should often accompany meetings on controversial questions. But meetings may not be suppressed on that account. The practice under ordinary conditions in our large cities is for the authorities to arrange with the applicants to have the meeting held in a suitable place, and to have enough policemen on hand to quell apprehended disturbances." The • Supreme Court, in the J/ague case, ruled that uncontrolled official suppression of the privilege of free speech cannot be made a substitute for the duty to maintain order in connection with the exercise of the right.
Turning to another U. S. Supreme Court decision (Whitney v. California)
tion of property is not enough to justify its suppression* There must be the probability of serious injury to the state. Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly/?
Having laid these foundations, the Circuit Court opinion deals with the specific case under consideration, as follows;
It is, in our opinion, not necessary in this case to determine whether state action which deprives a group of persons of the fundamental constitutional rights of assembly, speech and worship can ever be justified upon the ground that the group is so offensive to the community in which it proposes to meet that the only way to maintain order and to prevent bloodshed is to bar the group from the community. We find no substantial evidence in the record to support the conclusion that the proposed religious meetings of the Jehovah’s witnesses in the town of Laeona were actually fraught with any substantial danger to the peace and welfare of the state of Iowa. The fact that there was disorder in the park on September 8 is fully as consistent with the hypothesis that the disorder was due to the failure of the local and state authorities to police the park as it is with the hypothesis that the unpopularity of the Jehovah's witnesses was so great that the only means of maintaining order in the future w^s to deny them 40 cess to the town.
While wc do not question the good faith of the mayor or the" sheriff in concluding that he best and easiest way to maintain peace and jrder in Lacona oi} September 15 was to blockade the roads leading into the town, we ire convinced that evidence of unconfirmed minors, talk, and fears cannot form the basis )f a finding of the existence of such a clear ind present danger to the state as to justify a ieprivation of fundamental and essential con-ititutional rights. We think that is particular-y true in a situation where no effort what-ver was made to protect those who were at-empting lawfully to exercise those rights* "here is no evidence that it was beyond the competency of the sheriff and the m^yor ttf secure enough peace officers to police the park on September 15. The fact that the sheriff was able to deputise approximately 100 persons to assist him in blockading the highways leading into Lacona militates against any inference that he would have been unable to preserve law and order ih Lacona on September 15* The record shows that the mayor did not exercise the authority given him by the town council to deputise peace officers*
, The only sound way to enforce the law is to arrest and prosecute those who violate the law. The Jehovah's witnesses were at all times acting lawfully, and those who attacked them, for the purpose of preventing them from hold-Jng their religious meeting on September 8, wete acting unlawfully and without any legal justification for their conduct.
We think that the plaintiffs f Jehovah's witnesses] yere entitled to equitable relief* We think that the relief should he limited to that which is essential. It is a year since the events which gave rise to this action occurred* It fairly may be assumed that when the defendants and the people of Lacona understand that whatever hostility toward the Jehovah's witnesses exists in the community will not justify the abrogation of their right to meet and 'to deliver Bible lectures in the park in Lacona and that they arc entitled to full protection in the exercise of their rights, there will be no further controversy. No one is required to attend the meetings or to listen to the lectures* We agree with the District Court that the evidence indicates that neither the mayor nor the sheriff had any feeling of personal animosity toward the Jehovah's witnesses, and that each was acting on the advice of counsel and in the belief that what he did to keep the peace was legally permissible*
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