Awake!, February 8, 1948
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RELIGION CHOOSES CAESAR!
Christendom’s clergy caught in the same snare that took the Pharisees in Jesus’ day
Politicians See Red
The witch-hunt rages as they arbitrarily divide the world into two camps
Shanghai, a City of Contrasts
A traveler’s impressions of China’s capital
Curious Funeral Customs
Objectionable ones arise from false doctrine of immortality
FEBRUARY 8, 1948 semimonthly
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL..
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CONTENTS
Religion Chooses Caesar!
Rejecting the Kingdom for a Political Makeshift
End Justifies the Means
Wartime Snaps the Spiritual Ties
Two Breeds of Polish Dogs
Comets and Milky Ways
Politicians See Red
Hollywood Crumbles
Before Smear Campaign
Witch-Hunt Loyalty Purge
Propaganda’s Two-Party World
“To Secure These Rights”
A Modern Belshazzar Feast
Wicked and Wanton Wasters
Shanghai, a City of Contrasts
Night Life, Religious Tolerance
Curious Funeral Customs
An Older Definition
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Death and Adam and Abel
Religious Hooliganism in Red Granite
For Freedom’s Cause
Watching the World
ZlVWKE/
®^Now it is high time to awake.— Romans 13:11
•" ' —i i i i iMSg"... n.'-R-r- i .j.——. . . 11
Volume XXIX Brooklyn, N. Yo February a, 1948 Number 8
RELIGION CHOOSES CAESAR!
SIX thousand years ago Jehovah God declared a divine principle. Sixteen centuries later Noah preached it. Four centuries after Noah, Abraham lived it. Another four centuries pass, and Moses was telling it in Egypt. More centuries roll by but the principle lives on. In the eighth century before Christ Isaiah preached it. In the seventh century before Christ Jeremiah voiced it. All the faithful men before Christ preached it and lived it. And true Christians since Christ have clung to it, Jbecause Christ on earth both preached it and practiced it.
Christ Jesus followed it when tempted in the wilderness by Satan, when the people sought to crown Him king, when He preached to His disciples, when He denounced the scribes and Pharisees, and when He was haled before world rulers. What was this divine principle! When before Pontius Pilate, charged with sedition, with His human life hanging in the balance, Christ Jesus caught up this principle stated by God in Eden and repeated by all the prophets down to His day and He put it in a nutshell when He, proclaimed to the world ruler before Him: "My kingdom is not of this world!” (John 18:36) For persons devoted to Jehovah God the divine principle to follow was and still is, Separateness from this old world.
rnis separateness was shown by Christ when He was on earth. After His anointing as King of Jehovah’s new world to come, Jesus retired for a time to a wilderness retreat. Satan sought to entice Him into league with this world: "The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the Kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee.” “Get thee hence. Satan!” came Jesus’ quick rejection or a role in world politics. In an instructive prayer in the presence of disciples Jesus said: “I am not of the world.” To the contentious religious rnansees Jesus said: <fYe are of this world: I am not of this world. Jiiven a popular democratic draft.to force Him into politics did not flatter Jesus into abandoning the principle of separateness: “A great multitude followed him, . . . When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.”—Matthew 4:8-10; John 17:14,16; 8: 23; 6: 2,15.
Choosing Caesar in Jesus* Day
And how did the religious clergy of Jesus’ day, the scribes and Pharisees, stand on this issue of separateness! Was Jesus right when He told them, “Ye are of this world”! The clergy noted His ih-fluence, that the common people heard Him gladly, and they lamented that "the world is gone after him”. Among themselves they reasoned: “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” So they de-eided it was expedient that this one man die to save theiy prominent places and their nation under Caesar. (John 11:48,50) They artfully roused the rabble elements against Christ, lied about Him, accused Him of blasphemy and sedition: and pnnn they had the fickle mob plnmnrintr for His bLnDd.
But their national law did not permit them to put a man to death, so they turned to Caesar for help, to use the state as their “church sword”. Ana to ger iiiat "sworcr ro unsueatne and impale Jesus they trumped up this false charge: “We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Casar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.” But Pilate found Him innocent of sedition. (Luke 23:2,14) Yet when Pilate sought to release innocent Jesus his own patriotism was questioned by the irate religionists: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cassar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speak-eth against Ciesar.” But the Jewish religionists were only adopting a pose of patriotism; for they chose to have released Barabbas, guilty of robbery and murder and sedition, in the stead of innocent Jesus. Their concern over punishing seditionists was a sham; they had a religious axe to grind and were using the state to grind it. The religionists of Jeans’ rinv refected hotn Uofl ana t;nnsus fhtnr irw.er nnd phnsft t.rif! Koman emmre* When Pilate cried out to them concerning Jesus, “Behold your King!” they stormed back: “Away with him, array with him, crucify him. , . . We have no kina hut Cassar!”—John 19:12-15.
Clergy Now Choose "Caesar”
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil, says Jehovah God to wicked reli-cionists. (Jeremiah 13:2?) The political clergy have not changed during the past nineteen centuries, so far as choosing Caesar or the state is concerned. Even the ^preachers and priests that accept Christ in-one breath blow out the next hundred in windy political babble. Indeed, religious organizations of Chris-tendom'instract their clergy to ignore the divine principle of separateness from this world, urging them to plunge into politics. Typical are the following.
Recently the Congregational Christian-Churches “called on the churches’ 4,000 ministers to take the church into politics, ■nrsflch noli ties from the nulnit”. Later, Ehisbrgainzation stooped to greater silliness: “Our fathers assumed that the kingdom of God would come in suite of the state; we should make it possible for ths IdnrrrMm ro come inrouem me state. Their tatners were ngm; me sons nave abandoned Bible truth.
