Awake!, May 22, 1949
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RELIGION’S LAST STAND
Digging out the facts of the Mindszenty case that were buried under a landslide of propaganda
Race Riot Explodes in South Africa
The toll of some 300 dead and 2,000 wounded proves that the black man as well as the white harbors racial hate
Among the Clouds
Beautiful, yes; but do you know whence they come? where they go? why different colors? of what they are made?
Life-giving Atonement for Mankind
MMk Eternal life for the obedient
MAY 22, 1949 semimonthly
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C O N T
Religion’s Last Stand
Treason and Espionage
Religion on Trial?
Tamed by Torture and Drugs?
The Storm That Destroys Religion
Cardinal Mindseenty, the Nazis and Jews 12
Jehovah's witnesses Executed by
Greek Government
Race Riot Explodes in South Africa
Steel Glutton
Mechanical Dwarf
Modem Art Modem?
ENTS
Prolonged Bath
Tight Squeeze
Today’s Cities Tomorrow's Ghost Towns! 17
“Red Tide’’ Strikes Florida Coast
The Migrating Monarchs
Among the Clouds
The Cargo of These “Airships”
Freedom of Conscience in the Philippines 24 “Thy Word Is Truth’*
Life ^giving Atonement for Mankind
Cloudburst Devastates Minas Geraes
Watching the World
/AWAKE!/
it is high time to awake.—Ramans 13:1193
Volume XXX
Brooklyn, N. Y„ May 22, IMO
Number 10
RELIGION’S LAST STAND
The black eta rm cloud* gather In the East. Each p*«*lng day aece their foreboding m***«* pile higher, and heavily *ag tower over mankind. Only a matter of time till bt>lt> of lightning •tab out from their depth* and rip open the hole* from which will deluge down a, starm of deatructlon. Christendom'* religion* should fear Ft moat. They must coon their last •tend. Even now religion face* a oriole in the form of a Communiat flood from the E**t. Will religion ourvlve It? Will ahe be able to whip her patron nation* into the frenzy of * third world war to protect her? She did raice a gigantic wav* of hysteria qyer the cate of Cardinal Mlndazenty of Hungary. The few facte reported were buried beneath a landallde of propaganda. Now, after a cool Ing-off period, and the eubaldenee of the hysteria wave and the revival of th* rea*onlng power* temporarily drowned thereby, it lc timely to dig up the facte and mb how they fit Into the picture of Ip* gathering atorm, of religion'* laat stand.
WORLD WAR I was fought to make the world safe for democracy. It did not World War II was fought to make the world safe from dictators, It did not. A World War III is now widely discussed as the only means to make the world safe for religion. The explosives are gathered, the fuse is in place, the match is poised. It needs only to be struck to make the flame to light the fuse to set off the destructive fireworks. The agitation of the Mindszenty ease almost provided enough friction to ignite World War III.
On December 29,1948, the government of Hungary announced that Cardinal Mindszenty had been arrested on charges of treason, espionage, crimes directed at the overthrow of the government and selling dollars and dollar checks on the black market. As accomplices, twelve others were arrestea; eight of them priests. Only a short time before Mind-szenty's secretary, priest Zakar, had been taken into custody. The pope was "profoundly grieved and shocked”, and all Hungarian Catholics connected with the arrest were excommunicated. From the time of the arrest of Mindszenty until a few days after his sentencing to life imprisonment, a landslide of Catholic propaganda overwhelmed and buried the facts. Unearthing these facts and separating them from the endless columns of senseless hysteria in which they were entombed in the public press gives a sobering picture.
The charges were based primarily on documents discovered by police on December 23, and which were found in a metal cylinder buried in the cellar of Cardinal Mindszenty s palace. Trial began February 3,1949. Seven of the fourteen were defendants at this trial, five of them priests, and one of them was Cardinal Mindszenty. Of the accused only Zakar had counsel appointed for him; the other six, including Mindszenty, chose their oWn attorneys. The cardinal said that at no time was he hindered in making his defense, that he had access to his lawyer at all times. The defendant has the last word at the; trial, and his final appeal is without time limit. The forty-one foreign correspondents present were of many nationalities. The United Press was represented by an American. Also represented were Associated Press, International News- Service, Reuters, and many of the larger newspapers in the West. One large British paper said the disturbing factor was "not lack of news, hut the news itself". No “iron curtain"’ sealed off the Budapest courtroom from the worlds and the correspondents covering the trial issued the following statement, signed by all but the New York Times reporter, who was admitted to the triablate, and the United Press representative, who admitted his dispatches were uncensored but that it was contrary to United Press practice to sign. The statement follows, in part:
We categorically wish to deny: (1) That censorship of any kind is being exercised upon our 4elephonic and telegraphic dispatches. (2) That the translation of the trial from Hungarian to our various languages is inaccurate ; the fact is that the majority of correspondents either speak Hungarian themselves or are accompanied by their personal interpreters, and there have been no complaints or indications that the official interpreters who are provided in,addition are guilty of any kind of sly distortion, (3) That the only correspondents granted visas or admitted to the courtroom are Communist or Communist sympathizers.
Black-Marketeering in Money
What evidence was produced at the trial to support the charges? First, foreign exchange speculation. Of a total of $141,000 and 15,000 Swiss francs, Mind-szenty declared on $4,800. At the trial he admitted knowing that foreign currency was to be declared and surrendered to the National Bank at the set exchange rate, and admitted that these laws were designed to serve the national economy and fight inflation. Nonetheless, he confessed that he failed to declare foreign money and sold it on the black market at several times the set rate of exchange. Dr. Eszterhazy, a co-defend-ant, said he bought dollar checks from Mindszenty, two of them signed by Cardinal Spellman of New York, at rates even above black market prices. Mind-szenty said he instructed that these sales of money be made and knew they were made on the black market, said he was guilty and offered to make restitution.
