Awake!, November 22, 1948

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DEMOCRACY BACKSLIDES ON THE RACIAL FRONT Flagrant discrimination turns freedom boasts to mockery

Weather Changes Designed by Creator’s Wisdom

Factors that determine season and climate

Graying, Going, or Gone?

Worry about hair? or lack of it? Read the bald facts

The Bible and Science

"Science falsely so called” attacks, but mature and proved science confirms

NOVEMBER 22, 1948 semimonthly

THE MISSION Of THIS JOURNAL

News acurcefl that arc able to keep you awake to the vital issues of Our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests. “Awake P has no fetters* It recognizes facts, Cices facts, is Gee to publish facts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it iff unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it doe$ not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

“Awoke I” uses the regular fiCWB channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four corners of the earth their uncenscred, on *fhe* scenes reports come to you tlircugh these columns. This journal’s viewpoint is not 3jarrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its cover* age is as broad as ths earth and as high as the heavens.

“Awake I” pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a right* eous New World.

Get acquainted with “Awake!” Keep awake by reading “Awake!**

PUBCISH.KJJ Sk invnifTHLi Bt

WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.

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Enternfl m aecijud'ChM jMUcr at Bw*lyn, N. Y., Act of Mairh S, 1879. frlfited in U.S.A

CONTENTS

Detnneraoy Backslides on the Racial Front 3

Breaking Down the Racial Barriers

Where Religion Stands

Caust of and Remedy for Racism

“A National Disgrace”

Burma—Independent at. Ijastl

Insurrection Breaks Ont

Progress Despite T>ifliculty

Weather Changes Designed

bv Creator's Wisdom

The Sun

Air and Wind Currents 1

Clouds as Weather Forecasters

The “New Look” Clarified

Newfoundland—New Province of Canada 17

Why the Change in Government?

Stormy Religions Aftermath

.Keeping the Cost of Living High

Graying, Going, or Gone?

This Tops All

“Thy Word Is Truth'*

The Bible and Seience

Whence the Modem Madonna Worship f 2fi

Watching the World

®^"Now it is high time to awake.— Romans 13:119)

Volume XXIX Brooklyn, N, Y., November 22, 1948 Number 22

Democracy Backslides on the Racial Front

DEMOCRACY in America is not as democratic as it boasts. Not when racial hatred is from border to border, coast to coast. Not when millions of men, women and children live in fear and terror of being violently mistreated, beaten and lynched; not when eight prison guards down Georgiy way go scot-free after murdering eight convicts in cold blood; not when bricklayers are forbidden to enter a district such as Grundy county in Tennessee; not when a man in Virginia is shot dead in .the back by a railroad detective because he complains about riding in a Jim Crow car; not when the mother of twelve children, together with her two sons, ages 13 and 15, are convicted of murder for the killing of a farmer in self-defense; not when hooded cowards of the Ku Klux Klan terrorize 400 voters the night before election to prevent theni from voting; not when a family is driven out of a particular neighborhood following the bombing of their newly purchased home; not when a traveler in Mississippi is forced to go hungry because restaurant owners refuse to serve him food; not when the flames of race riots sweep through cities like Detroit, Mich., and Columbia, Tenn., and leave behind many dead and wounded. When the capital of the world’s greatest democracy, Washington, D.C., practices racial segregation and discrimination against its own citizens is it not a “graphic illustration of a failure of democracy”? The President’s Committee on Civil Rights says it is.

The above examples of racial discrimination are against American-born Negroes, but it does not stop there. American Indians, American-born Jews, and Americans whose parents and ancestors came from other nationalities not belonging to the “lily-white” Caucasian race have suffered insults and discriminatory restrictions upon their personal rights and liberties in this “land of the free and the home of the brave”. Today this racial barrier is being attacked as never before in an effort to establish equality in social, economic and educational pursuits for all citizens regardless' of the color of their skin.

Can' it be done? Can racial unity and peace be achieved at least on a national scale? For some time now a campaign has been under way to provide for the Negroes equal rights at the voting polls, equal pay for equal work through fair employment practices, federal antilynching laws, removal of all Jim Crow traditions that require colored people to ride in a different part of buses and trains from that occupied by whites, abolition of segregation rules in the armed forces, equal opportunities to attend colleges and universities, equal hospital and medical care, and removal of restrictions governing housing areas in cities throughout the nation. When many of these proposals were recently nailed down as planks in the Democratic* platform many Southern politicians stubbed their toes on them and fell so far out of the convention that they put up their own presidential candidate.

Politics Is Politics

In an election year both parties were out to get the vote of discrimination victims, and this year Truman was trying to outbid the Republicans. He was aware of the fact that Negro migration from the South during the war might become the decisive factor in the big states in the North. Already Dewey has been condemned and Truman praised by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for their stands on civil rights, Wallace too, and his Progressive party, was also observed fishing on the same political bank for the colored vote. The political football was also being kicked around by a large segment of the Southern democrats that bolted the party and took up the slogan, “States’ rights before civil rights.” They howl that the federal governments attempt to set up anti-poll tax and anti-lynching laws is an unconstitutional move which breaks down state’s rights, destroys democracy and throws the door open for dictatorship, a police state and communism.

White supremacy with a continuation of “Southern customs” and “traditions” is their battle cry. On this point, however, the “solid South” is not so solid. There are two factions: one that advocates liberal reforms in the age-old discrimination against the colored man, and the other , a “dyed-in-the-cotton” faction, that'bitterly resents any reform and is dead-set against any change whatsoever in the balance of power between the blacks and the whites of the South. In this latter group are the loudmouthed politicians like Crump, Murray, Cox, Byrd, Rankin and Connolly wdio presume to speak for all the South. One news commentator describes this class as “the sort that, having successfully avoided conceiving a new idea since 1865, bitterly resent having a new idea thrust upon them”.

