Awake!, April 22, 1954
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DO THE FACTS PROVE EVOLUTION OR CREATION?
A clear and accurate answer
German Rearmament Scares France
Her fears are for her own safety
Juvenile Lawlessness
Respect for authority would reduce delinquency
Why Join the Easter Parade?
Its origin will astonish you
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
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CONTENTS
Prejudice and Fanaticism Go to Court
Do the Facts Prove Evolution or Creation? 4
Retreat Before Advancing Knowledge
The Bible Fits the Facts
German Rearmament Scares France
Stop, Look and Live!
Sunbeams Fulfill Milady’s Dreams
Solar Houses Today
Outstanding Assemblies for 1955
Novel Tourniquet
Why Women's Clothes Are Expensive
Juvenile Lawlessness
Right Training Starts at Home
“Your Word Is Truth”
Why Join the Easter Parade?
Jehovah's Witnesses Preach in All
the Earth—Great Britain and Eire
Do You Know?
Volume XXXVi
Brooklyn, N. Y., Aprif 8, 1955
Number 7
Prejudice and Fanaticism Go to Court
IT WAS in July, 1925. It was in Dayton, Tennessee. Court was in session. Not in the courthouse—the crowds were too big. Court had been moved out ontp the lawn and hundreds of persons spread out from the platform that had been built under the maple trees. All eyes were focused on the two orators on the platform. One was a Bible fundamentalist and famous politician, William Jennings Bryan. The other was an outstanding criminal lawyer and atheist, Clarence Darrow, Bryan was seeking to convict Scopes for violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Darrow was defending.
“Where did Cain get his wife?” shouted Darrow.
“I leave the agnostics to hunt for her!” Bryan boomed back.
I Thirty years have passed 11 net John Scopes । was tried in court for teaching in a public school in Tennessee that mart came from
I monkeys. The trial became world famous as i a battle between religion and science. Ae-i tually, it was a case of false religion squob-* bling with false science, of prejudice replaci itig proof, of fanaticism substituting for fact, J Free of prejudice and fanaticism, this article * and the one following consider the question, Do the facts prove evolution or creation?
That exchange is typical of the entire trial. As Darrow’s question showed, he was not sticking to law or arguing the case. He was dragging in ir-relevancies to discredit the Bible. And as Bryan’s response betrays, he was not qualified to defend the Bible, not even knowing that Cain married one of his own sisters. Through the crowds peddlers went selling Bibles. On the outskirts of the crowd bonfires crackled, fed by the books of Charles Darwin. Logic, reason and sound judgment had gone on vacation and fanaticism, prejudice and emotionalism were working overtime. It was heralded as a trial between religion and science, but true religion and true science did not attend. Throughout the trial Bryan emoted that Darrow sought “to rob little children of their chance of eternal life,” and Darrow descended to the same low level to refer constantly to Bryan’s “fool religion.”
In the following article we want to discuss religion and science, but free of the emotionalism that marked that trial. We want proof instead of prejudice, facts instead of fanaticism. In weighing these issues we call to the stand no fundamentalist clergymen, for they do not understand the Bible. They do not teach the Bible, but dish out pagan doctrines that have turned from the Bible many honest persons, including some scientists. We will call for no testimony from modernist clergy, for they have compromised with false science to embrace evolution and disparage the Bible as nothing more than good literature, if even that.
We will listen to testimony from certain scientists who believe evolution.
The fact is, evolution is a faith. Most adherents do not know the theory, do not understand it, do not know the case for it or against it, but believe it blindly because they have blind faith in the scientific hierarchy of this modern religion. They believe scientists gullibly, just as the scientist and evolutionist Anthony Standen said they do in his book Science Is a Sacred Cow: “When a white-robed scientist, momentarily looking away from his microscope or his cyclotron, makes some pronouncement for the general public, he may not be understood, but at least he is certain to be believed.’’ He says the world is divided into scientists who practice the art of infallibility and laymen who are taken in by it. Scientists prove many things, but since they cannot prove evolution they say it is true because all good scientists believe it. This is the tyranny of authority, an intellectual inquisition to convert the stubborn thinkers. The Pharisees, unable to disprove Jesus’ messiahship, resorted to this same tyranny of authority when they said to some impressed by Jesus’ preaching: “Not one of the rulers or of the Pharisees has put faith in him, has he?”—John 7:48t 2Vew World Trans.
As the evidence is weighed the facts will testify that the evolutionary scientists are prejudiced, dishonest and too often wrong to be considered infallible authorities. See if this is not so as the following article probes the question,
£ CP VOLUTION is unproved and unprov-able. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable,” said evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith. That is prejudice.
Professor D, M. S. Watson of the University of London stated: “Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur or . . . can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” That is prejudice.
Evolutionist Ernst Haeckel used diagrams to prove resemblance between human embryos and other animal embryos, but he doctored the diagrams to fit his theory, and when challenged he admitted:
“I begin at once with a contrite confession that a small number of my diagrams are really forgeries.” That is dishonest.
Moreover, these doctored diagrams continue appearing in literature on evolution, despite the confession to forgery. That is doubly dishonest
Scientists have found bones of moderntype men in earth layers as old as or older than those containing the famous “subhuman” missing links, proving these so-called links could not be the far older bridges between modern man and primitive ape, as claimed. Because of this Col' Iter’s magazine admitted: “This rocks the whole theory of evolution/’ But the evolutionists are as unrocked as the credulous religionist that clings to trinity after hear-
ing Bible proof of its falsity. They still refer to these discredited bone fragments as missing links. To do so is dishonest.