The more serious charge, Treason! It was never a secret that the cardinal opposed the government. He vigorously fought land reform. The Catholic Church was one of the country's largest landowners. When their large estates were broken up into small plots for peasants, they protested. The church begrudged the five holds1 given the peasant, yet complained that the one hundred holds allotted each bishop was not enough for a1 livelihood! The cardinal influenced elections, sought to infiltrate Rdyalists (those favoring return of Hapsburg rule) into key positions in political parties. But it was none of these political activities that brought forth the charge of treason.
Mindszenty and the Hungarian bishops opposed nationalization of schools, and issued pastorals condemning it. The cardinal threatened excommunication of every Catholic who aided the scheme. But the state was merely establishing a public school system, one far more religious than in the United States. The procedure was to put the religious schools (which were state-supported anyway) under government control. The teachers, priest or nun or otherwise, became state officials. The school buildings, equipment and property became the state's. The various religions retained the right tp give religious instruction in the schools takep over by the state, and such religious teachers were paid by the state. That is far more than the United States allows, which recently ruled, in
New Mexico, that priests and nuns may not teach in the public schools. In Hungary there is no state interference with theological seminaries or other church schools devoted to training church workers. Hence Hungary allows more church participation in her public schools than does the United States. But, again, it was not Mindszenty’s opposition to nationalization of schools that called forth the treason charge.
Treason and Espionage
Following is the basis for the treason charge. When co-defendant Dr. Jusztin Baranyai was on the stand he told of a plan conceived in 1947 for replacing the present Hungarian government. It was based on several suppositions. First, a third world war. Second, Western powers victorious. Third, Americans enter Hungary as military occupation authorities. Then the political vacuum must be filled. Baranyai had worked out a plan, submitted it to Mindszenty, who studied and approved it and filed it in the metal cylinder buried in the cellar of his palace. It was a vital foundation stone for the treason charge against the cardinal, and in court Mindszenty read the plan, as follows:
If the great vacuum juris occurs, the very first, the most important, and the most difficult question will be to found a regime based on a moral foundation. It would be a political impossibility to base it directly on the defeated revolution [elsewhere translated bolshevism J. To restore the Horthy regime would create new and unpredictable complications. There is only one possibility of quiet evolution, The prince primate [Mindszenty] of the country, with the high rank of prince primate, is the only one in this land sanctified by the traditions of centuries, of nearly a thousand years. According to the ancestral laws of our nation, in the absence of the king ruling power is deposited in the prince primate. His authority has never been doubted by public opinion in the country. In times of difficulty or catastrophe, the nation has always expected him to take the initiative. Today the extreme* ly fortunate situation exists that the present bearer of this rank, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, has raised in the last two years, in these particularly sad years of our national life, the prestige of the prince primate to extraordinary heights. For the first time, perhaps, in the recent history of the country, it has occurred that Protestants, Calvinists, and Lutherans, standing on a nationalist platform, also see him as the only true, predestined leader of the nation. Today the national aspirations of the whole nation are anchored in him. In politics too, only his words are heeded. Like the metropolitan of Athens, he seems to be the only competent authority, and in the same way here, at the beginning of American occupation, it would be his duty to appoint the new government.
Attached was a list of names of men to be appointed prime minister and ministers of justice, commerce, industry, agriculture, public supplies, public education, public health, finance and foreign affairs! On the witness stand Baranyai confessed that this entire plan was to be presented to the American Legation! Why! So that the American occupation authorities would appoint Mindszenty to form this government to fill the vacuum left by the overthrow of the Hungarian Republic! In the United States several Communists are noifr on trial charged with treason, with intent to overthrow the American government. Need we ask what the verdict would be should they be found with a detailed plan calling for a third world war, a Russian victory, Soviet occupation troops in the United States, a provisional head of governmen chosen, with a list of men to be appointed president and cabinet members!
Bid for American Aid
Mindszenty admitted that war was the starting point of the plan, and that scores of his- petitions aimed at worsening the international situation. He could hardly claim to be acting within legitimate political spheres in Hungary. In his confession and tt the trial it was shown that Mindszenty urged foreign intervention in Hungary's domestic affairs, and copies of such letters with replies were found in Mindszenty"s cellar. The foreign news correspondents saw these in Mindszenty’s handwriting, and the replies from the American Legation in Budapest. As an illustration, on December 16, 1946, the cardinal wrote to the American Legation: “I request the help of America, which is fighting for freedom and justice, to put an end to the tremendous pressure and rotting so that the unfortunate Hungarian people can be preserved for Western civilization. A solution is possible with outside help. I could point out the ways and means of this.”
When Schoenfeld was later replaced by Selden Chapin, according to the testimony of both Mindszenty and his secretary Zakar, a few meetings were held between Chapin and the cardinal, but the principal contact was effected through Zakar and the U. S. Legation secretary, Koczak. Zakar testified that Koczak often came late at night, and concerning the material given to the U. S. Legation Mindszenty said in his confession: “It was through the clergy that I obtained from the various parts of the country the political, economic and industrial data which I authorized my secretary to regularly give the Americans.” His confession also stated: "I wished to accomplish a change of regime, with American help. For this reason I kept up regular connections with the Budapest Legation of the Western powers.”
Why Seek the Hungarian Crown?
The Hungarian crown, now in possession of the United States army at Wiesbaden, Germany, was a center of controversy. Concerning disposition of this crown Mindszenty wrote to U. S? minister Chapin on August 31, 1947, as follows : “My request to you is to obtain an order from your government, effecting the transportation of the crown by the army and its transfer to the same apostolic power, his holiness the pope,, whose predecessor presented St Stephan with the holy crown in the year 1000. Since this cause is a very important one for our nation, and since demands for its return and military advances might be fatal for the crown, only Rome could reassure us.” Also Cardinal Spellman wrote to the United States secretary of war to prevent the return of the crown to Hungary. Why did Mindszenty want the crown? His confession answers:
For the coronation of Otto [Hapsburg] I wanted,to secure the Hungarian holy crown by all means. I, therefore, did everything possible to prevent the holy crown being surrendered by the American army authorities to the present Hungarian government. . . . I refer to military advances [in his letter to Chapin] because I expected the outbreak of the third world war.