Another Southern viewpoint is that expressed by the Baptist preacher of Shreveport, La., M, E. Dodd, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Says the “D.D.” Dodd: “The Jim Crow law is for the protection of the Negroes themselves. They have places reserved for them on trains and in streetcars.” Such unselfish (Southern hospitality! Furthermore, Dodd says “the South is wmrking out the solution for racial questions and will continue to do so if not interfered with by others”. To many people, in everything the South just moves aggravaiingly slow. There is another school of theorists that say the problem can be solved by “separate but equal facilities”—a mythical proposition in a democracy, since its very premise is separation rather than unity. For example, in April Negro policemen were seen for the first time on the streets of Atlanta, Ga., but they were forbidden to arrest white persons even if they murdered a man before the very eyes of the colored'“officer”.

In another class’by themselves are the professional hate-peddlers and rabid hate-monger groups like the cross-burning Ku Klux Klan, Columbians, America Firsters and other night-riding vigilantes that are determined to settle the racial question by outright terrorism, violence and force. “Blood will flow” in the South if the Negro is allowed equality with the white man, so declares the Grand Dragon (Satan the Devil is the Great Dragon—Revelation 12: 9) of the K.K.K. Roars the Dragon: “The Klan will not permit the people of this country to become a mongrel race.” This is the same philosophy that plagued the mind of the mad Hitler, that is, that all races should be slaves to the “pure Aryans”.

Breaking Down the Racial Barriers

In recent years many forces have been enlisted on the side of the minority

groupsthat are suffering the stigma and hardship of racial discrimination, and these are now assaulting the racial barriers from many sides. Many of the outstanding business and civic leaders have promoted what they call anti-bias drives. The Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Association have set as their objective the making of “racial prejudice as unpopular as B.O.” The labor organizations such as the CIO and the Socialist Industrial Union have made the cause of the oppressed Negro their cause in an effort to bring him into their organizations. The New York county organization of the American Legion advocates “abolition from all branches of the armed services of all forms of segregation based upon race, creed, color, ancestry or national origirf” in an effort to make the American Legion “more democratic”, a shortcoming of the organization long overlooked.

The National Council of Christians and Jews, the American Jewish Congress, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the Board of Christian Education, the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian .Church, the Institute on Racial and Cultural Relations, and the Jesuit publishers of the national Catholic weekly, America, have all come forward with drives for better understanding of the racial problem.

The tight for racial freedom is pushed along many avenues of human endeavor: in the schools and colleges, in the hospitals, in the field of medicine and the world of sports, in the army, and even in the religious churches. Many schools in the North under the pressure are doing away with the discrimination and segregation laws, but throughout the South it is an altogether different story. Down there, where, we are told, “the South is working out the solution for racial questions”not only are the children segregated but the difference in the facilities provided and the training given is astonishing. Even among the schoolteachers the inequality is appalling. For example, in Mississippi 8,929 white teachers have an average annual salary of $1,108, whereas 6,236 Negro teachers get an average of only $398 for the same work.

In the colleges and universities of the country, both in their classrooms and in their fraternities and sororities, the story is about the same. Progress has been made in some, while others tenaciously hold on to their “traditional'’ beliefs in white superiority. The University of Delaware and the University of Arkansas have opened their doors to Negroes provided the “Southern custom” of segregation is strictly enforced. One of the most outstanding cases that recently moved the country involved a Negro law student, the University of Oklahoma and the United States Supreme Court. When the Court ordered the University to enroll the Negro girl in their law school they tried to by-pass the order by setting up “equal facilities” in a separate building removed from the University proper, and that, in spite of the vehement protests on the part of the student body which favored bringing the girl into their midst. In 1946 Texas spent $2.01 per capita for higher education for whites, but only $0.44 for Negroes.

Ugly discrimination, standing before many hospitals throughout this so-called democratic land, bars the entrance of Negro men, women and children and turns many of them into an early grave. There are no arguments that can be advanced to justify such fiendish treatment. The Negroes are intelligent human creatures, not beasts of the field. It is estimated that there is a shortage of over 5,000 Negro doctors due to discrimination. And the few who have overcome great barriers and have climbed high enough up the ladder of success to obtain a doctor's degree are still denied membership by the smug American Medical Association. This in turn deprives them of many courtesies and privileges and hinders their humanitarian practice.

It is a strange thing. In time of war the colored man is considered as valuable for the national defense as the noncolored. Both are expected to pay the same price in human sacrifice, suffering and blood. Yet the one is discriminated against, instead of being considered a comrade in arms against a common enemy. Since the recent war ended the Negro has renewed with greater vigor than ever his efforts to have this injustice corrected. When the present peacetime draft was before Congress many of the colored people, represented by the Sleeping Car Porters’ Union, threatened civil disobedience if such measures failed to do away with segregation in the armed forces.

Congress, however, failed to write the anti-segregation provision into the draft law, and Defense Secretary James For-estal and Army Secretary Kenneth C. Royall said that “in the interest of National Defense" the inequality in the regular army will continue. They failed to explain how such segregation is in the interest of democracy. New Jersey has set the example for the rest of the nation by wiping out this form of discrimination in its National Guard units.

Sports! If there is any field of endeavor where unity and peace among the races should be manifest it is here, for discrimination and race hatred are so foreign to the very spirit of sportsmanship and the mirthful diversion of playtime. The heated controversy over the discrimination issue that has been batted around the professional baseball diamond is evidence that not all is as peaceful as it should be. Out in California the Professional Golfers’ Association refused to enter two players because their skin was dark. The American Bowling Congress still maintains its “racial discrimination" clause. In Baltimore, Md., 17 are arrested for staging an interracial tennis match. The Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, after admitting Negroes to the park, refused them the use of the swimming pool.

