Awake!, July 8, 1957
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JULY 8, 1957 SEMIMONTHLY
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
News source# that are able to keep you awake to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish Interests. “Awake 1” has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It Is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; It Is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; It Is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This Journal keeps Itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.
"Awake I” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four comers of the earth their uncensored, on-the-scenes reports come to you through these columns, This Journal’s viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its coverage is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens,
“Awake 1” pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.
Get acquainted with “Awake!” Keep awake by reading “Awake!”
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CONTENTS
Sentiment or Principle?
The Grand Canyon Between Man and Beast
The Fifth Amendment—A Guardian of Justice
No Guilt in Pleading Fifth
Make the Parkways Beautiful
Animal Eccentricities
Lady Ministers of a New World
Pigeons Grounded by Electronics
“Hi-Fi” Music Has Charms
Precious Greek Manuscript Discovery 24 “Your Word Is Truth”
An Evildoer in Paradise
Jehovah's Witnesses Preach in All the Earth—British Guiana
Do You Know?
Watching the World
XW OME nine hundred citizens of Stamford, Connecticut, crowded into their Burdick School auditorium on the evening of March 13, 1957.
T PRINCIPLE?
A battery of floodlights and microphones from a New York television network focused on the speakers on the platform as they proceeded with their debates, giving proof of the wide interest aroused. A tense atmosphere prevailed and applause was both loud and long as the opposing speakers made their points. Once there was also some booing. What was it all about?
As featured on the front as well as on several inside pages of the next day’s Stamford Advocate, the question debated was whether children attending parochial schools should receive free bus transportation or not The very same issue had arisen just a few days before in another New England city, Augusta, Maine. There opponents agreed to let the state’s supreme court decide the question. U. 8. News <£ World Report of March 22 gave a review of this problem in the United States, where one out of seven children attends a parochial school, under the heading: “Buses for Catholic Students—Who Should Pay for Them: Community or Parents?”
Sentiment played heavily in the arguments in favor of the community’s paying. Did not these parents .all pay taxes? Surely they were entitled to some consideration; besides, the amount was small, just the price of a package of cigarettes for each citizen. And had not the supreme court of the United States ruled that the state of Louisiana could provide textbooks for parochial schools and that free transportation may be given children attending parochial schools in New Jersey?
Also, it was argued that since the law allows parents to send their children to parochial schools they should not be discriminated against for taking advantage of this provision. To do so would be to make them second-class citizens. Certainly children attending parochial schools have the same rights regarding public safety and health measures as do children attending public schools. It is a case of applying the “lofty principles of brotherly love.” “We must ignore a child’s creed. We may not ignore a child’s need.”
However, those arguing against providing such free transportation stressed that it was not a matter of sentiment or religious discrimination but was one of principle. They showed that there is a difference in state constitutions. The fact that the supreme court or the United States had ruled in a certain way regarding certain states does not prove it would do so in every other instance. Incidentally, it does not even follow that the supreme court of the United States may not have been mistaken, and especially not in view of the fact that the supreme courts of at least seven states have ruled that it was unconstitutional to provide free bus rides to children attending parochial schools in their respective states.
It was also shown that a board of education can be concerned with only its own schools. It builds them, determines their policy and who shall attend them.' It can therefore logically provide transportation for those who must attend its schools. But can it provide free rides to competing parochial schools? By what authority? If so, to what extent, and who is to determine the nature of it? Will it also determine where these schools are to be built and what hours they are to be in session, so as not to burden the taxpayers needlessly?
Further, though the amount involved may be very small, still it is not the amount that is vital but it is the principle. If a thing is wrong it is wrong regardless of the amount involved. The immediate issue causing the birth of the United States was “No taxation without representation,” Which issue England tried to avoid by making the tax very small. But the issue remained. If the taxpayers of a certain religion do not want to take advantage of public schools that is their privilege. But does it give theip the right to ask others to help bear the expense of their own arrangements?
To illustrate: A group of adjoining property owners may wish to build a private road for their mutual use. The city may not prevent them from doing this, but, on the other hand, they cannot ask the city to keep this private road in a state of repair or provide police protection on it. Or, to use another illustration; If a group of citizens are dissatisfied with the municipal services provided by the city in the way of police or fire protection, they may decide to furnish their own. But may they ask the city to show them special consideration in the way of reduced taxes or to help them finance their own arrangements?
Finally, there is the matter of the entering wedge. If free rides are furnished to one parochial school they must be provided for all others. And if free rides, why not free health services? And then how long before taxpayers will be paying for the erection of parochial schools and for the instruction, religious and otherwise, given in them, all in violation of the Constitution of the United States, which provides for a wall of separation between church and state?
That such an eventuality is not at all unlikely can be seen from the many tax-supported parochial schools in other lands, such as Canada, France and Belgium. In fact, a Catholic booklet published in the United States on this subject, Federal Aid to Private Schools? argues that it does not make sense to allow Catholics to have their own private schools and then not give them their "fair share in commonly collected taxes.”
Truly this matter of free bus rides is not one of mere sentiment but is a matter involving principle.
GRAND CANYON
Between Man and Beast
Evolution canna! account far the great gap between man and beast. That gap eloquently testifies to man's being a special creation.
a®;-
IN THE southwestern part of the United States is found the Grand Canyon. And grand indeed it is, with its length of 217 miles, its width of from four to eighteen miles and its depth of more than a mile in places. At its bottom flows the Colorado River. As one arrives at its brim and sees it fdr the first time, it truly presents one of the most breath-taking sights to be seen anywhere on earth. Obviously, to appreciate its vastness and grandeur one must have good eyesight.