Both Mindszenty and his secretary Zakar told of a secret meeting between the cardinal and Archduke Otto in a nunnery near Chicago when Mindszenty was in the United States in July, 1947, The Royalist cause was discussed, and at a subsequent meeting with Cardinal Spellman in New York city Zakar said Spellman spoke of a^post-World War III Catholic European bloc of nations under American auspices and that Hungarian Royalists- should hold themselves in readiness for any opportunity to take power. Also, Mindszenty left with Spellman a letter commissioning Otto to represent Hungarian Catholics abroad.
After Mindszenty’s return the meetings with Chapin occurred, and in November, 1948, Mindszenty testified that Chapin commented on the strong campaign against the cardinal in the pres^ and other ways, and proposed that he go abroad, and offered to help in this. Mindszenty chose to stay in Hungary. But on January 23, 1949, just a few days before trial and while in custody the cardinal attempted to smuggle a letter out to Chapin, stating that he feared a death sentence and asked for an escape car and plane and requested the American minister to “promise the pilot $4,000 in the interest of the cause”.
Just a question here for sober reflection : If a high churchman in the United States secretly passed damaging information to the Soviet Legation as Mindszenty did to the American one, would the United States prosecute! It is prosecuting Judith Copion right now, on much leas evidence; also the Russian involved.
Confession, Verdict, Propaganda
Failing to flee the country, Mindszenty tried to avoid trial. Just before the trial he wrote to the minister of justice, admitting that he had been the cause of much friction between church and state and that agreement was necessary for the good of both and that without it the country was threatened with discord and decay. He also said:
Before the trial, which is 'soon to open, I voluntarily admit that I have committed the acts I am charged with according to the penal code of the state. - . . After this admission and declaration, the trial regarding my person docs not»seem to .be absolutely necessary. Therefore, not because of my person, but considering my position, I ask that my case be exempted from the trial on February 3.
But the cardinal's attempt to trade on his high church position did not work, his endeavor to leave his co-defendants stand alone in public trial failed. The weighty proofs of guilt, many of them in his own handwriting, crushed him. In the face of such evidence, who could keep up a pretense of innocence! Who would not wilt when confronted with it! So Mindszenty confessed: ‘T am guilty in principle and detail of most of the accusations made,” A few days after the trial close’d the sentence was announced: Mindszenty guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; his six co-defendants, four of them .priests, draw sentences ranging from three years' imprisonment to life. All appealed except priest Zakar.
The Western world rose to the cardinal's defense with a mighty wave of emotional denunciations of his arrest and trial and sentence. But, now that the storm has calmed, the evidence stands unshaken; the hysterical flood of name-calling was as weak as the cardinal's couyt defense. The trial was condemned by nations, state legislatures, high officials, religious dignitaries, fawning politicians, toadying newspapers and hundreds of other pipsqueaks anxious to jump- through the Hierarchy's hoop. Even the United Nations was forced to knuckle under as a stooge to Catholic propagandists, voting 30-7 to review the case, though it means meddling in the internal affairs of a nation not even a U. N, member. The fact that twenty nations abstained from voting on the question showed its reluctance to deteriorate into a sounding board for squabbling religious ax-grinders.
Worn threadbare to describe the trial were such flashy phrases as travesty of justice, rape of justice, outrage to freedom, insult to the human conscience, infamous, kangaroo court, mimicry of justice, super crime against freedom, sinister comedy, mockery and sham, sickening sham, crass railroading, foul false trial, rigged and fixed, terrible outrage, parody of justice, crucified justice, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. If the trial were so flagrant one would think a wealth of refutation could be leveled against it; but no, none appeared. Just the trite expressions, dutifully repeated.
Religion on Tried?
Seeking to shift attention from Mind-szent/s political intrigues, Catholic clerics in particular ballyhooed the trial as against religion, all religion. Proof? No, no patience for such trivial things; something more inflammatory than that; and if any object, slap a label of “Communist” on them! So the sweeping charges flooded forth unchecked: ‘Russia has declared war on the Christian world!
This fight is not between Catholicism and Communism but between every type of Christianity and Godless Communism! Between Christ and anti-Christ! A challenge to all Christianity! The trial of Mindszenty compares with the trial of Christ, and Budapest is the twentiethcentury Jerusalem! The infamous trial will live in history as does the black record of Pontius Piiate!’ Here, again, so much whipped-up froth without body or support fails to fill or satisfy sober minds. Any facts to case it upon?
Gleaned from the public press reports are certain facts that carry weight when grouped in a body. Not a word in the indictment or evidence at the trial was based on Mindszenty religious activities, upon his provocative, sermons or pastorals. The Bench of Bishops of the Catholic Church in Hungary said: “Leave the case of Mindszenty to the wise discretion of the government” Groups of priests and laymen had demanded the cardinal's resignation because he blocked peace between church and state. One priest spoke of his arrest as the result of Mindszenty’s “political blunders, for which the church generally should not be held accountable”. In Borne Jesuit circles stated that it was well known that the Hungarian hierarchy was divided, Mindszenty’s followers refusing to negotiate with the state and another group headed by Archbishop Eger wanting an agreement with the government.
Certainly the Hungarian government provides more for religion than most of the big Western powers. In her public schools the clergy teach, regular classes in religion are held, and attendance at these religious classes is obligatory! If child does not attend for this religious indoctrination it does not advance to higher classes. Catholic bishops and priests are paid high salaries by the state, and Cardinal Mindszenty’s salary from the state was three times as much as that drawn by the nation’s prime minister! Would the United States thus support religion ? The very Constitution forbids it! Different Protestant bodies have announced that in Hungary they enjoy religious freedom, and urged Protestants in Western lands not to conclude from the Mindszenty trial that Christianity was endangered.