Where Religion Stands

And what about racial discrimination in the churches of the country? Here, too, there is a great diversity of practice and belief, as was expressed by a cross-section opinion of Oklahoma clergymen. Some were in favor of segregation in the churches; others were opposed. A St. Louis church federation asked its members to cease the practice of segregation. Likewise a Virginia council of churches. But down in Birmingham, Ala., if a white man, though he be a United States senator (Glen Taylor, for example), enters a church for public worship through a door intended for the colored only he is arrested.

A Religious News Service dispatch from Columbia, S.C. (May 13, 1948), reads: “Total race segregation is The will of God' and must be maintained, according to the General Conference of the Southern Methodist Church, . . . ‘The Almighty God saw fit, in His infinite wisdom, to segregate the races in the beginning, and we earnestly believe that the, will of God (will) be best served by continuation of the total segregation of 'the black and white races.’ ’’ Have you ever heard such tommyrot? Where in the Bible does it say that Almighty God segregated “the races in the beginning” or that it is the “will of God” that such discrimination be practiced today?

The will of God is expressed in the Word of God. So, wThat does the Bible say ? In the beginning God made all people for to dwTell on the earth, not segregated, but in peace. It was the practice of religion on the plains of Shinar and the building of the towering religious edifice of Babel that scattered and segregated the nations. In God’s due time,

when the religion of the Devil has been wiped out, when a man no longer asks his neighbor who the Lord is, when religion no longer divides the people into a thousand sects and cults—then “all nations” will go up together and worship Jehovah God in peace. Clergymen would do well to first read the following scriptures before talking about what God’s will is.—Acts 17:26; Genesis 11:1-9; Jeremiah 31:34; Isaiah 2:2,3; Micah 4:1, 2.

Progress Made

Eighty years ago the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified and declared to be a fundamental law of democracy. During this time some progress has been made toward the*goal of making freedom the heritage of all people of the country. In Washington, D.C., Negro internes were admitted to Gallinger hospital for the first, time in February of this year. For the first time, recently, Negroes were allowed to sit on a county grand jury in Mississippi.

Much of the fighting against discrimination both past and present has been in courts of law. Since the famous Dred Scott case there have been many legal victories won. In 1946 the Supreme Court added another by ruling that racial segregation of passengers on buses crossing state lines was unconstitutional, and this year the High Court knocked the props from under the terrible “ghetto” system that has heretofore heen fostered and maintained by local government. Cities and states can no longer pass laws, and neither can the courts enforce ordinances, that prohibit Negroes and others from buying, renting or selling any house or property, provided the owner is willing to sell or rent. In the matter of voting the courts have handed down decisions allowing Negroes in South Carolina to vote in the Democratic party, under threat that if they are not allowed the white-faced politicians will face jail sentences.

There is, however, not much hope of obtaining complete freedom from racial discrimination by the hand of the forces that are now fighting racial hatred and bias, or by the strategy that such forces are employing. In the first place, fighting does not breed love for the enemy. Fighting for every privilege they now enjoy has not engendered in the colored race love for the overbearing, proud and haughty white man. In some instances the Negro has assumed a similar overbearing, proud and haughty disposition, thinking that in doing so he is acquiring an equality with the white. In other cases the contention has provoked bitter hatred for the white, which has sometimes reached the igniting point. In still other instances it has caused some Negroes to feel superior to others of their own race.

Cause of and Remedy for Racism

Why does the Caucasian look down on and discriminate against those of the colored race? Abked why, those that do will say that it is because of the Negro’s crime record, standard of living, social habits, and his high degree of sickness, disease and high death rate. Some will add that the Negro race is more primitive, hence inferior to the white race.

The crime -rate. It is higher among urban Negroes than among whites, but this is primarily the white man’s fault, not the Negro’s. Investigation has shown that the vermin of delinquency and crime breed rapidly in the fertile soil of ignorance and the economic poverty found in the overcrowded, filthy city slums. But the Negroes do not live there by choice. They pitifully cry for deliverance from such deplorable conditions, and beg for better homes and living conditions, but with deaf ears the white man has done everything in his power to keep them in these inferior quarters against their will. The Negro’s economic poverty is due to a lack of education, and this too is primarily the white man’s fault.

If any will argue that the Negroes as a race do not have as great a mental capacity for education, then it can be pointed out that the intelligence quotient of the Northern Negro is higher than that of the average whites of South Carolina. Doctor Robert Redfield, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, has said that there is no evidence to show “any difference between Negro and white students on the question of intellectual capacity’. Tn accomplishments there are “mental giants” in all races, including the Negro race. Marian Anderson, for example, is ‘‘the world’s greatest contralto and one of the very great voices of all time”, says Time magazine. The idea that the colored race is more primitive than the white springs from the devil-inspired doctrine of evolution.

The Negro’s life span is ten years shorter than the white man’s, yes, but not because he is physically inferior. Force the white man, as the Negro has been forced, to live and work under unhealthful conditions, and then deny him medical care, as the Negro has been denied, and he too will lose years of his life.

And wdiat about smell? Some claim that Negroes have an objectionable body odor that would nauseate whites if they were allowed to eat at the same table or sit’beside them in a train or theater. But is it not strange that the -whites, instead of being disturbed, are more than pleased when the colored are waiting on them at the table or are by their side carrying their bags or making up their berths. It is pure mythology that the Negro smells any worse than the white man; so says Bergen Evans, noted professor of Northwestern University, who makes it his business to debunk this sort of bunk. Make the white man live in the same squalor as some colored men, deny him education in personal hygiene, and he will be offensive in the nostrils of sensitive individuals. Advertisements for deodorants and perfumes always recommend them for beautiful -white girls. They too by nature must need them.