Evolutionists object if anyone says the theory teaches man came from monkey or ape, but go to the Museum of Natural History in New York city and see in their display skeletons starting from
lions cr billions are sheer guesses and based primarily on speculation as to how much time evolution needs to evolve new forms. Now new knowledge about radioactive clocks lops off many of; these reckless zeros, forcing a revision of ideas as to how fast evolution proceeds. Scientists used to say a
fish and going to man, with monkeys and gorillas in the line-up. We are not supposed to come from monkeys and gorillas, but the scientists put them in the stairs from fish to man because it looks good. This is intellectual dishonesty. None of the animals in this supposed human ancestry walk erect on hind legs like man. But the penguin does. Why not take the monkey out and put in the penguin? None of the animals talk like man. But the parrot can. Why not oust the gibbon and put in the parrot? None in the line-up are organized socially in a community like man. But ants are, and bees are. Why not drop the gorilla and add these insects? Well, though it would make more sense, it would not look so good, and evolutionists are impressed more by appearance than by reason, even when they admit that the ones that appear good do not belong, and get angry if anyone beside^ themselves includes them in man’s evolutionary tree.
Retreat Before Advancing Knowledge
Evolutionary scientists not only are prejudiced and dishonest; they are often wrong. A science book a few years old is littered with known errors, was wrong all the time. Age estimates with a rash of zeros tacked on to run the figure into milWisconsin spruce forest was sheared off by a glacier 125,000 years ago, but the atomic clock has forced them to backtrack hastily to 11,000 years. The age of a sun pyramid near Mexico City has been slashed from 15,000 to 3,000 years, Piltdown man was supposed to be 500,000 years old, but was cut to 10,000, and finally exposed as just another dishonest hoax by evolutionists.
The Chicago Sun-Times, May 27-30, 1951, reported on many of these time revisions imposed on evolutionists by the advent of atomic clocks, and said estimates before then were “educated guesses,” But you guess a twenty-year-old young lady’s age to be one thousand years and see how educated she thinks you are’ The Sun-Times said this about age estimates before the atomic clocks: "It was a little like telling time without a clock and with the eyes bandaged.” But who would ever have dreamed this, in view of the scientific arrogance with which gullible laymen were served these fantastic figures? The Sun-Times articles give these revisions: It was once thought it took an ape 20,000,000 years to become a man; now they say 1,000,000 years. They once said modem man had existed for 1,000,000 years; now they say 50,000. But here is the catch. The atomic clock used to measure things for-
merly living cannot go beyond 20,000 years, or 30,000 at the motet, and even this involves the assumption that the quantity of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere has not varied throughout these millenniums. So they cannot measure man’s age as 50,000 -by the atomic clock, and if not by it, then it is like trying to tell the time without a clock and with the eyes blindfolded so that you do not even know whether it is day or night!
This series in the Sun-Times started off: "The story of man’s origin now must be rewritten. New and epoch-making findings at the University of Chicago and elsewhere are showing that man did not evolve from ancestral apes in either the time or the way that Darwin and modem science thought. This major upset in the theory of evolution was brought about by the following recent discoveries: Modern man has been around on this earth for a mere 50,000 years. Darwin, and more particularly his followers, were wrong in assuming that man, in something like his present state, evolved from apelike ancestors about a million years ago. Darwin and the modern evolutionists also were wrong in thinking that an early 'apeman’—big, hulking, hairy, shuffling—changed by infinitely slow, almost imperceptible degrees into modern man. Evolution actually was fast The major changes which converted ape into man came in a few big steps.”
Scientists used to say evolution occurred slowly as animals arid plants acquired new characteristics from their environment and passed these changes on to their offspring. But genetics proves these acquired characteristics are not inheritable. So they said very small mutations or genetic changes occurred that were inheritable and new forms evolved. But mutations are extremely rare, and practically all of them are harmful, and even small changes within the family kind would take great spans of time. The atomic clocks do not allow the evolutionist unlimited time,/so they said life evolved by big mutations. If it happened by small mutations we should have, many fossils connecting different families. We do not. Big mutations avoid this problem and can live with the atomic clock time allowances. Only now, if mutations are big and evolution is fast, we should see it happening. We do not. We do see freaks, some of which are mutations, but these are harmful, not helpful, not evolving upward, but devolving downward. But even the larger mutations never cross the boundary of the family kind.
Nevertheless, suppose these very rare big mutations quickly evolved a new form. Suppose thousands of years ago an ape gave birth to a male human baby. This impossible mutation is not enough. What good is one human? So this fantastic mutation must happen to another ape mother, only different; it must be a female human baby, an exact physical and genetic counterpart. That is not enough. These two fantastic rarities must happen to two apes that live at the same time, so the humans can mature together and be the right age for each other. Nor is that enough. These two unbelievable events must occur to ape mothers living in the same jungle area, so that their human offspring will meet and cohabit. If you think this is distorted because it gets the human baby in one step, you are right. But it is easier to have this impossible series of events happen once than three times or many times, depending on the number of steps necessary to get from ape to man. It is sheer stupidity to think all these factors would be present for one step; to think they are present over and over again for many steps, as evolutionists must contend, is sheer stupidity multiplied many times over! How gullible can evolutionary scientists get?
The Bible Fite the Facte
Science now speaks of a time of creation of all matter, that the heavens and the earth started as matter at the same time. This fits Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This could have been millions or billions of years ago, for the creative days of Genesis chapter 1 discuss the preparing of the earth for habitation, not the beginning of material earth’s existence. And the Bible says the earth is, not flat, but round: “He sits over the round earth.” (Isaiah 40:22, Moffatt) It shows living plants and animals reproduce “after their kind." It does not say after their variety or after what scientists may arbitrarily define as a species, but after their kind, which allows for variation within the dog grouping or kind, the cat kind, the horse kind, and so forth. With this the facts agree, and science has never been able to force a crossing of the “kind’’ boundary. The Bible record shows the order of events in creation, first light, then atmosphere, shallow seas, dry land appearing, simple vegetation, then more complex plant life, water life, air life, land animals and finally man. Thi s order matches what science has learned. How did the Bible know it. long before science? A guess? Hardly! Figured out mathematically, the odds are prohibitive, only one chance in millions! And how did life start? Spontaneous generation? Not only has science failed to demonstrate that, but scientific facts rule it out as impossible!