. Many labor under a delusion that religious robes grant immunity to the wearer. Priestly garb is no license for iniquity. God does not count a priest immune, for when Eli’s sons, priests in Israel, did evil He pronounced adverse judgment against them and caused them to be slain. (1 Samuel 3:10-14; 4:11) Christ Jesus denounced 'wolves in sheep’s clothing’ and called priests hypocrites, vipers and sons of Satan. (Matthew 7:15;23: 27, 33; John 8: 44) Crime may not be committed behind a religious cloak; in fact, it is worse for a Christian to stoop to crime and thereby bring reproach to Gbd. The Hungarian government made it plain that they were not trying Mindsaenty as a cardinal but as a criminal. Deputy premier Rakosi explained: “We must tame fascists who appear in priest’s clothing.”
Tamed.by Torture and Drugs?
The cardinal did not pan out to be the martyr the Catholic Church wanted. The Vatican was informed of the indictment against Mindszenty before he was arrested and given the opportunity to withdraw him; but the Vatican would not do so. It wanted a hero. But the hero did not fill a star’s role, so as an “out” the drug-and-tor,thre tale was circulated. Even the pope supported it by saying that the constant fight of atheism against the church “now commands the most insidious devices of advanced modern technique”. Other Catholic dignitaries caught up the cry, and the press dutifully relayed their hysterical screams to the public’s ears.
Perhaps the noisiest outcry came from Cardinal Spellman, and it is possible that his involvement in the case may nave lent power to his lungs. Bight after the trial he said of Mindszenty, "Torturings and drugging put him beyond the reach or realm of human help/* and shortly after referred to newspaper photos of the accused and cried out, "Can you fail to s$e here a man tortured and drugged?” Publishers can obligingly make photos show a man at his best, or his worst when desired. Moreover, has not everyone seen overseas photos in newspapers that are highly unflattering? Why, the guards in the photo looked more "dopey” than Mindszenty! But that was the extent of Spellman’s proof.
But alas! he got entangled in his affected rhetoric and flair for melodrama and contradicted himself. After emoting that an innocent man had been tortured and drugged to break his will so as to squeeze out a confession of guilt, he pulled an aboutface and gloried in Slindszenty*s guilt and crowded himself in for a share: "If this be treason to deny allegiance to an atheistic Communist government, then thank God Cardinal Mindszenty confessed to treason, as would I, if this free land of America were ever conquered by demoniac people using every foul means to overthrow our republic!” But Spellman need not feel bad. Several other Catholic sources did exactly the same thing. Even the Vatican referred to torture and drugging as methods to get the confession, then later commented on the guilty plea: "He chose the way of justice and honor. He admitted what was true and denied what was false.”
Actually, Mindszenty did confess guilt "in principle and detail of most of the accusations”, but he also denied guilt on some points and bluntly refused to answer certain; questions at the trial. That does not harmonize with the drug story. In court he could have told his story into the ears of the world, what with the forty-one foreign correspondents and their interpreters present. Instead, he admitted guilt and even retracted a letter written some time earlier that claimed any confession he would make would come from torture. He said he was not forced to confess, and that when he wrbte that letter ‘he did not see many things which he sees today*. Doubtless he did not then foresee Jhis hidden documents in the hands of the police. As for his appearance, the reporters said he was ruddy, vigorous, calm, had lost no weight and did not give the appearance of a tortured or drugged man.
Scientists label the drug tale nonsense. Science News Letter of March 5, under the title "Scientists Are Skeptical on Drugging of Mindszenty”, states that no known drug would make a man recant previous statements. Actedron, supposedly the drug used, is known in this country as benzedrine and is used in pep pills. Students sometimes use it to keep them awake for long hours of study. Albert Deutsch, in the New York Post, declared the drug story "one of the most preposterous drug hoaxes perpetrated on a gullible public in recent years”. Psychiatrists claimed that under drugs a man would speak what was on his mind and heart, as in the case of the truth serum. One devoted to Bible study might recite scriptures; one fired with hatred of Communism might rant against it, and so on.
Protestant Reaction
Though little space was given to it in the press, objection to the senseless hysteria whipped up over the Mindszenty case came from many Protestant ministers, churches and papers. Doubtless much more protest would have been made had the Protestants not feared being classed as Communists, a tactic that Bishop Oxnam referred to as "Ivnching by label”. Many lamented that the case had been used politically to fire the cold war, and some reminded that the "two great threats to world peace today are the Communist internationale and the Romanist internation ale”, and called to mind the Vatican's notonoua support of such Catholic dictators as Hitler, Mussolini and Franco as well as Hirohito.
And if the Catholic Church and the public press are sincerely interested in religious freedom, why no protest at the arrest of Lutheran bishop Ordass in Hungary last September 1 Why no outcry when fifteen Protestant clergymen were indicted in Bulgaria and four given life imprisonment, but instead Roman Catholic bishops there signed a statement denouncing the Protestants! Why does Vatican-dominated Franco forbid Protestants to build churches in Spain, enlarge present ones, advertise services, issue literature, or place signs or lights outside their places of worship to identify them! Why does Pope Pius XII condemn a government that makes a church remain “within the four walls of the temple, forgetting the divine mandate received from Christ: Go ye into the crossroads and teach the people”, then) restrict Protestants in Spain and other Catholic-dominated lands to the four walls of. little unidentified meetingplaces f Why no protests against priests that organize and lead mobs against other religious groups in Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other predominantly Catholic countries? Why no protest when the United States' satellite, Greece, executes Jehovah's witnesses because they have religious scruples against killing human creatures!
One answer covers all the questions: the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the public press under its control are not sincerely concerned about freedom for all, but only about freedom for Catholicism. Surely the Mindszenty case forcefully demonstrated one thing, namely, the press is the Hierarchy's obsequious tool. It is a willing channel for papal propaganda, a medium for its maudlin and sentimental drivel. For instance, when Mindszenty was arrested the pope turned pale, when he was brought to trial the pope turned pale, when he was sentenced the pope turned pale. And frequently it was reported how this papal paleface was in tears, grieved, shocked and shaken; but in his speech on February 21 he inconsistently and blasphemously said: “The pope, by divine premise, is, even in his human weakness, invincible and unshakable.”