Not only is racial discrimination “America’s Dilemma”; it is the dilemma of the whole world. South Africa has a color-line crisis that dwarfs that in the United States. India has the racial question to add to all its other woes. Australia, determined to stay “white”, has strict discriminating immigration laws. In fact, at least forty nations belonging to the United Nations have racial problems at home, and all human government spinel uding democracy, have failed to solve them.

We are brought back to the unrefutable truth that the Theocratic Government, administered by Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace, and ruling over lovers of righteousness of “all nations”, is the only answer to the question of racial hatred and discrimination.

National Disgrace”

Ten million Americans, one out of every seven adults, can neither read nor write! In asking $130,000,000 in federal funds to aid these people, Senator Harley M. Kilgore declared that there arc 4,200,000 American-born whites, 3,200,000 foreign-bom whites and 2,700,000 Negroes that cannot read such signs as “Explosives—Keep Away” or “Poison—Uor External Use Only”. The army had 350,000 soldiers between 21 and 45 that were so illiterate they signed their names with an “X”. The highest number, or 36 percent, live in the state of Louisiana, Iowa'has the lowest figure, 4.1 percent.

This in itself is indeed a sorry state of affairs in the enlightened twentieth century. But more shameful, more disgraceful and even more tragic is the fact that the richest government on earth, that thinks nothing of spending billions upon billions of dollars for rearming the whole world, flatly refused to spend one penny for the basic education of 10,000,000 of its people! It killed the Kilgore bill.

/ncfepencfent At Last/

ON JANUARY 4, 1948, the date chosen as “most auspicious” by officially favored astrologers (opposition astrologers complained the date was not “auspicious”), the 17 million people of several racial groups inhabiting Burma’s 260,000 square miles of river-valley plains and mountains were granted independence. This after more than half a century of subjection as a vassal state of the seventh world power, the British Empire. After the initial excitement and joyous anticipation on the part of many Burmese had died down, a disquieting impression that after all the trouble the nation had not yet reached the foot of the. rainbow began to affect the discerning.

Prior to independence every Burmese national group, right-wing, liberal and rabid left, had sung in unison to demand freedom from foreign domination. Soon after such freedom was attained, >and with it the strong binding tie of unity of opposition to Britain was dissolved, the various political groups in the newborn republic of the Union of r Burma began to disagree and to direct toward each other the violent opposition hitherto raised against foreign invaders.

Burman, Aupg San, was the man to lead and direct the new republic. As reported herein earlier, Aung San, together with several of his fellow leaders, was murdered by some young men sent out by an opposing political group only a few months before the British withdrawal from the country. Those charged with engineering and executing that wicked plot have since been arrested, tried and executed. The nation, however, continues to mourn Aung San, who was to Burma somewhat what the late Gandhi was to India.

Attending to business elsewhere, Aung San’s right-hand man, Thakin Nu, missed the fatal party where Aung San-passed from the scene, and when the last British governor of Burma sailed down the Rangoon river in the early morning mists of January 4, he left Thakin Nu, backed up by the.heterogcneous Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (the AJLP.F.L.), in office as Burma’s first prime minister under the republican six-starred flag.

At that time the A.KP.F.L. comprised three political groups, Thakin Nu’s Socialist party, the Communist party, and the party of which Aung San had been leader, the People’s Volunteer Organization (P.V.OJ--

The foreign policy of the Thakin Nu government, as stated in London by its foreign minister, U Tin Tut, on July 27, 1948, “is aimed at state socialism, but by ordered stages. There is no idea of expropriation of foreign interests without equitabl e compensation.” He declared his government's intention of “adhering faithfully to the provisions of the Anglo-Burmese treaty, concluded shortly after the transfer of power from Britain”. (U Tin Tut died September 19 from the explosion of a bomb placed in his car by assassins.)

Political Setup

2TOFE7OEJ2 22, 1948

Under the terms of that treaty the economic structure of the country remains much as it was under British rule, and, subject to certain reasonable restrictions, foreign capitalized firms remain free to do business in Butina. The treaty provides, however, for the faking over by the Burma government of a number of very large British concerns working teak concessions in the north, some public utility companies, and Other undertakings. Already the government has taken over some of these companies and is* negotiating with them regarding compensation.

Insurrection Breaks Out

Only a few months after secession the Burma Communist party, attempting to enforce a policy so antagonistic to Britain and the U.S.A, as to put a complete end to Burma’s rich foreign trade, if not to lead to war, fell out with Thakin Nu’s government and, failing to gain their demands at the council board, raised armed bands and began a minor civil war. The Communists demanded the immediate seizure, without compensation, of all foreign property and the per capita division of the same among the Burmese population. They demanded other drastic action toward foreigners, particularly the British, but also Americans, Europeans, Chinese and Indians.

The idea of something for nothing (Britain’s investments alone amount to around U.S. $60,000,000, with Chinese and Indians owning very much more) made a strong appeal to a certain class among the Burmese; so the insurrection has received some support, and continues to the time of writing. But as Britain and the U.S.A, buy most of Burma’s exports, with China and India taking the balance, and as these nations supply most of her imports, and Britain and her allies hold complete control of Burma’s sea approaches, such a foreign policy would seem to amount to national suicide in a country so small and militarily weak as Burma.

Some time after the Communist defection, and in an effort to unite the country, Thakin Nu issued a manifesto of fourteen points, a number of which were very radical. Instead, the manifesto merely drew a howl of protest from London and other places, no noticeable response from the insurgent Burmese Communists, but some very strong opposition from the P.V.O. A section of the P.VA now broke away from the rest and, during June and July, 1948, withdrew from the Thakin Nu government of Burma. Toward the end of July the Rangoon papers announced that many members of the P.V.O. had gone over to the insurgents, arms and all, and that the government had been compelled to disarm and arrest a great many of the remaining members to prevent further desertion.

