Awake!, April 8, 1949
Download: PDF — Awake!, April 8, 1949
THE POPE AND MORALS
A sobering look at conditions in Catholic countries
Oily Riddle of the Middle East
Prophets of doom call it the fuse for World War III
Quebec City’s Falling Stars
Religion’s star performers fail to shine in court in Jehovah’s witnesses’ case
Israel’s Crossing of the Red Sea
Science cannot erase or minimize the miracle
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
News sources that: are able to keep you awake to the vital issue® of our tirnes must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests. “Awake!” has no fetters. It recognize® facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It Is not bound by political ambitions or obligations ; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be tread upon; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.
“Awake I” uses the regular news 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 uncensored, on-the*scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal's viewpoint is not narrow, 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 coverage is as broad as the 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* ecus New World.
Get acquainted with “Awake 1” Keep awake by reading “Awake 1”
Published Semimonthly By WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.
117 Adams Street Brooklyn 1, N. I"., U. S. A
N. H. Knorr, President Grant Sluter, Secretary
Five cent* a copy One dollar a year
RrtiltHnm should be sent U) office in year country In compliance with rerulatlwB to guarantee Bale dethery of money. Remittances tn accepted at Brooklyn from countries where no cffice Ik located, by international mooey order only. Subscription nta Id different ooimtrlu art her* anted la local currency.
Nttlct of uplntta (with renewal blank I b seen at least two Issue before aulMcrlpLkti ntplra
Chink! *f addritt when sect tn olir office may be expected effuedre within one mondr, your old ss well as new address.
Offices Yearly Subscription Rate
America, U.S., 117 Adame St.T Brooklyn 1, N.Y. *1 Australia, 11 Beresford Rd., Strathfleld, N.S.W. 0g Canada, 40 I nr in Are,, Toronto 5, Ontaric $1 E*|land, 34 Craven Trracw, London, W. 2 5b $Mth Africa, 623 Boston Itaise, Caps Town Ge
Entered as aecoukclua matter at Brooklyn, N. I., Act of March 3, 187&. Printed In U, A A.
CONTENTS
The Pope and Morals
Immorality in Mexico
Costa Rica’s Confession
Frightful Report from Colombia
“Our Teaching Is Often Different
from the Bible”
Tapping the Maple
Evils of Easter .
Oily Riddle of the Middle East
The Bear Sniffs at the Lion’s Share
Where the Eagle Spreads Its Wings
Death-dealing White Beauty
Babies Please Note
Floating Concrete
Misery Loves Company
Building a Brain
Electricity on Ice
Purely Coincidental
Quebec City’s Falling Stars
The Priest Trapped!
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Israel’s Crossing of the Red Sea
Norway Ts Trials Against Collaborators
Watching the World
/IW/IKE/
C^Now it is high time to awake.— Ramans 13:119j
Volume XXX
Brooklyn, N. Y., April «, 1*4*
Numbar 7
THE POPE AND MORALS
RECENTLY Pope Pius XII made another speech. This time it was on uprals, the protection of young women and girls against the degeneracy and moral delinquency of the age. Addressing 200 delegates from 19 nations on September 29, 1948, the pope declared: “It is no longer a question of saving one lamb, or a hundred, but a whole herd." The blame for this immorality he places at the door of the educational systems by saying: “Modern education produces only a thin varnish of religion that does not protect from imprudences, concessions, and capitulations that may be the beginning of a total moral collapse.” Again, in addressing an Inter-American assembly of Catholic educators at La Paz, Bolivia, on October 6, the pope expressed the hope that youth “would be guided by the experience and wisdom of the church, following the standards promulgated by this apostolic see".
Catholic parents, in fact all decent parents, are very much concerned over the terrible situation their children face in the world today, and they heartily welcome any protection offered. However, before placing their children’s chastity under the guardianship of those that wear somber ecclesiastical dress parents will do well to investigate the clergy’s qualifications for such a responsible trust. Before replacing the “thin varnish of religion" given by modern secular education it would be well to see if those that are given a heavier coating of religion in the parochial schools are any better morally. Before giving their children “the experience and wisdom of the church” as an example to be followed parents will do well to visit Catholic countries, like those of Latin America, where the Roman Catholic Hierarchy not only has reigned supreme for centuries but also has been the example followed by the people.
For the benefit of those who will never have the opportunity of traveling abroad, Awake! correspondents living in these Catholic countries, and who by their firsthand contact with the people know conditions as they are, have gathered together a volume of facts and figures* It is from these reports that the following sobering and eye-opening facts are taken. Read them thoughtfully and see if the thicker coating of religion given the children in these Catholic countries provides them with a better insula* tion against the burning heat of sexual immorality.
Conditions in Puerto Rico
After four centuries of Catholic pre dominance in Puerto Rico, churches, priests and nuns abound in great profusion. One would, therefore, expect that the island is a secure haven for young girls. But what do we find! In a land where the population is 89 percent Catholic, 1 out of 4 babies is an illegitimate; in some towns 2 out of 5 are such. Thirtyeight percent of the mothers bearing
these unlawful children are between 15 and 19 years. Cross-checking 430 fathers of these children showed that 27 percent were already married to other women; 65 percent had children by two or more women; and 5 percent had children by five or more women. Social workers have found men living with three different women at the same time.
Mind you, these poor Puerto Ricans are not savages of the jungle, not pagans of the Far East, not “heretics” of so-called protestantism, and most assuredly they are not true followers of Christ Jesus and His teachings. Rather they are “children of the Holy Catholic Church”—born Catholics, raised Catholics and taught as Catholics for generations by Rome's priesthood! It is common knowledge among the people that the priest has his own female consorts, which the people call his esposas a la izquierda, his “wives on the side”, sometimes called by the priest his “fleshly sisters”. So, the common Puerto Rican reasons: Why should I not have a few “wives on the'side”? Was it not the Catholic bishop of Osma that countersigned the decree of Charles V of Spain on August 4,1526, making whoremongering legal, and establishing “a house of public women” in Puerto Rico?
