Awake!, April 8, 1950
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CONTENTS
Canada’s Supreme Court Reproves Quch^a 3
Charge of Seditious Litod
Conviction and Appeals
Decision of Canada’s Supreme Court
Favorable Press Rtueiioii
Burning Hale Flores in Joliette
Fraying Catholic Kidnapers
Juliette’s Police Chief Refuses to Act
Town Council Commends Lawbreaking
Knights of Columbus Resolution
Ib It Wrong to Preach the Gospel in Quebec if It Disturbs the Catholic Peace f
Life in Trailerland
Huw Du Trailer Dwellers Fare!
Where Trailclists Live
Great Depths of Wonder
Shallow-Waler Life
Creatures of the Dark Depth?
Little Relief for Hay Fever Victims
Gambling Craze Seizes New York’s Mayor
“Thy Word la Truth”
Catholicism a Train to Heaven!
Water Festival in Burma
Watching tho World
27 2U
AWAKE/
^“Now it is high time to awake.— Romans 13:11
Volume XXX] Brooklyn, N. Y„ Aor)i B. 1950 Number 7
CANADA’S SUPREME COURT REPROVES QUEBEC
By “Awake!” correspondent in Canada
CANADA’S highest court ruled in favor of Jehovah’s witnesses recently and rebuked the judges of Quebec, The judges were condemned because they had unlawfully resurrected aneient trial methods of the infamous Court of Star Chamber. These despised principles were dug out o! the tomb by the Quebec judges and used illegally in malicioud prosecutions falsely charging Jehovah’s witnesses with sedition. The Supreme Court decision has put a high hurdle in the path of the conspiracy of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Quebec's Premier Duplessis to stop the preaching of Jehovah’s witnesses in Quebec. Moreover, it was a sweeping victory on behalf of all freedom-lovers in Canada.
What caused this conspiracy! Why was this charge of sedition brought before Canada’s Supreme Court? Why was the charge entertained in the courts of Que* hec? The answer goes back at least twenty years. It began with the efforts of Jehovah’s witnesses, such as Aime Boucher, who are humble Christian ministers seeking by lawful and peaceful means to bring the
gospel of God’s kingdom to the inhabitants of the Catholic-controlled province of Quebec.
These sincere ministers suffered from hatred, bitterness, and hundreds and hundreds of arrests on trumped*up charges of peddling, distributing circulars and handing out printed Bible sermons to interested persons. Children were expelled from school or dragged into court as juvenile delinquents because of their faith. Police invaded places of worship and made arrests of Jehovah’s witnesses for celebrating the Lord's Supper. Respectable Christian girls were arrested, stripped and held in filthy jails with prostitutes, thieves and dope fiends. Jehovah’s witnesses in Quebec had done nothing more serious than to walk along the, street oy go out shopping. Mob assaults were made on peaceable gatherings. At the peak of the frenzy of police and priest opposition to Bible teaching and freedom to preach the gospel of God’s kingdom, in the year 1946 cases against Jehovah’s ministers reached the staggering total of over eight hundred charges.
*T}ue6ec'« Burning Batd*
The situation was electric. Misrepresentation by the press, daily attankn by recorders, police and other officials, exorbitant hails and consistent postponement of cd see had Ip ft Jehovah's witnesses in a situation of intolerable suffering. Protests to officials had achieved nothing. Action was demanded, but what kindl Jehovah’s witnesses decided that the only thing to do was to appeal to the saner elements of the population by publishing the true facts and pleading for a cessation of this barbarism. Accordingly a pamphlet was published reciting those terrible offenses Hgninid God, Christianity and decency and pointing out the great burden of responsibility upon those responsible for such outrages; The leaflet was entitled “Quebec's Binding Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Xs the Rhame of All Canada” (reprinted in Awafce/ December S, 1946). One million five hundred and seventy-five thousand copies, printed in .English, French and Ukrainian, were, distributed throughout Canada.
The bitter persecution of Jehovah's witnesses was nothing new to Aime Th niche r, from St. Germaine, Dorchester county, Quebec'. St. Germaine is in the hills south of Quebec City, in a poor and fugged country where horse and buggy is still the normal means of travel for the French "habitants”. Here Mr. Boucher faithfully and courageously preaches the glad tidings of God’s kingdom as the only hope for mankind. To care for wife and family in his humble mountain cabin he also operates a small farm. Members of his own family had been persecuted and their experiences published in the Qtte-beds Burmng Hate leaflet.
He was overjoyed to see a statement of the facts which could be distributed in his community, with the object of dissipating some of 11 ik hatred and misunderstanding concerning the work of Jehovah’s witnesses. With his two daughters, Gisele, 18, and Lucille, 11, he began distributing the leaflet, traveling many miles on foot for this purpose. For doing this the two daughters were arrested and held in jail at St. Joseph de Beauce, a nearby town. The father was also arrested as he handed these leaflets to passers-by on the streets. A charge of publishing a seditious libel by distributing the article Quebec's Burning Hate. was preferred against all three.
Charge nf SediHoue Libel
In publicizing these disgraceful events Jehovah’s witnesses, including Aime Boueher and his daughters, were doing nothing more than protesting against the lawlessness and mob action which had been allowed to go unchecked. The Quebec officials insisted that Jehovah's witnesses should be ch urged with seditious iibei for publicizing these facts and, in effect, made it illegal to complain about these outrages. The prosecuting authorities, acting for the attorney general of Quebec, would not concede that Aime Boucher or anyone else had a right to protest and to ask that the law be enforced. They contended such a protest might cause “disaffection" or raise "ill-will and hostility", which they said would be a seditions libel contrary to the Canadian Criminal Code, It was so patently ridiculous to charge Lucille, the younger daughter only eleven years of age, with such a crime flint she was ordered released by the magistrate after spending two days in jail.