The Lot of the People

While politicians thus play for power over the people whom they claim to serve, the lives of many innocent people are lost. For many months of 1948 the insurgents ravaged central Burma, looting, murdering, torturing, burning and raping in countless homes and villages. From remote places in the jungle armed bands descended on isolated farms and villages. Where these bands.were better led and politically moved, the villagers were not disturbed other than by the removal of police weapons, the inducing of police personnel to desert, and sometimes by abduction of prominent government supporters. Criminal elements, however, took advantage of the cover provided by the insurgent activities and much of the violence seemed criminally rather than politically inspired? Said the Burma edition of the Calcutta Statesman in its issue of July 17, 1948, regarding the Burma insurgents:

Communist activities are, however, hopelessly mixed up with the operations of ordinary criminals, especially in the rural areas, where every dacoit (armed robber) leader calls himself a Communist and commits da-coity with violence in the name of Communism. It is therefore not surprising that, since the insurrection began, the real Communists have lost what little reputation they enjoyed.

With the defection of the P.V.O. the insurrection took on a much wider scope, and at the time of writing the insurgents have occupied some towns no very great distance from Rangoon. (In the Irrawaddy delta, too, they have come to considerable power and the important Bassein district is under martial law. (At the moment, it seems touch and go whether or not the Thakin Nu government will succeed or whether the rebels will win; so by the time this goes to the press big changes may have taken place in Burma.)

Coming to birth during the war years, when the Allies were laying heavy stress on the Atlantic Charter concerning human freedoms, Thakin Nu’s government has tried to preserve at least the framework of democracy. Until June, 1948, some three months after the armed Communist insurrection began, Communist processions with banners, slogans and hammer-and-sickle flags paraded the main streets of Rangoon. The press, too, has been allowed complete freedom. Some Burmese newspapers have betrayed a deplorably low ethical level, and, instead of helping to unite the people, they have, by free publication of wild rufnor, slander of men in office, and political opinions calculated io arouse the basest warring passmns, generated enmity between Burman and Burman, and particularly btween Burman and foreigner.

Progress Despite Difficulty

It must not be thought that because there is internal conflict the general population of Burma is disaffected. The fighting is confined to relatively few, though innocent bystanders mainly suffer. By far the bulk of the population of Burma is working industriously putting the face of the land to rights and producing the needs of life. Out of the actual battle areas the farmers continue their cultivation and roads and railways are continually restored, though they are still far from the prewar condition. Big development projects are under preparation, and some quite big achievements testify to the industry of the better class of the land.

A year ago many streets in Rangoon were still blocked with bombed debris, harbors were in ruins, and shattered walls and picturesque, bullet-pierced telegraph and power poles leered drunk-enly throughout the city. Today almost all the streets are cleared, the docks are restored, mhny bombed sites have been cleared and new structures erected, and most of the bullet-holes are gone. The Rangoon railway station has largely been restored, most of the city streets are again fairly well asphalted, and water and electric lights are again available to, most houses. Of course, a very great deal remains to be done before the prewar condition is restored, but no one can deny the creditable effort made.'

As world-wide, public men in Burma realize a need for more righteousness to produce safer government, and or some unknown means to turn away the heavy peril facing all nations. Observing what it is, Burmese leaders have generally not advocated religion as a remedy. As in other near-by countries, a very big enemy of good Burmese government is political corruption, and the best people of the nation are deeply concerned to find some way to transform men of price into men of integrity.—AWAKE!! correspondent in Burma.

*fWhlle the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease/’—Genesis 8:22.

Designed by Creator’s Wisdom

SINCE this announcement to Noah and his family, as they had just given thanks for preservation through the deluge, the climate and weather has held abiding interest for men. That Jehovah designed climatic change is verified by a later Bible writer: “Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made Summerland winter.” (Ps. 74:17) Still farther along in the stream of history, weather forecasters, the forerunners of the modern meteorologists, arose among the Pharisees. Jesus contrasted their lack of spiritual discernment with their ability to predict clear weather and rains: “When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair 'weather: for the heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the heaven is red and lowering.”—Matthew 16:2,3, Am. Stan. Ver.

To sailors and farmers, to whom the weather meant existence, the general truthfulness of the Pharisaical forecasts became crystallized in the proverbs: “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; Red sky at night, sailor’s delight”; and “Mackerel sky, quickly wet or quickly dry”. Even today the meteorologist, who is generally referred to as “the weather man”, relies considerably upon the appearance of the sky, in determining the weather's next move. He is aided by receipt of observations from weather stations over several thousands o/miles, from ships at sea, and by a good many instruments, most important of which are the wet and dry thermometer, the wind gauge and the barometer, which measures atmospheric pressure.

But despite the extremes of climatic variety with temperature changes from a Avinter temperature of 90 degrees be7 low zero on the Siberian tundra to 136 above in the Libyan desert, and annual rainfall ranging from 1.35 in Death Valley, California, to 426 inches in Cher-rapunji, India, there are certain predictable features of climate that the average man can understand and take advantage of.. An examination of these influences which govern temperature and precipitation, the most important determinants of the climatic zones, reveals again the boundless wisdom of the Creator.

The Sun

Of first importance is the sun, the source of all heat, and, resultantly, of atmospheric movement. Basically, the cause of all the winds that blow is the greater heating of the atmosphere at the equator, and if these winds did not blow they would not .transport the sixteen million tons of water that comes from the oceans and falls as rain every second on the planet earth. Effortlessly and without charge the atmosphere surpasses all the freight carriers that could ever .be devised. As wise King Solomon described it, “The wind goeth toward the south, and tumeth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”—Ecclesiastes 1: 6,7.