Immorality in Mexico
It is reported that in Mexico city itself there are 64,000 prostitutes, and among them are little girls only 12 years old. When a medical checkup was made down three of the capital's streets it was found that 91 percent of these misfortu-nate women were syphilitic. Though the union of church and state no longer exists in Mexico the majority of the people are nominally Catholics and follow their clergy as shepherds of the flock. If, then, the shepherds wander from the way of righteousness, is it any wonder that not “one lamb, or a hundred, but a whole herd” have fallen into the snare of sexual immorality?
It was reported in the press, September 5, 1947, that a soldier complained to the bishop of Sonora, Don Juan Navar-rete, that the priest of Ures had criminally violated the honor of his daughter. A few months before this, in the town of Petatlan, on the coast of Guerrero, the people were greatly alarmed over the return, after a two-year absence, of a priest named Manuel Herrera^Murgufa. Said the newspaper Tiempo (May 23, 1947): “Many of the young men of Petatlan complain that the priest would take undue advantage of their girl friends, when placed in the curacy just previous to marriage.” Another reported ease was as follows:
A number of families of Puebla, sincere Catholics, are considering speaking to the archbishop of the diocese to petition the removal from the city of the priest of the church of San Jos6, the priest Jose Rubio Contreras, nicknamed The Satyr, because of his dissolute life. The scandalous life of JRC is public information in Puebla. For h good many years the old priest would be seen in many places, Openly, and always accompanied by young women, whom he would introduce as his nieces. Many people of Puebla have seen him in hotels of ill repute in the city and in cabarets and night clubs in Mexico City, on noisy sprees. . . . What is surprising to all the people of Puebla, believers and unbelievers, is that the archbishop of Puebla, who well knows of the priest’s adventures, permits him to continue his noisy life.—Tiempo, July 25, 1947.
Guatemala’s Report of Woe
It is estimated that 70 to 75 percent of the children are born of parents that have never been married. A civil marriage can be had free, but why bother, the people say, since they would be living in adultery anyway, according to Church teachings. Besides, the priests get away without getting married. One priest was frequently seen visiting a bawdyhouse, yet no protest was raised until he entered during ‘Tioly week”, and,
A WAKE I
of ail days, on “Good Friday”! It seems the day is too sacred for devout Catholics that live in adultery to have sexual intercourse, but not so for the priest!
The chief way of covering up the grosser immoral sins of the clergy is to transfer offending priests to other parishes where their record js not known. However, those upon whom the crimes are committed remain behind, and soon the people in general know the details. Hence, one has only to move among the people to learn the facts. For example, in one mountain village a priest caused a young girl to become pregnant. When-the child was four months along the priest talked an illiterate young fellow of the village into marrying the girl. Then, some five months later, when the baby was born and the bewildered man asked the priest why a baby arrived in so short a time, he was asked: “Who are you to question God!” Making it appear as a miracle the priest had the couple move dose to the parish house, whereupon the priest continued having secret affairs with the wife.
Evil practices and conditions such as these over a long period of time have brought Guatemalans down to a very deplorable level of sorrow *and suffering, especially the women and children. Look at some of these 18-year-old mammas. Young, yet so old-looking! Their faces are drawn, their hair unkempt, a baby tied up in rags on their back, a tiny tot toddling alongside, and still another child awaiting birth, each having a different father, and in many eases, a father whose name is unknown. A sad but common sight.
Truly, the most pitiful sight is the children themselves. In the nude they crawl around and paddle in places where we would hesitate to step. Infant mortality is very high; many never have a fighting chance. Little waifs, they learn to steal at a tender age; necessity is the mother of their crimes. Others are lovable little children with warm brown eyes APRIL 8, 1949
and friendly smiles, eager to help you, eager to learn, proud they can read and write, and yet—poor children—they have never learned to say “daddy", and have never known the love and companionship of a father.
Honduras* Sinful Crop
It is almost unbelievable, but according to the 1945 census figures 55 percent of the total population of 1,200,542 are illegitimates. And this in a country that is percent Catholic! Instead of conditions’ getting better they are getting worse, for during the fiscal year of 1945-46, 64 percent of the 46,354 births were illegitimate babies. Couples just live together until they tire of each other, and then seek other companions. Children crop up like weeds. One woman may have children from two or three or four different companions. Like kittens, the babies are given away to friends to be raised and educated; others are sold.
Who is to blame for this immorality in sexual matters! The people themselves, yes, to a certain extent, but the priesthood of the Catholic church must bear a large share of responsibility because of their own examples of immoral looseness. The history of the little towns and villages tells how the priests have lived with their women. In the mountain hamlets they have raped and ruined their share right along with the most debased peon of the countryside. One history of the nineteenth century says:
The state of Honduras . . . passed a law legitimizing all the children of priests, entitling them to bear the names and inherit the properties of their fathers and declaring the cohabitation of priests with women to be an evidence of marriage in every legal sense and subjecting them to all its responsibilities. —Honduras: Descriptive, Historical & Statistical, by E. G. Squier.
Obviously, such a law would have been unnecessary had Rome's priests refrained from cohabiting with the women and bringing forth a crop of offspring.
As of old, conditions in this respect continue. In San Pedro Sula there is a young lady that everyone knows is the daughter of the local “padre”. Until recently the priest in Tela regularly visited his woman and child at his country home called “Rosalania”, and the people look upon it as a light matter. What really stirred them up was when a priest in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, who, in making his rounds in one of the leading hospitals, tried to rape a young girl.
El Salvador, Wasteland of Immorality
In this small country the facts and conditions reduce the pope's plea for youth to follow the exemplary “experience and wisdom of the church” to a small shrill wind wailing through the night of a wasteland of sexual immorality. Instead of conditions' being made better under the dominant religion, which so gallantly claims to be dedicated to the cause of morality and social justice, the standard of human behavior in El Salvador has grown worse under Roman Catholic influence.