Not long ago the betitled “Lord Bishop of London”, named Wand, simpered: 'Clergymen must take an interest in polities ... so that they can bring Christian influence to bear. It is the duty of the clergy to expedite the coming of the kingdom of God, and to mediate the friendship of God to man. This means fhnt mi-nisfers must strive to lmnrove conditions, so that tins woria win become a-nttie more nae me Kinuaom or heaven.7 W hat presumptuous arrogancy, for clergy to pose as mediators between God and man, when that is Jesus’ office! That is exceeded only by their gall in thinking they can make this world like the kingdom of heaven. God’s principle of separateness of the Kingdom and this world stands true, and the bishop is falsifying.
But for unsurpassed devilishness note the following Associated Press dispatch from Vatican City, the pope ■ speaking: 'The Catholic Church will never permit herself to be shut within the four walk of the temple. . . . The separation of the church and the 'world ... is con-t.Tflrv to the unrisTian iaea.” Christ Jesus said the ciiuren and me world should be separate. The fake vicegerent at the Vatican says they should not be separate. Christ and the pope cannot both be right; and Christ is not the one who has Bed! The heads of popedom do not stop at deals with small-fry politicians or big-time dictators, but would deal with the chief politician himself, Satan. Pone Pius XI in a press interview said: . The neaa or tneTjatnoiic Church would consider it his duty to deal with the Devil himself ... if reasonable grounas existed to support the hope that such dealings would protect or advance the in. terests of religion among mankind.’’ The popes greet isatan and his poirticai deals with onen armsj Christ Jesus" spurned tits political advances with the rebuke: 'Get thee hence, Satan!”
Rejecting the Kingdom
for a Political Makeshift
Fawpingly and obsequiously the clergy curry favor with the politicians by supporting the schemes of the rulers. They pray for the political makeshifts, bless them, misapply Bible texts to them, all to swing me people into line, with glib irresponsibility the clerics brush aside as visionary the kingdom of Christ and misapply the Bible.promises concerning it to political creations. Did they not do this relative to the defunct League of Nations ? The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America said years ago: ’’The League of Nations is rooieu in me gospel”" ‘the supreme hope for the future is in the League of Nations”; the League is “the political expression of God’s kingdom on earth”. Of the League another organization drooled, “In a world as oai K as tins, wny blow out the only light?” Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” But the political ciergy mew mat light out of their lives and hovered over the League like moths over a flickering flame, till it was quenched in the bloodbath of World War II.
Now they are asininely courting anew their resurrected lover, this time unrealistically pet-named United Nations, One Protestant preacher said at the time the United Nations was formed that the following prophecy of the psalmist was then fulfilled: “Say among the nations that the Lord ‘ reigneth." Central Conference or American Rabbis came out in support of the United Nations because of “the ultimate establishment of the kingdom or God that we "see in it . Tne ecriprures state concerning ChristThat there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby they can be saved; but the American Unitarian Association sola out C’hnst for “Caesar" when it recently said' (Christianity must abandon its claim to a monopoly of the way to salvation. . . . Christianity should recognize the United Nations as a force which also has a role Of salvation/' federal Council snnkes-man Nolde declared: "The hope of man-, Kind is now nxea on the United Nations.”’ When the United Nations’ permanent site, in New York city, was consecrated Cardinal Spellman piously dubbed it a “temple of peace”, and .Mayor O’Dwyer blubbered that the plot of land was “hallowed ground”.
The clergy of Christendom have thus proved themselves seditious against Jehovah God, These modern Judases have turned their back on Christ’s kingdom and face the state to laud and salute it, to pledge their allegiance to it, and vainly seek to cover up their treason by painting the political state as being Christ’s kingdom on earth. They try to drag God and Christ into politics to make their own entry seem righteous. But Jehovah God starids by His principle of separateness from this world; and as for Christ Jesus, He would not let Satan ensnare Him into world politics centuries ago and He will not enter now to please Satan’s ministers and transform them into ministers of Christ and righteousness.
To sum up in a specific example the clergy’s transfer of Bible promises from Christ and His kingdom to political makeshifts, note their antics relative to
the League of Nations and United Nations. They said the League was the political expression of Christ’s kingdom; Christ said His kingdom was no part of this political world. They did not object when the League of Nations, Inc., spoke of the League as the lone light that should not be blown out; Christ said He was the light of the world. They have said both the League and the U. N. were the only hope of the world; the Bible says that in Christ’s name should the nations hope. They give the U. N- a role of salvation; the Bible speaks of Jesus as the only savior. Religious leaders have said the U. N. would fulfill the prophecies that ‘swords would be beaten into plowshares and nations would not' learn war any more’, but those prophecies belong to Christ’s kingdom. Like robbers the clergy have stripped Christ’s kingdom of the Bible promises concerning it and lavish them upon their political conglomerations. They revel and reel and stagger like drunken men in their orgy of Scripture-wresting that will lead to their own destruction.
In Closer Embrace with "Caesar”
All this they callously do to slake the unquenchable thirst of their overweening ambition. Like the Jewish Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day, modern priests and preachers of Christendom’s cults and sects fear the loss of their exalted place in the nations if they cling uncompromisingly to Christ. So they curry favor with the filthy, mud-slinging politicians by trying to give their regimes a form of godliness. Also, they would worm their way into the political creations to further secure their place in this evil world. Specially pandering to President Truman in his audience, a Baptist “reverend” last November 27 said: “God is still in His heaven, and one day, through us and our co-operation, He shall make all things right with the world.” Though it will cruelly shock and injure the “reverend’s” ego, God will manage to do it without aid or co-operation from him or his clerical and political cronies. This “indispensable” one also prayed for the success of the Foreign Ministers’ Conference in London and for the success of the United Nations, “where the future of the world is in the balance.” God did not bother to hear him. The London conference has flopped, and the U. N. is flopping daily.
Yet the clergy persist in flopping with it. The World Council of Christians and Jews has applied for affiliation with UNESCO of United Nations. The growing World Council of Churches is also “making eyes” at U. N. On October 28, 1947, Pope Pius XII “called upon the world today to keep faith in the young United Nations even though the latter’s motives seemed to be ‘a voice crying in the wilderness’ ”. Actually, U. N. is a part of the wilderness. Eight days earlier it was announced, “The Holy See believes it would be a good idea if a spokesman for Christian churches would receive a sort of honorary non-voting membership in the United Nations.”—Buffalo Courier-Express, October 21,1947.