There is a vast abyss between man and beast that may well be likened to the Grand Canyon. The Genesis account of creation takes due note of it: “And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.” Man was made in God’s image in that he has the divine attributes of justice, love, wisdom and power. Additionally, man was given a threefold mandate to subdue the earth, to exercise dominion over the lower animals and to populate the earth. And to man alone was held out the prospect of everlasting life, provided he continued obedient. —Genesis 1:20-27, New World Trans.
Most eloquently testifying to the grand canyon between man and beast are man’s unique mental faculties. However, it is but reasonable to expect that man would also have unique physical characteristics in keeping with such unique mental faculties, and so we find it to be.
To begin with there is man’s unique condition at birth. He alone of the vertebrates, as Job observed, comes naked into the world and leaves it the same way. Man has no tough hide, no shaggy fur, no coat of wool or feathers to protect him from inclement weather or from bruises due to blows or falls. However, his having no natural covering has made it possible for man to inhabit all parts of the globe by adapting himself by means of clothing, which he is able to make by reason of his God-given intelligence.
Unique also is man’s upright position. As Goldenweiser so well shows in his book Anthropology, man alone is strictly bipedal. Some lower animals do walk on but two of their feet at times, but even for these, walking on all fours is more natural and comfortable. Thus the late Sherrington, one of the world’s leading physiologists, stressed man’s erect position as an important factor in man’s superiority and dominion over the lower animals. Evolutionists often portray the various anthro-
poid apes in upright positions alongside man as though such an upright position were as natural to them as to man. Such pictures are very deceptive, because only the bear can plant his feet squarely upon the ground the way man can, a characteristic known as “plantigrade.”
Another physical characteristic of man testifying to this grand canyon between him and beast is his unique hand. Only man has a perfectly opposable thumb; only his thumb can touch each of his four other fingers. Thus Dr. A. Carrel, in his book Man the Unknown, says: “We would never ' have acquired our mastery over matter without the aid of our fingers, those five small levers.” And says another authority: “Whatever men have done that distinguishes them from the brutes has been done by their brain. But the hand has been the instrument of the brain in bringing about nearly all of these successes.” And according to still another, man’s brain has two important instruments that distinguish man from the beasts, speech and the hands.
The most striking physical characteristic of man, testifying to his being a special creation, is the size of his brain, about three pounds, or two percent of our body’s weight. At birth it weighs but twelve ounces, the same as that*of a full-grown chimpanzee. It was because evolutionists wanted to bridge the grand canyon between man and beast as regards man’s brain size that they became such easy victims of the Piltdown hoax. Thus the American Scientist, April, 1954, stated that the Piltdown remains “realized largely the anticipations of students of human evolution.”
Darwin had foolishly argued that “the extreme development of [man’s] brain ought not to outweigh a multitude of resemblances in other less important or quite unimportant points”! Just how foolish Darwin was can be seen from what Loren C. Eiseley, one of the world's leading anthropologists, has to say: “The Darwinians ... were unconsciously minimizing the abyss which yawned between man and ape. In their anxiety to demonstrate our lowly origins they were throwing modem natives into the gap as representing living ‘missing links' in the chain of human ascent. ... We have been so busy tracing the tangible aspects of evolution in the forms of animals that our heads, the little globes which hold the midnight sky and the shining invisible universes of thought, have been taken about as much for granted as the growth of a yellow pumpkin in the fall.” “Today Piltdown [man] is gone. In its place we are confronted by the blunt statement of two modem scientists. ‘No adequate explanation,’ they confess . . . , ‘has been put forward to account for so large a cerebrum as that found in man.’ . . . The true secret of Piltdown, though thought by the public to be merely the revelation of an unscrupulous forgery, lies in the fact that it has forced science to reexamine the history of the most miraculous creation in the world—the human brain.” (Harper’s magazine, November, 1955) Truly man’s brain size eloquently testifies in behalf of the Bible’s account of the special creation of man by showing how wide is the abyss between man and beast!
Reason and Artistic Sense
Testifying even more conclusively the grand canyon between man and beast^ are man’s unique mental faculties. Well has man been described as “the animal that thinks.” Among the proofs that he is a thinking creature is his gift of speech.* Thus Dr. S. S. Tomkins of Princeton University, in Science News Letter, July 3,
1954, showed that man’s ability to talk is due to his superior nervous system,
Evolutionist Hooten recognized this fact, for in his book Up from the Ape he states: ■‘All of the anthropoid apes are vocally and muscularly equipped so that they could have an articulate language If they nos-sessed the requisite intelligence. ... There is nothing about a snout that prevents its possessor from speaking, but there is something abo>ii the brain that goes with a snout that makes speech impossible.” He then goes on to describe the futile efforts of manv scientists to make apes talk.
Man also demonstrates his unique thinking ability_bv inventing tools. As a noted geologist, the. late Frederick White, once pointed out: “No animal has ever been known to fashion a tool; whereas there is no tribe of men so low in intelligence that it does not fashion the most curious and complicated tools.” Bearing on this point is the comment appearing in Life magazine, November 7, 1955, to the effect that “the Australian primitive has the same huge brain-body ratio, protracted infancy, erect carriage and gift of language you do.”