According to the prominent paper El Diario de Hoy (August 4, 1948), out of every 100 babies 68 are illegitimates, and 35 are completely dependent on their poor mothers for support Children are here conceived and born like rodents. It is not at all uncommon for a newborn infant to be abandoned. It is commonplace to hear of a fetus or stillborn babe tossed onto the garbage pile or thrown into the refuse container. A woman that has several children very rarely has them all by the same man,
A Mrs. Alvarez tells of her personal knowledge of how priests in the cities of La Merced and La Vega carry on illicit relations with women m their parishes. Another housewife, Rosa Montero, tells of a disgusting experience she had on a bus when a priest made advances toward her, even following her home when she fled the bus. When a child was trampled to death by a stampeding theater crowd in Mejicanos, the newspapers disclosed that the child’s father was the prominent priest of the city. In the city of Santa Ana it is reported that the priest of the Calvario church ■ raped a minor girl of his catechism class, and the priest of San Lorenzo church made a minor of his parish pregnant. When a lawyer discharged a young man from his employ the priest came to him and pleaded that the young man should be taken back. The reason given by the priest; the youth was his own son!
Costa Rica's Confession
Stories about the rapacious conduct of Catholic priests are numerous among the people. Within recent months many priests have been sent to other parishes to escape the wrath of parishioners caused by their immoral relations with single girls, A German girl who came here frqm Mexico, feeling the need of some spiritual advice, poured out her troubles to a German priest, hoping thereby to receive some consolation. Imagine her terror when this so-called “man of God” proposed that she enter improper sexual relationship with him as a cure for her troubles!
One young woman telling another about her child which she had by her priest said the boy had no father, for he had been “begotten by the holy spirit”. It is things like this, no doubt, that made a devout Catholic, who is a postal employee in San Jose, declare: “The priests should be forced to marry if they want female companionship.”
The Costa Rican birth statistics for 1947, while much better than some other Catholic countries, show that it is no ideal model to be followed. Of the 41,930 registered births in the. seven principal cities over 23 percent were illegitimates. When these babies are baptized into the Catholic church the only routine question asked is whether the baby is legitimate or illegitimate. If the father*? name is Unknown the child takes the mother’s name.
Is it not rather strange that practices like these on such a huge scale are unheard-of in the so-called Protestant countries? Mundo Nuevo, a monthly, edited and published in San Jose, thinks so when it declares: ‘‘The protestants are more sincere on sex matters; ail of them, including the preachers, marry. Luther married a nun ,.. made her his wife and not his concubine. Nevertheless the [Catholic] clergy condemn adultery whenever it is not they that are prostituting married or single women?’
Frightful Report from Colombia
Colombia is the Vatican’s most faithful and favored child in South America. Her inhabitants, 95 percent, are devout Catholics. Her internal and political affairs have been influenced and controlled by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and her educational system has been dominated by priests and nuns for generations. The Catholic priesthood still enjoys a most exalted position in the life of the average Colombian. But alhs! has this great ecclesiastical power and influence been used to protect the chastity of women and girls? Or has the education of youth by the clergy raised the moral level of the people!
According to 1946 census figures, out of 340,790 births 29 percent were illegitimates. The facts belie the argument that where the people are steeped in Catholicism there is less sin; for in the city of Medellin, the Catholic stronghold of Colombia, the highest number of harlots are to be found. There are twenty blocks devoted to this abominable industry in this one city. The “Church” simply winks at such things. When members of the clergy are caught in moral delinquency the “Church’s” attitude is as set out in a 120-page book written and published in Colombia by Margarita Encines.
Therein Margarita tells -of a poor girt that was attacked by a priest. When this girl tried to bring the crime to the attention of the archbishop she was pushed to ene side and advised that the career of a notable priest was worth more than the honor of a young imprudent girl.
Instead of protecting feminine chastity the “Church” protects even those who murder girls to satisfy their base animal passions. Such was the case in Cucuta, Colombia, last August. The killer was not a clerical novice; he was a 50-year-old priest named Gabriel Francisco Obeso, who for the last fifteen years has been chaplain in the hospital of St. John the Divine. For several year# he had lived with a widow, Clementina Munoz, and her two children, Josefina and Pedro. When 17-year-old pretty Josefina decided to marry a young man and put an end to living in sin with “Father” Obeso, the priest determined that if he could no longer have her no one else would, and so he killed her in the most gruesome fashion. One of Colombia’s leading magazines gives the details:
Pedro, the younger brother, went to bed and was awakened after midnight by the cries for help from his sister. He came to the rescue at once and found her bleeding upon the bed of the priest, who, according to her, had hurt her after torturing her, Taken to the hospital, she died hours later, because of 14 stabs received. The body of the victim presented, moreover, traces of violence and the scar of a surgical opening in the abdomen, an operation which the family did not have knowledge of. The autopsy showed that Josefina ,was not a virgin.-—Semana, August 21, 1948.
In civilized countries where there is “only a thin varnish of religion” those that commit such heinous crimes against society are exterminated, but not so in a land that is bound to the Vatican with heavy religious concordats. Says Semana: “According to the agreement of the concordat he [Obeso] is held in confinement in St Joseph's parish house,”
Only the Outside Whitewashed
With this small sample of corrupt ini’ moral fruits (there would be a much larger crop if other areas like Catholic Quebec told their stories) it is most apparent that the papal “experience and wisdom” during the last four hundred years has not bettered social conditions. True, Catholic priests are more discreet in Protestant lands, but if given free rein with unchallenged power and authority over the whole land the clergy grow lax and careless in their moral conduct. If the pope is sincerely grieved over the dangers that threaten young women, why does he not strike where the danger is the greatest? Why does he not take drastic action to prevent members of his own priesthood from robbing girls of their virginity? Why does the papal organization give aid and comfort, and even sanctuary, to such scoundrels and priestly “fathers” as Obeso and his kind? “Fathers” is right, and not in any spiritual sense!
Honest Catholic parents, who love decency and hate iniquity, are not offended when confronted with these facts. They see what Jesus meant when He said to a similar crowd of clergymen in His day:
Alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee ! You must first clean the inside of the cup and the dish, so that the outside may be clean too. Alas for you, you hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, for you are like whitewashed tombs! They look well on the outside, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead, and all that is unclean. So you outwardly appear to men to be upright, but within you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness-Matthew 23: 25-28, An American Trans.
