Awake!, June 8, 1951
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JUNE 8, 1951 SEMIMONTHLY
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CONTENTS
Security
Science Cultivates the Oyster's Gifts
A Modern Quixote in Franco Spain
“Giant Killer” Brought Low
Protestants in Spain
"Quixote's" Last Ride Near
Red Plot on Pope and Vatican?
:tWe Want Self-Government”—Gold Coast 13
Dominion Within British Orbit
Religious “Freedom” in Spain
Scouting the Skies for Palomar’s Giant Eye
Mapping the Visible Universe
The Crime Probe
Bullfighting in Costa Rica
Bible 4 la Russe
“Your Word Xs Truth"
Why Be Baptized?
Meet the Remarkable Hunzas!
Reason for Hunza Health
£/ “Now it is high time to awake.”—Romans 13:11 9)
Volume XXXII Brooklyn, N. V., June 8, 1951 Number 11
SECURITY
FEAR can rip open the strongest defenses. Like a deadly dagger that slips through the walls ot flesh and passes into the internal organs of a man, so can fear cut straight to the vitals of a nation of men. Also, the same thing that makes one man fearful is responsible when a nation is so afflicted. This common denominator is insecurity.
When the ancient peoples dwelt in tribes, then in small kingdoms, their quest for security made them gather together, at first by families, then by cities and so on. The Bible, most ancient of our reliable histories, unveils the initial act outside Eden responsible for fear and insecurity in Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. In the same murderous, aggressive spirit of Cain, violent rulers of the world since have piled new fagots on the coals he ignited. When compared to the civilization we know, man of antiquity would be considered by the modems as not possessed of much. But if he had little to protect aside from home and personal possessions, he had as well very little to protect against, to compare with this same modem civilization. In the sense of material values, today’s world can probably be said to have 'everything'—everything, that is, except security. If men have come to where words fail to describe their progress, they have also come to where their ‘hearts are failing them for fear’. Alas, for all of its rocket missiles, international leagues, knowledge of atomic energy, radar and television, this age has failed to remedy that. This world is scared stiff!
A look in any direction proves the truthfulness of the foregoing. Passing time does little more than show the weakness of each remedy. Five years ago some persons thought that a compelling reason for uniting in peace had been discovered in the atomic bomb. Now, however, this is clearly belied by the facts. More than ten years ago, security was sought by appeasing the conquest-minded forces of totalitarian aggressors. But on December 15,1950, the president of the United States said, “The world learned from Munich that security cannot be bought by appeasement.”
This time a different pattern is proposed. Said Mr. Truman, on the occasion just cited: “We will build up our own army, navy and air force and make more weapons for ourselves and our allies."
Fearing, though, that in this vacillating world even professed allies cannot be trusted, former president Herbert Hoover recently called for cessation of U. S: men and money for Europe and concentration of American power in defending the Western Hemisphere.
Preparing for possible attack against the United States, cities of this land are swinging back to civilian defense programs utilized during the last war. Educational measures detailing proper action during an air attack are being circulated, including information on defense against biological and chemical warfare. A twenty-one-minute motion picture in chlor describes what to do if your city is hit by an atomic bomb
Security measures of another type have cropped up in legislation, such as the “Internal Security Act”. But this legislative crackdown on communists is so severe that its opponents accuse it of undermining the very free institutions it claims to protect.
Loyalty oaths have been either adopted or proposed by many leading industries and professions, such as teachers and lawyers. However, the pressure often accompanying the signing of such oaths all but destroys any significance they might have. Loyalty oaths only loom as another search for elusive security, a search now at desperation proportions.
On the other side of the globe trepidation is just as evident Mounting tension since the war’s close in 1945 has been paced by ever deeper secrecy on the part of Russia and her satellites. Bristling with strength, Russia’s never demobilized armed forces and those of her deputy states have stood poised around the vast frontiers of communism like ominous sentinels. In pretended defense of the security of these borders, this vast octopuslike war machine has lashed out with its tentacles to produce sample wars, as in Indo-China and Korea. Veiled threats currently belch forth from the'parent Soviet that efforts of the West to rearm Western Germany may provoke further defense of communist “security”.
Over the entire seething structure of division and trustless hate the United Nations sits brooding. Its official forces are dispatched to fight aggression while some of its members support the aggressors. The U. N. is but an international clinic where all the world’s cases of shattered nerves are collected together in one spot. Fear and Doubt hold permanent seats in the security council and general assembly.
In some form the search for security is evident in every branch of human society: price and wage controls to meet the economic crisis, religious councils and leagues for moral unity, youth movements to fight delinquency. Individuals, too, have their suggestions. One man offered a cave in which to hide leading scientists, professional men and young people capable of starting anew the race following a global holocaust of World War in, in which he felt all civilization would be wiped out.
To look upon this fear-struck world moves one with a desire to offer it a true hope. But what? When'Jesus the Master Prophet foretold these fearful days he added, for benefit of his believing followers: “But as these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.” (Luke 21:28,New World Trans.) Their deliverance is near because Christ’s kingdom is near, “even at the doors.”
That makes this a time of choice, with eternal destiny in the balance. Those leaning toward human schemes do well to hear what Paul the inspired apostle said concerning their chances of success: “Whenever it is that they are saying, ‘Peace and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman, and they will by no means escape.”—1 Thessalonians 5:3, New World Trans.
For all of its apparent efforts toward security, this world is not even a pale substitute for God’s kingdom by Christ. Remember, the Kingdom can furnish deliverance, peace and everlasting life. How much better is this than an international collection of nervous breakdowns or a cave! It is well worthy of your choice.