The shocking report of atrocities making up the leaflet Quebec's Burning Hate has now been written into the law of the land. The following resume of the article is taken from the opinion written by one of the judges of the Supreme Court. His comments mark the first time a high judicial authority in Canada has seen and analyzed the persecution of Jehovah's witnesses in Quebec stated in Ilie leaflet.
This appeal arises out of features of what, in substance, is religious controversy, and it is necessary that the facts be clearly appreciated. The appellant, a' farmer, living near the town of St, Joseph de Beauce, Quebec, was convicted of uttering a seditious libel. The libel was contained in a four-page document published apparently at Toronto by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which I take to be the name of the official publishers of the religious group known as the witnesses of Jehovah. The document was headed “Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada”; it consisted first of an invocation to calmness and reason in appraising the matters to be dealt with in support of the headings then of general references to vindictive persecution accorded in Quebec to the Witnesses as brethren in Christ; a detailed narrative of specific incidents of persecution; and a concluding appeal to the people of the province, in protest against mob rule and gestapo tactics, that, through the study of God’s Word and obedience to its commands, there might be brought about a "bounteous crop of the good fruits of love for Him and Christ and human freedom”.
The incidents, as described, are of peaceable Canadians who seem not to be lacking in meekness, but who, for distributing, apparently without permits, Bibles and tracts on Christian doctrines; for conducting religious services in private homes or on private lands in Christian fellowship; for holding public lecture meetings to teach religious truth as they believe it of the Christian religion ; who, for this exercise of what has been taken for granted to be the unchallengeable rights of Canadians, have been assaulted and beaten and their Bibles and publications torn up and destroyed, by individuals and by mobs; who have had their homes invaded and their property taken; and in hundreds have been charged with public offences and held to exorbitant bail. The police are declared to have exhibited an attitude of animosity toward them and to have treated them as the criminals in provoking, by their action of Christian profession and teaching, the violence to which they have been subjected; and public officials and members of the Roman Catholic clergy are said not only to have witnessed these outrages but to have been privy
APRIL 3, 1950
to some of the prosecutions. The document charged that the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec was in some objectionable relation to the administration of justice and that the force behind the prosecutions was that of the priests of that Churcb.
Conviction and Appeals
The trial of Aime Boucher was heard at St. Joseph de Beauce before Justice Alfred Savard and a jury of French Catholics, mostly farmers. The trial judge was very unfair. He interfered with counsel’s examination of the jurymen and examination of witnesses, refused to admit evidence to prove the accused innocent, and his address to the jury was so prejudicial that it weighed heavily in the appellate decisions to overrule the conviction. He charged the jury that if the leaflet “might raise up ill-will or hostility between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects’’ then they could convict; it did not matter whether the facts contained in the article were true or false. A conviction was entered and minister Boucher was sentenced to one month in prison. Shortly thereafter his daughter Gisele was also convicted and sentenced to two weeks in prison.
Both convictions were appealed to the Court of King’s Bench, the provincial court of appeals. A majority of three of the five judges sustained the conviction of the father. However, Chief Justice Letourneau deceased) and Justice Galipeault (now the chief justice) dissented and recommended a new trial. The court unanimously ordered a new trial in the case of Gisele, which has never been had.
The two dissenting judgments in the court below made possible an appeal of the case of Aime Boucher to the Supreme Court at Ottawa. The oral argument of the appeal by counsel occupied the Supreme Court for four days, May 31 to June 3, 1949. The last reported English appeal judgment on the law of sedition was in 1820, or 130 years ago.
Therefore the lawyers in their argument bad to draw from the most fundamental principles of the unwritten British constitution and apply these basic legal concepts to the problems and practices of the present day. Daring the hard-fought appeal the American decisions, as well as the British and Canadian, on the subject of freedom of speech, press and worship were painstakingly analysed in a written argument more than two hundred popes in length. Also the leaflet was read in its entirety to the Supreme Court and discussed line by line.
Death Knell of the Star Chamber
The view of the law of sedition advanced by prosecuting counsel of Quebec and upheld by the Quebec courts has a long and unenviable history as a weapon of oppression and misrule. Bad governments have for centuries used the charge of sedition to stifle well-merited criticism of their mal-adniinistralion. In this case the prosecution contended that if a writing had a tendency to “cause disaffection" or "to stir up ill-will and hostility between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects” then it was a seditious libel. The reason for the statement was immaterial; the destruction of free speech was also immaterial Only one issue was to be decided: might the writing stir up ill-will If the jury thought such a result “might'' arise from a speech or writing, then they could convict the author or publisher of sedition.
The principles of English law on seditious lihel, whence this definition of the offense sterna, were first enunciated by the infamous Court of Star Chamber, whose injustices are a black page in British legal history. They are a relic of the reigns of the dictatorial Stuart kings, who thought they ruled by divine right and that anyone who criticized or opposed the divine inspiration of their decisions was committing an offense against God as well as against the state. The complete denial of free speech during the Stuart reigns is illustrated by the case of Wraynham, who committed the offense of saying of James I: “He is but a man and so may err.” The unfortunate Wraynham was fined a thousand pounds, made to ride with his head to his horse's tail aad had his ears cut off.
The right of free expression, upon which the operation of a modern democratic constitution depends, would be stifled if these old ideas could be reimposed by Quebec’s attorney general at the present time. If Jehovah's witnesses should Krihrnk to the outmoded principles of denial of free speech, freedom of worship and freedom of press, then freedom of expression, not only for Jehovah's witnesses, bnt alwn for the rest of the Canadian people, would be seriously endangered. There waa little authority to support the modern concept that governments are servants of the people entitled to be criticized. It was necessary for the attorneys for Jehovah's witnesses to strike into new fields mid to lead the Supreme Court and the law of Canada into the twentieth century.