The amount of energy delivered to earth at the outer limit of the atmosphere is constant and is equal to 1.94 calories per square centimeter per minute. This complex of energy, called solar radiation or insolation, totals for the earth each second the burning of one billion tons of coal. Quite evidently, however, the .amount of beat actually received on the earth’s surface depends on several factors. Of these factors the only one that can be calculated precisely is the angle of the incidence of the sun’s rays, or the directness of the sun’s rays as they vary with the season and the latitude of the earth.

Just why should its latitude be the most important factor in determining the climate of a locality? Because the sun’s rays are most effective when they strike the surface of the earth at a perpendicular. This is illustrated by the advancing sun of the day. In early morning its beams strike at an angle that lessens until it reaches its zenith at noon, shining most directly. It is similar with the seasons and locality.

Anyone who has looked at a globe has

remarked that the earth does not set upright on its axis, but tilts, which inclination is measured at 234 degrees from the perpendicular position. All climatic changes are caused by this apparently small circumstance. It is the inclination of the earth’s axis that causes the changes of the seasons. If the axis of the rotating earth were perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, there would still be alternation of djJy and night for all parts of the earth but there would be practically no change of seasons.

In order to understand this passage of the earth, traveling around the sun at a speed of more than 1,100 miles per minute, take an apple and tilt it so that the stem is not exactly perpendicular to the ground. Then slowly, while holding it in this position, describe a circle parallel to the ground. The stem will correspond to the north pole, the blossom end to the south pole, and the center of this circular motion you have described, the sun.

Now note that as you keep exactly the same tilt the stem will be closest to the center (or sun) in one position and farthest from it in another. In other words, it will tilt toward the center in one position and away from it in the other. When it tilts toward the sun the rays fall more directly in the north, and when away from the sun the rays actually do not strike the north pole at all. Conversely the change takes place at the south pole. For half of the circle the sun’s rays fall more directly on the Southern Hemisphere, and then that part of the earth enjoys the summer season while the Northern Hemisphere endures the winter. But on the other half of the circle (which circle requires one year to complete and marks a solar year) the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun fpr its summertime while the Southern Hemisphere has its winter. Thus has Jehovah arranged matters to give seasons. The poles stand for the two climatic extremes. On the other hand, the equator, which is the great circle imagined to surround the earth exactly halfway between the poles, has the least extreme, the most equable -climate.

However exactly the position of the sun and the latitude of the location can be calculated—and this can be done precisely—it is evident that these factors do not entirely determine climate. Even temperature does not tell the exact nature of the climate. For example, the mean annual temperatures and mean monthly extremes of Galveston, Texas, and Cairo, Egypt, are almost identical; but Cairo has an arid climate and there is plentiful rain in Galveston. Growing season is very important, also. While Yakutsk, Siberia, has an annual mean temperature of 13.3° Fahrenheit, and Angmagssalik, on the east coast of Greenland, an annual mean of 28.0° F., yet this east coast of Greenland is barren, while forests grow around Yakutsk and even some crops are raised. The explanation is that the warmest month in Angmagssalik is 43.2° F., while it is 66.2° F. at Yakutsk.

Air and Wind Currents

Other features which affect climate include the air, the water, the character of the earth’s land surface beneath the sun’s rays, the earth’s 325 active volcanoes, the rotation of the earth, and sun spots. Next to the latitude, the state and movement of the air is of prime importance in determining climate.

There are times when a man, even in his general preoccupation with the cares of life, stops for a moment in a sweet-scented garden or a pine-clad valley to relish deep draughts of air. Or it may be the tangy air from a crested sea or exhilarating freshness of frosted atmosphere on snowy slopes. He may even remark upon it or simply fill his soul with the luxury of this versatile creation of Jehovah. Despite this appreciation, expressed or unexpressed, it is doubtful whether many even dimly realize what a functional and marvelous creation is that gaseous mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen composes 78 percent, oxgyen 21 percent, and there are various other gases, argonf carbon dioxide, hydrogen, helium, neon, krypton and xenon. Water vapor, dust and Small particles of salt are “guests”.

This atmospheric cloak about the wrinkled, tilted globe, spinning and rotating, is perhaps more marvelous than earth's winter ermine wrap and summer print. It neither wears out nor stretches permanently out of shape. It is fluid enough to penetrate our most delicate tissues and prevent our collapse under the 14 tons of atmospheric weight we carry about. A snowflake can parachute through it without the disarrangement of a crystal. Yet it can transport a billion tons of water inland without spilling a drop. Compared with its vast power, the few expressions of its stormy fury are not numerous.

It has been said that “weather is air in trouble”. Also, “when you feel wind on your face you may know that you have interrupted a parcel of air en route somewhere to keep a barometric appointment.” But why does air have pressure? Like all matter, air has weight, and hence is held to the earth by gravity pull. A column of air exactly one square inch in surface from the earth continued to the ceiling of the atmosphere, traces of which prbbably reach 150 or 200 miles up, weighs about 14.6 pounds at sea level. The higher one goes from sea level, the shorter this column of air and the less the pressure.

The barometer measures the pressure. Barometric pressure is always changing, more or less rapidly, all the world over, and the changes give a valuable clue to the weather processes. In general, the highest pressures will be found in the subtropics about latitude 30 degrees to 35 degrees north and south. The pressure is somewhat less at the equator. On the poleward sides of the subtropics, it falls to a minimum at about 60 degrees north and south latitude, and rises a little in the polar region. These pressure systems are the bas^s for weather types, the high pressure systems having light winds and generally fair weather, the low pressure systems strong winds and cloudy, rainy weather.