Another witness to man’s uniqueness is his artistic sense Man alone appreciates beauty; to mm alone it is important; he alone needs to create in satisfy a longing in his .soul, The anOient cave men of southern France drew amazing likenesses of animals on the walls of their caves, as the Encyclopedia Americana shows in its treatise on “Christian Anthropology.” These cave men also beautifullvjirnamented their tools. Man is not only the only tool-making animal bufalso the only creature on earth with an artistic sense. It finds expression in his clothes, in his places of abode, in whatever he makes. Not content with mere speech, he must also have poetry, drama and music. No question about it, music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture and other forms of creative activity further highlight the gulf between man and beast,
Jfan Alone Is Free
All lower animals are more or less bound by instinct. Only man is free to choose his environment. Only man has great capacity for organization. Those who point to insect communities as examples of perfect organization sadly err. Thus Albro T. Gaul, in his book The Wonderful World of Insects, shows that ‘insect societies do not repre-1 sent a triumph of governmental organization, a communistic set-up for mutual aid. Actually they represent no government at all. The parts of an insect society act nice the parts of a living body. Their function is biological rather than social or political.’
“Men alone,” says Professor M. J. Adler of the University of Chicago, “are rational and free, and so differ essentially from all other animals. . . . men do certain things that no other animals do at all in any degree. . . . Man alone is a_ political animal Other animals are social or gregarious, but all of their social organizations and activities are instinctively determined, as is evidenced by their uniformity within specific groups. But human society, in the family or the state, is constituted by man’s choice among ways of living together;, onlv human society is constitutional or political.”
The noted Russian scientist Pavlov Proceeded on the theory that man is just another animal. Still he, "altoL-seventv rear' of intensive research, was unanm_.tQ.in' tegraie. completely the lower nervous ac tivity of the conditioned reflex to the higher nervous activity oi human behavior.' In other words, he found that he could not make man respond automatically to certain stimuli the way he could make dogs responu. x es, man is different, as the Communists found in their efforts to brainwash their victims. God gave man the capacity for exercising choice, for being free.
Moral and Religious Faculties
Even as that physical characteristic of man most eloquently testifying to the grand canyon between man and beast is his brain size, so likewise man’s moral sense and his relieious instinct are the menial faculties that, above all else, witness to man’s being unique, a special creation separate and distinct from the brutes.
Lower animals do not have a moral ■sense. They have no conscience, they develop no guilt complexes. They do not need to confess faults or sins in prayer, or to another to get relief. They need no moral task; but man without one is lost. Thus Dr, Viktor Frankl of Vienna, one of the world’s leading psychologists, points out that man. for his own mental and emotional health, “must have a moral task. He must see his life as meaningful.”
This fact is further highlighted in the report of modem students of old age that for old folks to keep well and happy they must keep busy, and not just at a hobby, but at something worthwhile, something that satisfies their moral nature; they must feel that they are being of some use to others. What lower animal worries about whether the work it is doing is useful to others or not? What animal reouires a ■moral task tn he content?
Then there is man’s need to worship. No lower animal is capable of worshiping God. It cannot think of God, it cannot imagine his existence. On the other hand, there is no tribe or group of people, no matter how low on the scale of civilization, that does not have the urge to worship.
That difference between man and beast is highlighted in the position taken by the new school of psychology int Vienna namei iy, that "we all feel an urge for God as powerful as our instincts for sex and hun ger." also psychologist i . Jung says the cniei cause for neurosis after the age of thirty-five is a failure to recognize one’s need of religion. Could we imagine the lower animals becoming mentally disturbed because of lack of religion? .
In view of all this evidence—to which much more could have been added had space permitted—in favor of the Bible’s account of the special creation of man in God’s image and likeness, what folly to question its inspiration on the basis of the shallow theories and erroneous speculations of menl What blind conceit to refei disparagingly, as so many do, to the “poetry of Genesis,” and to prefer the opinions of men, which are mere guesses'
The Christian Greek Scriptures show that Jesus Christ accepted the Genesis account of creation, and he was the greatest teacher that ever lived. His apostles and disciples also accepted it. Since this most criticized part of the Bible is thus seen to have successfully met the challenge of critics, search further and you will find all of it based on fact. Study it and learn why God has permitted evil, where we are on the stream of man’s history, and of the wonderful hope of everlasting life in his new world of righteousness that God sets before all men of good will.
BRITAIN AT LOWEST SPIRITUAL EBB
Never before has Britain's materia] welfare been higher, writes Dr. Eustancc Chester, a psychiatrist, in a British medical association periodical. Yet at the same time, says the psychiatrist, never before has Britain’s spiritual life been so desolate as it is now. “Nervousness, anxiety, lack of faith, together with a frantic search to escape from ourselves," he wrote, “has gained a painful grip on us.”
a tortuous course of examination, to betray them into confessions which proved fatal to their lives and fortunes. To this mental torture was soon after added the use of bodily tortures, together with the concealment of the names of witnesses. . . . When the prisoner refused to acknowledge his fault at the first interrogatory, he was remanded to prison; after many months he was again brought forth, and asked to swear before a crucifix that he would tell the truth. If now. he did not confess, he was immediately considered guilty, otherwise he was plied with leading
THE prisoner stood before his inquisitors and felt the complete frustration of hearing himself judged guilty of crimes he did not commit. His confession was false. It had been extracted under pain of unspeakable tortures and long imprisonment. He had been forced to provide evidence against himself. It was self-incrimination. Now death upon a flaming stake awaited him.