"(9ur Teaching Is Often Different from the Bible”
How well the master minds of Roman Catholicism realise the essential contradiction between the Bible and the Roman Catholic system is forcefully expressed in an address delivered by the cardinals of the Roman Court to Pope Julius III in 1550 immediately after his elevation to the papacy. It is
contained in a historical document of Reformation times that is preserved today in the National Library of Paris in Folio B, No. 1088, Vol. 2, pp. 641-650. Jt contains among others the following interesting passages: “Of all the advice that we can offer Your Holiness, we have kept the most necessary to ,the last. We must open our eyes well and use all possible force in the matter, namely, to permit the reading of the Gospel as little as possible especially in the vernacular, in all those countries under yonr jurisdiction. Let the very little part of the Gospel suffice that is usually read in the Mass and let no one be permitted to read more. So long as the people will be content with that small amount, your interests will prosper, but as soon as the people want to read more,, your interests will begin to fail. The Bible is the book that, more than any other has raised against us the tumults and tempests by which we have almost perished. In fact, if anyone examines closely and compares the teachings of the Bible with what takes place in our churches he will soon find discord and will realize that our teaching is often different from the Bible and oftener still contrary to it And if the people wake up to this, they will never stop challenging us till everything is laid bare and then we shall become the object of universal scorn and hatred. Therefore, it is necessary to withdraw the Bible from the sight of the people, but with extreme caution in order not to cause rebellion.”—From “Catholicism^ Fear of the Bible” in The Converted Catholic Magazine, March, 1944.
to gurgle trom it is a sure sign that winter is past and springtime is coming. The air is still frosty in the northern woods of eastern United States and Canada, the ground is still frozen, but the heavy blanket of snow is thawing, a few hardy birds have returned and winter-weary folks are once again bustling around.
Unknown in other parts of the world, the sapping of maple trees and the making of maple syrup and sugar therefrom is strictly a North American industry. It is as native to this continent as the North American Indian.
Of the 100 species of maple trees growing throughout China, Japan and North America, very few are tapped for their sugary sap. ’The black maple, Acer nigrum, found in South Dakota, Iowa and the Central plains, while producing some syrup, is inferior to the "rock”, “hard/ or “sugar'’ maple, Acer saccharum, that grows in eastern Canada and the United States as far south as Georgia. Valuable for shade and beautiful in shape, this roundheaded, stately tree with* deeply fissured gray bark sometimes reaches a height of 120 feet and 4 feet in diameter. The wise men of half a century ago that planted sugar maples along the boundaries of their farms now have avenues for which they can be proud. Besides yielding sugar, their r e d d i s h-b r o w n, closegrained, hard and tough lumber, known as “bird’s-eye”, “curly,” or “waxy” ma-
pie, taues a mgn polish and is greatly prized for floors and furniture. As a fuel it is excelled only by hickory, and its unleached ashes, being rich in potash and alkali, make wonderful fertilizers.
The early European settlers in this country were taught the art of making a sweet syrup from the sap of the maple tree by the Indians, who every spring observed a “sugar-making moon”. The trees were tapped and the sap collected and boiled down to make a syrup. The early operations, though crude and wasteful compared with modern scientific methods, have not changed essentially in principle. Slashes were made through the bark into the first layer of wood and the sap was caught in hewed-out logs. Later wooden buckets were hung on the trees. Up until recent times large Iron kettles suspended from a horizontal pole over a blazing open fire were used for boiling the sap down.
Today three or four holes are drilled with a brace-and-bit into the cambium layer where the sap flows,. and short spouts, called “spiles”, with perforated ends are driven in. If properly tapped no appreciable injury to the tree results. Some of the large concerns connect their trees together with a system of pipes that run the 51 sap directly to the evaporating house, but most' of the smaller maple farmers milk their trees by daily visiting each tree and emptying the pails that hang on the spiles. The blackened kettles that hung over the open fires of yesteryears, however, have practically disappeared in favor of shallow evaporating trays on large-topped stoves. The larger companies use even more scientific evaporating equipment for removing excess moisture and concentrating the liquid.
Mystery of the Flow,
Maple sap begins to flow any time between the last week in February and the middle of April, depending on the weather. Once started, it will flow for several days or for several weeks, depending on the weather. In fact, the weather conditions, the temperature during the day and night, and the direction and temperature of the wind, are major factors controlling yield. For real sap weather the nights should drop to a snappy, invigorating 20 degrees Fahrenheit and the daytime temperature should climb to the relaxing upper 50's.
The mysterious flow of the tree's watery "blood” has led to a great deal of speculation as to the causes that start and stop it annually. One suggestion is that the pressure in the roots forces it up. Yet it begins to flow when the ground is still frozen and moisture cannot pass through the roots. Another theory is that the pulling force of the leaves starts the flow. But how can this be, since the flow starts while the leaf buds are still dormant, and continues until the buds begin to swell, whereupon the flow ceases to conserve the tree's strength? More reasonable is the suggestion that the sap is already in the trunk, not in the roots, and when the iVarm sun and air begin to hug the trunk the pressure of the sap on the inside builds up and bubbles out if tapped. The cold nights, that instantly stop the flow, are necessary to hold the buds back and keep the sap in the trunk. Hence the combination of factors that induce a long, gentle flow, and consequently a high yield, are these: a late, cold spring, then warm, gentle days and cool, crisp nights.
Trees on a southern slope, where the sunshine is the brightest, and spouts placed on the south side of the trees, deliver the most bountiful flow. These, and other variables, make maple trees produce anywhere between 2 and 8 pounds of sugar each. If an average of 3 pounds is turned out each year the tree is considered a profitable one.
Production throughout the country varies widely, with Vermont leading as the banner maple syrup state. Canada outstrips the United States, with Quebec province leading all the others in production. Around 1930 there were about 12,000,000 trees being milked in the States, but during the war when there was a shortage of manpower this number was reduced. The 1917-20 average was 43,155,000 pounds of sugar and syrup, but in 1937 it was down to 990,000 pounds of sugar and 2,562,000 gallons of syrup. The poorest year was 1945, when only 251,000 pounds, figured on the sugar content, was taken out This particularly poor yield was due to an early warm spell in February and March, which in turn started the sap running faster than it could be taken out, due to the heavy snow still in the woods.
There is never an overproduction of this precious syrup, and consumer demand is high enough to pay almost any price. When, in Canada, in 1947, ceiling prices were removed prices of maple syrup jumped 70 percent; yet the producers had no difficulty in getting $6 a gallon for their syrup.