End Justifies the Means
Religion rejects the divine principle of separateness front this world and trots out another to take its place: The end justifies the means. The clergy justify their entry into politics by claiming that in the end they will bring in moral law. But morality and integrity are drowned out as wave after wave of juvenile and adult delinquency sweeps over the earth again and again. The'end, moral law, is not realized.
Then, they say their entry will bring God into government. It has not brought God into the governments of Christendom. It is out of Christendom that two world wars have erupted, and not heathendom. Clergy blessings have never brought good. See how the Roman Catholic Hierarchy blessed the Nazis and Fascists during their heyday; but despite temporary successes God was
not brought into those dictatorships. ite-ligion’s support did not give them God. The results argue that she gave them the Devil. Not that they did not already have the god of this world, but religion gave them a double dose of him and they became twofold more the child of hell than before conversion, as Jesus foretold. (Matthew 23:15) Religion’s blessing of the League of Nations did not bring God into it. The blessing turned into a curse, and the League failed. Now demon religion blesses the United Nations. Poor United Nations! No wonder it is being laughed at, and considered only a glorified debating society—and since bad-boy Vishinsky’s vituperative outburst it has lost the glory aspect. It is just a-sounding board for national ideologies. With hands tied by the veto, it does nothing but babble, babble, babble, like Tennyson’s brook. Some say it would be better if its hands were, tied less and it, were more tongue-tied. Alas, “it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good”; and religion in polities is an ilLwind!
But Christendom’s relicions, blow on, and claim that their entrv into politics will give a spiritual tie tor world unitv. Tneir gusty words omy cause division. Has not the thrusting of greedy papal paws into the public tax funds to grab money to finance Catholic schools caused sharp division.iii the United States? Has not the chummy hobnobbing of Truman and the pope widened differences both in the United States and in the East-West world crisis? Of the exchange of letters between Truman and the pope, last August, the New York Times said. r‘Satisfaction is felt in Catholic circles oyer what is frankly stated to be, in the last analysis, an anti-communist crusade.” The pope spreads the old oil on democratic leaders, and his oily words and shining phrases do much to furbish up the sword of democracies as a “sword of the church”. Like simpletons the flattered politicians trot like lackeys to and from the Vatican. In his letter to the FEBBUARY 8, 1948
pope on building world peace Truman sermonized: “Except the Loan build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” (Psalm 127:1) Obviously, Truman thought that by getting the pope with him as a builder he was getting the Lord m as a builder also. What a sad, sad ease of mistaken identity! Vain builders I
Wartime Snaps the Spiritual Ties
Religion claims to tie together spiritually peoples ‘rrorn all nations, and thus overcome national barriers. But with war comes the test. Will spiritual ties hold fast? or will national bonds win out in the tug of war for allegiance ? Which ties snap in the tensions of wartime? It is the spiritual ties that break as Catholic kills Catholic, Protestant kills Protestant, and Jew kills Jew, with the national ties holding strong in bloody bonds. It is spiritual forces that split up to enable all persons to side with their respective nations, and not a split of national forces to make a solid spiritual front. Religion’s vaunted spiritual ties are weaklings that melt like wax in the heat of war, and spiritual brethren slaughter one another as their allegiance goes first to national bonds.
And the churches bless these wars that usher in killing within their own denomination. How on earth can they do so? The same old pretext: The end justifies the means. In World War I the Rood end that iustifi'ed the wicked means of war 'that Hung spiritual brethren at each other’s throat was, “war to make the world safe for democraev" ana ”the war to ena war''. 55b the clergy blessea uie unnoiy means, but the good end that was to justify them never came. Instead, it ushered in an era of totalitarianism and set the stage for a war four times as destructive, World War II. Arid when it came, the clergy were primed for another whirl on the merry-go-round of war. This time they hopped on war’s bandwagon, and. said, ‘This one is oknv. because its Rood end is to save the world frnnkthe dictators.’ Typical was the Baptist resolution passed during the war: “God has a stake in this war. . . . While war. itself is unholy, liberty and justice and brotherhood are most holy.” But the .good ends for which World War II was fought are not'in sight, not even around the proverbial but elusive corner. On the contrary, the clergy and politicians and other selfish interests are priming the guns for World War III. But this time it is a simply won-n-n-der-ful end that justifies it: to ‘save the world from atheistic Communism’. A ‘glorious crusade’, no less!
Sad to say, there is no end to the good ends the clergy concoct to justify unholy war. One war sets the stage for the next. War follows war. Bound and round the vicious circle goes. One nation arms, others do. One expands, others do. One builds spheres of influence, others do. One calls names, others explode into retaliatory name-calling. Hate breeds hate, and soon each is following in the wicked footsteps of the others, trying to outstrip each other in evil-doing, striving to repay evil with greater evil, as each makes itself in the evil image of the other. Thus Satan ensnares the world, and catches it in this demonic whirlpool of rendering evil for evil, evil for evil, evil for evil. Round and round the devilish maelstrom spins with increasing velocity till the world becomes dizzy. And certainly Christ’s kingdom is no part of a dizzy world! The clergy may try to make it so, but their end will be with this present evil world, which will be drawn ever closer to the vortex of the swirling mass, and finally drawn under to destruction.
Whence the Slogan to Justify
Political Meddling?
All this endless evil the clergy justify with their slogan about the end’s justifying the means. Always the world stoops to the dirty means, never does it reach up to the happy end. And because the good end that is to justify the means is never reached, the dirty means remain unjustified. This should cause no surmise, when we probe back -to the origin of this slogan. Let us see where the clergy get this principle by which they justify their breaking of God’s law concerning His ministers’ not meddling in this world’s politics.