Many other facts refuting evolution and proving creation are available and have been presented in previous articles in this magazine and also in the booklets Evolution versus The New World and Bc.rw for Belief in a New World. Space forbids repeating all the testimony in one article. Yet enough has been presented to show evolution has been embarrassed by increasing knowledge. New facts steadily vindicate the Bible. Unlike science textbooks, the Bible does not have to 6e rewritten to harmonize with advancing knowledge.
Conclusion
The facts prove evolutionists prejudiced, dishonest and wrong. They are wrong on their age estimates, wrong on spontaneous generation, wrong on evolution by acquired characteristics, wrong on small mutations, wrong on big mutations—all wrong on evolution. Science is all right in its place but it does not stay there. It talks too quick, claims too much, proves too little, blesses too few with its good works and kills too many with its evil works. Scientists do not belong on the pedestal where many have perched them. They deserve r.o halos, earn no deification, merit no mantle of infallibility, despite the credulous view in which many laymen hold the scientific hierarchy.
Bible believers need not fear to face the facts of time science, and the falsehoods tumble in time. Many scientific falsehoods have toppled already under the impact of new knowledge, and the crash is only beginning as far as evolution is concerned. The witnesses for evolution’s case cannot tell when it happened, cannot tell why.it happened, cannot tell where it happened, cannot tell how it happened, and cannot tell even the proof that it ever did happen. They can only tell tales, tales of fossils they do not have, of long periods of time they do not have, of mutations they do not have, of missing links they cannot find. The scientists say that anyone who criticizes evolution is untrained in scientific thinking and they look down on critics as ignorant, unlearned, fanatical, narrowminded persons. They are so busy name-calling they never take time to refute the facts assailing their theory. They draft
McCarthyism cm their side and rely heavily on smear tactics.
Scientists are like the religious clergy that abandon the Bible to teach pagan doctrines. Just as the clergy in Constantine’s time and thereafter brought in the pagan teachings of trinity, immortal soul, purgatory, hell-fire and many others, and taught them in the name of the Bible even though the Bible denies them, just so the scientists have dipped deep into the bogs of pagan antiquity and drawn out from those pagan religions the doctrine of evolution, and they have taught it in the name of science even though the facts of true science do not support it. Look in any good comprehensive encyclopedia under Evolution and you will see how pagan religions taught it even before the Greek philosopher Aristotle did. Primitive peoples today still teach a form of evolution.
Evolutionary scientists reach into antiquity and grab this unscientific dirt to use in mudslinging against the Bible. But just as false religion cannot down true religion with Bible facts, so false science cannot down true religion with the facts of true science. The true science beats down false science with scientific fact and true religion beats down false religion with Bible facts. Both- false science and false religion are confused themselves and are confusing millions of others because of their backward drift into paganism, but true religion based on the Bible and true science based on proved facts are both harmonious in enlightening and clarifying, freeing persons from the confusion raised by false science and false religion.
If we have the truth we do not have to use smear. We do not have to rush out and place Bibles for show, as they did at the Scopes trial, and then retire thinking we have done our part. Nor need we burn Darwin’s books or those of anyone else. We do not have to depend on befuddled Bryans to defend the Bible, nor need we fear the attacks of atheistic Darrows or agnostic Darwins. We do not have to do like some religionists who plant the horns of the fundamentalist devil on the heads of evolutionists. We do not have to put horns on them. They are on horns already, sitting squarely on the sharp horns of a dilemma. On one hand they are stuck with a theory they cannot prove, and on the other hand they cannot get unstuck from the theory without losing face, hurting pride and acknowledging, the Bible and creation. But it is better to lose face now and save our lives than to save face and lose our lives. Better to prick pride some now than to Jet it lead us to a destructive fall. It is high time to stop gullibly gobbling up all the pompous nonsense the evolutionary hierarchy dishes out to its adherents, As Professor Marsh said, it takes more faith and less logic to believe evolution than it does the Bible.
Evolutionists are hopeless pessimists. The final end of their theory is that eventually the entire universe will run down, the lights will go out, and all life will end. In the vast void of space the black, burned-out astral bodies will hurtle aimlessly, heatless and lifeless. But the Bible is a book of optimism, holding out hope of an endless earth with life on its surface and starry heavens twinkling eternally overhead. Jt Is possible for men and women to live on earth forever. This can be proved by facts. You can be one of those persons, and that also can be proved by facts. We invite you, we urge you, to investigate these cheerful facts. Do it at your earliest opportunity.
This article by “Awake!" correspondent in France gives the French view. Our preceding issue had an article by the German correspondent representing the view of that country.
MANY people have been mystified over
France’s attitude toward European union in general and German rearmament in particular. Was it not France’s “Pleven Plan” that, in 1950, launched the idea of a European army? So why, four years later, did the French National Assembly reject the European Defense Community treaty? And after having pronounced itself in favor of the principle of German rearmament on October 12, 1954, by 350 votes to 113, why did the National Assembly, on December 24, reject Article I of the Paris Accords, which sanctions such rearmament, only to reverse its decision one week later?
For four years, many newspapers and.
news magazines ridiculed and then chided France because she hesitated to ratify a treaty that, they claimed, was of French origin. Was this the case? A glance back to 1950 will quickly reveal where the idea originated.