Further, the pressure systems are the basis of the great wind systems, which exert a dominant control on climate. There are many of these, but the two most prominent are the trade winds and the westerlies. The trades are the palmswaying winds of the subtropics which blow from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere. Their sweep is over a wide area in latitudes 10 degrees to 30 degrees north and south latitude. They are comparatively constant; that is, they “veer” (change direction clockwise) and “back” (change direction counterclockwise) very little, and are so steady in direction and force that the mean (recorded average) gives a good approximation to the winds likely to be found on any day. On the other hand, the westerlies are “prevailing” or variable winds, found between these systems ' and the latitudes 60 degrees north and south, have irregular pressures and hence a great deal of bad weather.

It has been remarked that difference in heating causes difference in pressures and results in air currents or winds. But how? Suppose you build a fire under a column of air in a smoke stack. You can see the air expanding and rising from the movement of the heat waves above. As this rises some more it spills over onto the air around, so that the weight of the column in the stack is less. Cold air at the bottom pushes in to equalize the pressure, and also the outflowing currents above push on the air entering at the bottom. Thus a current is set up. Air receives its heat almost entirely from earth surface, land or water.

Winds always blow from places of higher pressure to places of lower air pressure because the great force producing winds is gravity. They tend to follow topography, avoiding elevations and cold areas, to follow valleys, go toward warm areas, descend slopes. Because winds seek low pressures, rapidly falling barometric pressure often presages a gale, sometimes the cyclone or hurricane. . However, the meteorologist also takes into account the temperature, precipitation, and wind direction.

Vertical upward movements are sometimes severe, but milder ones are called “thermals” and are used for lifting gliders, which have been maneuvered by skillful operators to an altitude above 14,000^ feet. These vertically rising columns also cool as they give up heat in ascending, and this is called adiabatic cooling, and is about 5.5° F. per thousand feet for dry air. A startling manifestation of this rule is the chinook wind. Winds from the Pacific rise up the high Canadian Rockies, moist and, say, at about 35 degrees F. They lose their inois-;ture on the crests of the sierras, then plunge downward, heating up in the descent. In Alberta east of the Rockies the winds can raise the ground temperature 40 or 50 degrees in a matter of minutes.

Clouds as Weather Forecasters

This section brings our consideration back to weather predictions based upon observations of the sky. A cloud may be defined as a fog which has taken to the sky. It is finely divided particles of water, as yet too minute to fall as rain; or it may be a thin veil of ice crystals, as the cirrus cloud. Clouds are often the crowning decoration of a column of air, and take on the proportions of a towering Everest with a Grand Canyon at its base, like the “cauliflower mountain” called "cumulus”. The reason that clouds often form at the top of rising columns of air is that warm air can hold more moisture than cold before it becomes “saturated” and can contain no more water vapor or moisture. When air reach es saturation for a given temperature, it must lose some moisture if any further drop is made. This temperature is called the “dew point”. When you hear a dew point being given in the weather forecasi it means the temperature at which the air must begin to precipitate some water, as dew, rain, fog, frost, snow, e’ .

Thus rapidly falling temperatures may bring rain or snow. In the Norther? Hemisphere winds which sweep over th« tropic oceans and the Gulf Stream often meet cold currents from the arctics and the poles and account for the bad weather encountered in much of the eastern United States and England. The cold air currents undercut the warm, great “fronts” of discontinuity at the contact points and bring -falling pressures and temperatures followed by wind, rain, and even cyclones. These low-pressure storm centers travel. The movements of one of these was traced from Havre, Mont., February 23, 1925, through its “perambulation” around the globe until its return past the starting point to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one month later. The distance traveled by the center was 21,379 statute miles.

Before such a storm, perhaps 1,000 miles in advance, you nearly always see high cirrus clouds, like arrowy wisps, arcs, and plumes, feathery in their flawless beauty. Some of these detached clouds have been popularly called “mare’s tail” or “cat’s tail”. If cirrus

combed wool” is followed also by the dappled field of cloud flakes, called the cirro-cumulus, “mackerel sky,” it betokens rain when this sky begins to deepen into cirro-stratus. Cirro-stratus is the veil which, dims the blue and causes the halo on moon and sun. The cirrus clouds are high and give the aviators no trouble.

Lower are the alto-clouds, alto-cumulus and alto-stratus. These are detached and fleecy but lower on the horizon; when they blacken a shower is imminent. The stratus clouds are the lowest ones, from 6,000-foot levels clear down to 100 feet. They are dull rain clouds. The cumulus cloud is perhaps the largest of all, the “fleecy mountain”, and may stretch vastly in vertical extent. On a summer day these mean little; but a blackening cumulus is real danger for the aviator and often brings the thunderstorm.

Thus it is seen that sun, air, land and water make our climate according to certain conditions fixed by Jehovah. It is noted that figs and magnolias once grew in Greenland, and that a reversion of the ocean flow from pole to equator now operating would likely melt the icecaps. If this were done suddenly, however, it would engulf New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai and much land by raising the water level about 150 feet higher than now. It is therefore fortunate that Jehovah, with His vast wisdom, will supervise any changes that He may choose to make that the cold and hot climates may be somewhat equalized. The New World, including the climate everywhere, will be delightful.

Y?hc "New Look” Clarified

A headline in the New York Star reads: ‘‘Wear Clotnes That Fit Your Mind, Rather than Figure^ Says Designer Elizabeth Hawes/’ So, you see, they fit something, after all!

— NEW PROVING® OF CANADA

IT IS Saturday, July 23,1948. The peo-

pie of St John's, capital city of Newfoundland, are tense with expectations of trouble, with sudden realizations of the momentous decisions being made, and with pervading fears for the future* Little groups are gathered on street corners and in shady doorways, venturing opinions in quiet voices. Others, not wishing to become involved in conversation, avoid talking and rush on their way. Some are of sad countenance, feeling defeat Some are worried. Some would like to rejoice in victory, but are afraid to do so* Whispery rumors of violence and riot, scare stories and menacing threats are the order of the day. The atmosphere is filled with bitterness and fierce judgments, while subtle hushed undertones breathe the frightful word “communism”.