SCIENCE CULTIVATES THE OYSTER'S GIFT
considerably. If the baby oyster can get a start on a hardsurfaced bottom in
i/AUT you go!’ says V/ in effect the oyster's proud parent. Simultaneously, the elder oyster opens the valves of its shell and propels its offspring larva into outside waters. Thus the baby oyster gets its start, brutal in any language. The brood begins life with two and a half strikes on it. Hungry marine life may devour the larva at once or it may be washed away to localities unfavorable to oyster development or become buried in soft mud or become the victim of a sudden change in weather for the colder, all of which things spell doom to the oyster larva or “spat”. So many are its perils and so meager its defenses, it appears certain that were it not for its very prolific nature the oyster would long before now have been known to civilization only through encyclopedias. It is believed that American female oysters produce literally millions of eggs. Some oysters are Ttemwi-phroditic^ possessed of both male and female sex organs in one animal, though with most species the sexes are distinct. Some are known to undergo a change of sex during life.
Though present admirers admit that the first to try the succulent oyster must have been a man of brave digestive traits, the fact remains that this shell-bom delight was known and loved by the ancients. Britain’s sea-food capital, Colchester, was the site df the first Roman colony in the land A.D. 50, and the rich oyster beds nearby are thought to have influenced the Romans shallow water, it is on its way. By the first year the average oyster will have grown from one-twentieth of an inch at birth to an inch in diameter. Thereafter they grow at the rate of about an inch a year, and are considered in their prime around the five-year mark.
The oyster's life, however, remains harrowing, Number one on its “hate parade” is the starfish. Schools of these clamp themselves on clusters of oysters and apply suction to draw the shells apart. At length, the adductor muscle within that holds the shells closed becomes fatigued, gives up, thus opening the door and at once the starfish peculiarly turns its own stomach inside out and slips it within the shell to devour its defenseless prey. But the underdog has been known to “come off the ropes” and score an upset by clamping its shells shut again upon unsuspecting animals out hunting at low tide. Rats have been known caught in this manner.
The interior these predatory foes as well as gourmet man so earnestly seek is truly remarkable among living organisms. One cannot make head or tail of it, or foot either, ( for it has none of these. In the middle, though, are the intricate heart, reproductive organs, liver, stomach and adductor muscle. Lips, mouth and gills are found as well as a covering of skin around the inside of the shell. For nourishment the oyster lets in a fresh supply of water. Anything digested must first be sifted through the gills, then pass the approval of the lip? which, if it is desirable, will relay it into the mouth. The oyster is a fastidious eater, confining its diet mainly to microscopic plants and animals.
Cultivating a Tastier Morsel
Through oyster culture much has been made up to the oyster in a highly scientific way for its otherwise very hard life when left alone in open waters. The early Romans inaugurated oyster culture, at least as far as England was concerned,' when they transplanted English oysters to their own shores, Today there are oyster farms in England where oysters are cared for in water of the right moderate temperature and shallow depth with the proper hard bottom. Extreme care is exercised to protect the oyster from the larva stage onward, that it may have every aid in waxing fat and succulent
The United States too has given all-out attention to oyster farming in an effort to halt the staggering drop in production that sent the crop reeling down to 90,000,-000 pounds a year by 1945, about half its size of sixty years ago. Oysters are cared for even before they exist. Where it is determined a cluster of oysters will discharge their "spat”, hard shells are distributed on the bottom. After they have settled and grown on the shells for two years, they are raised and knocked free that the crowded quarters (of twenty-five or thirty on one shell) may be relieved and better growth assured, Then they are transplanted into new beds selected as favorable for their next period of growth. After the three-year level they are again transferred, this time to beds specifically designed for fattening. At five years as a minimum they are raised for sorting and marketing. That is, the finest, largest, most juicy ones are packed for shipment Those not measuring up to specifications are sorted out for return to the beds and further fattening. Government protection guards against poachers, and the beds are defended as well against the natural enemies of the oyster. Even when on board the dredging boats the oysters are kept on deck to prevent pollution from the engine fumes below. Of course, all this scientific cultivation primarily benefits man, the donor. Yet no honest oyster can deny that those so cultivated gain a far greater life-expectancy as a result thereof.
But the height of science’s cultivation of the oyster’s natural gifts reaches far beyond the palate. Everyone knows the product for which some oysters are world famed. Everyone knows—the women who primarily wear the breath-taking pearls, as well as their husbands, suitors, fathers or brothers who buy them.
The 1 Million-Dollar Look?
Though the expression “You look like a million” might be a trifle inflated, an attractive young lady could very easily look like $300,000. This goal can be achieved by wearing the following pearl jewelry as displayed in the New York Mirror of May 21, 1950: a pair of earrings ($10,000), shoulder straps (three on each shoulder, $50,000), a brooch ($5,000), bracelets (three on each arm? $65,000), pearl rings (two large pearls, $10,000), a handbag (of 12,000 cultured pearls plus twelve carats of carved rubies and ten carats of round and baguette diamonds, $40,000) and six individual necklaces in graduating lengths, $120,000.
Actually, just as oysters have been enjoyed since ancient times, so have pearls. The ancients obtained thejr pearls mainly from India and the Persian Gulf. However, fruitful pearl fields have been found as *well in the Sulu seas, off the coast of Australia, off Central America’s coastline and among some of the South Pacific islands. For long, divers have used similar methods, A cord with a sinker of stone weighing some forty pounds is used to lower the diver, if he wishes. They work in pairs, one watching the line with which he raises first the sinker, then the baskets of oysters, while the other dives for the prize. Divers can remain under for an average of from fifty to eighty seconds, although some exceptional individuals have been able to remain for longer periods. Since sharks are quite at home in most pearl oyster haunts, the native Indian diver will never go down without first obtaining the incantations of shark charmers sent along for the purpose. However, due either to contact with too many “uncharmed” sharks or to this steady exertion in ‘the tropical climate, most divers are never bothered with qld age*
The Science of “Home-made” Pearls
Ordinarily, pearls are formed when a tiny parasite becomes wedged between the shell and the mantle, the layer of skin just inside the shell. Some have thought that a grain of sand could cause this as well, though this no longer enjoys widespread acceptance. As the parasite remains in its position within the shell it becomes a permanent irritant, gathering about it increasing amounts of the “mother-of-pearl substance lining the shell. Time and nature trade the worthless parasite for a rare gem.