The outbreak of the war in Korea first caused the West fo consider Europe’s military weakness, and started talk about the desirability of re-^ arming Germany. But such talk did not cOme from Frenchmen. It was only after the majority of Western nations had pronounced themselves in favor of German rearmament that France, on October 24,1950, launched the “Pleven Plan” for a European army. This project, at its conception, provided for the attachment of small German units (800 to 1,200 men) to “European” divisions, thus avoiding the rebirth of a powerful German military machine. This was the French idea, brought forth wi£h the object of limiting as far as possible a rearmament that France alone could not prevent. But it did not suit the Allied military commanders responsible for the defense of Europe, and so the plan gradually evolved into a project for the establishment of twelve German divisions, each containing between 12,000 and 13,000 men.
So the idea of German rearmament did not come from France, and the E.D.C. treaty in its final form was far removed from the original French proposal.
The postulate behind E.D.C was the menace of a Russian invasion of western Europe. Germany was unarmed, and the other Continental states had armies using
different weapons, differing strategies, different systems of communication and, not the least important, different languages. In the event of a Russian break-out toward the English Channel, the Germans would not be able to defend themselves, and no single national army could hope to stop the Communist hordes. Even if sufficient warning was given, it would be very difficult to integrate the national armies differing in so many respects. The logical solution was to fuse aJI these into one European army, under a single command, using the same weapons and standardized equipment.
So it was planned that six European states, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Luxembourg, should create a united army under supranational control. The latter point meant abandoning a certain amount of national sovereignty. Britain stayed aloof because of her Commonwealth commitments.
By early 1954, all the Western parliamentary bodies had ratified the E.D.C. treaty, save Italy and France. The former was well on the way to ratifying, and all eyes turned toward France. Just to "make sure,” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles issued a warning that, if France did not ratify, the United States would have to make an "agonizing reappraisal” of foreign policy, involving a possible abandonment of Europe. Most of the Western powers thought France would toe the line. So it came as a complete shock to them when, on AUgust 30,1954, the French National Assembly rejected the treaty by 319 votes to 264,
One of the basic French objections was the fact that Britain refused to be a member of the Defense Community The "six nations” Europe was regarded as being a framework too small to be safe for France. France would be dominated by Germany. The Brussels conference in August 1954 was a foretaste, it was said, of how E.D.C. would work: instead of equilibrium among the "six,” Italy and the Benelux countries would side with the Germans to impose their will on France. British participation would be Indispensable to restore this balance of power.
An Alternative Plan
Toward the end of September a nine-power conference was called at which the foreign ministers of the United States, Canada, Italy and Germany met in London with the representatives of the five members of the Brussels Pact. Outnumbered eight to one, the most the French minister Monsieur Mendes-France could hope for was to obtain British participation and certain guarantees from Germany as to the extent of her rearmament. Since the "supranational” element was left out of this new plan, Britain agreed to maintain four divisions on the Continent (with the proviso that she could withdraw them in the event of a grave crisis in the Commonwealth). Germany would be allowed to create an army of half a million men (twelve divisions, including four armored divisions with twice as many tanks as the Panzer divisions of World War n). The seven members of the extended Brussels Pact agreed to submit to a control of their armaments, and Germany agreed not to manufacture atomic or bacteriological weapons.
The new setup would be called "West European Union” (W.E.U.) and would raise the NATO forces from 46 to 58 divisions against the 235 divisions of Russia and her satellites. General Gruenther and Field Marshal Montgomery were satisfied with the new arrangement, stating that they even preferred it to E.D.C., since it gave them greater freedom of action. Finally, on October 24, 1954, the member nations signed the Paris Accords, and Germany thus gained her sovereignty, her army, membership in W.E.U. (and hence the neutralization of the Brussels Pact which had been directed against her), and, more important still, membership in NATO. The only serious concession Chancellor Adenauer had to make was concerning the “Europeanization” of the Saar, making it neither French nor German. (There are many indications, however, that the last word has not been said on the Saar question.)
Ratification Under Protest
All that remained now was for the parliaments of the member states to ratify the Paris Accords. Premier Mendes-France, who felt that in view of the allied pressure put upon him he had obtained all the concessions he could hope for, promised Washington and London that there would be no “four-year wait” as there had been for E.D.C. He assured ratification by the end of the year. The debate in the National Assembly was scheduled for late December,
It is true there were a number of political undercurrents that influenced the voting, but the fact remains that not a single speaker, apart from the prime minister, spoke in favor of the Accords’ granting German rearmament. On December 24, when the vote was taken on Article I of the Accords (the article sanctioning German rearmament), the National Assembly rejected it by 280 votes to 259. The prime minister had not made it a question of confidence, so the government did not fall. M. Mendes-France—a man of action—told the Assembly he would put the Article to the vote again a week later, and that this time he would stake the existence of the government on the result.
This pause over the “Christmas” period allowed for two things: it gave the French deputies time to “measure the pulse” of their constituencies, and secondly it allowed time for diplomatic pressure to be applied from abroad. The latter came mainly from London, the foreign office declaring that Britain would agree to keep troops on the Continent only if the Paris Accords were ratified, adding: “The issue is not whether the German Federal Republic will rearm, but how.”
Commenting on this waiting period between the two votes, the Paris correspondent of the New York Times wrote: “It is reported that Washington officials argue that rejection of the protocols raises the question whether France is capable of taking decisions. The reply made here is that in this context it is not a question of a capacity to take decisions but of a capacity to take a decision running counter to what seems to be overwhelming public opinion. , . . A question asked here is: How far is a French Deputy justified in heeding advice and admonition from Washington and London when they seem to be opposed to the sentiments of the people those Deputies represent?”—New York Times, December 26, 1954.
That Washington was not worried about such democratic considerations is apparent from a comment made by the Washington correspondent of the same newspaper, writing in the same issue: “The apparent lack of optimism (in American Congressional quarters) over prospects of the Assembly’s reversing itself reflected concern over the possibility that the French Deputies, after visiting their constituencies for Christmas, might find much popular support for the negative vote. That was the essence of diplomatic appraisals sent from Paris.” In other words, Washington wanted ratification even if it went against the wishes of the French people.