Decision of Canada’s Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Canada decided the case during the fall of 1949. Eyecatching headlines broke to the Canadian people the news of this exciting chapter in the saga of Christian integrity and persecution that has captured the imagination of the entire country. It was real news in Canada when the Supreme Court of Ottawa quashed, on behalf of Aime Boucher, French-speaking minister of Jehovah’# witnesses, a conviction for seditious libel aud ordered a new trial. The right of Jehovah's witnesses to protest publicly against the burning, hateful outrages which they had suffered in the province of Quebec has been vindicated by judges of the nation’s highest court. Liberty-loving Canadians rejoice with Jehovah's witnesses in the victory.
The reaction ot' public opinion can be gauged from the following newspaper
comments on the decision. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix emphasized editorially: “AVe are all safer in the enjoyment of our right to worship as we choose as a result of this week’s decision of the Supreme Court > . . Mr. Boucher was engaged in the defence of his right to worship according to his conscience when he was arrested. . . . Here is a minority right that must be protected at any cost." Another freedoM-lovin^ th*
Regina Leader-Post7 concurred, rebuking the government of Quebec for its shameful course: “The Supreme Court decision is one which will give satisfaction to those Canadians who viewed the Duplessis government's violations of the rights of freedom of speech and religion, with extreme distaste and misgiving.” Other papers have described it as "one of the most important cases in the Supreme Court’s history”, "what may well become a cornerstone of the structure of Canadian Yfberty/’ and a "bulwark of liberty”
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled, on the argument presented by counsel for Jehovah’s witnesses, that there should at least be a new trial. In the practice of the Supreme Court of Canada, each justice files his own separate judgment containing the reasons for the decision at which he arrived. Chief Justice Rinfret, with Justices Tashereau and Kerwin, ordered the new trial mainly on the growr/l that the trial hwd vtat fairly and properly charged the jury. The other two members of the court, Justices Rand and Estey, went further and said that there should be ordered a complete acquittal because the pamphlet and the actions of minister Boucher could not on any reasonable construction be deemed seditious. The Toronto Star made the remark that: "The three who felt there should be a new trial were Roman Catholics. Those who opposed a new trial were Protestants."
The decision sounds the death knell of the oppressive principles of the law APRIL 8, 1950
handed down by the Star Chamber, which the attorney general of Quebec tried to use even in this twentieth century. If people can be imprisoned on such a flimsy, vaporous offense as "causing ill-will and hostility” or "creating disaffection”, an easy way has been found to abolish liberty of expression. The requirement of the court that there must be incitement to violence or disorder is
with free speech.
The decision of Mr. Justice Rand is most outspoken against the ancient theory that it is a crime to criticize the rulers of a democratic country. As he stated: "But constitutional conceptions of a different order, making rapid progress in the nineteenth century, have necessitated a modification of the legal view of public criticism; and the administrators of what we call democratic government have come to be looked upon as servant^ bound to carry out their dudes accountably to the public/' In the latter part of his judgment, Justice Rand weighed the question of whether there should be a new trial or outright acquittal:
In the circumstances, should the appellant be subjected to a second trial? Could a jury, properly instructed and acting judicially have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, a seditious intention in circulating the document? . . . The writing was undoubtedly made under an aroused sense of wrong to the Witnesses, Yrut it is beyond dispute that its end and object was the removal of what they considered iniquitous treatment. Here are conscientious professing followers of Christ who claim to have been denied the right to worship in their own homes and their own manner and to have been jailed for obeying the injunction to “teach all nations"', . . . The courts below have not. as, with the greatest of respect, I think they should have, viewed the document as primarily a burning protest and as a result have lost sight of the fact that, expressive as it is of a deep indigpatiniL, ba conclusion is an earnest petition to the public opinion of the province to extend to the wit-
nesses of Jehovah, as a minority, the protection of impartial laws. Where a conviction is set aside, this court must dispose of the appeal as the justice of the case requires; and where the evidence offered could not, under a proper instruction, have supported a conviction, the accused must be discharged.
Favorable Press Reaction
A large section of the Canadian press has been glad to recognize the fight of Jehovah's witnesses as a landmark securing and protecting the rights of all Canadian citizens. The case has been hailed as a victory for liberty and one of the most important ever heard by the Canadian Supreme Court, The Edmonton Journal had this to say:
Last week the Supreme Court of Canada handed down judgment on what may prove to be one of the most important cases in its history—one which raised perhaps more sharply than ever before in Canada the closely-related issues of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. . . . Mr. Justice Rand held that it could not be considered seditious because it did not incite to violence, but was essentially, despite extravagance of language, a justified protest against persecution and oppression. He described the treatment of Jehovah’s witnesses with an outspokenness rarely heard in a Canadian court. . . . It is to ho hoped that Mr. Justice Rand’s blistering criticism will shame them ("Quebec authorities] into abandoning their policy of persecution. . . . their [Jehovah’s witn esses] treatment in Quebec has beeu inexcusable. It amounts to nothing loss than an organized religious persecution—the first in our national history—and if allowed to continue it would put the rights of all religious minorities in Canada in jeopardy.
The Regina Leader-Post said:
Mr. Justice Estey spoke for al) democraticthinking Canadians when he said: “The conduct on the part of any group in Canada which denies to, or even interferes with the right of members of any other religious body to worship, is a matter of public concern” , . . The Supreme Court decision has, in effect, ad-
ministered a well-merited reproof of the Quebec government. Is it too much to hope that Mr. Duplessis will heed this reprimand?
I
The Winnipeg Free Press said:
Few provincial authorities can have been subjected to such a blistering indictment of their conduct as the government of Mr. Duplessis, To harry and persecute a group for peaceably propagating the articles of their faith is not only undemocratic, it is also unChristian. Mr. Duplessis might well ponder the judgment of Mr. Justice Rand. He might also consider the extent to which his persecution of a minority has brought the operation of the law in his province into disrepute. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are both under attack in the province of Quebec with the full backing of Mr. Duplessis’ government, For three years a peaceable group of Quebec citizens has been subjected to the pillory of official persecution in defiance of the traditions of this country. It is serious enough when the persecutions are the work of ignorant and unthinking mobs. It is immeasurably more serious wdien such practices are instituted, tfn-eouraged and plotted by those who are appointed as the temporary guardians of the very freedoms they are injuring.