With cultured pearls the irritating agent is placed in the oyster by hand, following which event the creature is returned to its ocean bed to sleep for from three to eight years. During this time layers of pearl will form around the irritant. The size of the pearl will depend on the length of time allowed for development. The cheaper grades of cultured pearls come from oysters that have been injected with larger irritants and permitted to remain in the ocean for a shorter period of time. The Imperial Pearl Syndicate, world's largest importers of cultured pearls, developed an irritant of true mother-of-pearl, thus producing a “pearlier” pearl. Of course, for all the culturing, the pearl-producing Asiatic oyster still has to do the job in its native waters.
At f\rst oysters were artificially furnished with irritants by having the shell forced open. This resulted in a high oyster death toll and a proportionate defeat for the purpose of culturing pearls. Thanks to science again, however, this method has been scrapped in favor of a way far easier on the oyster. Now a suitable anesthetic has been devised which effectively knocks out the oyster long enough to permit the injection of the Irritant. And so again the oyster benefits from a step dictated by its value to man.
The pearl proves a glowing fruitage, well repaying man’s care for its producer. For instance, there is the famed “Star of the South Seas” necklace, consisting of seventy-nine cream rosea pearls. David Goldstone, joint head of the Imperial Pearl Syndicate, informed the New York Mirror that this masterpiece from the ocean floor of the Dutch East Indies required eight years to assemble. From oyster shell to its new abode on the fair sex of mankind, the pearl's story is novel and sparkling. Lending its own beauty to that of woman, it is indeed enough to provoke the “other half” to brand it a ‘million-dollar look1, even though the gem’s value may not be quite that great.
Thus, the humble oyster, cast out of its home as a mere “infant” and subject to a continuous chain of perils through life, finds itself persistently cared for by man and science to whom it represents the height of delicacies in food and a ’glittering treasure in jewels.
A Modern Quixote
in
N MODERN Spain Don Quixote lives again. Not in the person of Cervantes’ dilapidated knight-errant does a mythical literary figure ride his trusty steed across storybook pages. The modem Quixote lives, a real-life counterpart of the early seventeenth century legendary hero. The striking comparison is found in the ambitions and exploits of the two Dons.
Most readers from their school days will fondly recall the humorous daring of the Spanish self-made knight in makeshift armor whose horse, through leanness, “had more quarters than pence in a sixpence.” Besides achieving fame for the author, Don Quixote’s wild jousts in the cause of chivalry satirically broke the back of the Spanish knighthood craze. Best known of Quixote’s exploits is his one-man charge upon a row of windmills that he fancied were an army of invading giants with great swinging arms. The first of the imaginary foes put him to rout when its wind-driven sail caught and shattered the knight’s lance, then lifted horse and rider thereby into the air. A badly shaken Sir Don Quixote landed in a heap some distance away.
And who today is the modem Don Quixote of Spain? Who but the Fascist dictator that in 1939 imagined himself the glorious victor over “communism” at the death of the Spanish Republic? But American correspondents, including George Sel-des and Alexander H. Uhl, besides a host of other sources, have long since punctured that fable. They did not, however, end Franco's use of the “Red scare”.
El Caudillo’s Bourbonish “castle in Spain” and the pomp and inordinate tastes that inevitably go with dictators have been maintained at the expense of a wretched people whose condition has steadily worsened. To periodic outbursts of discontent the Franco regime has been alert to always attach the Red label. Only this March, a unified action by the workers of Barcelona brought virtually all city activity to a standstill, in a strike protesting the terrific rise in living costs.
At once, the “windmill warrior” screamed “communism” according to script, and sharpened his lance to go trotting out to give battle. Singlehandedly the gallant Don of the twentieth century faced the hordes of Barcelona “giants”, the workers, dangerously armed with malnutrition and poverty, from his well-guarded Madrid stronghold some 300 miles away. Bravely he poured troops and armed police into Barcelona to quell the violence which did not begin in earnest until the police moved on the protesting public.
In The Nation, March 24, 1951, J. Alvarez del Vayo said concerning this action by Franco’s government; “The Cabinet met hastily in the night and in its bewilderment decided to send four warships to Barcelona, apparently not considering what an impression of weakness this might create abroad. Afterward it lost what little respect it still enjoyed at home by explaining that the ships had gone to Barcelona on a ‘visit’. Hungry and sad as they are, the Spanish people have not lost their sense of humor, and they are exchanging jokes about the 'tourist fleet’. But the damage had been done abroad.”
With rare courage, the generalissimo issued his fearless decree that all participating strikers should be deprived of their wages .for the time lost Then later, in a display of mercy probably unsurpassed in modern history, he relented and decided they should have a chance to make up for these lost wages by working overtime. Ah, is it any wonder that the Spanish people are so in love with their kind Quixote®
Do not think that this Barcelona incident is weak or isolated or of no political significance in or outside of Spain. In The Nation article Vayo made haste to point out that the press’ figures counted 300,000 workers involved.. The writer states that private sources from inside Spain put the total at half a million. Further, Mr. del Vayo states that when Franco falls the Barcelona date, March 12, 1951, will be recorded as the beginning of the end. He recalls that under Franco law, the slightest word, written or oral, that can be construed in a subversive way is enough to land the originator in jail. Yet here the largest city in Spain lay buried under a flood of pamphlets and posters voicing the people's protest. The public had found its voice and was calling the bully's bluff. Adding insult to injury, American news agencies stated that the strike was no more than over when other leaflets were systematically being distributed calling for another walkout on April 1, a celebrated date, Franco’s “Victory Day”.