December 30, the day of the vote, finally arrived, and by a narrow margin the National Assembly reversed its previous decision. By 287 votes to 260 it voted In favor of German rearmament. This meant that 52 per cent of those voting were in favor, but in view of the abstentions, the majority represents only 46 per cent of the full parliament Many deputies stated they voted in favor, of ratification to prevent the breaking up of the Atlantic Alliance. It was a ratification under protest, and he would be rash indeed who would affirm that the vote represents the wishes of the majority of the French people.
French Fears
Many Frenchmen fear that the new German army might be used by the Federal Republic to liberate by force the 18,000,000 Germans in the Eastern Zone now controlled by Russia, Statements like the one made by Dr. Adenauer after his election victory in September 1953 help to create this fear. On that occasion the Ger~ man chancellor stated: “Up to now we have spoken of reuniting Germany. Should we not now talk of liberating the East? No matter how you voted yesterday, let us unite and work together for the liberation of the Eastern territories.”—Le Figaro, September 8, 1953.
But without any doubt, the main reason why France hesitated so long and then agreed so reluctantly is an underlying fear of German militarism. It must be nearly impossible for an American to understand what this means. Yet it is real, and when all the strategic, political and legal arguments have been said and repeated, the stark fact remains that millions of Frenchmen fear a Resurgence of the German Wehrmacht. Perhaps this example will help the American reader to understand. Just before the French Assembly’s debate on E.D.C., the British Broadcasting Corporation organized a one-hour radio hookup during which public figures and the man in the street in France, Belgium, Germany, etc., were given an opportunity of expressing themselves on German rearmament One old lady in Lorraine told how her father had built up a fine farm, and then in 1870 the Germans had come and destroyed it. Her husband had rebuilt it when, in 1914, the Germans came again and it was destroyed in the fighting. Her sons set to and built it up once more only to see it destroyed again by the Nazis in 1940. The old lady added, philosophically: “My grandsons have reconstructed the farm,—but I suppose the Germans will be back!” A Frenchwoman told the writer: “When I think with my head, I know German rearmament is inevitable, but when I think with my heart, it makes me shudder!”
Anyone who knows the French and the Germans cannot help feeling sorry that these two peoples have such a hard time getting along together. For both have outstanding qualities, many of which seem to complement each other. Think what wonders could be produced by French creative genius allied to German industriousness and organization! What a blessing it will be when men of good will of all nations unite their various qualities in the joyous task of beautifying this earth to the praise of the great Creator!
STOP, LOOK AND LIVE!
‘F Railroad crossings are lurking deathtraps for the unalert driver. To alert drivers at one Illinois railroad crossing the following sign was put up: "The average time it takes a train to pass this crossing is fourteen seconds whether your car is on it or not!”
1UST think! The next house you 4 1 own may be a solar house. There will be no furnaces to feed, no fires to stoke, no ashes to haul away, no soot to blanket the walls and furniture and no smoke to mar the pleasant, outdoor surroundings. Your house may be not only solar heated, but solar cooled and solar cleaned.
Contrary to. common opinion, it most likely will not be an ultramodern house or a house of glass. Xenophon, a Greek historian, talked about solar houses some two thousand years ago. A solar house is simply a house with a large glass area facing the direction that provides the maximum of the winter sunlight and a minimum of the summer’s heat. It is a house styled to eliminate dirt, dust and fire hazards, and to do away with more than half of today’s fuel bill. It is a house made ever so much more livable by the ever-beaming sun.
Turning sunbeams directly into electricity has long been an aspiring goal of scien-ttgfSi Hite has been done in a small way. Further, sunbeams are now being harnessed to heat the living room, bring light as bright as day into rooms at night, fry the eggs, roast the beef and bake the potatoes. Sun power, say the experts, will, in the not-too-distant future, water the lawn, make ice cubes, heat the bath water, cool the cream and run all the electrical appliances in the house twenty-four hours a day.
Solar Predictions
At least a dozen better ways to live have opened up as a result of recent developments with solar energy. Dr. Maria Telkes of the New York University’s College of Engineering predicts that the future home will be an “all-electric home” with electric power for cooking, an assortment of “electric slaves” for performing most of the household chores. The entire house, she says, will be electrically heated. Solar energy will heat the bungalows cozily during the winters and cool them comfortably during the summers. The “perfect wall” of tomorrow’s house, according to Dr. Telkes, will be an excellent heat insulator. In fact, the whole house will be carefully insulated to prevent heat losses. Today, during one heating season about $4 in fuel is dissipated through a conventional, single
pane window. If storm windows or double windows were used, more than half of this waste could be saved. Most solar houses use the thermopane principle—two panes of glass separated by an air space. Once the light penetrates the double-thick glass, it changes to heat and it cannot get out
Excess heating or ooolmg will be stored in a chemical “storage bin” at low cost* These storehouses will release latent heat when needed, especially during the night. And the stored-away cool night air will supplement the air-conditioning system during the day. The heat pump operated by solar energy will maintain the “comfort zone" all summer and winter long. Sun-powered refrigeration and air conditioning will be common. Instead of lamps, special wallpaper that will absorb enough sun's rays during the day will reflect light at night, illuminating large rooms with its absorbed “daylight,” Shades specially designed to be drawn over the wallpaper will turn off the light. A new life awaits tomorrow’s housewife!