Before the National Pure Food and Drug Act became law, in 1906, there were many fraudulent products on the market that sold as “maple” syrup. One of these contained not a drop of maple syrup, being a blend of raw and refined cane sugar with a “maple” flavor added in the form of an extract from hickory bark. In the one city of Chicago alone more imitation “maple” sugar and syrup was turned out than the combined natural production of the great maple sugar states of Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania, Mixtures of glucose, cane sugar and corn syrup with maple syrup were also passed off as “genuine maple”. Today large quantities of this same type of syrup is sold, but finely printed on the bottom of the label it tells the customer they are not buying the real thing, only an imitation. To be pure, unadulterated maple syrup it should weigh 11 pounds to the gallon and contain not less than 60 percent solid maple sugar.
That Never-to-Be-Forgotten Flavor
When the sap comes from the maple tree it tastes nothing like the finished syrup. While sweetish, it is insipid and watery. It takes 4 gallons of sap to produce one pound of sugar, which means that 25 gallons of sap boils down to make but one gallon of syrup.
Usually in the middle of a tract of maple trees is located a rough log shack, used but a few weeks out of the year, where the sugaring-down is done. All roads through the surrounding woods concentrate on this central camp. During the “open season” this place is not only a center of laborious activity; it is also the place where friends and neighbors gather for social get-togethers. The air is filled with the faint aroma of boiling sap mixed with the pleasant smell of burning wood. Swarthy-faced men sit around talking and sipping, talking more than, usual, and sipping cups of maple tea” hot from the pan—the semi-finished syrup “spiked” with brandy. Women folks spread syrup on bread and drink coffee, or, perhaps, grandma brought along some doughnuts that are most delicious when dipped in the hot, thin syrup. The children anxiously wait for the syrup to thicken so that they can make “sheepskins”, “leather aprons,” or “maple wax” out of it. How! Oh, by pouring it on a pan of icy snow or into cold water and allowing it to cool to a palate-tickling caramel candy.
There is quite a difference in the flavor of different batches of maple syrups. The finest come from the early flow of sap. Also the skill, experience and technique of the “cook” affects, either for good or for bad, the color, weight and purity of the finished syrup. In the olden days, thickness was guessed at by the way the syrup ran off the end of a wooden spoon, but today specific gravity or “body” is measurable by the sugar hydrometer. The coarser, darker grades of sugar are made by stirring only enough to cause sugaring and then pouring into molds and leaving it to harden undisturbed. The creamy-white variety of maple sugar is made by constant stirring while cooling. Thirty years ago the demand was more for sugar, and in one season 12,000,000 pounds of it was produced, when only 2,000,000 pounds of syrup was made. However, in recent years the swing has been away from sugar and toward syrup.
When pantry shelves are once again stocked with a fresh supply of maple syrup mother gets busy using some of her favorite recipes for appetizing foods. For breakfast it is sour-milk pancakes or hot, crispy waffles buttered and covered all over with real maple syrup! What a way to start the day! For dinner she tantalizes and teases her family with second and third helpings of maple-basted ham or baked squash candied with maple syrup. She also knows how her family goes for apple brown Betty with maple-cream sauce. Those crunchy goody-cookies she makes with maple sugar and nuts certainly hit the spot.
Whereas cane sugar and honey are strong sweeteners, they are mild flavor-ers. Not so with maple sugar. It has a distinct flavor all its own, a never-to-be-forgotten flavor, one that gives character and individuality to culinary creation^ of the kitchen. It is, therefore, highly esteemed as a flavoring for cake fillings and icings, candies and special batters. Or is there anything that, beats maplenut ice cream for flavor!
Evils of Easter
Throughout Christendom Easter is a gala © cance to these faster eggs and rabbits T Be-festival, said to be the most important feast (T cause, in their phallic ’“mysteries” and sex-of the whole ecclesiastical1 calendar. Yet, how V worship the egg was a symbol of life and fer-many people know what it is all about? Ask (r tility. The rapidly multiplying rabbit was also the average celebratory and they will say it com- u a symbol of fertility and great reproduction, meliorates the resurrection of Jesus on the & Says the Catholic Encyclopedia, “The rabbit is third day after His crucifixion. If that is so, a pagan symbol and has always been an cm-then what do the colored eggs and the candy p blem of fertility,” The wearing of new clothes rabbits, the fancy baskets and springtime fash- K and colorful ensembles is a hand-me-down of ions, have to do with Jesus? How many even A the pagans who believed that wearing a new know where the name “Easter” comes from? A bonnet on Easter brought happiness in love.
*3? The dictionaries and the encyclopedias point £ *8? In view of these facts what could be more out that Easter was the life and spring goddess 1 reproaching, more dishonoring, or more blaa-of the devil-worshiping Druids of northern Eu- X phemous of Jesus and His beloved Father rope. Other authorities show that this goddess Y Jehovah God than to have this sexy pagan of the Druids was the same as Astarte or jJ holiday associated with the resurrection of Je-Ishtar, who was worshiped by the ancient Chai- f sus? Moreover, the Bible condemns in no undeans, Babylonians and Phoenicians. The name 5) certain terms this worship of Easter (Astarte), Easter (variously spelled ®ster, ® st ere, esterne, (r the “queen of heaven”, called in the Hebrew eesterne, costre and ostara in old manuscripts), 4} Scriptures, Ashtaroth, Ashtoreth, Ashteroth and its more ancient form Astarte, come from & and Astaroth. Christ and His disciples were the root AsAr-tarf meaning “the woman that & fully aware of how King Solomon fell into dis-made towers” This woman obviously was A favor with God because he served and wor-Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, who helped a shiped the goddess Easter. (1 Kings 11:5,31; him build the tower of Babel. After her death 1 2 Kings 23:13) They knew how Jehovah's she was deified as the “queen of heaven”, and f wrath was kindled against the nation of Israel for many centuries before the days of Jesus, ’j when Israel turned from pure worship and eele-all the primitive religions held a springtime (T brated the Easter festival. (Judges 2:11-14; festival in her honor. Then, when Constantine Y 10; 6; 1 Samuel 7: 3j4; 12; 10) They knew the Great, that “great” religio-political schemer, jr how God by the mouth of His prophet Jere-united apostate Christianity with paganism to S) miah condemned those that made cakes for the form a single, catholic (universal) state religion P “queen of heaven”. (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-27) in the fourth century A.D. such pagan festivals & Hence there is no record of the disciples of as Easter were made a part of the ecclesiastical Christ as ever celebrating Easter.