This commonplace scene of the thirteenth century should be a warning to freedom-loving people of this twentieth century, for very little protects them from a modern repetition of it. They should consider seriously what history says about inquisitional “justice.” Note what the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature tells us:
“Inflamed with a passion for extirpating heresy, and persuading themselves that the end sanctified the means, they not only acted upon, but formally laid down, as a rule for their conduct, maxims founded on the grossest deceit and artifice, according to which they sought in every way to ensnare their victims, and by means of false statements, delusory promises, and questions until thoroughly bewildered.” What stands between this perverted form of justice and free peoples today? Just one small thing—the right against self-incrimination. For the American people this right is embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. It is found in the short phrase: “nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” This phrase is the only provision in the Constitution that protects people in the United States from being subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting confessions.
In Communist countries, where no such provision exists, an accused person finds himself confronted with thirteenth-century justice. Physical and mental torture have long been employed in Soviet Russia to force accused persons to testify against themselves. In the speech Nikita S. Khrushchev gave to the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow on February 25,1956, he admitted the use of such inquisitional methods. Since these methods exist today, freedom-loving people are faced with a danger that cannot be viewed as belonging only to the thirteenth century.
Protection Against Self-Incrimination
The Fifth Amendment stands as a guardian for the American people, shielding them from the injustice of inquisitional procedures. It protects them from being prosecuted for thoughts and opinions. The framers of the Constitution knew the great need for such a guardian. They were well aware of the injustices that can develop when it does not exist. They were familiar with England’s notorious Star Chamber and the ecclesiastical Court of High Commission that were set up by the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns.
These tribunals tried people without formal indictment or jury. Mere suspicion was all they needed to have a person dragged before them. The accused was then deluged with roving questions to find evidence that would convict him. It was also hoped that this would uncover crimes unknown to the investigating tribunal, especially crimes of thinking, speaking and worshiping in a manner displeasing to it. If the accused refused to answer incriminating questions he was considered guilty. He was then subjected to long imprisonment and oftentimes torture to force a confession.
It was with the desire to prevent such injustice that early supporters of the Fifth Amendment insisted upon a constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination. The privilege was first included in the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776. Then in 1791 it was incorporated into the Federal Constitution.
Regarding this guardian of justice, Chief Justice Warren said in 1955: “The privilege against self-incrimination is a right that was hard-earned by our forefathers. . . . As early as 1650, remembrance of the horror of Star Chamber proceedings a decade before had firmly established the privilege in the common law of England.... To apply the privilege narrowly or begrudgingly—to treat it as an historical relic, at most merely to be tolerated—is to ignore its development and purpose.”
For Protection of Innocent
It must be kept in mind that the privilege against self-incrimination was placed in the Constitution to protect the innocent. This fact is underscored by the great legal authority Dean Wigmore: “The system of ‘inquisition,’ properly so called, signifies an examination on suspicion, without prior presentment, indictment or other formal accusation; and the contest for 100 years centered solely on the abuse of such a system. ... No doubt a guilty person may justly be called upon at any time, for guilt deserves no immunity. But it is the innocent that need protection. Under any system which permits John Doe to be forced to answer on the mere suspicion of an officer of the law, or on public rumor, or on secret betrayal, two abuses have always prevailed and inevitably will prevail: First, the petty judicial officer becomes a local tyrant and misuses his discretion for political or mercenary or malicious ends; secondly, a blackmail is practiced by those unscrupulous members of the community who through threats of inspiring a prosecution are able to prey upon the fears of the weak or the timid.”
The Fifth Amendment, with its provision against self-incrimination, shields Americans from such abuses.
Generally Misunderstood
In recent years public misunderstanding of the Fifth Amendment has been created by some persons who have been brought before congressional investigating committees. Unsavory characters of the underworld and active Communists have misused the privilege to hide their unlawful activities. But such misuse of the privilege does not mean it should be revoked for seemingly being an impediment in the process of uncovering and prosecuting criminals. That would be a serious mistake. The famous law authority Blackstone once said that it would be better to permit 99 guilty men to escape than to convict one innocent man.
Rather than require an accused person to provide incriminating evidence against himself the judiciary must use accepted police methods to ferret out the necessary evidence. Even though this puts police agencies to a great deal of trouble and expense it is necessary for the protection of innocent people. Consider what the book The Blessings of Liberty, by Zechariah Chafee, Jr., says on this point: "Consequently, it is very important that a government should, even at the sacrifice of some efficiency, perform its tasks by methods which do not shock the consciences of naturally law-abiding citizens. Regard for that principle brought about many constitutional rights.”
The existence of the Fifth Amendment removes any temptation law-enforcing agencies might have to shortcut criminal proceedings by resorting to forced confessions. It would take much less effort to compel a person to confess than to dig up evidence. This was pointed out by a British official in India in reply to an inquiry as to why native policemen occasionally applied torture to prisoners. According to Chafee, this official said: “There is a great deal of laziness in it. It is far pleasanter to sit in the shade rubbing red pepper into a poor devil’s eyes than to go about in the sun hunting up evidence.”
Because forced confessions violate the Fifth Amendment as well as prove wholly undependable, American courts refuse to accept them. If there is the faintest indication that a confession has been coerced it will be rejected. Note what the 82d Congress said on the subjeat: "Neither does the Amendment preclude the admission in evidence against an accused of a confession made while in the custody of officers, if the confession was made freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort.” On the same point Thomas Cooley, in his book A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations, said: "A confession alone ought not to be sufficient evidence of the corpus delicti. There should be other proof that a crime has actually been committed; and the confession should only be allowed for the purpose of connecting the defendant with the offense.”