Opinions are not all favorable, however. One “Father” Foley, Catholic priest of Saskatoon, attacked the city’s leading newspaper, the S tar-Phoenix, for approving the judgment of the Supreme Court. "Father” Foley was “amazed” at the paper’s ignorance in saying freedom of worship hud been protected. The StarPhoenix replied:
We arc proud of our stand in this matter. The accused was distributing a pamphlet of protest against the iniquities which he felt had been done his group by a majority of his fellow townspeople. It was, we think, his right to protest, ... If the Witnesses can be reduced to silence in Quebec because their views and their tactics ‘insult’ the majority we feel that the freedom of every minority in Canada is impaired including that of the Catholic Church in communities where it is in the mi-
AWAKE!
nority. And this, we think, would be wrong.
The power of Almighty God, Jehovah, has given His people a great victory in Quebec and in Canada. There is now a long, wide and unpatchable rent in the iron curtain Quebec has raised against
Bible teaching. Many Quebec people will be glad to see it. Jehovah’s witnesses have not only succeeded in defending their own rights hut their fight has written into the law freedom for the remainder of the Canadian people also.
BURNING HATE FL ARESxJN, / JOLIETTE
"Awftk®!** correspondent Ua Canada reveals how Quebec's hate for God and Christ and freedom atlll burn*
A BLISTERING criticism of the law enforcement of the province of Quebec was recently unleashed by some members of the Supreme Court of Canada in a case involving the famous leaflet entitled '‘Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada”. That judgment was handed down on December 5, 1949. Would the Quebec authorities accept the law as laid down by the highest court? Would they begin to enforce the law and to protect freedom of speech and worship on the part of minorities such as Jehovah’s witnesses? Many liberty-loving Canadians were asking these questions.
They were not long in getting their answer! Only nine days later, December 14, 1949, contempt for law and order and even for human decency once more burst into flaming violence in Quebec province, this time at Joliette, a city of approximately 18,000 people situated forty-live miles northeast of Montreal. “Quebec Men Mob Witness Girls,” “20 Kidnap Girl Witnesses,” shouted the front headlines from two of the largest newspapers in the country. To Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver the news spread. Two of Jehovah’s witnesses
had been kidnaped and run out of Joliette by a mob of men, marking another outburst of the same burning hate for the Bible and Bible teaching; further self-condemnation by a Quebec city.
Two ministers of Jehovah’s witnesses, Misses Olive Lundell and Winnifred Parsons, had for some months been engaged in Bible educational wrork in the city of Joliette, Their missionary evangelistic work had been confined to going from house to house seeking those who were interested in the study of the Bible. When such persons were located, return visits were made to, discuss the Scriptures. A considerable number of persons was found to be interested in studying with Jehovah’s witnesses, though the town is 99 percent French Roman Catholic,
Praying Catholic Kidnapers
On the night of December 14 the two missionaries went out of their home about eight p.m. to visit some families where they had been invited to return. Suddenly, as they left one of the homes, about fifteen to twenty men closed in on • these two evangelists and began to push and jostle them at a fast pace down toward the bus stop to force them to leave the city. While the mob passed along the
street it was joined by others who shared in misusing the two ladies and rashing them along as prisoners of the mob. Arriving at the bus stop these ministers asked that they be allowed to return to their home and gather their clothing and personal effects; but all to no avail, and despite their protests they were forced into h large taxi by the hooting, derisive crowd. Six men climbed into the cab, which was then driven to 11 on treat
Ed route the men chanted CuiljoHc prayers, and at the same time made threats to throw their prisoners in one of the ice-covered bikes. Uproarious, devilish laughter greeted the suggestion by the driver that these two Christian lady evangel Ik t*< Im* forcibly violated by tho - Catholic, prayer-reciting criminals who had abducted them. The automobile was then stopped in the darkness and the prisoners ordered to gel. mil. A hurried conference was held which evidently changed the wicked and warped minds of their captors, and the two missionaries were ordered back into the taxi without being molested.
On arrival in Montreal the kidnapers drove first to Fullum Street women's prison where an unsuccessful effort was made to have the two ladies jailed as “undesirables”. Equally fruitless was a visit to another police station for the same purpose, With threats that other and larger crowds would gal her to put them out of Joliette again should they ever return, Misses Parsons and Lundcll were left stranded in Montreal without money, extra clothing, or even a place to stay.
Police Chief Refuses to Act
Jehovah’s witnesses do not believe in mob violence. Nor are they intimidated by it. The very next day, after being cared for by friends, the two missionaries returned to Joliette, accompanied by two representatives of the Watch Tower Society, to conduct an investigation into this unlawful action and to have charges pressed against those responsible. After a lengthy interview with the chief of police of Joliette, Valmore Lapierre, and the questioning of some suspected parties, three of the six men who had kidnaped the two Judice in the taxi were identified. Portunat Masse was the driver; Roch Rouleau was one of the other passengers, and the man who appeared to be the ringleader was identified by Masse ns one Dion, brush salesman. Despite this identification, the chief of police refused to lay any chargee, stating it wax a matter for the crown attorney and the provincial police. He also said he “feared popular reaction" should charges be laid, and admitted that the action taken had been “well organized” and not merely accidental. Charges could be laid only it ordered by the provincial attorney general, was the answer of the provincial police.
In short everyone passed the responsibility to someone else. They «)) naid: “This is a Catholic town. These ladies should not have been here anyway.” The contention seeniH to be that where the Catholics are in a majority, the minorities have no rights, It ie quite a different story in other parts of Canada where the Catholics are demanding minority rights for themselves.