“Giant Killer” Brought Low
The communist scare seems at last to be wearing thin in Spain, though probably few Spaniards have ever taken it seriously. Correspondents report that popular feeling considers official “communism” charges in the Barcelona incident pure nonsense. C. L. Sulzberger, in a recent series of articles appearing in the New York Times, points out that, as ever, substantial and organized underground opposition to Franco operates entirely independent of communism. Ironically though, whereas the communists constituted no threat when Franco launched his revolution in 1936, they have grown in strength under his regime. Correspondent Sulzberger states that some sources contend there are now 250,000 communists in Spain, but adds that the government keeps this information suppressed from foreign embassies. With reference to conditions in general Mr, Sulzberger states, despite Franco’s ability thus far to remain a jump or two ahead of his adversaries:
“Nevertheless, one thing he has not been able to do is to endear himself to the people. Opposition representatives hold that only the functionaries of the government and large elements of the army and church support him; that the huge mass of the Spanish people remains surly and opposed, if for the present unvocaL”
Perhaps more and more of them are perceiving in Franco no “giant killer” instinct as advertised. They know the 1936 government he murdered for and with the help of Hitler and the Nazis was democratic, not communistic. They know the Barcelona strike was their own protest against inhuman living conditions. And thus they know Franco's “giants” are only windmills. Instead of a glorious victor over communism, perhaps they see him in the same pose in which the legendary Quixote found himself, piled up in a jumbled heap of rusty armor clutching the shattered stump of a broken lance.
How important it is to review the true pose of Franco today, now that he represents fascism’s last stand in Europe; now that he is the last reminder of the scourge that took the horrible toll in life and wealth during six long years of World War II. So important, yes, because this same Franco, without a shade of change, has within the past few months been recognized anew by the U.N.'s making possible diplomatic ’exchange with the independent member governments, and provided with a $62,500,000 American loan.
Protestants in Spain
How does Franco stand on the freedoms so vital to the West? His iron curtain of censorship, taboos on free speech and police-state rule are as notorious as Stalin’s. Despite pretensions of Catholic propaganda in the democracies, Protestants have suffered in the extreme under Franco rule. W. E. Garrison has the following to say in The Christian Century of October 18, 1950: “It is notable that Spanish Catholic papers, being published for home consumption, say nothing of this kind [that Spain provides freedom of worship]. The term has no propaganda value in Spain. When they mention the Protestants at all, it is to say what a godless, immoral, revolutionary and un-Spanish gang they are, to exhort the faithful to see to it that these heretics are kept in their proper subordinate and inconspicuous place, and to stress the restrictions which the fundamental law of the country puts upon them rather than the small liberties which it guarantees.”
The deep significance behind this Ione point lies in the fact that the world’s most powerful Protestant country, the United States, has concluded a $62,500,000 loan’to Franco Spain. What a high price to pay an assassin to help you commit suicide! Furthermore, talk now persists that America is dickering with Franco over possible Spanish entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Certainly all sense of moral values and common principles must be swallowed to tolerate a course like this for a nation like the United States.
The moral question has deep roots. Already such whispering has shaken the confidence of the North Atlantic partners. Britain and France have cautioned the United States on hasty fraternization with Spain, stressing Franco's grave European unpopularity, even in strongly Catholic France, Also, it is well to note that Spain is today a land whose industry is dead and its poverty deplorable. Sanitation is unknown. Disease runs rampant and young children run naked. Her vaunted standing army is in no way. equipped for an all-out war with communism. Already the Franco government is reported to have asked U.S. materiel as a prerequisite to Spain’s contribution of man power in a Western European army. Spanish highways and railroads are far below even the minimum required to make the country a Western defense fortress. Total costs to rebuild Spain in such a way as to solve these basic needs would place a continuous drain on the West for an incalculable period.
Furthermore, the evidence mounts daily to show what a poor investment this would be. Referring again to The Nation’s article on the Barcelona flare-up, we note that writer Vayo said: “The Barcelona strike has destroyed the myth of ‘external order’ from which a regime like Franco’s draws its strength. It has shaken the government’s confidence that nothing would ever happen in Spain and that to stay in power it only had to increase each year the amount allotted to the police in the budget—and hope for more money from Washington.”
Final embarrassment rises from the view expressed in a publication called “The Churchman” for January 1,1951, that even the pessimistic ones among Franco’s opposers in Spain were estimating that eighty per cent of the populace was against him, U.S. aid and diplomatic overtures have suddenly caused the Franco press to go wild in hailing American support to the regime. What a cup of cool water such aid must be now to a tottering government whose people are at last finding courage to defy its tyranny. Has America come to the aid of*a Franco facing ruin at home just in time to save him from his own people?
The Company She Keeps
But if her allies and the liberty-loving Spanish “underground” have been shocked by the company she keeps, America can reap solace from the flexible mouth of Spain’s new ambassador to the United States, Don Jose de Lequerica y Erquiza. This one-time pro-Nazi, who intermediated France’s 1940 surrender and later served as Franco’s ambassador to the puppet-Nazi regime of Vichy, recently presented his credentials in Washington. President Truman, who openly opposed Congress* favorable action on Spain, cut the whole affair, including handshakes, to three minutes. But Don Jose managed to get in a nice diplomatic mouth ful-of-noth in g first, saying: “The present efforts of your country, perhaps unparalleled in the history of man, have made it the nation towards which all countries desiring international morality turn.” But such a statement from a representative of Franco’s government does not mean much. It means even less in light of the fact that to reopen relations with
Franco, the U.S. had to backtrack on its past concepts of “international morality”. With a representative from a man as Internationally lmmdtal as Franco in her house, while her own ambassador now lives under Franco’s roof, it is difficult to understand how America can hope to long preserve her international reputation, if any remnants of it actually remain.