Should Not Be Disrespected
In view of the vital place the Fifth Amendment holds as a guardian of justice it seems strange that a person would speak disparagingly of it. Yet there are people who do.
Respect is not created by using a term such as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” This has caused concern among persons who know how vital the Fifth Amendment is in protecting freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Harry P. Cain of the Subversive Activities Control Board expressed this concern when he said: “Those who use ‘Fifth Amendment’ as an adjective of disapprobation modifying the noun ‘Communist’ are as guilty of disrespect for the Constitution as any Communist could be. Centuries of inquisitional tortures, mental and physical, and misgivings over man’s inhumanity to man forged and tempered the bulwark of freedom that the individual shall not be required to convict himself. We should be less concerned by the few who hide behind the privilege without justification and much more concerned by those who trifle with and prostitute its significance."
Use of Fifth Does Not Signify Guilt
Our modern judicial system is built upon the belief that a man is innocent until proved guilty. Until evidence is produced that establishes his guilt he must be considered innocent even though he invokes the Fifth Amendment.
In spite of common opinion to the contrary, there are reasons why an innocent
person would use it. The doctrine of waiver could be one reason. According to it the person who gives information that might be considered incriminating waives the privilege of not answering thereafter. If he wants to prevent automatic waiver of the privilege he must claim it at the earliest possible moment during the investigation. Knowledge of this fact could cause an innocent person to invoke the Fifth Amendment to ensure his access to it if it should be needed. It would therefore be wrong to infer that he is guilty.
Another person might honestly feel that he would violate his conscience by divulging names of friends who were once associated with communism but who are now no longer sympathetic toward it. Such a man may be free from any taint of communism himself, yet he invokes the privilege for the sake of his conscience. Of course, the privilege cannot legally be used to protect friends, but, nevertheless, this would explain why some innocent persons would feel moved to use it.
But whatever the reason may be, employers and acquaintances should not penalize a person who makes use of this
Constitutional privilege. To illustrate how wrong public opinion has become in its view of the matter, consider the case of a judge who was denied a special appointment by state officials because he had, while a lawyer, defended a client who used the Fifth Amendment. This action aroused indignation in the president of the New York State Bar Association. “The Supreme Court,” he said, “has often held that the Constitution guarantees to every accused the right to counsel. That right will have no meaning if lawyers have to fear public obloquy and disqualification for office when their clients invoke their constitutional rights.”
Another protest came from the president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York: “As long as the Fifth Amendment remains part of the Constitution, individuals have the right to avail themselves of it”
What happened to the unfortunate victims of thirteenth-century inquisitors should be a warning to those who speak slightingly of the Fifth Amendment. They need its protection. It is a vital guardian of justice and freedom.
NO GUILT IN PLEADING FIFTH
C In May the United States supreme court handed down a unanimous decision decrying the popular tendency to assume a man guilty if he invokes the Fifth Amendment, This was in sharp disagreement with President Eisenhower’s view that those who use it must be trying to hide something. The court’s opinion, written by Justice Harlan, quoted this statement by Erwin N. Griswold, dean of Harvard Law School: “Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege.” A concurring opinion x written by Justice Black and' joined in by Chief Justice Warren and Justices Douglas and Brennan went further, saying: “I can think of no special circumstances that would justify use of a Constitutional privilege to discredit or convict a person who asserts it. The value of these Constitutional privileges is'largely destroyed if persons can be penalized for relying on them. It seems peculiarly incongruous and indefensible for courts which exist to act only under the Constitution to draw inferences of lack of honesty from invocation of a privilege deemed worthy of enshrinement in the Constitution.”
■ V ■■
N June 2S, 1956,
President Eisen
tftW ‘IV,-
hower set in motion the biggest public works program in the history of the world when he signed his signature to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
The main feature of this program is a 41,000-mile network of limited-access roads linking ninety percent of all cities with populations of more than 50,000 in the United States. It will also serve the country’s principal industrial and defense areas. .
A record $33,480,000,000 has been set aside for this gigantic road-building program. But authorities are confident that by the time this project is completed in 1972, as scheduled, it will have cost United States taxpayers well over $50 billion.
In case you are wondering what that $50 billion could buy in the form of other public work programs, just combine the Panama Canal, Grand Coulee Dam and the St Lawrence seaway into one tremendous construction project. The $50 billion that Americans are marked to spend in the next fifteen years for major highways under the new legislation could finance twenty-nine such projects!
The new law is proof that the American people want and are willing to pay for better highways. But the question is, Will either the $33,-^480,000,000 or $50-billion sum guarantee lor -them a decent highway system? The facts show that it will not, unless legislators rouse themselves from their deep slumber and act now and quickly,
At present, laws regulate the minimum width of traffic lanes, set legal speed limits, specify grades, slow curves, all-weather shoulders, dividing strips and other engineering and construction standards. But modem highway planning calls for more than the control of the highways. It calls for roadside control as well.
Without rigid roadside controls, scenic beauty and roadside development are left up to the discretion of selfish commercial-minded men, who care nothing about the countryside or the safety of the driver. Their sole interest is to exploit the motoring audience and they cane little about how they do it.
New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses said the express arteries under the new highway system are entirely exposed to signs and billboards. “The entrances,-exits, and intersections/* he says, ‘‘are all left exposed to an indiscriminate mushroom growth of ugly filling stations, hotdog stands, and all the other familiar roadside eyesores. Consequently, we face the prospect of speedways built in gasoline gullies, obliterating scenery and confined between continuous rows of offensive advertising.”