calendar. A Manifestly, Easter from its very origin and
The appendages attached to the festival as A by its very nature is of the Devil. It is not now celebrated are further proof of its rank A Christian, not even in name, and its annual paganism. If any will say that the multi- £ celebration by Christendom is nothing more colored eggs and rabbits are harmless, .mean- x than a scheme of the Devil to bring reproach ingless ornaments added to amuse children, then (f on God and Christ. Therefore true Christians, why is it. that all the ancient dem on-worshipers, 1 who know these facts, turn away in disgust the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, (r from such foolish paganism even if the ignorant Persians, Hindus, Chinese and Japanese—nene u and uninformed claim that such practice honors of which worshiped Jesus or His resurrection (? God and commemorates the resurrection of His —why did all such attach deep mystical signifi- © beloved Son.
ar
th d m
s
SYRIA
LIUNON
ARABIA
In one
cat we
ave
d
oil,
w
IRAN
IRAa
a
ai
le war
le Mid-
ne year in Kuwait (a sheikdom about
Middle East ever since Noa
OH rich
of Connecticut or Northern dozen wells are drilled, none ry, and twelve times as much
“Black Gold”
oil fl^wsjffrom then] as from all the 4,000 Arnen wells combined. American wells, including old stripper wells, have to be pumped, to average 11 barrels a
Oil has played a colorful[role ii/the day. Virtually all Middle East wells flow like living springs, and they average 5,000 barrels a day. Contrasted with
el of thfeni
pri
appe frownin
low man’
at battle
number 6ne fo they fea ization in ground ironically, t spot civil
earth where m
tion was born. It is the
known as "Middle hast”.
s you ponder the map of Middle East, do you won-
what there is about it to
ke it a global battleground! On^fie surface nothing exciting
. Merely 2,853,000 square miles of
lateaus and rain-
in all the sun-
rth touching off t it is what lies
less deserts. The threadbare region men first struggled over in eir long conquest for world domination, ges ago it was given up as having beeh exploited and d left practically worthless. No, on the surface there is nothin scorched Middle East a world conflagration, under the surface that counts.
The Middle East fairli floats on oi
ark “within and without with pitch”, and later when the mother of Moses took a little ark of t bulrushes "and daubed it with slime and with pitch” to hide her infant son among the flags along the brink of the Nile. Yet it was not until this thirty-fifth century after Moses that men awoke to the essentially economic value of oil* And now the oil-thirsty nations start rushing in their greedy haste to drink up the "black gold” underlining the Middle East.
Seventy percent of the world's oil and gas resources, so far known, or at least acknowledged, are grouped in four sections o< the planet. In order of their
estimated potential, the four sections are:
Soviet Russia, 150 to 200 billion barrels- Middle East, 155 billion barrels; United States, 75 billion
rrels; Cari
bbfin, 60 bi
bakrels. is
die —ry)* oar Americans drill'SXJOO wild-, four out of five never yielding costing $378,000 per 12,000-foot
to drill. The yield from the 4,000 Ils is scarcely enough oil to meet local man ds for two months. During the
SI
America’s 500,000 dribbling wells, there are not more than 300 wells in all the Middle East, but the 300 produced 1,250,000 barrels of oil last year, and under them is definitely outlined more oil than is known to lie under all America's half million wells.
And who was it that struck upon these riches of awesome proportions surpassing the legendary gold mines of Solomon! Not the native Iranians, Arabians, Egyptians, not any of these. It was Americans and British, mainly, who struck the "black gold” mines, and who hold most of the oil concessions. Their domestic and colonial sources drying up, their appetites for oil ballooning by the hour, plus a new Marshall Plan economy in western Europe demanding multiplied quantities of oil and themselves controlling the world oil markets, it is no small wonder that American and British interests quail and pant with fear of what might overtake their widening monopolies.
To gain the sympathies of the peoples the ofl cartels ally themselves with political and religious agitators to conjure, up a host of reasons why a showdown war with Soviet Russia might be worth the fighting. The purpose is to cover up the main issue, oil, under a camouflage of pseudo-patriotic and religious falderal.
Sham Issues
While fixing.the Middle East in front of the public eye as the hottest tinder box in the world, the war baiters rarely frame the word “oil” upon their lips. They bill the Middle East as a theater for a World War III premiere for all kinds of asinine reasons. There is the humanitarian angle. For America and her allies to combat Russia with ground troops through Europe or China or India would necessitate blowing too many millions of peoples into mincemeat The more humane road to globicide is through the sparsely populated Middle East.
A Britisher, venturing more “grownup” sentiments for “defending” the Middle East, reiterates that old stale one about the Middle East as being, to a Britisher’s way of thinking, the most important single link in the world’s waterways, namely Suez Canal. “Is the Soviet bear going to be let paw its way through some Mediterranean outlet and upset my Suez tollgate!” yowls the British lion. And “Besides the waterway”, chimes in the American eagle, “everybody in aviation knows that the Middle East is a world air crossroads. The safety of
America (that is, American aviation monopolies) depends upon America’s Xnaintaining supremacy of the world’s commercial airways/’ But Suez and airway monopolies are not likely to impel the common man to rise up in a crusade of atomic fury. So an ideological warfare is fomented between the “Christian” democracies and “Godless” Russia.
Leaving off the fabricated issues, including religious crusades, let us go on to more ominous sounds. Politically erupting out of the Middle East and scattering cinders of hate and confusion all over the world is the Palestine volcano. You hear Britain and America benignly suggest that the Arab League of Middle East nations admit the Jews. In the next breath Britain and America get “hot and bothered”, renounce the Jews, and make flustered moves to thwart the Jewish movement. Has it ever occurred to you that wheti Britain and America mention the Jews to the Arabs, the Arabs might bring up the subject of oil! The Middle East like a sun-blistered mat sprawls in front of the side door to Russia, with its oil controlled by far distant Britain and America. If the Arab should hint that he would as soon scrap those Anglo-American oil concessions and swing over into the Soviet orbit, that is all that is necessary.