The Hierarchy plays on sympathy. Remember when Archbishop Stepinac was jailed in Czechoslovakia? Soon afterwards reports circulated that he was being tortured and slowly starved. But when Protestant clergymen visited him to check the reports they found him well treated and in good health. Now, on March 17, reports gushed through that Mindszenty’s condition had “worsened suddenly”, that he was transferred from his cell to a hospital, and one rumor even had him dying. And movie-goers may brace themselves for a stiff dose of nauseating propaganda, for Warner Brothers of Hollywood has announced it will film a story of the Mindszenty trial.
The Storm That Destroys Kellyton
Religion is frightened. Not the “pure religion” mentioned at James 1: 27, b\jt the big orthodox religions of Christendom that have actually drifted far from true worship. They have become interested in money, esteem of creatures, and political power. They have backslid from Bible teachings, strayed from the footsteps Jesus left for them to follow. Becoming worldly and materially minded, they are spiritually undernourished. Replacing the Bible with pagan teaching, traditions of men, social theorizings, scientific skepticisms and political meddlings, they have weakened the people's faith in the Bible. They, yes, organized religions, have actually paved the way for the onsurging Red tide of Communism by destroying faith in God and the Bible by their hypocrisies. That is why Communism has either gained control or become powerful in such Catholic countries as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, yes, and even at the Vatican’s very doorstep, Italy.
So impure religion is frightened. They see the r$d and glowering clouds of Communism rolling in from the East. Frantically they strive to unite their religious forces for a last stand, yet continue to be a house divided destined to fall. Not only divided itself, religion divides forces within nations, religion divides one nation from another, religion divides the world. Has she not widened the breach between East and West through her hysterical agitation of the Mindszenty case, all over a political cardinal caught red-handed at his crimes? Religion seeks a “sword of the church” to pierce to death the communist threat to her existence. She foments a crusade. But it is her own failures that have spelled atheism’s successes.
Now she is terrified by the storm clouds in the East. Well she might be. She is so vulnerable. Specially vulnerable to "the sword of the spirit”, the Bible. Even the communists use it against her. A recent press report from Rome tells of Hungarian Communists reading scriptures on street corners, embarrassing scriptures such as Jesus’ denunciations of hypocrites that say one thing and do another, appear beautiful outwardly but are filthy within, love money, mix in with the world and its dirty politics. Then the Communists turn to the crowds and ask, Who fit these descriptions today? do not the religious priests commit these wrongs? The Communists may be the ones reading the texts, but it is the texts themselves that put it into the minds of the people to abandon religion as a hypocritical fake. Revelation 17:16,17 shows that God foretold that the rulers of the world would turn on religion, which has disobeyed God and become a spiritual harlot by having illicit relations with the nations. (James 4:4) Well, is it not God through His Word that wises up the peoples as to religion’s hypocrisy, re-
MJ.Y 1S43
gardless of who it is that reads the Spripture texts?
Jehovah’s witnesses declare the Bible truths concerning false religion, and this exposure is likened to a storm of hail and rain that sweeps away religion’s refuge of lies and overflows her hiding place. (Isaiah 28:17-20) Because Jehovah’s witnesses expose orthodox religion they are misrepresented as Communists by irate religionists. But Jehovah’s witnesses are not atheists, not supporters of earthly governments, not working for Communism, but are announcing Jehovah’s kingdom through Christ. It is God’s Word that condemns hypocritical religion, and God that puts it into the rulers’ minds to cast it off, not Jehovah’s witnesses. In the Soviet, according to the 1949 Yearbook of Jehovah's witnesses, nearly 2,000 of the Witnesses are in Siberian wqrk camps. Many others have been killed in Russia, and their preaching is not allowed openly, nor their meetings, nor literature, nor lawyers for their defense in court. And when they are imprisoned or murdered they do not rush to the public press with cowardly sob stories to get world sympathy or agitate a crusade. For God’s and Christ’s name’s sake they suffer and die and count it a privilege, and God and Christ will be their salvation, not any worldly nations! Vengeance is His! He will repay harsh totalitarians at Armageddon!
Armageddon. That is the storm that will fell religion in her last stand. And not just religion, but all the nations of this wrnrld that are under Satan thegod of this world. (2 Corinthians 4:4) That includes Russia, and her red religion of Communism. (Daniel 2:44) Jehovah God speaks of Armageddon as a storm, and of Christ, the Leader of His angelic hosts at that time, as a king coming out of the east. That storm out of the east is the one that religion and all the world should, consider. The signs of its approach are all about us. (Matthew 24) When it strikes, religion will fall. Why?
Jesus answers: “Every one that hearettt these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shafi be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat noon that house; and it fell.” (Matthew 7:24-27) Religions, of this world are founded on nearly everything biit-Jhe Bible's sayings, and her divided house will fall. She has sown the tfind. At Armageddon she will reap the whirlwind.—Hos^a 8:7*
(Cardinal MinJszenty, the Nazis and Jews
Catholic propaganda has painted Mindszenty as a hero in the resistance to Nazi occupation and as a friend of the Jews. During 1942 Mindszenty wrote: “Italy, as a great power, happily united in language, race and religion, has taken over, on the side of the Vatican, the historic role of France and the Hapsburg empire.
Mussolini is responsible for Italy’s present greatness.” Again in that year: “Dazzling vista*
open up before heroic sacrifice. The Japanese living Stukas, living torpedoes, and living bombs show that the heroic soldiers are ready to sacrifice their lives, to go together with the tools of destruction towards their destination.” True, he was arrested and jailed by the Nazi regime two years later, but apparently not for political reasons. A Nazi lawyer, in his capacity as county prefect, wanted to requisition a part of Mihdszenty’s palace and take over some 1,500 men’s shirts and drawers stored there. Mindszenty resisted, and was arrested on charges of hoarding clothes and refusing use of his palace. The cardinal admitted this to be the case.