Solar Houses Today
As fantastic and farfetched as these predictions of Dr. Telkes may sound, yet many of them are already in use in solar houses across the United States and Europe. For example: The experimental Telkes-Pea-body-Raymond house in Dover, Massachusetts, is heated through the wise use of Glauber’s salt, a hydrated form of sodium sulfate. This salt melts at a temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit; in so doing it absorbs generous quantities of heat supplied it by solar collectors on the vertical south wall of the solar house. When Glauber’s salt hardens it gives off this exact amount of heat to its surroundings. The salt is stored in five-gallon cans that are permanently sealed and placed inside the thick interior walls in between rooms of the house. An ingenious system of fans keeps the heat circulating day and night.
It is possible to keep the solar house warm even during ten sunless days, and statistics show that six consecutive sunless days in the Boston, Massachusetts, area happen only once in fourteen years. Dr. Telkes admits that the chemical heating system is not perfect. It took some twenty tons of Glauber’s salt to maintain a relatively level room-temperature in the Dover house. The sun maintained a livable atmosphere through 95 per cent of the New England winter, without stand-by heat.
Another solar house in the New England area held an average temperature of 72 degrees right around the clock all winter long. What did the housewife think of this solar-heated house? “It’s wonderful,” she said. “None of us had a cold since we moved in, and Toby [the eighteen-month-old baby boy] hasn’t even had the sniffles. Housekeeping is a joy, except for the glass wall. Some homes never get spic and span. But here an hour a day with the vacuum is all it takes. That’s partly because there’s no fuel—and that means no soot or coal dust—and partly because of the tight construction and insulation.”
Cost of Solar Houses
Are not solar houses expensive? No—no more so than conventional houses. An experimental five-room, one-story model house with a specially designed roof and “heat bins,” after being completed, cost $20,000, some $3,000 of which went for the heating system. A one-floor, two-bedroom house, all complete, cost $10,000. The salts cost $240 and installation just a little more.
Big solar-house developments are becoming prominent. There is one at Northbrook, Illinois; another at Camden, New Jersey. According to expert advice “a solar house is practical anywhere south of Latitude 40, which passes through Phila-
delphla, a little south of Chicago and slightly north of San Francisco. ” The majority of solar houses today are using the sun as an auxiliary heating plant, merely to supplement their regular heating system. Even at that, houses as far north as New England claim to have cut more than half of the old fuel bill.
Cooking and Cruising with Sunshine
In India, where fuel is scarce, sunbeams are being pressed into service to doing milady’s cooking. A “sun stove” has been developed that focuses the sun’s rays by a nickel-plated concave mirror of copper, aluminum, brass or any other convenient metal on the cooking utensil. The mirror reflects the sun’s rays, giving off the same amount of heat as a 300-watt electric heater. From 250 to 300 degrees is considered ample for average cooking operations. The solar stove in India sells for 80 rupees ($16.80), but to gadget-loving Americans and backyard chefs the same stove retails for $75. Its appeal is not its looks, for it is an odd-looking contraption. Rather its enchanting features are its fireless, fumeless, fuelless, sootless and smokeless performances.
A more expensive sun cooker now located at the Smithsonian observation station on Mount Wilson, California, can do all the baking, boiling, stewing and preserving needed by a small family. Solar ovens have been known to hold heat at baking temperatures for weeks, even months.
But solar cookers have their drawbacks. They cannot be brought into service at the strike of a match. The housewife must wait two hours after dawn before she can use her sun stove. Then she must give the sun a few minutes to warm up the pan. All works well, unless, of course, an uninvited cloud shows up and turns off the stove. Then, too, all cooking must be done at least two hours before dusk, at which time the stove becomes ineffective.
Dr, Telkes has designed a solar stove that can retain cooking heat for an hour or so after sundown, the time when the evening meal is being prepared. Her stove opens up like a carton. Four ordinary flat mirrors fan out from the tilted face of the boxlike stove, “At the rear of the stove is a removable drawer through which the food is placed. The mirrors reflect sunlight down through the tilted face of the stove, concentrating it In the interior, which is filled with special heat-absorbing chemicals. ... Preliminary models of Dr. Telkes’ stove have developed temperatures up to , 300 degrees on days when outdoor temperature was under 70 degrees Fahrenheit. . . . The New York University research group believes their stove can be developed so that it can be manufactured to sell for $5. . . . There is a potential need for 100,000,000 solar cookers in India alone.”
Four Merry “Sunmobile”
In addition to solar heaters and solar cookers there arc pleasant prospects of solar record players, electric clocks and, who knows? even solar “sunmobiles,” “It sounds fantastic,” said inventor H. E. McCoy, “but 1 think the motorist of the future may drive up to a service station and, instead of buying gasoline, exchange the battery of his electric automobile for one that has just been charged by a solar furnace generating plant.” In a single day the average amount of solar energy falling on one acre of ground in the Temperate Zone is equivalent to 700 gallons of gasoline, or enough to operate the average automobile for a year.
Mankind is looking up to a new age —the sun age—and to a new life, one made comfortable by the realization of one of his most cherished dreams: the harnessing of sun power.
OUTSTRnOlDG nSSEmBLIES
THE largest religious convention ever held in America was the eight-day world assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses, July 19“26,1953. The average daily attendance was 130,000, with a peak of 165)829! There will be no such world assembly this year, but Jehovah's witnesses will hold smaller regional gatherings in these five North American stadiums and in Europe.
Describing such assemblies, one news writer recently said: “You do feel that here is a group bound by a sincerity, by a zealousness which has almost a living quality. This the outsider, who spends some time in their midst, can soon sense.” Such gatherings are occasions of happiness and joy. They are for your spiritual strengthening and encouragement. They will comfort and build you up. Those who attend are a zealous people, and you can witness this zeal and faith by joining with them.
You will note that the assemblies are within short traveling distance from almost any part of the United States or Canada. Arrange now to go. This is an outstanding opportunity for your own spiritual enrichment. The provision is for you; by all means take advantage of it.