The Bear Sniffs at the Lion's Share
With two bristling land arms extending around the Black sea and menacing from the north, the Sovief bear has its paws sunk into the soil of the upper border of the Middle East. Sniffing the rich stakes in front of its nose, the bear growls. The Soviet bear, as insatiable as its Anglo-American competitors, already has control of Rumania’s oil. It hordes vast reserves far back within its huge Siberian wildernesses, but lacks both the capital and machinery to develop its own resources. Why not grab its share of concessions and markets in the Middle East! Why not buy crudes from
Middle Blast fields! That brings up the 64-karat question, Who will sell to Russia! The British government would hardly be in favor of selling Russia Persian oil. Neither would Standard Oil of America and its affiliates care to lubricate the war machine of the arch foe of free enterprise.
Ninety percent of the Middle East oil is wealth, and the oil is the property of, not the 82 million natives of the land, but of hoggish imperialists most of whom operate from thousands of miles away. By far the greater bulk of Middle Bast oil concessions are held by the United States and Great Britain, with Britain wielding edge of control. The British government, itself controlling Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Ltd, (which owns principal oil concessions in western Iran), makes no bones about the fact that Middle East oil is the biggest single quick asset left to the British Empire. The Empire's loss of India, Burma, Ceylon, with other losses looming on the international horizon, as well as the loss of control over Egypt and Palestine, all this tends to raise the harried mane of the British Hon when its last remaining big-time spoil is threatened in the Middle East.
Where the Eagle Spreads Its Wings
While the" British lion holds domain over an area in the Middle East twice the size of the British Isles, there are still 293,000 square miles of rich oil concessions left over which the American eagle may spread its wings. Three American companies combined with Cai-Tex of Canada make up one of the mightiest cartels ever formed, the Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco). Its holdings include concession^ for all Saudi Arabia. Recently two of the four members of Aramco, Standard of Jersey and Soeony Vacuum, jockeyed for a 40-percent interest in Aramco for themselves.
In March, 1947, the same two companies arranged to plunk down $101,-APRIL 9, 1349
000,000 toward financing the TransArabian Pipeline Co. to build a pipeline that will stretch clear across Arabia. When that 1,000-mile pipeline is completed these twin giants of Aramco will control to a vast extent the marketing of Arabian oil. Tying in with the British cartel (Anglo-Iranian), Jersey and So-cony have made a similar arrangement to help construct a big pipeline from Iran and share in the marketing of Persian oil.
From this briefest of surveys the truth clearly stands out that while the British may own the lion's share of the fabulous Persian oil deposits, the Americans have no man's grace to ask when it comes to the equally fabulous Arabian oil, and between the two it is hard to distinguish where the lion's tail leaves off and the eagle's wings begin.
Third in rank with Britain and America is Dutch Shell, with the French hard on its heels. Both Dutch and French interests operate through British-controlled cartels. France possesses no other important oil source than this that she has latched onto in Iran. Her two North African colonies of Algeria and Morocco being Arab,' France keenly desires to get along peaceably with the Arab world and at the same time keep on siphoning the Middle East oil barret This dual design, incidentally, serves as a little golden key to understanding French policy toward the Jews,
The Market
Due to the oil's prolific abundance and the ridiculously cheap cost of labor, Middle East oil at the wells costs the producers from 10c to 25c a barrel. Transportation in company-owned tankers to as far away as New York could not add more than $1.25 a barrel at the most. Middle East oil can be sold at a fat profit in New York for $2,50 a barrel— the same barrel delivered from Texas costing $3,02. With their new pipelines completed, producers could lay down a
barrel of Persian Gulf oi. m New York harbor at a cost of $1,025 per barrel.
Already a howling and wailing is raised by American petroleum producers who see their sky-priced markets endangered by the importing of too much Middle East oil; already there is talk of reducing, American production from 5,350,000 barrels a day to 235,000 barrels a day, to keep the price up, There must never be any such thing as cheap oil, you know.
However, the logical market for Middle East oil is not America. If the world oil market can be shaped and protected and held secure the way American oil interests fain would have it, then the Caribbean oil would be diverted to American markets, while Middle East oil would flow to its logical markets in Europe, the North African coast, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Africa —in short, the Eastern Hemisphere, excluding the Soviet as much as possible. This market is at present consuming a billion barrels of oil a year, at which rate Middle East fields would supply the market for 150 years.
Marshall Plan funds opened the way for many European markets to buy unprecedented quantities of oil—the Middle East produced a record 1,250,000 barrels in 1948 to meet the demand. The outlines of an American model oil-economy is taking shape in western Europe, and the Soviet sees in this a formidable war machine. The point that stands out in the Anglo-American oil cartels is that those European customers are buying Middle East oil at prices held in line with U. S. prices. The point that stands out in the American taxpayer’s troubled eyes is that he is supplying Europe with Marshall Plan funds, and Europeans use the funds to pay fantastic prices to British and American oil monopolies for Middle East oil. It may be a long way around, but it is just one more oily way by which the taxpayer’s money winds up in the hands of some monopolists.
And yet if Middle East oil exploitation is left to Soviet Russia, where would the world wind up? Men’s hearts keep failing theip/every. which way they look, for fear of the things they see coming upon jthe earth.
American as well as British oil interests are just getting set to exploit Middle East oil in twentieth-century fashion, and with a dream-world of trilliondollar profits in View, the stakes, so far as they are concerned, are wortli anything it takes tp-hold them. Here are a few hints of what they expect to reap:
Middle East oil is transported to world markets by pipeline and tanker. There is a 14-inch desert pipeline from the Iraq fields to Beirut, and a 16-inch pipeline to Haifa. Both these lines are being doubled to carry 300,000 barrels a day. A mammoth 34-inch pipeline, to be completed by 1951, will add,535,000 barrels to the daily deluge. Besides this, the afore-mentioned trans-Arabian pipeline, scheduled for completion in 1950, will measure 30 and 31 inches and carry 330,000 barrels a day more than 1,000 miles to the Mediterranean near Haifa.