Senate investigators studying this problem expressed fear that the new system of interstate roads might become lined by a
forest of distasteful billboards and advertising signs. Under the new federal highway law the government has no authority to control advertisements along the new system of interstate and defense highways, although it is putting up ninety percent of the funds.
Fight Against Controls
To get the United States Congress to enact a law that will protect the roadside from becoming defaced is no simple matter. The moment an effective control bill appears on the scene roadside commercial-ists, outdoor advertising lobbies, swing into action and, with their army of lawyers, representatives and stooges, do everything within their power to defeat it.
Billboard companies have shrewdly sought the aid of farmers and other landowners to fight their battles. Even labor unions, charities and good causes have been used by ingenious roadside promoters to defeat regulation bills or to water them down to the point of being meaningless. The last session of Congress, for example, rejected a proposal that would have authorized the acquisition of rights up to 500 feet from the highways to prevent billboard construction. Why Congress rejected this law the people were never told.
Often the billboard industry will offer a compromise in an effort to side-step rigged legislation. They promise to co-operate with public officials in charge of highways by limiting the number of billboards along a highway. They claim that co-operation will accomplish more than legislation. But their claim, says Park Commissioner Moses, is false. “The record conclusively establishes that in practice self-policing is a farce.”
Like their business enterprises, their billboards and signs get bigger and bigger and more and more. Some companies argue that their signs are an improvement on nature, that the traveler needs them to keep awake. Safety organizations, however, tell a story to the contrary. They declare emphatically that billboards and neon signs definitely detract from traffic signals and important road signs, that sign slogans and pictures take the eye and mind off the serious business of driving.
Public Distaste and Law Enforcement
There is no question about the public’s distaste for advertising signs along the highways, especially for those signs that project in front of beautiful trees or cut off expansive country views. A survey by the American Automobile Association Showed ninety percent of those interviewed favored restriction of such invasion of the countryside. Sinclair Weeks, United States secretary of commerce, acknowledged before a senate public works subcommittee that there was widespread feeling throughout the United States that advertising near the interstate system should be curtailed to preserve the “beauty and pleasing character of the natural landscape and in the interest of highway safety.”
Stressing the need for effective measures in this matter of roadside controls is an editorial in the Pennsylvania, Farmer. In part it says: “When the Pennsylvania Turnpike was first contemplated, and as work progressed, announcement was repeatedly made that this road would be free from billboards and other commercial signs and notices. It was to remain in its natural setting for the benefit and satisfaction of the traveling public. For a few years the promises were kept Then one hotel put up a big sign. Then a competing hotel put one up. Then other establishments followed as one sheep follows another through a hole in a fence.”
Little wonder, then, why the New Jersey Turnpike Commission has consistently and steadfastly refused to sanction billboards.
To allow one billboard to go up is to open a hole through which ten thqusand more will follow. New York state has also been able, through strict law enforcement, to protect the beauty of its parkways, expressways, its many boulevards and thoroughfares against this kind of intrusion.
Several states have passed effective regulatory laws concerning advertising encroachments, and the tendency is increasing not only to abolish all advertising within the right of way but to extend the jurisdiction of public highway authorities to the regulation of offending advertising on private property joining the highway. The supreme judicial court for the county of Suffolk, Massachusetts, in effect sustained the power of state officials to regulate and restrict advertising on private property within public view. The courts have also recognized that the billboard is an intrusion that distracts the traveler and endangers his safety.
Billboard and advertising companies have long argued that the courts would not recognize beauty as a factor to be considered within the limits of the law. But they got a real jolt when the supreme court of the United States in a unanimous decision sustained the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945. The court held that “the concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled.”
What Must Be Done Now?
While the primary purpose in building the new expressways is to accommodate traffic, yet this depends upon the attention given to the roadside as well as to the highway. No expressway can serve to its full capacity if traffic flow is slowed down by a succession of billboards and by driveways to an unbroken procession of motels, by lunch stands, filling stations and drivein theaters. To prevent such cheapening of the multibillion-dollar expressways that the nation is going to build in the next fifteen years, strong legislation is urgent now to protect not only the highways but the roadsides as well.
Since it is the untainted charm of the countryside that is predominantly responsible for making the highways and parkways so universally appreciated, then every consideration should be given to trees, shrubs, ground covers and turf that produce the parkway atmosphere. The restful shade from overhanging trees reduces pavement glare and driver-fatigue. Fields of wild flowers and greens, together with graceful curves of the winding road, contribute an exhilarating beauty to any highway. Whether these are artificial or natural, the effect on the motorist is pleasing and restful.
Keep the parkways and the highways both safe and beautiful.
MORE HOLIDAYS
<£ An impartial observation appearing in the New York Daily News says: "Let's not be hypocritical about making Good Friday into a national holiday, as one Voicer urged. Instead, let's be honest about our holidays. Let’s have a holiday tor official worship of each of the real gods of the average American—the god of luck, the god of speed, the gods of gaudiness, bigness, space ships, stylism, fads, braggadocio, racketeers, lawsuitism, deficit spending, matriarch!sin, hero worship, ball games, glamor, cocktails, jazz and sex.”
tricity—but the fox also has an odd choice of friends. His constant companion is a hunting dog!
According to a National Safety Council report, Richard Fleming of Woodland, California, had good reason to lose his head while driving. A woodpecker
was peeking away at it! The bird, a family pet, was jn the lap of Fleming's son when it mistook the eider Fleming cranium for a tree and went to work with an earnestness typical of woodpeckers. The car left the highway and rolled over twice. Neither of the Flemings was hurt. The woodpecker found itself a tree.