Desertion of principle to embrace Franco is only another example of the infidelity of man-rule under demon influence in this old world. There is the very real possibility that American democracy is now courting a government that the majority of the Spanish people do not want. More than one authority now claims that his populace would be unwilling to fight a European war under Franco. Remember too, Franco is nc comrade-to-the-death. It is obvious that he has considerably greater love for fascism than for democracy. Yet, never did he declare open war on the side of Germany and Italy during World War n, simply because they never came close enough to victory to satisfy him. How long would he wait in a World War in before joining his now-avowed friends in the West?
Do you think he would not chance waiting to be left with a communist Europe about him ? He held back to let his enemies surround him Jiefore. Already he has given assurance that Spain would deal with the Reds if Western aid were not forthcoming. This international poker player is a political chameleon whose colors change with every wind. One more switch would never stumble him,
"Quixote's” Last Ride Near
So we ask, Why does democracy support a fickle, totalitarian tyrant? Why does the strongest Protestant power on earth shower so rich a gift on the world's outstanding persecutor of Protestants? Why does the democratic West come to the aid of Europe’s fascist oasis just in time to prevent its desolation? Why do champions of liberty offer the strong right hand of fellowship to the black-hearted murderer of freedom who once wrote love letters to Hitler and Mussolini, who offered to jump in on their spoils, who once said he longed for the day when German bombers would blast the skyscrapers of New York? Why? For the temporary and questionable end of military expediency. They woo a potential ally, the dead weight of whose poverty-ridden, industry-stilled nation may cripple their progress elsewhere.
In such manner they laud and embrace a supposed gallant victor over “communism” on the battlefield. A “communism” this, that championed the separation of church and state, that refused to permit feudalism and serfdom in the twentieth century, that treated all religions alike and allowed each an equal right of practice, that tried to bring its country out of the Dark Ages and up with the world?
Franco is a fraud! He fought against things communism has never advocated-He opposes the very principles America swears to uphold by its Constitution. He is no gallant knight; he is a cheap fraud in rusty armor; and his imaginary foes are only “windmills”, if one of these does not catch him with its sail and topple him from his swayback, totalitarian nag, he will fall at the very latest beneath the fist of almighty power delivered by Jehovah God through his unconquerable warrior, Christ Jesus, at Armageddon. It will be of no advantage then to have aided a fascist slaughterer of innocent lives. Men may gag on their own principles and spit them out in a crisis, but Jehovah God remembers every syllable of his Word of truth. Never will his conquering warrior retreat from the principles championed by God’s kingdom government. Rather, he wifi fulfill these and promote the worship of the true God in all the earth. He will remember, too, his sworn program of righteousness, destroying all wickedness and bringing to his subjects everlasting life.
■■ o
Piot on Pope and Vatican?
The People f a paper from London, England, of January 28, 1951, headed one of its columns: "Red Plot to Seize Pope and Vatican." The article, compiled by the paper's diplomatic correspondent, related a report emanating out of Russia by an East German diplomat to the effect that Palmjro Togliatti, head of the Italian Communist party, had laid before Cominform leaders a plan to liquidate the pope and the College of Cardinals. While the Cominform's attitude toward the alleged plan, which would require exertion of pressure in Italy designed to produce a revolution within the next eighteen months, was unknown, the correspondent pointed out that "Russia has so far regarded Germany as 'top priority’ The item continued, saying:
"I learned that Togliatti told the conference: "The conquest of Western Germany may give communism industrial control of Europe, but we cannot win ideological control, we cannot establish the revolution firmly, until we have smashed the Church. Therefore, we must put the Italian revolution first and end the power of the pope and the cardinals. Togliatti added that a successful revolution in Italy—where there are 2,000,000 Communists, more than in any other nonCommunist country- would draw off Allied forces from Germany, Austria and Trieste. That would leave the way clear for German Reds to take over Berlin and then march on West Germany to establish ‘Home Rule’.”
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I “We Want Self-Government" I
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A Zealous Struggle for Full Dominion Status Within the British Commonwealth
By *'Awake!" correspondent In Gold Coast
C. P. P.; those are the call letters ringing through the Gold Coast, wealthiest British West African colony. Small children hardly able to speak can yet repeat, “Cee Pee Pee?" The three consonants are printed with durable plantain on inland roads and busy intersections of main towns. They are plastered on buildings, billboards, posts; hung from the rear of cycles, taxis arid transport trucks; scrawled on blackboards by school children; blared out in code from the horns of vehicles of every description and put to song by joyful crowds dancing through the streets almost continually day and night. Why all this extreme excitement? For what reason could almost everyone seem so happy? What is this C. P. P.?
It is the eve (February 7, 1951) of the first election in this country. Tomorrow the people go to the polls for the first time in their history to elect 38 African members to a new Legislative Assembly which brings with it the greatest measure of self-government given to any West African colony in the Commonwealth. The existing Territorial Councils will elect another 37, and at most there will be nine Europeans in the house of 84 seats. Africans are to be given eight out of eleven cabinet posts and will control everything except defense, external affairs, the civil service, finance and justice.
Loudest Voice
Loudest of voices in this struggle has been the Convention People’s Party (C. P. P.), and with little opposition they are as determined to take the majority of seats as they were in obtaining S. G. (self-government) when launching their Party, June 12,1949, on a policy of “self-government now through positive action”. Seven months after the lusty pursuit of their party program, strikes and agitation brought emergency measures by the government which lasted three months, teaming the party leader, Kwame Nkrumah, with six other party members, in prison charged with inciting others to take part in an illegal strike and printing seditious articles in his newspaper, the Accra Evening News, Far from being dampened in spirit, the party leaders mounted boxes and gathered groups in the villages to zealously foment hatred for imperialistic practices and to further their political aims at- “freedom”. In the Legislative Council the government was considering possibilities of an early election in conformity with the provision laid down in a new constitution.