All this because yesterday the final referendum showed the voting favored confederation with Canada as the tenth province, rather than a return to an independent home-rule as in prewar years.

But why the strong undercurrents of deep feeling in the capital? Why such stirred emotions either of hurt or of exultation? Why the guarded words and whispers? Why the wild rumors of battleships outside the harbor? Why the threats, the suspicion, the unrest? Why?

Because the political issue has brought to a climax something more deeply rooted and of more personal concern than what form of government Newfoundland shall have.

The whole situation smacks of religious intrigue, intolerance, and prejudices, and it lays bare a bad neighbor policy among the ecclesiastical elements. Oh yes, it does I Don't be shocked I It has become a fight for religion more than politics; creed more than government. The Catholics oppose the idea of Confederation and give their support to the independent Responsible Government platform, and their connivance in the campaigning has stirred the Protestant population to give stronger support to confederation with Canada. Thus the pro-Confederates are labeled as communists by enemies, and the people get frightened, and more confused.

Here is what happened during the past few weeks: On June 3 Newfoundland electors went to the polls for the first time in about sixteen years. They were to decide only which form of government the country should adopt. Three forms appeared on the ballot paper, namely: (1) retain the then operating Commission of Government; (2) return to an independent Responsible Government; or (3) join the Federal Union of Canada as the tenth province.

Religion in the Fray

Early in the campaign it was obvious to all that the handwriting was on the wall against Commission of Government, and sharpening developments indicated that the real fight would be between the Confederate and Responsible forms of government. Therefore, it came as no surprise, when Commission was rejected in the first referendum, having polled the least number of votes. Where the big surprise came was when the Catholics showed their hands openly in strong support of Responsible Government, more particularly when the nuns and Church eminents went to the polls, the nuns for the first time in history in this country. Compare this with Italy. All along it was noticeable to observers that the Catholic influence was being guided and brought to bear in the Responsible camp with even The Monitor, which is the official organ of the archdiocese, lending its pages to the campaign of opposition to Confederation. But it was hard to realize their determination to block Confederation until referendum day brought things out into the open.

The results were as you may expect. When the Protestant districts saw the fact that the Catholic Church had a stake in the Responsible garden they supported Confederation all the more. By the time the second referendum rolled around the tide had turned and yesterday’s final referendum saw the Confederates merge victoriously ahead with a majority of more than 6,000 votes, and winning 18 of the 25 districts.

"But what now!” you will ask. This: As this article is being prepared the Catholic-supported losers cannot accept defeat. They are protesting the decision in a last mad effort to keep the country out of Confederation at all costs. Their protest is being directed to prominent politicians in Canada, including WT. L. Mackenzie King, prime minister of the Dominion, and to prominent men in London, including Winston Churchill. In the protest they threaten that if Canada permits Newfoundland into the Confederation it ‘will create bitter controversy in the future’. They blame the Confederates “of tactics deliberately designed to divide people on class, regional and sectarian grounds”. They forget that it was the Responsible side that first brought Religion into the picture and that the Catholic paper The Monitor even printed special issues in support of Responsible Government. The St. John’s Evening Telegram put it nicely when in its editorial of July 27, 1948, it said:

The message [of protest by the Responsible Government League] states that the “Confederate majority was unquestionably obtained through use by the Confederate Association of tactics deliberately designed to divide people on class, regional and sectarian grounds”. . . . The returns indicate no such divisions, and so far as any such methods were resorted to by campaigners, may it not ,be said let him that is without sin in that respect cast the first stone.

Truly, it does appear that the Confederates were.aided in the second referendum because of the high feeling that Catholic support of the other party had aroused, especially Protestant indignation when the nuns went to the polls in the first referendum.

Why the Change in Government?

But why all the talk about a change of government in Newfoundland? To answer this question we must go back to 1933. In that year a Royal Commission of Inquiry investigated the financial state of the country, which, like the rest of the world, had fallen into a desperate condition. The Commission recommended certain changes, and as a result Newfoundland relinquished Dominion status until the country became again self-supporting. Then on February 16, 1934, the United Kingdom government appointed a Commission of Government to rule Newfoundland during the emergency. This government consisted of six commissioners, each in charge of a particular government department, and a governor who would act as the chairman in Commission. Three of the commissioners were to be Newfoundlanders, and three from the United Kingdom.

It was understood from the beginning that the Commission of Government was only an emergency measure empowered with full legislative and executive authority until if and whenever th e. country became once more self-supporting, and then at the request of the people Dominion status would be restored. It was not until July 16,1946, that a.British White Paper reported that Newfoundland had attained the required standard for a return to self-government, and that this would be restored within a year.

Agitation for this had been going on for two years previous by a few local political leaders, but the people were too busily engaged in making money out of the war boom to be the least bit political-minded ; little cared they how it went as long as the pantry shelf was full. But by the beginning of the present year things had changed. Poor times began to show through again, and thus it has been easy to stir up the usually carefree, easygoing people to very heated political views—indeed, the smoldering and apparently totally inactive political life of Newfoundlanders during the past fourteen years has burst out into a flame that has every indication of heretofore unknown fury.

It appears that the majority of the working classes favor Confederation, and especially the fishermen. To these people union with Canada would mean a lifting of the high tariff duties which indirectly tax the people so heavily. During the past eighteen years Newfoundland's hardworking people have paid indirectly an average duty of 43.8 percent on goods coming into the country, and the cost of living has been very high, for even apart from the duties paid the government, the merchants have had to make a profit on the duty paid, as their profits are necessarily a percentage of what the goods cost them landed in their warehouses and stores.

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