Motherly Hen Raises Killens
A motherly hen has caused a disturbance on a farm near St. Paul, Minnesota. It seems that one of the fanner’s hens laid some eggs under a trough in the barn. The farmer’s cat later chose the same spot to give birth to her kittens. Then the cat went for a walk. When she got back the hen had decided the kittens needed a mother and was squatting protectively over them. She refused to allow the mother cat to touch them. Each time the cat wanted to feed the kittens the farmer's wife had to secure the hen; otherwise the hen launched a fierce attack. The kittens? Strange to say, they kept neutral. Whichever mother happened to be around won their support.
Feline Acromania
For some unknown reason a cat in Simpson, Pennsylvania, climbed to the top of a sixty-foot power pole. There the cat sat on its lofty perch day after day. After nine days of feline high-mindedness, the cat returned to earth, eluding would-be rescuers and disappearing.
Just a Foxy Fox?
' A man in Lake Orion, Michigan, has a fox that must think he is something else. Anyway, the fox starts the day off with bacon and eggs, One could probably overlook this little eccen-
Borine Eeconnaiasance
At Swansea, Wales, a cow clumped sixty feet up a winding stairway to the top of the airfield control tower. Bossie stood there gazing contentedly over the countryside. For sixteen hours she surveyed the countryside while authorities pondered the problem of getting her down. “We had a cow up there before," said a member of the Swansea Flying Club, “That time," he explained, “I helped push her down the stairway. But this time we’re not going to risk that because there is a danger of being crushed against the wall if the cow gets angry." The problem remained unsolved until a seven-i ecn-year-old farm boy came along. He merely milked the cow and uttered a few soothing “sooo-bossies,” After that she clumped back down the stairs.
Eccentric Ecstasies
..■i> In the mountain country of southern New Zealand there are no fabric-top convertibles— at least not for long. This is all because of a bird character called kea. This green parrot with red feathers beneath its wings loves to poke fun at motorists and holes in the fabric lops. Within a few nights parrots will rip a canvas to shreds. Fa brie-covered cars send them into some kind of eccentric ecstasy. These parrots have another eccentricity: they like to land on a corrugated iron roof of a mountain hut. For hours on end they will slide down in an ungainly fashion, shrieking with delight. These clownish parrots to know when to stop. Not a lew of them that have presumed too far have ended in the pot.
seem never
an
MINISTERS
If ANY I ' t Christian ministers today are women. It was prophesied to be so by the prophet Joel. In Acts apostle of Jesus Christ tells us of the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy among the first Christians to walk this earth: “I shall pour some of my spirit out upon every kind of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy . . , even upon iny men slaves and upon my women slaves I will pour out some of my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” (Acts 2:17, 18, New World Trans.) Philip the missionary “had four daughters, virgins, that prophesied.” Phoebe, a Christian sister of the apostle Paul, is also mentioned as “a minister of the congregation which is in Cenchreae.” (Acts 21:9; Romans 16:1, New World Trans.) The present-day congregation of Christians is no different in this way. A great many of those who are actively declaring the good news of Christ’s established kingdom are women.
Jesus gave the world as a field for Christian ministry, No limitations were laid
the responsibility of leadership in Christ’s congregation. With the exception of this one restriction the field is the entire
upon men. But one is placed upon women fulfilling their obligations to follow Christ’s example—that of teaching or instructing Christian men. This would prohibit women from usurping authority in an organization run by theocratic laws, which ordained Christian men with world, and we see women busy in the field, making an important announcement, “a new government is ruling, a mighty King is now reigning.”
You Represent Christ
If Christ Jesus were here in person and asked you, a woman, to keep a personal appointment with another person in his stead, would you not feel a great privilege had been extended to you to fill his request? Of course you would. You would be eager to fulfill it with all the serious contemplation of one appointed to the honor of ambassadorship. Now, then, finding ourselves in this position of unequaled importance, let us dwell awhile on the indubitable consequence of successful public appearance.
In recent years men in charge of world governments have sent women as their representatives and ambassadors of state to other countries. These women have received much publicity in their office. In most cases they have also received acclaim because of the successful fulfillment of their missions. Former ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce; former ambassador to the United States and former president pro tempore of the United Nations General
Assembly, Madame Vijayalaksmi Pandit of
India; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, ambassador of good will to the United States, just to mention a few whose names you have noticed in the news.
These women are Known ror rneir dignified conduct. In fact, their success in office depended on representing their countries in such a way as not to call unfavorable attention to themselves, for such would reflect upon the government they represented. These women represent governments in a world passing away. Christian women stand for a government and a world that will never end but will stand forever. Still, because of the similarity in holding an office of ministry of high rank, minister of God’s new world, and in that analogy only, we may learn something by a few notes of comparison.
Remember, you are a woman. And remember how much a first impression means to you. You often speak to women at the door. They are every bit as serotinous as you are, perhaps more so. Before you ever speak a word, your appearance says volumes. So let us consider for a moment that very important first of our lady minister of the New World.
Standard of Dress
One rule that has almost no exceptions might be stated in this way; Dress as you would to keep an important business or social appointment. No matter in what part of the world we perform our ministry there is a set standard of ‘dress that would acceptably fit this rule. This standard differs around the world. We can be guided, therefore, by what is best in the community in which we live. Not to extremes in fashion, for this would do no more than call attention to ourselves. We should dress, rather, to create the favorable impression that would dignify the purpose of our visit.