During a long interview with the chief of police, Lapierre, Mr. Couture, one of the representatives of the Watch Tower Society, was polite enough to answer a groat many questions concerning the beliefs of Jehovah’s witnesses. The chief of police then hypocritically told the press that efforts had been made to convert him. He also made the widely circulated statement in the press that the two ministers received $60 per week each fur engaging in their work in Joliette. When asked the basis for this statement he Baid lamely that he could not disclose it. Of course he couldn’t disclose the basis of it. There was no basis. It was absolutely untrue. Evangelists of Jehovah's witnesses get no regular salary whatever
and are largely dependent on voluntary contributions to enable them to carry on their work.
Town Council Commends Lawbreaking
The Monday following the above events, December 19, 1949, was the first meeting of the municipal council of Jo-liette after the kidnaping. The "well-organized” efforts against Jehovah's witnesses were there resumed* The Toronto Star reporter said of this meeting in the next day's edition: (iWe were told earlier by a citizen that organizations in the town were planning action to rid the town of the two girls, who since last May have been going from door to door in Joliette on Witness missionary work. The Knights of Columbus turned out to be the biggest single organization behind the scenes. ...” The Knights of Columbus, Catholic Action wing of the Church, is here identified as the instigator of the lawlessness.
About 200 persons were in attendance at the council meeting; the chamber was jammed to capacity, many standing. Jean Fontaine, a notary, and representative of the Knights of Columbus, addressed the council as follows, mouthing hatred and malicious misstatements against Jehovah's witnesses:
Can you imagine that these two girls have been here for the past eight months and are turning the city upside down. [Same charge as at Acts 11: 6] It is just like a disease. Already one hundred and fifty of our good French families are visited every week by them. It must be stopped or it will infect the whole town. They go from door to door with the Crampon [French] Bible. They come in the house and sit down on the chairs and start to quote scriptures from the Bible, and all this when the men are at work. [What a terrible crime! Imagine anyone's being so evil as to quote Scripture!] There should be a way to throw these girh out of town.
One of the councilors replied: “I don't think we can do anything about that because each person should be able to shut his own door. There is no law in Quebec stating that we can throw Jehovah's witnesses out of town because they are going from door to door.” Then this fine Knight of Columbus replied: “Let us make a law: write a new article in the city charter to make it illegal to go from door to door.”
The speaker of those words did not know how well he fulfilled the words of the psalmist: wShall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.” (Psalm 94:20) The Knights of Columbus, representatives and members of the Roman Catholic Church, were demanding to frame mischief by law; anything, in fact, to stop the spread of the Word of God. Mr. Fontaine's own argument gave him away. Trying to protect the people of Joliette from something they didn't want?—that was only his empty contention- Was it because the people didn’t want Jehovah’s witnesses that the Knights had to organize to run them out? By no means! It was because far too many French families did ward Jehovah’s witnesses to call at their homes that this organized violence took place. Catholic action was in fact organizing to prevent the people who wanted to hear from being free to do so.
Knip Mb of Columbus Resolution
A resolution which was claimed to have been signed by two hundred people was then presented to the city council by Fontaine on behalf of the Knights. Quotation follows from the Toronto Star December 20,1949:
“The undersigned respectfully submit that they protest the arrival in Joliette of strangers, Jehovah Witnesses, who visit their homes falsely posing as missionaries and profiting from the occasion to sow hatred among groups, contempt of and encouragement oi
immorality.
“That they are glad to learn that certain citi*
zans have asked these strangers to leave the city and that tjiey congratulate eivic authorities, particularly the chief of police for what they have domj to rid the town of these sowers of disorder.
“That they ask city council to declare publicly and officially that they no longer want in Joliette these pretended missionaries and that the authorities take every means within the law to chase them forever from Joliette.”
Presenting it, Mr. Fontaine admitted: “A rceont supreme court judgment has complicated the means of getting rid of them hut we must do something. We know it is difficult to expd them legally, but they were driven out of Chicoutimi and they didn't come back.”
The foregoing quotation gives some sparkling examples of Knights of Columbus “logic”. He accuses Jehovah’s witnesses of teaching contempt for authority, then commends local citizens for having acted in contempt of the authority of the criminal law by illegal kidnaping; next congratulates the chief of police for showing contempt of the law and of his own oath of office in refusing to enforce the law against the thugs responsible for the abduction. Finally, Fontaine himself shows complete contempt for the authority of the Supreme Court of Canada when he says that its judgment complicates the means of getting rid of Jehovah’s witnesses legally, but nonetheless urges expulsion of them.
Strangers
Two of those present at this disgraceful andj demonized exhibition of rubble-rousing were not in harmony with it. Two representatives of the Watch Tower Society, Glen How, the Society's attorney, and Paul Couture, French-speaking minister from Montreal, were present to see what was taking place. At the conclusion of Fontaine’s diatribe. there seemed little hope of answering his misstatements, so they turned to leave. They had been recognized by some of the mob-stete. A solid phalanx about four deep formed across the door to prevent their exit The atmosphere was electric with hatred. It seemed charged with TNT, We will let the Toronto Star tell the story:
Mr. How and Mr. Couture entered. They were pushed forward and laid in English to Bay whatever they wanted. Mr. How advanced to the council table and was asked his name. He wan barely able to reply “Haw” before being drowned out by shouts of "Speak in French” and “Got out of our town”. . . . Mr. How managed to aay in French that he waa a lawyer representing the Witnesses before shouts and boos made him give up. He and Mr. Couture started to leave the room and had to have a way cleared for them by a policeman. The council chamber was practically empty of spectators os soon os the two men left,
Rabble-Rousing Does Un VFurfc
The Star reporter noted that the chamber emptied with remarkable celerity. What he did not know was i.hat the crowd poured down the stairs like an avalanche in an effort to trap the two representatives of Jehovah’s witnesses who had just left. Only by sprinting up the street and making a quick getaway in the near est taxi did they avoid an attack that would have been much more than verbal.
Balked of their first prey, the mob, by this time numbering approximately five hundred people, next headed in high excitement for the house wherein resided Misses Persons ajid LandeJJ, the fra peaceful Christian ladies whose Bible evangelism was the pivot point of the tornado that had been unleashed. The mob began to hoot and demonstrate outside their home.