“The eyes of the whole empire will be on the way in which this election is conducted,” quoted Governor Arden Clark in his address to the last meeting of the Legislative Council and referring to the words spoken of the Gold Coast in a recent debate in the House of Commons. By strenuous efforts a large staff, with 16 trucks carrying charts and recordings in five languages, had been touring the country explaining registration to people speaking about 25 languages and dialects and who were asked to vote before they could read or write. Preparation has been extensive for this challenging date, February 8, 1951. About 70,000,000 Africans are watching the developments of this experiment, for if S. G. succeeds here, other African colonies will cry, "What about us?’* On its result rest untold millions of European capital investment. "This is not an election/* stated the Daily Graphic, a British newspaper in the colony, "it’s a crusade.” The African contends: "The challenge is with us—inexorable as death.”
E-Day
Cheers! E-Day! Newspapers are filled with political news this morning: who to vote for, where to cast your vote, how the results will be declared from the Town Hall and broadcast over Z. O. the Accra broadcasting station. Red, green and white cars sporting flags of the same colors announce C. P. P., to sweep the polls. "There is victory for us in the struggle of the C. P, P.; there is victory for us, Oh yes! There is victory for us,” sing the many groups dancing through the streets of the capital city. Blasts from horns and whistles of railway engines signal out the "Morse code” of C. P. P.
In the evening upward of 8,000 people assembled at the Town Hall, and, though quite orderly, their exuberant joy broke into singing and dancing as results were announced from the balcony. The police band and native drums supplied entertainment. Finally, the long awaited climax in returns came through. Like a shot from a cannon came the announcement: Kwame Nkrumah is elected! Still in James Fort prison on the charge of sedition against the government, the zealot for independence had won a seat in the new government. His party, with a motto; “We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquillity,” walked away with 34 seats, while the United Gold Coast Convention party took three.
Hilarious with excitement the crowd rushed out through the town leaving the grounds of Town Hall dark and vacant in but a few minutes. Peer bars opened wide their doors; petty trading stores were in some cases forced to open for business; car groups pulled up to a darkened building soon to set it aglow with excitement "Mad with Nkrumah victory they sang and danced in streets night long,” wrote a staff writer of the Spectator Daily.
Nor did the festivities quiet down much in the capital city next day, but there was a new trend of thought to the discussions. Groups gathered on street corners around bill postings of the daily news headlines. Rumors, whisperings and gossip spread like wildfire. ‘Kwame Nkrumah will be coming out today,’ 'Surely, the government will not hold the seven party members in prison now.’ Unrest and tension seemed to run through the populace and the daily newspapers whipped up the enthusiasm. Gbedemah, now acting chairman of the C. P. P., was in jail not so long ago for political offenses and now he might find himself minister of education, which would also give him control of prisons. This gave a new twist to discussions. Confident of realizing their expectations and trusting in lusty insistency of its demands, the political camp continued in song: "Kwame Nkrumah’s body is behind prison bars, but his soul goes marching on. Fight the good fight with all thy might, Kwame Nkrumah is on thy right.”
Radio Bomb
Vague rumors and speculations about Nkrumah’s release proved to be false until a few days later, when, like an atomic bomb explosion to the Gold Coast, the British broadcasting station announced during its afternoon news feature that the governor had released Kwame Nkrumah from prison. People were practically blown out into the streets by the flash, and in Accra, less than half an hour after the premature release of the news, there was a convergence at James Fort prison. “Freedom! Freedom was the shout coming from the gathering, numbering well over 9,000. Traffic was jammed as people ran from every direction. Women, faces daubed with white powder and dressed in large white cloths, symbol of victory, danced wild with joy, singing, “Peace will come from Kwame Nkrumah/* When released, their hero was carried shoulder high, to a special car, and with a police escort the maze of humanity moved at a snail's pace through the streets to the West End Sports Arena where an additional assemblage was waiting, increasing the number of spectators to over 20,000, Held high, cheered, praised, yes, worshiped, he was carried to the platform to join others of his party,
A sheep was slaughtered on the platform and the feet of the discharged men were smeared with blood as a sign of the removal of past faults. The throng increased. Schools dismissed their pupils and business houses closed, bringing down a great deluge upon the already assembled masses. One small lad must have gotten lost, because I saw them handing him one to another over their heads to the outside. Addresses over, the flood of humanity flowed into the streets where police were busy directing traffic. A European police officer standing at a busy intersection was approached by one of the happy crowd who shook the hand at the end of the extended arm. Others standing by followed suit and for a few minutes the embarrassed officer found himself unable to continue his job.
Dominion Within British Orbit
The governor of the colony has expressed his desire to consult Nkrumah about the new executive council. Nkrumah states his willingness to meet with him, but says, “The [new] constitution is bogus and fraudulent, but I think it is a stepping-stone to self-government. What the people of this country want is real political power to manage their own affairs, without leaving power in the hands of a single person appointed by an alien power, however paternalistic or kind. We the C. P. P. want dominion status within the British Commonwealth.” Foremost member of the opposition party (U.G.C.C.) says Nkrumah’s release will benefit the Gold Coast, but “the C. P. P. has climbed into power chiefly by means of misrepresentation of the aims and conduct of the founders of the United Gold Coast Convention”. Both parties are at one, however, in seeking a complete break from Britain's political apron strings.
Education is the first concern of C. P. P. and in education-hungry Gold Coast it is universally popular; even, as they contend, it is better to have half-trained teachers than none at all. A close second on their base of operations is the removal of colonial laws restricting freedom of speech, press, assembly and of movement. They are not overlooking free medical services, better village housing, more piped water supplies and a minimum wage of £7 ($19.60) a month. At the present time Gold Coast workers earn about £3 or £4 ($8.40 or $11.20) a month, and £20 ($56.00) a month ranks as high pay. And in verbal conquest of its objectives the party is not specializing in soft-spoken diplomacy,
“In a democratic country, if a political party is in the minority, it forms the opposition; if it is in the majority it forms the government. Coalitions with the other political groups in this country . . . will be dangerous. The party system must therefore be established . ,.. We expect to be obstructed by the maneuvers of British bureaucratic officialdom. Should such contingency arise, we do not rule out the possibility of another Positive Action. I am strongly of the opinion . . . that all party members of the assembly and ministers should surrender their salaries to the party and in turn draw agreed remuneration from party funds. This will prevent careerism and induce comrades in high office to live simply and modestly and thus be undivorced from the masses/’ With this declared prospectus by Nkrumah and his party the Gold Coast begins on its historic career of autonomy or self-government.