It is true that the Jesuits follow it, but it did not originate with those so saturated with wickedness. Go back farther. The Pharisees used it when they stooped to the unholy means of murder to rid themselves of their Exposer, Christ Jesus. It was expedient that this one man die that the good end of saving their nation under Caesar might be gained, they reasoned. But go back farther still. Go all the way back to Satan in the garden of Eden. He justified to Eve the evil of disobedience by holding forth a glorious end. By means of disobedience Eve would not die as God had said, but would be immortal and be as a goddess. (Genesis 3:2-5) Thus Satan reasoned to her, justified the evil means of disobedience by the supposed happy end that awaited her. But the results of following Satan’s slogan that the end justifies the means brought evil from its first application onward.
The principle cannot work, because Christ Jesus said it could not! Did He not say that a good tree brings forth good fruit, and an evil tree brings forth evil fruit; that an evil tree could not bring forth good fruit? Neither can evil means bring forth a good end. The means determine the end. Good means, good end; evil means, evil end. (Matthew 7:16-20) The principle cannot work to justify the clergy’s entry into politics, for still another reason, namely, that worldly meddling by those serving God is expressly forbidden by God’s Word. Therein Jehovah warns those who would please Him: ‘Christ is not of this world, His kingdom is’not of this world; pray" not for this world; I have chosen you Christians out of this world; love not the. world, neither the things in the world; he not conformed to this world, but set your- affections on things above; Satan is the prince of this world, the god of this world, and the whole world lieth in that evil one; finally, whosoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.’—See John 17:9,14,16; 18:36; 14:30; 15:18, 19; Romans 12:2; Colossians 3: 2; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17; 5:19, American Standard Version ; James 4:4.
That is plain talk. There can be no mistaking its meaning. True Christians delight to heed it, because only by so da-ing can they escape the destructive maelstrom of this world and gain life in Jehovah’s new world of righteousness. Then life will really be worth living. Then the King Christ Jesus will judge the poor, save the needy, break in pieces the oppressor. The righteous will flourish as long as the moon endureth, and His dominion will be from Sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Swords will be beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning-hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the young lion together, and a little child will lead them. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all Jehovah’s holy mountain, for the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Then the meek will inherit the earth,.and delight themselves in the abundance of peace, and dwell in the land forever. There will be no more sorrow or sighing, sickness or crying. Pain and even death will vanish as God wipes away the tears from all faces.—Psalms 37:11, 29; 72:1,4,7,8; Isaiah 11: 6-9; 33:24; Micah 4:1-4; Revelation 21:1-5.
Wise worldlings in their conceit will retort that all this Bible talk is visionary, is a fairy tale, is like living in a fool’s paradise, without showing any practicalness and hard-headedness for this realistic old world. But we ask,
Where have all their practical plans and realistic talk and hard-headedness gotten mankind in past centuries and in this present generation, except a deeper sinking into the mire? Actually, the Bible talk is too straight for this crooked and perverse generation, including its clergy of Christendom, to take.
Talk Too Straiffht for the Clergy to Take
Also too straight for the hypocritical clergymen of Christendom to take is the following talk that true Christians might well address to them: You have abandoned the Bible principle of Christian separateness from this present evil world, and tied onto Satan’s principles. You have, like Esau, sold your birthright in the Kingdom for a bowl of pottage to eat with this world. Like the wayward Jews in Samuel’s day, you crave a human political king over you and reject God’s King Christ Jews. Like ths Pharisees, you have chosen “Caesar”, or the political state, as your king. You label the United Nations as vour light. vour hope, your savior, your kingdom. You woo it and wish your religious organizations could worm their way into matrimony with it, and no longer even bother to claim to be the virgin bride of Christ. You refuse to enter the Kingdom yourselves, and hinder others who would enter. .Blindly you .lead the blind, with the ditch of destruction yawning ahead to catch you both. Appearing outwardly clean unto men, inwardly your organizations are full of dead men’s bones, the bones of the dead from the wars you have blessed and of the dead you have otherwise misled into opposition against God.
Your worship has become formalism. You mumble “Lord, Lord” with your mouth, but your heart is far removed. Yom lips babble tradition mechanically, and doctrine ceremoniously. Because you have swilehetPytmi: allegiance from God to this world you are befuddled, you are bewildered, you are fooled, you are blind, you are witless, and by your perverse backsliding you have turned your religion into a mockery, a hollow, empty, death-dealing mockery. Flare up at this if you will, and snap back that Jehovah’s witnesses are crackpots and liars in saying these things. But it is not Jehovah’s witnesses who tell you that your religion hasi degenerated into a colossal fraud and'moekery. No man tells you, not even the nasty old “Commies”. Neither is the informant the demons, nor the Devil. It is Jehovah God who brands your religion a mockery. Take it from Him, at Isaiah 29:13-16, Moffatt translation:
Since this people draw near me with their mouth, says the Eternal, honouring me with thpir lips, while their hearts are far remote; since their religion is a mockety, a mere tradition learned by rote; I will now deal with them to their amazement, bewildering, surprising them, till their wise men lose their wits, and their clever men are fooled. Woe to the men who hide their plana from the Eternal, working in the dark, and thinking, No one sees or knows! Perverse creatures that you are I
The Christian's Choice
Since God says this, Christians believe it. ‘Let God be true, though it make all men liars.’ (Romans 3:4) True Christians will shun the muddy wallow of hoggish politicians. When Satan seeks to entice them into that snare, God’s servants will hurl Jesus’ words in his face: “Get thee hence, Satan!” And they might even add, “Go to the clergy of Christendom, who have offered to deal with you for religious advantage!” Until this present evil world passes, Christians • will keep in mind and heart the words Jesus said to Pilate nineteen centuries ago, and which still ring clear and true to this distant day, "My kingdom is not of this world.” Let religion choose “Caesar” Christians . eboose Goel and Christ —Joshua 24; io.