Police came to the house but made no effort to dispente the not, despite the demands of the Riot Act which require them to act. Two reporters who endeavored to take pictures of the mob were seized and run out of town, not even being allowed to stop at the hotel to take their luggage. Miss Lundell asked one of tfce officers why he (liihi’t go out to the crowd to get some names and auto license numbers of the lawbreakers. He replied: "I’m neutral.” Ultimately the two ladies managed to get into a taxi which was escorted to the town limits by the Joliette police and followed by a cavalcade of mobsters. At the town limits the provincial police took over and blocked the road so none of the rioters’ cars could follow. The city had absolutely gone stark mad. One of the lady evangelists in the car said to one of the men driving: ■“Don’t you know these riots are illegal?” He replied: “Oh, no. They couldn’t be. If they were the police wouldn’t have helped us.”
The home where the two lady evangelists were living was a huge, Victorian-style home inhabited only by the owner, a sweet old lady of eighty-eight. “Just let them come,” she said of the mobsters. “They think an old lady can’t fight. I’ll show them.” When Misses Parsons and Lundell were leaving under police escort and with the mob howling outside, she said: “Don’t go, girls. Let them yell. I’d freeze them out.”
Public Protest, Witnesses* Determination
This outbreak of violence and burning hate, coming as it did hard on the heels of the blistering indictment of the Quebec administration handed down in the Supreme Court of Canada, aroused a burst of protest among fair-minded Canadians.
The Montreal Committee on Civil Liberties sent a telegram to Premier Duplessis demanding investigation. Edmund Major, vice-president of the committee, is quoted: “This brutality towards the two girls scandalizes all the citizens of the province of Quebec. Not only did these brutes impede the liberty of these two young persons, but denied them also the freedom to think and express the opinion of their choice.”
The Association of Civil Liberties of Toronto also wrote the premier of Quebec *. “Immediate steps should be taken to protect those who are attempting to exercise their lawful rights of freedom of worship, press and assembly. Otherwise it will appear as if the authorities have surrendered to mob rule in Joliette.” (Which, of course, they have.) The Winnipeg Press Press bitterly denounced the failure of law enforcement:
There is no indication as yet that Mr. Duplessis intends to become involved. Whatever he decides, it is too late. There has been mob violence, and the provincft must suffer tW disgrace of it. The situation should never have been allowed to reach a point where there was need for government interference, As a minority group, the Witnesses deserve protection against persecution ; had local legal authorities provided this protection, much of the trouble could have been avoided. Instead their soft acquiescence has helped incite some 500 citizens to such violence that the situation is now intolerable. And the Witnesses will not, in the ong run, suffer from this persecution. . . . Their persecution will hurt us, not them.
An editorial in the Toronto Evening Telegram, December 22, said: “No mob has any right to tell anyone to get out of town. A reprehensible angle of the events at Joliette has been the manner in which the police have abdicated their responsibility to maintain ordinary rights of Canadian citizens.”
A detailed report of these outrages has been placed in the hands of the Department of the Attorney General at Quebec. No action has yet been ordered. Jehovah’s witnesses^ however, do not believe in mob violence and will take action themselves should the department refuse to see that the law is enforced. As preachers and ministers of Almighty God, Jehovah’s witnesses have a right and duty to speak to the people. The people have a right to accept or reject on their own volition. It is not the function of the priests or the Knights of Columbus to decide that those who wish to hear these ministers shall not be allowed to do so.
Jehovah’s witnesses are not dismayed at the demonized assaults of these lawbreakers, The words of the apostle Paul
APRIL 8, 1950 13
show to all true Christians what they can that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall expect from this world: "Yea, and all suffer persecution.”—2 Timothy 3:12.
<tr- ff*
Is It Wrong to Preach the Gospel in Quebec if It Disturbs the Catholic Peace?
AFTER saying that the magazine . Saturday Night (Toronto) had appealed to him "in the past for its spirit of racial and religious tolerance”, Catholic priest J. S. Lesage continued in his letter to that journal:
From time to time, however, your comments on Canadian events have expressed views on the principle of liberty somewhat unacceptable to a large portion of the Canadian people, I refer in particular to this view of r “the right of individual to write, to print and to circulate his opinions.” (SN Dec. 27) This view ia unacceptable, because unlimited liberty does not exist as a right before God or in reason. Forgers of evil thoughts and of error have no more right to circulate their wares than forgers of bad money have the right to circulate their bogus coins. , , . In a society almost entirely Catholic, when the disturbance of its Catholic principles tends to disturb its Catholic way of life, then, a State professedly Catholic (say Quebec Authority), seeking to prevent such disturbance is only safeguarding the common good. [Saturday Night, February 7, 1950]
Obviously, there ia strange inconsistency when a writer opens by praising a magazine’s religious tolerance and then assails its tolerance. Priest Lesage was writing concerning Jehovah’s witnesses, likening them to forgers of bogus coins, justifying denial of liberty to them on the grounds that they disturbed Catholic peace. He appeals to God and to reason as authorities; there could be no better.
Certainly man should not have unlimited liberty, nor does he. God's Word prohibits and commands many things; laws of the land do likewise. Just as earthly governments that make laws set up the courts to judge violators of those laws, so God in heaven has made His laws and He and Christ judge the violators thereof. No men or organizations of men have authority to judge God’s servants. "Who art thou to judge another’s servant? To his own lord he stands or falls; but he will stand, for God is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4, Catholic Conf rat. Trans.) Moreover, even the democracies do not allow the unlimited freedom of speech and press and worship that Lesage claims they do. In the name of these freedoms men cannot commit unlawful disturbance of peace or obscenities; there are laws concerning slander and libel that curb abusive use of freedom. There are lawful means of halting abuses of freedom; mob action is not necessary, or lawful.