COMISKEY PARK, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS June 22-26
The first modem convention of Jehovah’s witnesses ever held was in Chicago in 1893. Attendance: 360. In more recerd years this city has played host to district assemblies, but never an assembly as large as this summer’s gathering will be.
The assembly will be held in spacious Comiskey Park, pictured above. Opened in 1910 and named for a baseball official, this park was called the “Baseball Palace of the World.” Its present seating capacity of 46,500 should provide abundant space for the thousands of enthusiastic conven-tioners.
Though thousands are expected, Chicago is in the habit of witnessing great national and international conventions—assemblies that are far larger, in fact, than this one regional gathering of Jehovah’s witnesses will be. Therefore it will take especially good support and zealous activity to make an impressive attendance and to show Chicago the uniqueness of this organization that is based upon Christian truth.
Chicago's twenty-three congregations and more than 2,500 active witnesses of Jehovah are thrilled at the prospect of liaving their largest assembly yet, and are keenly anticipating the testimony that will be given to Jehovah’s name and purpose in their territory. Will you support this large midwestem gathering?
EMPIRE STADIUM, VANCOUVER, B.C. June 29-July 3
Where Canada meets the Pacific a mighty city has grown—Vancouver, British Columbia. Among this city’s many sources of pride is this new Empire Stadium, where last summer the famed British Empire games were held. The attention of the world was directed here when Roger Bannister of Britain and John Landy of Australia—the only men ever to run a mile in less than four minutes—raced each other. At that time Jehovah’s witnesses were holding a memorable assembly with 9,600 in attendance at nearby New Westminster.
These assemblers and many others will return this summer to meet in Empire Stadium itself, a stadium that indeed should prove to be an excellent place for such a gathering. It is modem and spacious, having 26,000 seats, and stands that look out over Burrard Inlet toward peaks of Canada's coastal mountains. A peaceful location in a city of friendly people.
The 2,000 Kingdom publishers associated with the sixteen congregations of Jehovah's witnesses in Vancouver and New Westminster will welcome their brothers to this second North American assembly, and many from both sides of the United States-Canada border are expected to attend. Will you be joining with the happy crowds that will assemble here?
WRIGLEY FIELD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
July 6-10
Mention of Wrigley Field brings fond memories to thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses who have attended assemblies here in the past. Outstanding among them was the 1947 gathering here of 45,729 persons, many of them having come from even as far as the East Coast. This summer’s assembly, however, will draw its attendance basically from the sprawling, sparsely settled western and southwestern states. How many will come? No one knows, but Wrigley Field should conveniently hold the crowd.
The far-flung city of Los Angeles is the metropolis of mighty southern California. Palm-dotted and mountain-fringed, this fabulous third-largest city in population in the nation has thirty-one congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses and 3,800 publishers. Assemblies are no new thing to them, but like all of Jehovah’s servants everywhere they appreciate the importance of such Christian gatherings and of the necessity of getting together with their brothers both for fellowship and for consideration of the good -things that are in God’s Word. This is strengthening, encouraging and in obedience to the divine command. Is the Los Angeles assembly the one that you will attend? If you live in the southwestern United States plan to see us there.
COTTON BOWL, DALLAS, TEXAS July 13-17
Texans are noted for doing things in a big way, and Dallas is no exception This modern city of private homes, tall buildings and Texas-sized hospitality just takes it for granted that Texas’ state fairgrounds should be the largest, and that the Cotton Bowl, located in that fairgrounds, should be famed for its crowds.
The Cotton Bowl is the second-largest stadium in the South. In 1950 it set a record for tire largest actual attendance at a minor league baseball game, and it holds the record for the all-time high attendance in any one stadium on any one day. Jehovah’s witnesses do not expect to break these records this summer, but they do intend to have the happiest crowd that ever assembled there, and to receive the most beneficial instructions. Sessions will be held in both English and Spanish.
Playing host to their brothers from throughout a wide area of the South and Southwest, and perhaps even from Mexico and Cuba, will be nine Dallas congregations and their more than 700 active gospelpreachers. They are anxious to have you help them bear testimony to Jehovah’s name and Kingdom in their territory, and they look forward to further expansion as a result of this assembly’s activity. Accept their hospitality, give them a hand in this activity, and we shall see you there!
YANKEE STADIUM, NEW YORK CITY July 20-24
Jehovah’s witnesses certainly are no strangers to Yankee Stadium, for famed as that stadium is, their international assemblies in 1950 and 1953 have added even further to its stature, being the two largest events ever held there.
This year, however, the witnesses are not returning for an international assembly, but that great stadium is now to be used merely for a regional gathering. This will be the largest North American convention, and indeed a fitting climax for the American gatherings. Since New York is situated in the thickly settled East, the attendance here should be excellent.
New York, truly a fabulous city, has an abundance of facilities: good hotels, excellent transportation, friendly , landladies, a stadium of appropriate size, and a population that is friendly toward Jehovah’s witnesses and is still talking about their earlier assemblies. It also has fifty-three thriving congregations and 6,000 zealous Kingdom publishers who are prepared to make the convention visitors welcome. Is it along the East Coast that you live? Then New York is the assembly city for you!
But even that is not all. After New York, there are London, Paris, Rome, Nuremberg, Stockholm and The Hague. Thus, our April 22 issue will tell you about things to do while you are in Britain.
AW AKIS!
What Gives Them an Unshakable Faith?