As to Mindszenty and the Jews, the cardinal’s statement written in his own hand reads;
“On April 19, 1938, Viktor Toth, who was a great sympathizer of the fascists, and I, convoked a conference of priests in Budapest, , -. . The conference committed itself to follow a National Social line. We decided that we thought the Jewish problem ought to be solved by the way of racial laws in the same way as the fascists wanted it.” As early as 1919 Mindszenty wrote in a newspaper article: “The press, until now, has been the vanguard of Jewry striving for world domination, crashing through every obstruction, tn the future, the press will be ours, Christian Hungarians. The Jewish press destroyed Hungary, the Christian press will resurrect it.” His anti-Semitism is as strong today. His planned rule following a third world war did not overlook, the Jews, and the minutes of the episcopal conference on May 24,1945, are enlightening: “It is our good fortune that the great reservoir of Galician and Bukovinian Jews the millions of the Jewish masses in the ghetto, have as a result of the German war of destruction been reduced to some 500,900.”
Jehovah's witnesses Executed by Greek Government
Scant notice was given by a few papers in pie United States when in February the Greek government executed John Tsoukaris, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, be-cause he refused military service as a conscientious objector. No notice appeared in the public press when another one of Jehovah’s witnesses, George Orphanidis, was executed for similiar reasons on March 2. Also awaiting execution (at the time of this writing) of the death sentences passed against them for the same reason are six others of Jehovah’s witnesses, namely, Canellos Calliontzidis, Prokopios Delis, A than assios Nizamis, Efthymios Vassilopulos, Telemachoa Markinos and Artemios Liannacopulos. Four others halve been sentenced to life imprisonment. In the case of recently executed George Orphani-dis, he was not immediately committed for trial, but military authorities cruelly beat him daily till he bled, to force him to renounce his position as one of Jehovah’s witnesses. He stood firm unto death before & government firing squad. But no publicity for such horrible deeds. It seems one must have a cardinal’s robCs and confess to treason, spying and blackmarket money profiteering to rouse the righteous wrath of the Western democracies.
RACE RIOT EXPLODES
SOUTH AFRICA
wh ma
eir ton
\an lip-g\p<*i-ivexle-
surge- at* /nati< traltem \ te racSs^or the ^orla. M de3‘and/some h awe achieved inde-pendenee and theoretical equality with the white man in the councils of the nations. One consequence has been to focus increasing world attention on racial relationships in the multi-racial country of the Union of South Africa. The world looked critically at the gulf that divides the white man from his non-white fellows and was apt to overlook the chasms of racial prejudice which still divide the non-whites from each other.
South Africa population of about ten million is divided broadly into four racial groups: two million whites, seven million African Natives (Bantu), three-quarter million Coloureds (of mixed blood), and a quarter million Indians. The white man rules, and the eight million non-whites have little voice in the country’s government. Observers have predicted a coalition of the non-whites which will bring disaster to the white man. In recent years and months this non-white coalition seemed to draw near as non-white leaders voiced increasingly the community of interests of aU nonwhites in South Africa.
The drawing together of Indian and African leaders was particularly noticeable. Observers throughout the world were therefore startled when, on January 13, Africans turned on Indians in a sudden explosion of bitter anger, and battered, beat and burnt brown men, women and children, savagely and exult-ingly, in the worst racial Tints in united South Africa’s brief history-
"The Battle of Durban”
The green subtropical province of Natal is the home of nearly all South Africa’s 250,000 Indians, and of this number nearly half live in and around Durban, NataFs chief town and South Africa^ busiest seaport. In Durban the Indian, in a minority elsewhere in South Africa, is numerically equal to the white inhabitants and slightly outnumbers the Africans. And in Durban, as in the rest of Natal, the trading classes among the Indians have flourished. A primary source of Indian wealth is the Native trade.
Natal is also the home of the Zulus, the proudest and most warlike of all African Native tribes. Most of Durban’s Native population belong to this tribe which once exercised despotic sway over all Natal and beyond. In Durban, wa the evening of January 13 last, an Indian assaulted and injured a Zulu umfaan (youth). An angry crowd of Natives gathered round as ambulance men attended to the boy’s hurts. Someone pelted a passing Indian with stones, and then, when the false rumor was circulated that the umfaan had died, primitive passions broke loose, wreaking savage vengeance.
Three days and nights of terror and tragedy for Durban’s Indians followed. Word was passed from lip to lip proclaiming war, and Durban’s Africans rose in their thousands, thirsting for the blood of the brown men from Asia. First to feel the impact was the non-European business area, predominantly Indian-owned. Bands of Native^, Shouting war cries and brandishing heavy sticks, ran through the streets, smashing plate-glass windows, wrecking premises, looting, burning, beating. The Indians, for the most part, shivered in their locked dwellings behind the shops and left the Natives to work their will. Durban’s police force strove to gam wuvrwi uut their numbers were totally inadequate.
The attacking Africans fanned out to the suburbs, to the outer limits of the city where most of Durban’s Indians live, among rolling hills and bush-clad valleys. In some eases the Zulus moved into action after the manner of their ancestors, in impi formation and chanting in the old Zulu tradition. Their weapons, however, were not the assagai and oxhide shield of old, ’ but vicious caneknives and bush-knives, iron bars and spikes, axes, heavy sticks and stones. The blood-lust was strong upon them, The impis would sweep down upon Indian dwellings, hacking and newing frightfully, and when the last inhabitant lay dying, dead or unconscious, or had hurriedly fled, the night sky would reflect another fire. In some cases the Natives locked Indian families in their houses and burned them alive. They did not spare age or tender years. Old men and infants felt the dreadful impact of their anger.