It was a beautiful sight when members arrived for the informal opening of the Legislative Assembly. (Only two members of the previous council had been re-elected by the people to the new parliament.) As they took their respective seats they threw the Town Hall into a maze of quilted color with their varied patterns of cover cloth, some native made and some British made. Kwame Nkrumah wore white.
Self-government! Is this the answer? Is this Gold Coast experiment the first attempt by man? Has man succeeded? Has he realized his hopes? Surely what is needed more than imperial government or self-government is Jehovah God’s theocratic government!
Religious "Freedom” in Spain
<1 In an effort to excuse the modern Spain of Franco, monstrous propaganda circulates free- JJ ly concerning alleged "freedoms” possessed M there by Protestants to deceive discerning in- m dividuals. However, too much sound evidence to the contrary exists, of which the following is but another small example. About four years h ago, Dr. Zacarias Carles, director of the Span- J3 ish Christian Mission, provided the publication M Prophecy, of Los Angeles, California, with a 3 portion of a letter received from Spain. This Jj information, quoted by Prophecy in its Sep Jj tember, 1947, issue, we reproduce in the same h form here:
"On May 12th, 1945, in the Barracks of Mon- £ tefaro the recruits of that year swore aile- g giance to the flag. In Spain this ceremony has ► a great importance and is always preceded by J the celebration of the mass. Brother Jos6 Mo- £ rado manifested to his chief that in his mill- h tary attestation his religion was recorded as £ evangelical, and, for this reason, he asked that ► he be relieved from attending the religious h act of the Church of Rome. His request was > not granted, and he had to go to the military ff parade- Q
“There he entreated that he be permitted to M leave the parade. He pointed out that he was M very pleasantly obeying all that was related ** to the military service as well as to his duties for the fatherland but that he refused to render to the Divinity a cult that is prohibited in the Sacred Scriptures. He was co actively constrained to stay in the parade, and in the moment of the elevation of the host, when the bugler sounded the signal to kneel down, Brother Jose Morado remained standing. His chief ordered him to kneel down, but he remained standing—alone among the kneeling crowd of soldiers—closed his eyes and did not open them until the bugler sounded the rising signal.
“When the ceremony ended, he was confined to the Detention Barracks. Brother Jos£ Mo-rado was then, and he still is, ill from pulmonary lesion, for he had just been released from sick quarters to fulfill his duties in relation to the swearing of allegiance to the flag. On October 30th, 1946, he was court-martiailed for the offence of "disobedience to the sound of the bugle.’ The prosecutor asked that the indictment be the punishment of six years and one day in the penitentiary. The defending attorney asked one year of correctional reclusion. Several Christians in Spain have solicited from His Excellence, the Chief of the Spanish State, the indult for our Brother Jose Morado.”
6 T H f SKIPS'
Palomar’s Giant Eye
The Big Schmidt Telescope Locates Astral Bodies for Study by 200-inch Giant Eye
TULY 1949 marked the beginning of a J gigantic project, the mapping of all the skies visible from the Palomar Observatory in California. Is the 200-inch mirror telescope, famous for its range into space eight times greater than any other telescope, to chart the heavens? No, because thy "Big Eye”, in reality a colossal camera, photographs deeply but narrowly; a mere “peephole” of sky can be concentrated under its gaze. To perform such a prodigious* task it would require 5,000 years! But the sky atlas is expected to be finished in four years by another instrument almost as remarkable, the Big Schmidt telescope.
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Designed as a “perfect complement” to the longer range 200-incher, the 48-inch Schmidt took almost as much time to .ten years. It is located in a smaller dome, one-quarter of a mile inch reflector. Purposed to ting fields for the Big Eye to concentrate on, the Big Schmidt is often led “Scout” and is ing in some high-nteresting perform-»s of its own. Probout 300,000,000 -years into space, otographic repro-n is flawless!
The Big Schmidt is what is called a wide-angle camera. It can cover 44 square degrees of the heavens in each photograph. In comparison the Giant Eye is limited to one-fourth of a square degree or 15 minutes of an arc in each photograph. To understand this dimension, we are told that the moon is one-half a degree or 30 minutes of an arc in diameter. On a moonlit evening the queen of the night looms large, but if you hold a pea at arm’s length you can black out her silvery face. Even less area than this is pinpointed by the Big Eye. But the Schmidt covers an area hundreds of times as large and one-third as deep.
In the total heavens, or celestial sphere, there are 41,259 degrees. Of this, three-fourths is visible from Palomar, the other one-fourth lying beneath the range of this observatory, in Southern Hemisphere skies. With less than a thousand plates the Schmidt will chart 75 per cent of the dome that has hung above man since his creation. Actually the Big Schmidt survey will constitute an unparalleled exploration into the unknown. While in a few places the 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson has penetrated the sky somewhat deeper than the Schmidt, this reflector is subject to the same limitations as the 200-inch. The result is that only about one per cent of the sky has been explored to the distant reaches of 300,000,000 light-years. (To translate this colossal figure into miles multiply by 6 trillion.) Discoveries which the Scout is making almost daily astound the men of science.