Two Breeds of ^Polish Dogs
’’g “Conditions in Poland are not the same as they were before the war. * , . Rome [meaning the Roman Catholic1 religion] is held in great subjection, and is hot permitted to take advantage of the credulous people, but in spite of everything jthe Polish nation is very religious and obedient to Jlome. The religion of Jehovah’s witnesses is spreading rapidly over here. For instance, the following experience has taken place: It so happened that those who profess Jehovah came and began to preach the gospel, trying to induce the people to plover their neighbor; this occurred in Dobrzyn on the river Varta. Imagine what took place—the savage-like mob, at the instigation of the priests, fell upon these witnesses with clubs and with stones. Thereupon the villagers started to beat them up and stone them and sick the dogs on them (reverting to practices of the Middle Ages). The dogs in obedience to their inhuman masters moved towards the bloodstained witnesses lying on . the ground, but the dogs demonstrated more kindness than the mob, in not attacking; the dogs turned away from them, ignoring the repeated orders to turn on the witnesses. After the mob had filled its vicious appetite they left those bleeding witnesses lying on the ground. One of the dogs, a large wolf-like animal, but, no doubt, a very wise and faithful dog, refused to go with his wicked master, hut instead circled around and returned to those who had been beaten up, joined them and departed later with these witnesses* 1 was an eyewitness of this entire affair. The people constantly devour themselves instead of loving one another, [Signed] S* Choie winski, [city of] Makowo, October 20, 1947J* (Translated from Amery ka Echp, Polish weekly of Toledo, Ohio, December 7, 1947*) It is easy to see from this that the four-footed Polish dogs are a much better breed, having far more intelligence, than the two-legged ones that wear their white collars backwards. “Beware of [these latter] .dogs,” warns the apostle Paul. They are “greedy dogs which can never have enough”.—Philipp iane 3:2; Isaiah 56:10,11
Comets and Milky Ways
IN ANCIENT times comets caused great excitement, for they were viewed as ill omens of approaching disasters. While educated people today are no longer bound by such superstitions, yet these strange and little-known visitors to our Milky Way galaxy, when they put in their appearance, have no difficulty in seizing and holding man’s attention and interest. This was demonstrated when M., J. Bester of South Africa first announced last September that he had spotted a comet, the fourteenth new one of the year. A couple of months later people in Australia and New Zealand caught up with this “great comet of 1947”, which is much brighter than Halley’s famous comet of 1909-1910, After charting its course across the southern skies it was announced that on December 2 it whizzed past our sun at 90 miles a second, missing it by a mere 10,000,000 miles. (But comets should not be so careless in flirting with our sun, for in some cases they have been split in two because of coming too close to the sun.) The tail that it dragged after it appeared in the heavens to be five times the diameter of the moon, and was estimated to be between ten million and seventy-five million miles long. Slowing down to a speed of 30 miles a second, it was predicted, the public in the Northern Hemisphere would get a glimpse of the comet; but this view was abandoned as the comet faded fast. Comets are strange celestial bodies, comparatively small in mass yet enormous in dimensions. Halley’s comet was estimated to weigh but 30 million tons, which means that the earth weighs 220 trillion times as much, vet that comet ex-panded to a diameter of 220,000 miles (the earth’s diameter is only 7,900 miles). The brilliant tail on a comet is the next thing to a vacuum. Some calculate that the tail of Halley’s comet weighed only 1/4000000000000000000000 FEBRUARY 8, 1948
(one four-sextillionth) as much as a similar mass of air I Comets travel in various-shaped orbits. Many return every four to seven years; others take longer. Halley’s makes its round trip every 76 years; Swift’s (1862) takes 119 years; others take over a thousand years, and some will take even twenty thousand years before they again come into view of men of good-will that live in the coming New World of righteousness under Theocratic rule.
Stretch your imagination to its limit and you will still find it impossible to comprehend how exceedingly large our universe really is. The jet plane holding the official record traveled at the speed of 650 miles per hour. If the pilot had kept up that speed for 12 days he would have gone a little over 186,300 miles, the distance that a ray of light covers in one second. At this fantastic speed light rays travel 6,000,000,000,000 miles in a year. Now our Milky Way is so great that if a beam of light were to pass through its diameter it would take it 20,000 years. And yet this stellar system, our Milky Way with the earth m approximately the center, is but a small chip in the vast unlimited and uncharted ocean of cosmic space. Scientists tell us that out there beyond the limits of our Milky Way there are more than 100,000,000,000 other galaxies like our own system of stars, each made up of several billion suns, star clusters and nebulae. These are not stationary, but are all in motion with our galaxy drifting at the rate of 10 or 12 miles a second. My, what an insignificant celestial speck this earth! Of a truth, the AH-wise Creator of this universe, whose name alone is Jehovah, is so infinitely great that He is beyond comprehension by mortal flesh. “O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works I In wisdom hast thou made them all.”—Psalm 104: 24, Am. Stan. Ver.
"Who killed Cock Robin T'’ Why, Parnell Thoma* and hla Un-AtneHcan Activities Committee, be* cauie tEie bird had a red breast! AI»o hhrh on their list of subversives stand that rascally Little Red Hen and that cleverly snileless Little Red Rid* Injr Hood. Even Little Boy Blue may reveal some red underneath after provocative probins. And even you, dear reader, may take on a pinkish hue if viewed through the committee’s colored glasses!
MANIA to divide the world into two camps has seized many politicians. They decree that all men must be in one camp or the other, that there can be no neutrality nor a third position. As they see it, all travel their way or the wrong way. And as the United States Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities sees it, any who have the temerity to disagree with them travel to the Left, In their hysteria they see red. They are color blind to brown-shirted find black-shirted Fascism. So very much so that they act ridiculous, and thereby justly draw ridicule in return. But the nation and the world are tense and restless, as this arbitrary separation into two camps proceeds. True Americans were made uneasy by the investigations that fol-loweddn the wake of President Truman’s order to purge disloyalty from among Federal employees; In its parallel activity the Un-American Activities Committee, headed by John Rankin and J. Parnell Thomas, general inquisitioners of government employees, officials, Hollywood celebrities and organization heads, has not had any quieting effect on the disturbed people. Aroused liberals have dubbed the investigators variously as ‘Tin-American Committee”, "Red-baiters,” “Thought Police” and the “Agent of American Fascism”.