The Damage Wrought
Meanwhile the white man was striving to restore order. The hopelessly outnumbered police force was joined by units from the army, air toree and navy, and for days and nights Durban became accustomed to the noise of rifle fire and the quick chatter of sub machine-guns as the armed forces strove to turn the frenzied Natives from their prey. The injured multiplied at a frightful rate. A trail of blood covered every street leading to the King Edward hospital for non-Europeans. This hospital and others were swamped. Emergency hospitals were opened,, and these, too, were soon filled.
Curiously, as the Natives and Indians waited together to receive medical attention—many trying to stem the flow of blood with sheets and towels—their enmity seemed to leave them. Several cases were reported of strong young Natives picking up Indians who had collapsed and carrying them into the hospital buildings, it was reported, too, that a Native in the riot areas had attempted to rescue several Indian children trapped in a burning house and had perished with them. Not least pitiful among the flood of broken, bewildered humanity seeking aid for their ghastly hurts were the number of rape victims, mostly young Indian girls. Some of them are reported to have been shockingly youthful.
Refugees became the major problem. Terrified Indians fled from their homes and sought safety in the shadow of police stations. Even here only the fixed bayonets of the white man kept their vengeful and determined attackers from reaching them. Soon some 30,000 Indians, a quarter of Durban’s entire Indian population, were huddled together in hastily constructed camps. Here they remained for days, stunned and bewildered by the suddenness of the tragedy, too terrified to move. Many had lost everything they had possessed. Others did not know if their homes still stood or their families still lived.
The counted .dead of both races numbered 140. In addition, one European was shot by the police for looting. Indian leaders have declared that the official figures are conservative, that uncounted victims, including many burned to ashes in gutted buildings, would bring the total dead to around 300. The seriously injured totaled just under 2,000. Of these, 30 were Europeans. But a feature of the riots was the almost complete lack of animosity shown by the Natives, even in their most frenzied state, toward the Europeans.
The vigorous measures adopted by the police und services had their inevitable effect, and by the third day (Sunday) the rioting had become sporadic and isolated. But Durban and Natal, and indeed South Africa, are now faced with the aftermath. The “battle of Durban” must be added to other evidence that shows that new factors are entering the South African racial arena.
Jtawons for the Outbreak
Political opportunists were not slow to give reasons for the outbreak. Many of these reasons have no evidence and little logic to support them. Among such must be counted the claim by certain Indian leaders that "the Zulus were deliberately incited to put the Indians into a panic so that they would pack their belongings and leave South Africa”. The reason which the rioters themselves gave was simple: "You took our money from us on the black market,” they yelled, as they looted stores and houses, "and now we are getting it back!" The issues which led to the outbreak'are complex and varied, but there can be little doubt that the major cause of the rioting is the economic treatment which the Natives have received at the hands of Indian traders.
It would be unfair to class the Indians as a race of black-marketeers. The working-class Indian, who forms the bulk of Natal's Indian population, is on the average a simple, poor, industrious man who asks little more than to be left in peace. He is as much a victim of economic oppression as is the Native. It is ironically tragic that he should have had to bear the brunt of the black man's wrath.
But it seems pretty plain that Indian traders, who monopolize the Native (and Indian) trade in Natal, have turned the economic screws until they squeaked. The Zulu, a proud man and resentful of injustice, has simmered silently for years. It needed bbt a spark to blow the lid off, to release a flood of blind, unreasonable race prejudice and hatred.
The Natives are quiet now, but their anger and resentment continue. They are boycotting vigorously and effectively all Indian enterprise, the shops which previously supplied their food and clothing, the Indian buses which catered for their transport needs. They are demanding that these services be rendered to theih by men of their own race. It is of this new thing that white South Africa hiust take note. The tide of nationalism which is sweeping the world has not left the Bantu, untouched. There has never been a Bantu nation. Even the Zulus, foremost representatives of the Bantu race, have been and still are divided into conflicting tribes and factions. But the Bantu is losing his tribalism. He is beginning to see himself as a member, not of a tribe, but of a nation, seven million strong.—A wake! correspondent in South Africa.
Qlutton
The biggest shovel dipper ever built can gobble tip 46 cubic yards in one bite., Attached to a power shovel with a seven-story reach, the big dipper was tested at a strip coal mine in Ohio. Operating at the rate of one bite a minute, it stripped away hundreds of tons of “overburden” (earth) an hour and uncovered coal Beams 80 feet below the surface.
e^techcmicdl Dwarf
Electric motors smaller than the diamond in a ring are now being made for use in moving-picture cameras, mechanical toys and animated Christmas-tree ornaments. Weighing less than a gram (454 grams to a pound) and measuring 3/16 of an inch in length and diameter, this dwarf motor .requires 1} volts of electricity and runs with high efficiency at 7,000 revolutions per minute.
MODERN ART MODERN'*
C Ordinarily the exponents of modern art assume an attitude of indifference to criticism- Proud and miag in their vagaries they show aa little interest in the world as an opossum “playing possum”. But opossums sometimes change the routine and instead of playing dead they take to a tree and find themselves “out on a limb”. This is the ridiculous position taken by the directors of the Museum of Modern Art in New York city. Last November they displayed a selection of 21 pieces of modern art and alongside them set a number of historic examples. Many of these examples were hundreds of years old-and included extremely stylized sculptures and paintings from former centuries. Their similarity to the stylized art of today was designed to show that modern art is “legitimate”, that it is a respectable branch on a deep-rooted family tree; But unlike the tree whose branches grow upward and outward, these modern art advocates have chosen the weeping willow. There they hang drooped down near the tree’s base, next to ancient Egyptian and Greek art. Is this making progress! It appears that modem art is not so modem. All that is lacking now is for someone to discover the similarity of modern art to that of the cave man and these artists who call themselves “modem” will be r^ght back where they started from.