"Forgers of evil thoughts and of error have no more right to circulate their wares than forgers of bad money have the right to circulate their bogus coins/’ says Lesage. If he is going to argue by this parallel, let it he done well. Do men sentence a forger of bogus coins before they prove him circulating such? Do they not test the coins, to see whether they ring true? If the accused is innocent, does he fear the testing of his coins? Is it not the counterfeiter that trembles at the exposure the test will make? Moreover, would it be wrong to expose the counterfeiters on the grounds that their peace would be disturbed? or on the grounds that the peace of their victims would be disturbed when they learned that they had been cheated? Is not the principle of right and wrong here involved greater and more important than personal feelings?
Carrying this line of reasoning over to the forgers of evil thoughts and errors, the thoughts circulated must first be proved evil and erroneous. Catholic priests have not done this with the teachings of Jehovah's witnesses. Both Catholics and Jehovah’s witnesses recognize the Bible as the foundation for Christian doctrine. Why not bring these thoughtcoins against the Bible, and see whether they ring true or false? Jehovah's witnesses are not forgers, not fearful of the test, but apply it daily in Quebec and throughout the world. It is the Catholic Church that fears the test, whose peace is disturbed by it. Error cannot stand the test; truth is vindicated by it. Read what the Catholic Douay Bible says:
To the law rather, and to the testimony. And if they speak not according to this word, they shall not have the morning light. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream: and he that hath my word. let him speak my word with truth: what hath the chaff to do with the wheat, saith the Lord? Are not my words as a fire, saith the Lord: and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.—Isaias 8:20; Jeremias 23:28,29; John 3:19-21.
Jehovah’s witnesses gp to the law and testimony of God's Word to prove their teachings true. They do not fear the circulation of Catholic teaching; let it be freely declared, unhindered by mobs. Jehovah’s witnesses speak God’s word of truth, the wheat; not the Catholic chaff based upon human tradition. God’s truth is as a fire that consumes chaff, as a hammer that breaks rock; it need have no fear of Catholic teaching, Jehovah’s witnesses do not need to hide in darkness, fearful of enlightening messages from others that might expose them as false.
It is the Catholic Church that fears the truth declared by Jehovah’s witnesses, that seeks to silence these witnesses by lawless and dark deeds.
Priest Lesage laments the disturbance of Catholic principles. This is a damaging admission. Sound principles cannot be disturbed. Christ Jesus stated His sayings and principles were as a rock foundation, and anything built on them could withstand any storm; but also observed that other principles were as shifting sand easily disturbed. (Matthew 7: 24-27) But aside from this, is the mere fact that a community is disturbed sufficient to condemn the causes behind the disturbance? Would it be wrong to preach Catholicism in Russia because it would disturb that stronghold of atheistic communists ! Do not Catholic missionaries enter various lands and disturb the religious status quo? Jesus disturbed the Pharisees’ peace, and they wailed, <fThe whole world is gone after him!” They were also disturbed by Jesus’ followers, and charged that the Christians “set the city iu an uproar”, though it was the religious mob that did that.—John 12:19; Acts 17: 5,6; 24: 5, 6, Douay Version.
Actually, it is the priests in Quebec that disturb the peace in that province, by stirring up mobs and officials to wrongfully act against Jehovah’s witnesses. The priests are disturbed because Bible truth is showing them to he “forgers of evil thoughts and of error”, and they fear repercussions when the honest Catholic people learn they have been cheated. Let us ask: Would you awaken a person sleeping in the path of an approaching tornado, though you temporarily disturb his peace by so doing! Then also will Jehovah’s witnesses preach God’s Word and warning, though it cause temporary disturbance of peace. For further proof that it is Catholicism awd. not Jehovah’s that circu
lates bogus coins, read the article on pages 25 and 26 of this issue of Awake!
J- -1 sat by your front door and dreamed that wonderful new horizons, from the enchanting sunset of old Mexico to the spine-tin- : gling scenery of Alaska, might come bowling right into your view? Incredible, you say? Not at all. There are thousands of people, scattered from end to end of the continent, who think of home as a place with a thousand doorsteps—at one time nestled by the seashore, then perched atop some lofty mountainside, or sequestered in a quiet valley whenever they please.
Preposterous but wonderful, don’t you think, the idea of picking up your home and moving it away from obnoxious neighbors or an undesirable environment at the drop of a trailer hitch? Or let’s say that you had thought of going off in search of more favorable or healthful climates, providing you could take home along. On the other hand, perhaps you are following some profession or trade that requires you to keep "on the go”, and you would like so much to keep the family with you.
In any such case, provided you and your family are the self-serving type, who can enjoy a parklike atmosphere of living and do not mind rubbing elbows with down-to-earth, good-natured, sociable folks and if you can be content in a midget-sized home that is comfortable and cozy and a marvel of compactness and cleanliness, demanding a hare minimum of housework—well, all this added together spells out a fairly sure indication that you are one of those thousands of persons who are in the market for a modern trailer home.
, The discovery of ao many possibilities in the ‘'home on wheels”, coming with something near the suddenness of a gold rush, has given wrings to one of the fastest-rising industries to influence modern community life in the present generation. Old-timers in trailerland have to look back little farther than the twenties, to chuckle over the cracker-box house ear and the collapsible tent-trailer which gave some hardy' souls so much enjoyment when they trekked off into remote areas for a vacation. Such folks had to have the same iron constitutions as the overlanders of pioneer days who traveled in covered wagons.
But how times change I The depression years threw a third of the American people into the throes of a housing shortage. That’s when human ingenuity', in its casting about, got down in dead earnest and began to rig the house trailer into a semblance of a home. Still, in most folks’ eyes, there was precious little atmosphere of permanency hovering within the trailer's walls, and its builders were still scarcely more than novices as late as 1939. ‘
But in that year, when no more than 11,000 commercial trailer coaches were turned out, total war raged forth and hurled the housing industry' down a deadend street. Was that a windfall for trailer builders! During the next eight years trailer homes multiplied fifteen times. In
AWAKE!