Of the many indignities these Congressmen have forced upon Americans, most astonishing is the one against Dr, Edward Barsky. For years he was esteemed by the government for his work as chairman of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, whose operations dated back to rendering assistance to the Loyalists of Spain. Investigation of Barsky came about in this wise. When British Labor leader Harold Laski spoke in Madison Square Garden some months ago, the meeting was sponsored by Barsky’s committee. In his speech Laski charged that during the war the Vatican, meaning the pope, had given active aid to Franco. Nobody denied the statement; the evidence for it was too damning. But thereafter Thomas received many postcards urging investigation of Barsky, the “Red Fascist”. When Thomas, with the impertinence of one impressed with his own authority, demanded the names and organization records of Barsky, the latter refused because many in the files were actively engaged in anti-Fascist work in Spain and others he feared might be discriminated against because they were on the pay roll of the government. As a result, Barsky and nine others were sentenced to a fine and six months in prison for “contempt of -Congress”.
Contrast now the litmus-tested loyalty of Thomas’ partner John Rankin with that of democratic Barsky. “Congressman Rankin, the most foul-mouthed
member of the House, Negro-baiter, labor-baiter and anti-Semite, was placed on the official Nazi propaganda bureau (Welt Dienst) honor roll in 1940, stated Winchell in February 17 broadcast.” [In Fact, March 4,1946) Amazing that the United States should employ an outspoken Fascist and hate-mongerer like Rankin, a Bilbo rabble-rousef, to persecute a man like Barsky.
Note the hoodlum activities of the committee’s backers. In historic Independence Square Hall, a Philadelphia protest meeting of the Progressive Citizens of America was heckled and stench-bombed by hundreds, prominent among them the notorious American Legionnaires. The meeting was called to protest “the conduct . of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s investigation of Communism in Hollywood; the meeting was sanctioned by the Federal District and, Circuit courts”. The PCA speaker that engaged the auditorium was drowned out by the American Legion siren and cat-calls to “Go back to Russia, you bums” and “Shut up, you Communists”. The un-American attempt to halt-free speech resulted in one arrest, an arrest of a member of the group that had a right to be there, the PCA.
Hollywood Crumbles
Before Smear Campaign
Many view the Congressional investigation of Communism in the cinema colony as poorly disguised endeavor to dictate to moviedom. There is a serious threat to liberty in the contempt charges against the ten directors and writers who refused to testify in the unfair way demanded by the bullying committee. Eric Johnson fell under the Rankin-Thomas steam roller, and announced that the producers for whom he speaks have suspended the ten cited for contempt of Congress. Johnson’s capitulation, after first opposing the Hollywood witch-hunt, furnishes an excellent example of the difficulty to hold fast to principle in the face of a Red smear campaign. Top-notehers in Brer Rabbit Hollywood may lie supine before the issues at stake, but the rank and file of filmdom know the fake cry of Communism is a scare to rush Hollywood into harness to pull for political propaganda. An editorial appearing in PM, October 23, 1947, focuses on the seriousness of the Congressional invasion of California:
■ The issue is not who is a Communist in Hollywood, but whether the committee has any more right to interfere with the content of movies than it would to interfere with the content of books or newspapers: Rep. Thomas takes the position that the movies are a key opinion area and that what they produce has immense influence on the mass mind. He is right. But the conclusion he draws from it, that Congress must therefore purify the industry of its dangerous ideological elements, is completely wrong. It is exactly because the movies are an immense mass influence that, like the press, they must be left free. Thomas’ opinion is very close to that of Vishinsky, who has argued that because the American press has a vast influence on mass opinion the government must muzzle it. It might horrify Thomas to find himself so closely linked with his comrade Vishinsky in a doctrine which most Americans repudiate utterly; but the conclusion is inescapable. Thomas is doing more to bring into American life the basic Russian approach to the organs of mass opinion than all the Communists in Hollywood could ever do.
Witch-Hunt Loyalty Purge
The president’s loyalty purge is equally held in contempt by liberty-lovers. The loyalty program, to which was later added a security program, was originally based on a presidential order for a five-member secret tribunal to pass judgment on the activities of 2,000,000 federal employees. Dr. Frank Kingdon scores the method:
This Federal Loyalty Board could proceed on mere rumor, would not have to disclose “the source or sources” of its information, and could discharge any federal employee suspected of subversive activities. [As of July over 900 had been discharged.] No person discharged by the board would have any right of appeal to the courts. No person under suspicion would have the right to confront and cross-examine.his accusers. The denial of these two rights constitutes a direct invasion of ancient legal protections won from tyrants and cherished in every age by free men. (New York Post, July 18, 1947)
Colliers magazine (December 27,1947) regarded the fingerprinting of employees, requirements to give information about their personal lives and affiliations, and the ensuing firing without open trials as alarming to many people, but nevertheless took comfort from the fact that a Loyalty Review Board of twenty members finally began to. function. PM, however, points out that in November the appeal board had not granted a “right to hearing with traditional safeguards” to seven employees fired June 23. Also, three were cleared, but not rehired.
Little wonder that the Open Forum questions the constitutionality of the president’s order; another wonders whether the- “police state has not arrived” ; and the former deputy chief counsel at the Nuremberg Nazi trials declared that the loyalty discharges were so unfair in comparison to the treatment accorded Hitler’s criminals that “it would seem that we are providing American justice for Nazis, but Nazi justice for Americans”. (In a letter to the New York Times, May 4, 1947, from A. L. Pomerantz. Besides being deputy chief counsel, he was senior trial counsel in all Nazi industrialist cases.) Obviously the Four Freedoms, so victorious in ace aim, have been hammered into a meaningless hulk by the president and his hatchet men, maddened to the point of always seeing red.