An explanation of the construction or the Schmidt reveals the high hopes placed upon the new sky chart, and much of the reason for the 'success of photographs now delighting the astronomer. Designed by the optical genius Bernhard Schmidt, it is a combination of the two major types of telescopes, the refracting type and the reflecting type. In other words, it employs both a lens (refractor) and a mirror (reflector). It is said that the principle of telescopes was discovered by a Dutch optician named Lippershey. At first crude, the refractors were enlarged and improved by Galileo and others, until this type reached about the limit of its efficiency in the Yerkes 40-incher, Williams Bay, Wisconsin.
The chief fault common to all types of lens telescopes is an aberration called chromatism—“the fact the refracting lens splits the light slightly into its spectrum of wave lengths, thereby producing a colored fringe that makes the image hazy.” The reflector type of telescope, which is now the design of all the largest types, eliminated chromatism but in turn suffered from other aberrations. By designing a lens to change the direction of the rays before they reached the reflecting mirror, Schmidt managed to eliminate spherical aberration and another fault called coma which affects the rays of light falling on the rim of the mirror. It is coma that limits the useful reflecting power of the Big Eye. In the Schmidt, his object glass, called a correcting plate, directs the rays upon a 72-inch spherical mirror, which focuses at a point between the plate and the mirror. Here the well-defined photographs are made. It is because the Schmidt possesses the two essentials of telescopes in superlative degree, light-gathering power and resolution (the sharpness or distinctness of the images made), that its large-area photographs delight the astronomer.
mapping ike Visible Universe
The entire heavens are spoken of as the celestial sphere. This name has been employed because all heavenly bodies appear to lie upon a spherical surface. Its aweinspiring depth or height is not suggested to the eye. For example, the moon, a mere 238,000 miles distant, seems to decorate the same velvet screen as a star trillions of miles deeper in space. The 200-inch telescope is now penetrating this star-populated universe to a distance that staggers the imagination, one billion light-years. Light traveling at 186,000 miles per second could make the circuit of the earth 7| times in a second. Yet the little sparklers on the darkened dome, appearing like matched gems on satin indigo, are vastly separated. For instance, the nearest known star to our sun, Alpha Centauri, is over four lightyears away.
Into this depth or vastness the giant 200-incher, a 500-ton “precision star camera with a million times the power of the human eye”, will probe deeply into mysterious and hitherto uncharted realms. But with so much sky to explore, limited both by its field of vision and the number of clear nights in a year, what sky targets should it select? The Big Schmidt with its vast sweep and deep-seeing power was designed to provide the answer. Already the Sky Scout is turning in some astounding reports.
The largest star grouping is called a “galaxy” or “nebula”. They have also been referred to as “spirals” and as “island universes”, because great voids of space separate them “like islands in a limitless sea”. These units are vast. For example, the Milky Way galaxy, our own home in space, contains 5 billion stars, and extends like a disc or coin 200,000 light-years across. The Milky Way is thought to spiral or whirl like a Fourth of July pinwheel about a central nucleus somewhat obscured from
earth by cloud or dust masses. Thus our home has three motions, revolving around its axis daily, circling a minor yellow star, the Sun, every year, and moving with the solar system about the perimeter of the Milky Way Galaxy.
One single plate of the Scout reveals 17 clusters of galaxies, “almost as many as all previous telescopes had shown.” Some are oval, others "dwarf”. To our amazement, astronomers consider a galaxy with a bare 1,500 light-years in diameter and numbering less than a billion stars a mere "dwarf”. In two of these, 200 individual stars could be distinguished. In the space beyond the Milky Way (extragalactic) single pictures by the Schmidt reveal as many as 15,000 to 20,000 galaxies—ovals, spirals, ellipses. Occasional photographs reveal these star clusters from the side, as one would view the edge of a plate, slightly bulging in the center. Dr. Bubble, of Palomar, estimates more than 25,000,000 galaxies to be within the range of the Big Schmidt.
It is expected that the survey will reveal more about the novae "(Latin, "new”), which received their name from old-time astronomers, who, seeing them suddenly appear where no stars had been observed before, thought them "new”. These stars burst or flare up suddenly to "hundreds of millions of times their former brightness in a few hours or days”. The supemovae are as much as 10,000 times the magnitude of the ordinary novae. Novae are sometimes used to gauge the distance of a galaxy.
Sweeping everything, near and far, in its field of view, the Schmidt is bringing to light interesting phenomena in our Milky Way, and, closer home, within the Solar System. In July 1949 near the start of the survey it photographed what has been called the North America Nebula, an immense cloud of luminous gas in the Milky Way. Its contour resembles the North American continent. Another nebula called the Cone Nebula, found by the Schmidt and pinpointed by the Giant Eye, "resembles a comet leaving a wake of black dust.” A huge, shining cloud of gas and dust, located in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicom, has been called the Rosette because it looks like a full-blown rose. Immense clouds of this opaque or cosmic dust ("nebulosities”), photographed in entirety by the Schmidt, cover areas many times the moon's extent. One objective of the Schmidt is to find apertures or "windows” in the cosmic clouds which obscure much of our galaxy, and thus permit the Big Eye to view the Milky Way's opposite side.
In our own solar system what has the Schmidt discovered? The solar system is known to contain quite a few things besides Sun, nine large planets and their satellites or moons. Authorities state that it also contains "at least two thousand tiny asteroids or planetoids, an unknown number of comets, and innumerable meteoric bodies of assorted sizes”. "New members of the solar system, the little asteroids or subplanets, that circle around the sun, are being picked up by the score. Astronomers used to think these asteroids might be fragments of an old planet that once followed an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, and later broke up, because most of them circled the sun between these two planets. But now, with asteroids showing up all over the solar sysem, this idea may have to be changed.” The Encyclopedia Americana has this to say about asteroids: "[They] differ from the nine planets in several particulars, the most obvious being that of size. Only for the four largest have diameters been successfully measured. Using the great 36-inch Lick refractor, Edward E. Barnard in 1894-5 secured the following values: Ceres, 485 miles; Pallas, 304 miles; Vesta, 243 miles; Juno, 118
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