This is but the barest outline of the odds at stake in the Middle East, but these are factors that determine so much of the political maneuvering on the international clashboard of “cold war” diplomacy. All the political intrigue and “cold war” techniques that can be brought into play are now Working overtime to shape up the Middle East oil monopoly in favor of Anglo-American and allied interests. All the ingenuity and ruthless infiltration and encirclement tactics the Soviet can engineer are being applied to defeat the design. But looking at the setup realistically the U. S. News cf- World Report concludes that if war should come the chances of Anglo-American forces’ holding the Middle East intact against Russia would be about as nil as the chances Russia would have of .holding similar interests in Mexico.—Contributed,
to entice tourists to the southern lake regions, but now it has a dirty face like a naughty boy who has dipped too often in the jelly jar. After forty years of inactivity this postcard volcano has burst forth in a homicidal career and residents for miles around live in constant dread of sudden death.
Forty years ago an eruption destroyed the vegetation on the east side of the volcano in the direction of the Argentine border, but on the slopes toward Lake Villarrica generations of families have lived without fear of their lives. Year after year they have planted their small gardens, pastured their flocks and reaped their grain. Streams descending from the snow-topped volcano irrigated their sloping farms. With a mirror lake nestled by green wooded hills in front of them and a towering majestic volcano at their backs, what family could wish for more?
During the summer months of January and February Lake Villarrica with its sumptuous government-owned hotel at Pucon is the mecca for tourists from far and wide. Many Isaac Waltons come to enjoy the thrills of salmon Ashing or trout casting in the mountain streams that feed the lake. It is a tranquil spot free of the crude commercialism that too often mars the beauty of many a natural setting in the United States.
Throughout the rest of the year the
APRIL 1949
volcano with its perpetually white crown was a favorite spot for ski enthusiasts. A mountain lodge known as a refugia supplied all of the comforts of home to those who enjoy breath-taking swoops down snowy slopes. For others whose health is not so vigorous there are the near-by mineral baths of Paguin and Minetue. Many come here in pursuit of that illusive “fountain of youth’’ believed to be located in the warm radioactive waters that have their source in the volcano.
“Land of the Trembling Earth"
In the past Chile has attracted more attention with its earthquakes than with its volcanic eruptions. It has even been termed “the land of the trembling earth”, by Benjamin Subercaseaux in his book Chile, a Geographic Extravaganza, which has recently been translated from the Spanish into English. This author reveals that, unknown even to Chileans, “there are 140 volcanic mouths open from Guallatire in the north to Burney in the south.” However, not all of these are listed as volcanoes on the detailed maps of the country. Many of these are in the north of Chile, where the land is rich in minerals, but the most beautiful volcanoes are in the south.
It is the snow-covered beauty of the volcanoes south of Santiago that inspires painters and photographers to outdo themselves in transmitting the majestic whiteness to canvas or glossy paper. Tourists uh! and ah! at the sight of this lofty purity so high above them. Not for an instant do they think of the deathdealing power of this white beauty. In their superstitious awe the early Indian settlers of Chile spoke of el Volcan, The divinity that produces the miracles of the mysterious eruptions? One of the
volcanoes near Santiago is called SI Volcan in honor of this god of the Indians. Many others still have long Indian names that are difficult to pronounce.
One of the most unusual and mysterious volcanoes in Chile is that located under the bay of Taleahuano. Here occasionally the submarine volcanic action fills the water of the bay with sulphurous fumes and gases. This kills off all the fish in the harbor, and the obnoxious odor from the bodies of dead fish floating around the surface of the water permeates the atmosphere of a large area sometimes for weeks afterwards.
The volcano of Villarrica is not as high as many others to the north, but its location near the large lake of the same name has lured many visitors. Thirty years ago the lower slopes were covered with virgin forests, but men, in their greed for lumber and charcoal, have stripped the sides of the mountain of all its timber, leaving huge, ugly stumps to mar the appearance oi the green pastures. Now, in the recent disaster of Villarrica, they have witnessed one result of their wanton slaughter of the trees, whose deep roots held the mountain slopes in place.
Death Flows from the White Beauty
When the fall and winter rains of 1948 began to cloud over the atmdsphere in May and June, the internal activity of the volcano commenced to hum. Outwardly, on clear days, it continued to present a pure innocent face to the unsuspecting world. Because of the prolonged rainy season the increased activity of the volcano was carried on behind a frontage of enveloping dark clouds.
As the rain continued to fall in the valley, more and more snow piled up on the already snow-crusted volcano until it extended down the slope 300 meters, or approximately 1,000 feet. In the secrecy of the clouds the hot volcanic lava began to melt the deep cap of snow, building up a wall of water against the
lower crust of frozen snow near the timber line.
Of all this activity the 1,766 inhabitants in the near-by area were only dimly aware. On the night of October 17 they calmly went to bed to sleep until the following dawn. At 5 in the morning a young truck-driver left the town of Villarrica to drive along the lake to the distant logging camp for his load of lumber. It was a dark, dreary morning and the noise of the motor inside the cabin of the truck kept him preoccupied with his driving.
Suddenly he saw a wall of water, propelling huge boulders and tree stumps in. its swirling mass, sweep out the bridge just ahead of him. As a tongue of water headed for the truck, he urged it up an incline to higher ground. From there he watched in dazed horror as parts of houses, whole trees, bodies of animals and people rushed past him in the torrent of water. For two hours he watched the destruction around him. , Then when he tried to turn back to the town he found that the bridge behind him had also been wiped out by the avalanche of snow water,
Farther up the slope of the volcano two other young men were not as lucky. They were the caretakers of the ski lodge owned by the Club Andino of the province of CautiiK They were not unaware of their danger, like the sleeping families in the valleys below them. They were close to the scene of action and could plainly hear the volcanic disturbance, However, they had a duty to perform. They were paid to protect the ski club property. As the rumbling noise approached they fled to the cellar. There their bodies were found much later when rescuers dared to approach the spot where the lodge had been.
As is often the case the newspapers and news magazines greatly exaggerated the destruction resulting from the two-hour flood of snow water. It is believed that 52 persons perished in the sudden disaster, but only 18 bodies have been recovered. The others completely disappeared without leaving a trace. In many cases their small farms disappeared with them. Now only bits of driftwood on the shore of the lake are proof that there was a previous existence.
…