Propaganda's Two-Party World
Many defend the unprecedented firing of federal employees and the stench raised by the Rankin-Thomas-Adamson holier-than-everybody fanatics on the basis bf the critical international situation. They reason that the many aggressions of Russia, her brutal totalitarianism, her on-the-houi;-every-hour opposition to everything, and her strangulation of freedom in the Soviet, call for drastic measures of extermination. But they forget the drastic measures may kill freedom. Most Americans fear to say anything unfavorable about the anti-Red committee, knowing they will be falsely accused of defending Communism. It is this very fear that has stifled public indignation against comrades Rankin and Thomas; and it is this very fear that the politicians' count on to give them freedom to launch their barrages. The device is not new.
It works like this. The committee arbitrarily divides the world into two classes :, Communists and anti-Communists. You do not wish to be in either class? ‘That is just too bad, brother. We have already divided up the world.’ Mussolini divided it into two classes also: Fascists and Democrats. Hitler’s world was bi-party also: Nazis and Communists; and the latter included the “Red” capitalists of the United States, you like it or not. This1 simple, arbitrary division of the world into the “fors” and “against-ers”, and its benumbing, hammering repetition by every means of communication till the ears and eyes are exhausted into acceptance, makes the next step obvious: dress everybody the propagandists do not like in the red outfit, regardless of reason or truth, and the smear is there to stay and to ruin.
And how easy and Nazilike do the propagandises make it for neighbors to tattle and falsely testify in snoopy spy fashion, for the witnesses are protected from any cross-examination by the accused! How tempting it is made.for obsequious ones to worm into the favor of the propagandists, to join the popular witch-hunt of the day! And what better way of avoiding suspicion, than to accuse others first? Why, a man might have gone to a Russian ballet once; his favorite candy might be red jelly beans; as a boy he might have gone to a little red schoolhouse and taken red apples to teacher! Let such damning evidence stand uncountered? Never! Get into the witch-hunt quick! Now do you think all this unreasonable, absurd? Fanaticism is all of that, but don’t you ever think it is not effective.
•While men for a second time in this generation fall victims to the same slogans shouted by the same hucksters of Fascism, a document is issued that offers real relief for liberty-lovers. This is the report of the President’s Committee on Civil Kights. The 178-page book w’as presented on October 30, 1947, after more than ten months’ preparation, and its title is a quotation from the Declaration of Independence,
“To Secure These Rights”
With the security police sent forth .by executive order to purge disloyalty from the ranks of government, and while the "Rankin-Thomas bloodhounds were yapping at the liberties of better Americans, it comes as a happy coincidence that during this double-barreled assault on liberty by the holier-than-everybodies the Committee on Civil Rights was unobtrusively doing some excellent and unsung work in behalf of liberty, formulating some effectual restraints on both Fascism and Communism, which would not necessitate fingerprinting and litmustesting by a member of the official Nazi honor roll such as John Rankin. Not on the flimsy emotionalism and fanfare and showmanship of the “Un-American Committee”, but on solid constitutionalism and freedom did the Civil Rights Committee found their report.
It condemned Fascists and Communists as “equally hostile to the American heritage of freedom and equality”, but it opposed the government loyalty tests on the ground that “our whole civil liberties history provides us with a clear warning against possible misuses of loyalty checks to inhibit freedom of opinion and expression”. It condemned the principle of “guilt by association”, saying, “Affiliation with a dubious organization is, by itself, not necessarily proof of untrustworthiness.” It scored the procedure by which the loyalty of federal employees is ruled against without due process of law, where the accused is charged with no crime, cannot face his accusers, cannot subpoena witnesses or documents, cannot be represented by counsel, and cannot have a written record of the proceedings or a written decision. Astutely the report points out that it is not just the civil rights of the federal workers involved, but the rights of all citizens. Above all, the government should be exemplary in its safeguarding of civil liberties for its employees. Then the report goes into much detail on how the work of enemies of democracy should be nullified, without sacrificing the liberty for which the battle is fought. It is a sound and adequate remedy, as sensible Americans that study the report will acknowledge.
Also brought under scrutiny by the Civil Rights Committee was the unjust treatment of minorities. Racially, the largest is the Negro, and the ones bearing the greatest burden of injustice. Besides the heavy cloud of fear that hangs over the Southern Negro because lynching still goes unpunished, the Negro is excluded from jury participation, prevented from voting, discriminated against in the armed forces, debarred from public parks, beaches and places of entertainment, and segregated into separate schools, hospitals and transportation facilities. He is the loser in wages, health and life expectancy, as well as mentally burdened with the effect of segregation and prejudice. Moreover, the report found prejudice against Negroes in Washington, D.C., almost as great as in the deep South. Religious minorities have also suffered as victims of prejudice, the report stating: “There still are
communities in which sporadic interference with unpopular religious, political and economic groups takes place. The steady flow of court cases in recent years involving groups like Jehovah’s witnesses proves that.”
Admitting that all the legal remedies in the book will not melt away prejudice nor alone stem the stream0 of human hate, the report devotes pages to the most analytical, searching treatment of destroying prejudice. Manifestation of prejudice "ranges from the mild, secret feeling of the social snob to the violent, murderous impulses of the insanely prejudiced”. The effects of this internal prejudice upon international situations is heavy, the report avers. In sweeping recommendations the committee urges a national housecleaning. Strengthen the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice, check Congressional committees that deprive citizens of civil rights, prosecute for police brutality, enact, and enforce anti-lynching laws, remove hindrances to equal suffrage, end race segregation and discrimination, expose the bacsers of nefarious schemes of Communists and Fascists, and, above all, educate the people.