C It appears that-the modem artist is an’expert at backtracking, for many of them return to their youth and insist on painting like children. This is not said to berate the work of children, for the child’s work represents honest effort. The drawings produced in the kindergarten portray the childish impressions of the tots’ undeveloped understanding of things about them. They are commendable from this viewpoint. However, most people outgrow their childhood and are able by their works to give evidence of growth. Not so the modem artist. He insists on clinging to his diaper days. Like a spoiled brat who insists on having his way, the modem artist lets loose his emotions and inner feelings. These he translates into some permanent medium such as oil paint on canvas or a sculpture in metal or stone. Whimsies and vagaries of the imagination seem very important to him, but the childish results betray a lack of normal, mature feeling or thinking. Such scrawls and doo
dling would hardly do credit to a 1 O-year-old child. If a gallery-goer sees a piece of modern art
whose subject is recog-the artist is painting
nizable, one wonders if beyond his mental Limit.
Prolonged Bath
Some time ago a Brooklyn housewife may have set an endurance record for soaking in a bathtub, but through no choice of her own. She had deposited her 280-pound frame in a zinc-lined tub in the early evening. When she sought to withdraw herself at the conclusion of the bath she could not. She was stuck, wedged in the tub. She shouted for help, all night she shouted, but no one heard her cries. She could not reach the drain to pull the plug and as a result stayed awake all night for fear of drown? ing. At 9:30 the, next morning her son found her. He called the neighbors, then the police, then the emergency squad. Nine men could not extricate her, even after applying rubbing oil. Finally the tub was pried apart with crowbars to release her, after a 17-hour bath.
J c&ight Squeeze
Last February in Oklahoma a$l(000 Hereford cow bolted into a silo through & 17" x 25J" door. And there she stayed, quietly munching grass in the circular concrete structure. But like so many persons, Grady the cow had got into a mess easier than she could get out. In fact, she couldn’t. When her plight was publicized solutions came pouring in from 45 states and Canada. Finally to the rescue came the farm editor of the Denver Post. He greased Grady generously, put her head and forefeet through the opening, bad a veterinarian jab her with a hypodermic to relax her, then strong hands gave a mighty heave-ho at her rear. Like any lady, Grady resented such-familiarity and kicked and jerked herself through the hole and lumbered into the barnyard.
Today’s Cities
f Tomorrow’s Ghost Towns?
NOTED traffic engineer sounded this grim warning recently: "Tomorrow the downtown districts may be studded with the abandoned remains 4of buildings as are the cities of Europe today?' The result of atom bombs! No, something less spectacular but perhaps just as damaging. He was referring to traffic congestion and its end-product "decentralization".
Are city officials worried? Plenty, and here's why: Every day more and more businesses and industries are striking out for the suburbs. For instance, a year ago the drive-in theater was considered a novelty. Big city movie operators gave it hardly a passing nodx But today there are over 700 of these show places throughout the country and many more are being built all the time. Branch stores, too, have been multiplying. In some cases main stores have become little more than warehouses for their country cousins.
Home builders have also slipped into their seven-league boots and are heading for greener, less congested, pastures. They are building in sections where kids can play safely and where there isn’t the frequent screech of auto brakes to make a mother's blood run cold.
Does all this mean the city of today will be a ghost town tomorrow? Possibly, unless city officials act now. The time is long past for nostrums or pain-killers. Our cities need cures, not remedies. Oneway streets, tricky traffic lights, parking meters, involved cloverleafs, and the like, are good as far as they go. However, they just deal with the effect. City officials must remove the cause.
Traffic congestion is nothing new. Two thousand years ago, the streets of Rome
were so snarled with traffic that the emperor of the time banned all except government chariots from the Forum area, Records don't tell us how effective the ban was. Or how the Romans reacted to it. During the reign of Louis XV it was fashionable for the noblewomen to drive their own carriages through the streets of Paris. However, it was soon apparent that milady's place was in the salon and not in the driver’s seat. Accidents steadily mounted and congestion became almost intolerable. So Louis and his ministers decided to do something about it. They forbade all women under 30 years of age from driving. The results were most gratifying: all women ceased driving, since none would admit she was over 301
Today’s congestion problems are caused by the private automobile. Years ago, the city was small. Industries were simple, business was leisurely and the tempo of the community was unhurried. Overnight all this changed. The auto brought with it new ideas. Buildings, cramped for space on the ground, began stretching skyward. Mills became mighty factories turning out machines of peace and, sadly enough, weapons of war. Commerce was now geared to horsepower, not the horse. Whirling dynamos played the tune, and the American people got into step.
But this automotive revolution did not
change city streets. The streets of the big city and the streets of the little town remained the same. Instead of being made over they were macadamized. As more and more can were pumped into downtown areas, slowly the arteries began to harden. And today, the average vehicle speed in congested streets is three miles an hour—seven miles an hour slower than Old Dobbin used to go!
Many Americans, especially those who live in and around cities, accept the everincreasing trend to the suburbs as a matter of course. Traffic engineers and city officials, On the other hand, do not treat it so lightly. Charles JI. Noble, New Jersey State Highway engineer, feels that if this exodus isn't curbed, “stagnation, decay and finally bankruptcy" will result. He stated not long ago: “Investment in buildings, industrial plants, homes, parks, schools, water supply and all improvements which make up modern metropolitan areas runs into billions of dollars. To jeopardize this high investment is unthinkable/’ Guy Hecker, executive manager of the American Transit Association, reminded city officials recently that they must face the sad fact that “remedies used to ease the traffic problem have not worked". Despite the tremendous sums ladled out in the past, he added, traffic congestion still continues to cripple the lifestream of the cities.
A Suggested Remedy
Is there an alternative? Yes, say city planners. They sum it up this way: “Cities must encourage moving people, not vehicles. In other words, people must be wooed into riding by transit instead of by private auto on car-choked city streets. The argument is backed up by some convincing figures. The average auto, according to a national survey, carries only 1,7 persons. This means that two-thirds of the available auto space is going to waste. Twenty-nine cars, therefore, are needed to carry but fifty persons. These 50 people could all
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