1947 there were 70,000 units built; in 1948 there were 80,000, and this number was scheduled to be duplicated in 1949* Today there are one and a quarter million people living in 400,000 trailers.
You saw them, whole communities of trailer homes moored around war plants and heavy industries. Since the war tens of thousands of GI students and their families have settled in trailer- and quonset-towns around university centers. World War II veterans have bought seven out of every ten trailers sold during the past three years. The housing shortage, the financial strain, and maybe the wanderlust have forced nearly half a million families into trailer homes, booming the trailer business ahove the billiondollar mark.
Will it go on booming? The Trailer Coach Manufacturers Association (TCMA), whose 53 members produce 60 percent of the trailer output, is not making any rash predictions, and is still content to wave the slogan, "The trailer coach is the steppingstone to a permanent home/' While three out of four say they prefer trailer-coach living to apartment life, and half of them owned a home before buying a trailer, most of the current trailer dwellers are going to buy a fixed home as soon as they can. There would be a lot of trailer ghost towns tomorrow \if their occupants could find the houses they want.
How Do Trailer Dwellers Fare?
To hold fast the first love of present owners and woo as many future owners as possible, the trailer industry has spared no amount of engineering genius in developing trailer home-building into a fine art. The combined talents and skills of engineering specialists, designers, decorators and artists have been pooled to build veritable palaces on white walls that fairly take your breath for smartness and comfort. Want to see for yourself? Then come take a peck inside a modern highway Pullman.
The trailer home we are inspecting sits in a trailer park out in the suburbs, in a quiet shady atmosphere (quiet, yes, now that the-youngsters are off to school). Its aluminum-alloy skin sparkles in the sun, there on its own private lot, and we walk up a prim little walkway lined with white lattice fencing surrounding a miniature green lawn. Under a striped awning porch, across a seven-foot flagstone patio and through the front door. Now don't say you're not struck by your first glance at the rich woodwork finishings. Look at that luxurious furniture. And did you ever see such a clever arrangement that has converted a minimum of “cubic living space” into a miracle of coziness and elegance? The living room's eight-foot width seems much more spacious. The divan that unfolds into a fine box-spring bed, the deep comfortable chair beside the dropleaf table, the cabinets and shelves, the rugs and drapes and all the linishings and lines blend into an elegance hardly surpassed by the most lavish drawing room. Why, the living room is a completely livable unit. It may be closed off from the kitchen by sliding French doors.
The kitchen, likewise, is a completely furnished unit. What does it lack in modern conveniences? Look at the doublesized sink, providing as much dishwashing room as any big kitchen. The electrical refrigerator, the apartment-size gas stove, the storage closets for pots and pans and food, and the china cabinets, everything arranged by a master hand into the inosf accessible and compact unit imaginable.
Dowrn the kitchen galley into the bedroom, and treat your eyes to that fallsized Hollywood bed, the vanity, the clothes closets. That door there, between the kitchen and bedroom, hides the daintiest miniature bathroom, with shower, vou’ve ever seen. *
About every conceivable convenience has been packed into this eight-by-thirty-three-foot space. Yet it does not seem
stuffy. There are plenty of windows, ac* tually four in the bedroom- Its ventilation system, employing ceiling vents and exhaust fans to draw off every kitchen odor, is on a par with the best air conditioning. Thermo statically controlled heat from the oil-burning stove here in the living room is distributed by air ducts with a blower running back into the bedroom. In summer it circulates ouL side air through the trailer as an air conditioner. The whole interior is well lighted, electrically, of course.
Then what's lacking in this three-thou san d-doUar homeT It can't be smartness, comfort, coziness, convenience and privacy—this is equal to a high-class throe room apartment. If our hostess feels this is not tasteful enough yet, then there are trailer homes on the market ranging up to $40,000. There are land yachts sporting expandable upper-story sleeping porches. There is one designer's dream that expands into a two-story house with three upstairs bedrooms and a portable porch, all of which subsides into a one-story trailer when it's time to cruise away to new horizons.
IF Acre TrailerUte Live
For every two business and pleasure trailers you sec rolling down the highway or parked in a vacationland camp, you can find eight parked on some private lot or in a licensed trailer camp for permanent residence. Trailer parka, you might as well know, have always been looked upon askance by the founding fathers oi respectable fixed communities. Imagine the consternation of the housing industry and civic leagues when, hardly a decade ago, a seared economist prophesied that by now half the Amer* iesm population would be living on wheels 1
Having sprung into existence in so short a time, and without much of a precedent to follow, the trailer park has had hi meet all the requirements of fixed housing settlements—sanitation, health, electricity, water and fuel supply, adequate entrances and outlets and so on, plus special problems peculiar to the folks or trailerland. In meeting them the park industry has so far progressed along three fairly specialized lines. These are
(1) The overnight trailer park; Should you become a trailefite for vacation or business purposes, the overnight trailer park will be your hotel. On the well-traveled vaeationland highways, especially ULtho seven most southern and western states, you will find the overnight trailer parks. Up north and east they are not as plentiful.
(2) The vacation camp ground park: If you feel the yen to stop over for a few weeks or months in a vaeationland spot, or in case you are working on a temporary assignment in the locality, your domicile is the vacation camp ground park. Whether your new lawn is the seashore, the mountain vista, or the valley and the winding river, you can appreciate that the solution to your housing needs is hardly less involved and expensive than caring for a school or other public institution. To put it less candidly, all the problems of the vacation camp ground park have not yet been solved to everybody's perfect satisfaction. Possibly you can help. How would you design a practical park lay-out that gives every individual trailer adequate storage facilities, toilet and hath where required, individual electric meters, park water lines connecting with each trailer, as well as sewer lines connecting with each trailer's kitchen sink and bathroom where included, not to mention vear-round driveways and numbered lots laid out and named and maintained after the fashion of a regular community? Two of the thorniest problems are satisfactory foundation supports for parking and adequate storage space for excess equipage.
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