Under human rule this idealistic program will never be realized, but in these troubled and hysterical times when rabble-rousing politicians rave madly and see only red it is indeed exhilarating to know that some men in political circles not only speak the word democracy but know what it means. It is a heart-warming work, a bulwark to tottering democracy and freedom, that the Committee on Civil Rights has'provided. The committee did not mention the Lord, but their recommendations come very close to the injunction of His Son Christ Jesus: ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’ Jehovah God will not forget righteously disposed men in every walk of life, and to the merciful will He show mercy at Armageddon. Thereafter, in His new world of righteousness, will prejudice and discrimination be no more. With their passing will also pass the propagandists that see red if any oppose them.
oft— <)-
eA Modem Belshazzar Feast
The financier-politician named Luckman, who is now so notorious for the dp meatless and eggless (and senseless f) days that he forced upon Americans, celebrated his success last December as a food conservationist by holding a feast for 100 subordinates. Representative Arends described the affair as follows: “The dinner began with cocktails in generous supply. Then came shrimp cocktail, fried oysters, crab, shrimp and lobster gumbo', curried chicken, roast turkey, baked ham, roast beef, string beans au gratin, fried apple rings, pickled walnuts, celery, olives, piekies, mUed green salad, rye rolls, assorted ice creams, assorted fingfer rolls, coffee/’ If you are able to read the handwriting on the wall, put no trust in these blind political princes that say one thing and do the opposite.
Wicked and Wanton Wasters
A few months ago it was learned that Greece had allowed $75,000,000 worth of UNRRA's charitable relief supplies, including much-needed med-71 SME ical applies, to spoil on her docks in order to keep the black market pros-perous. More recently (AP dispatch, December 14, 1947) it was reported that since American aid has been going to Greece the Ministry of Supply has deliberately allowed $4,500,000 worth of foodstuff to rot in the last five months, at a time when the average Greek is hungry and in need. Of a truth Christ’s kingdom is not of such a
rotten and wicked world as this I
SHA
1 visitor sailing to Shanghai by sea enters the yellow Yangtse river and shortly swings into its wide tributary the Whangpoo, sailing then almost into the very heart of the commercial capital of China, the city of Shanghai.
there-work-
Once ashore the visitor finds that there is a vast contrast between the peoples and customs of the Eastern world and those of the West. The most outstanding sight is the huge mass of humanity jamming the streets. It is soon obvious to the visitor that Shanghai’s streets are more than thoroughfares to get from one place to another. Here they are certainly used for that purpose, but in addition to they are used as markets, shops, barbers’ saloons, food kitchens, and, for many, home and bed.
So the visitor looks out on a seething mass of great activity; for, say what you will, the Chinese are not lazy. They are very industrious people, plying their trades or hurrying about their business as though their lives depended upon it, as they do. Here is a tinker ax' work, there is a barber shaving a customer, yonder is a mother bathing her child, over there a portable chow shop or street kitchen where many varieties of food are bought and eaten; yes, all on the sidewalk amid the passing throngs.
While the sidewalks are thus jammed the roads also are tightly packed, mostly with rickshas and pedicabs (a pedaled ricksha). After much bargaining coolies trot or pedal their fares to their destination. Intermingled with, this the visitor sees old military transports and gun carriers put to varied uses, and many jeeps as well as large America n-made autos and small British cars. What an incessant noise arises from these busy roads 1 To squeeze a pathway through so many human-propelled vehicles the motors have to continually blare their horns from morning to
not had
have
The Many
past midnight. Repeated. antiumwa campaigns the slightest effect.
dress of the people is varied, better-class Chinese men wear
long robes reaching from neck to ankle,
others wear pajama-like suits of various colors, while still others adopt the Western style of open neck shirt and slacks or shorts. Women prefer to keep to the old style of shapeless dress, sleeveless, and fittjng closely round the neck. The poorer classes wear short pants and often a ragged jacket which is left open at the front to expose a bronze tanned body. Some omit the jacket and just wear \ the shorts. Beggars, many are women, wear blue dungarees and a jumper-like jacket.
The name Shanghai means “above the sea”. Several waterways run into the Whangpoo river, and these are ail jammed with eraft of all kinds in which the Shanghai waterman lives with his family. The water in these creeks is black and evil smelling, yet it is used to wash clothes, to bathe in, and even to “clean” the vegetables and rice for the river-dwellers’ meal's.
The visitor finds it interesting to watch Chinese labor, It is very primitive. All that can be done by hand is so done; The heaviest burdens are carried on bamboo poles borne across the shoulders of Chinese coolies. Two coolies are able to carry very heavy loads suspended from the center of a pole. The burden is eased by chanting a traditional song as they shuffle along with the load. Wide two-wheeled trucks piled high with loads are pulled by three or four men using ropes and very much energy. By their side modern trucks rumble ny, indicating that modern equipment gets things done quickly and less laboriously. But the Chinese stick to their age-old method. So ancient and modern go hand in hand. Narrow beflagged lanes teeming with Chinese life and activity. Broad fine streets lined with fine modern department stores, shops, offices, hotels, air-conditioned cinemas and skyscrapers. Western architecture is seen among buildings of Chinese style, with sweeping roofs and images of dragons and demons.
Civil W’nr, Family Life
The city originally housing three million people now houses four and a quarter million. Chinese are leaving the northern areas of China and the countryside because of the civil war and are moving into the cities.
There is little in Shanghai to suggest civil war, yet this rages to the north and involves very large numbers of fighting men on both sides. There is plenty of food in the shops, also an abundance of clothes, household utensils and furniture;. in fact, one can obtain more in Shanghai than in most oth^r places around the globe, but at a price. The war of 1939-45 brought severe inflation to China, and this has produced a black market system that practically runs the business life of China.
Houses range from huge blocks of modern apartments to humble mud huts with thatched roofs. Chinese live many families to a home; many use just one room and are very overcrowded in numbers, sleeping on mats on the floor or on specially-built racks one above the other. Houses are scarce, due to the enlarged population and warfare that hinders building programs. This situation has given rise to many rackets to the hurt of the people, but the poor escape these racketeers because of living in and on practically nothing. Yet the poor seem contented and happy with their lot.
…