EADLINING that question . the Tampa, Florida, Sunday Tribune carried a long article and twelve pictures on a group that had just held an assembly in Tampa. It said: “They came by the thousands—rich men and paupers; the feeble and the healthy; the halt and the blind; the youthful and the aged. They came to hear of and preach of the VVord of God as they understand it. And the way they understand it is not popular with most of the world. Each of them has had doors slammed in their faces; gratuitous insults thrown their way; in their time some have even been subjected to physical attack. They have been called draft dodgers, unpatriotic, fanatics, misguided. But in their faith they have found a source of inspiration which enables them to shed all attack, often to overcome it; and which links them in a powerful community of brotherhood which is perplexing to the outsider and difficult to comprehend. These are Jehovah’s Witnesses,’* C It asked: “What is the motivating force that makes the members of this sect act as they do? What gives them this steel-like conviction and purpose which clads them in unseen armor? Walk through the halls, the buildings, and the grandstand. You see well dressed people, and some dressed shabbily. You see nothing in physical appearance or dress that distinguished them from any other group. There is no sense of grimness, of austerity or rigidness which are the accoutrements of some religious sects. In fact, these are on the whole a happy people who draw a vibrant joy out of their faith.”
After telling something of the history and beliefs of the Witnesses, the report continued: “They carry their messages not as a chore, not as a task, but with enthusiasm and ardor. Rebuff only whets the blade of their convictions. They tell you the force that moves them, the invisible chain that binds them, is the spirit of God ip action. This, they say over and over, is the source of their strength.” <t Then the reporter asked various ones at the assembly why they became Jehovah’s witnesses. A blind veteran said that, before he became one of Jehovah’s witnesses, “I used to wonder why God put man on the earth. Why should men fight among themselves and destroy themselves? I couldn’t understand it. Then £ome witnesses visited us. I told my wife to take the literature to get rid of them. Later she read it to me and I became interested. It impressed me. Now I know I have found the answers to my questions. I have found peace . . . I want to help others And it.”
C One of the assembly's officials said: “We're doing what the disciples did,” and added, “preaching in the market places and door to door. We’re not against any church. We’re for Gt?d first . . , we love our neighbors and want to tell them the good news.” Another witness, speaking of his former church, said: “I didn’t get the spiritual food I wanted. I didn’t want lectures on politics or morals. I wanted true religion. I found it in the Witnesses/'
C A speaker from the Watch Tower’s Brooklyn headquarters explained what he found lacking in his former church: “It bothered me that the clergy in my old church lived on top of the earth and the lay people supported them. The gulf between clergy and the lay people was too broad. And I didn’t like other doctrines. In the Jehovah’s Witnesses there is no top and bottom levels—no caste of preachers or priests. We are all preachers, all equal. It's a religion that's satisfying and convincing.” <L A former air force captain who now has a TV variety show in Miami explained to the Tribune’s reporter why he became a witness: “Every question I had was answered from the Bible. It just made sense.” It makes sense because it really is based upon God’s Word, It has strength provided by God for those who truly serve him. The Bible shows that true Christians would stand firmly for their faith. Yet the world does not see that strength in its own religions, and it is amazed when it finds people who do have it today. Is that not a condemnation of the world’s religions?
At Tiajuana, Mexico, a man was bitten by a poisonous snake. Thinking quickly, the man killed the serpent and wrapped its body around his arm as a tourniquet until he could get to a doctor.
WHY WOMENS CLOTHES ARE EXPENSIVE
RE women's clothes too expensive? Men = for years have thought so. “They cannot 7; __ possibly see how a few straps of leather, 7 sewed together and called a shoe, can justifiably cost $50; how a few sequins and a ■ wispy veil, stuck on a postage-stamp hat, can be worth $80; or how any dress can cost $300 -or more. To the cynical male, the answer is only all too obvious: the value of women’s clothes is determined only by what vain women (and acquiescent men) are willing to'pay for them.
$ **The $9 billion-a-year U.S. women’s wear industry has another answer. It can quote yards of facts and figures to show that high-priced clothes are not only worth every penny they ,cost, but even more. For example, Manhattan’s Sophie of Saks Fifth Ave. custom salon, where cocktail dresses sell for as much as $695, just manages to break even; the salon is operated only for the prestige it brings to the store. The markup for expensive clothes is heavy—up to 100% of cost—but it has to be so to cover overhead. At a high-fashion house like Nettie Rosenstein, the cost of designing a dress and turning out one sample may come to more than $1,000; so few copies are sold that the designing cost per dress may come to $200 or more. Labor costs are out of the designer’s hands; they are regulated 7 by an independent labor-management commit- g tee, and vary according to the difficulty of the work required. A pocket on a cheap dress, 5 for example, may come to only a few cents E in labor; on an expensive one, labor may cost t up to ten times as much. 7
“In the millinery field, one leading de- 7 signer spends upwards of $50,000 a year just -• making sample hats for his showrooms, may r take a full day to make just one original. In £ shoes, the daintier the, product the more tedious, exacting and expensive the work. And i while it may seem that women get stuck when ~ they spend $25 or more for a pair of shoes 7 that will last only a few months, it is not easy for manufacturers to get rich on the ;r deal. I. Miller, one of the leading makers of 7 expensive women’s shoes, makes a mere 4% ; gross profit on its sales—far less than super- “ efficient General Motors makes on autos 77 (22%).” 1
On the other hand, it is true, women are not getting their money’s worth in clothes. However, it is mainly because of the inefficiency of the garment industry, production methods and machinery are years behind the times. Competition is cutthroat, causing many manufacturers to close down every year. “A few manufacturers, like Manhattan’s Henry Rosenfeld, have proved that the garment industry need not be so inefficient, that mass production can pay oil. Rosenfeld sells 2,500,000 well-designed dresses a year, all retailing from $14.95 to $35.”
Yet, not even a Rosenfeld can change the one major factor that makes the lady’s wardrobe so expensive, namely, fashion itself. Women are slaves to fashion. They want to look different from other women, and at the same time they want to look like other women. Thus, women may be swept up in new fashion crazes. They must always feel that the particular hat or stole they are buying is just a little different. When individuality comes in, mass production goes out and costs go Up; if bigger production comes in, then by ah inflexible rule, style goes out.
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