Let us start at the top of our. costume. In countries where the three-cornered scarf tied under the chin, a “babushka,” is best taste, wear this. But in cosmopolitan cities, suburbs of such cities or smaller towns where this is not the accepted uesi, let us not use it. Oh, yes, it is easy and quick to throw a scarf around the head, maybe even hide pin curls underneath, and later bring out the hat when “I’m dressed up more.” But does this really dignify the ministry we are engaged in? In most places a hat, not a big, flappy, frivolous creation, but a hat, is accepted as preferred. Somehow it says a lady is calling. Anyone throws on a scarf to cross the back yard to borrow a cup of sugar. In some parts of a country no hat or head covering at all is necessary to be very presentable.
But keep in mind, our lady minister is calling as a representative of a new government, for a really important purpose. Let us look it! True, it is important to be presentable at meetings. But if so, then how much more important it is to present ourselves at our best in our first-call or returncall ministry. To be sure, a cold day demands that the ears be covered. It can be done by a close-fitting hood, or some such equivalent that looks far more chic and, in fact, does the job much better.
It is true that we are subject to public opinion. Ours is a public ministry. And our clothes are an important part of our public appearance; they even disclose a personality, some say. Our presentation at the doors, then, reasonably, would not call for frilly ruffles dotted with rhinestones or a neckline so low that it suggests anything but the ministry. If we think it would, perhaps we ought to make over our personality when selecting clothes for the field service. ‘Dressing down’ is always preferred to dressing up too much.
In fact, if you notice, there is always a certain simple classic style, a basic type of fashion that stays in vogue year after year. So it is good common sense to be alert to it. Simplicity has always been accepted as the criterion in fashion circles; is, in fact, the demand of good taste. No one has to be.a tasrnon plate, or run right out for a new wardrobe. But put things together with some forethought for the position you occupy. Remember you are representing the New World government in public service! You know, a repeat performance of a nice-looking outfit is no drawback—our audience changes at every door.
Dressing fpr Meetings
Something can be said for the matter of meetings as well. Usually we like to dress up at this time. But do not forget, there are the small meetings to think of in the same way, our area Bible studies. We might think, ‘Well, this is an informal meeting and I know everyone who will be there. So here, at least, I can let my hair down. Slacks will do, or anything comfortable.’ But it is not a ‘come a^ you are’ party. The public is invited to all our meetings. And persons will judge again by our appearance and conduct before they become mature in the truth.
Actually, we dedicate our lives to be representatives of Christ Jesus to the world. So everywhere, and at all times, our conduct, our demeanor, our dress and appearance are being watched by those measuring the truth by us. Let us give the best we can to speak in these silent ways. So with “handling the word of truth aright’’ you can “do your utmost to present yourself approved to God, a workman with nothing to be ashamed of.”—2 Timothy 2:15, Yew World Trans.
No, we do not want to try to ape this world of changing fashions and its aims for personal attention. It has turned its head toward the ‘stars’ they put in the public eye, pin-up or sweater girls. Still, we must be conscious of the fact that we are very much in the public eye. Our ministry puts us there. And since we are a theatrical spectacle in this world let us recommend the good news we bear in our very best manner and dress. Sometimes we may say some like to go to church to show off their finery. No doubt this has its truth. But if an effort to look one’s best is found to be so among those who worship false gods of this world, how much more, indeed, should those who represent the Most High God have a dignified appearance and bearing, though with no effort at display.
Another very important part of the lady minister’s appearance is her countenance. “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance.” (Proverbs 15:13, Rev. Stan. Ver.) Since our mental attitude is showing, see that it shows something pleasant to look upon. Show you are glad to be doing the work you are in. If the toast burned this morning or something else upsetting happened at home, well, shoulder chips are best left at home. There is nothing so warm and friendly as a sincere smile; it is a pleas-, ure to receive one. It almost always gets the same response. So when the door opens be ready to show, in a genuinely friendly way, you are glad to be there to give them something for tfieir welfare.
Feminine Abilities
Women have many natural abilities that can serve them well in the pursuance of their ministry. One of these is the ease with which they can meet and converse with people. This often comes with less effort to women than to men. However, a woman’s penchant for talking is in itself never sufficient. Her talking must be to put across ideas. Words without thoughts are needles without points. It requires advance thinking on and studying of a subject in order to have our words full of meaning and few in number. A great deal can be said in a few words. Reading the proverbs you can see how much thought can be expressed by a minimum of words. A proverb is a mouthful of choicest meat well seasoned. Not that there is any ban on words, but make them count. Let yourwords drive the truth home. More and more the people we meet ted us they are too busy to listen. So our thoughts must be expressed in a pithy, condensed way. Then when time is allowed we can use it well to expand our subject.
Women make good diplomats. Of course, their ability is usually employed more in keeping good relations between people, rather than between governments. However, it is a case of being able to control a situation. The ability to be able to say the right thing at the right time, tactfulness, is a quality that may require cultivation. It is certainly worth the patience and effort to acquire it, however. And all of this fits under the heading of being “transformed by making your mind over.'*—Romans 12:2, New World Trans.
When a need arises women often show uieir qualities of inventiveness or ingenuity to a great advantage. And in the field of our public ministry this property is a useful one. After a short while we get to know the usual situations and objections we must meet. Be alert to turn an unfavorable situation into a favorable one. One is not always successful at first—but there is a great field for trying. The advantage is to the listener, whose hearing ear may gain his life.
And now let us look at ourselves scruti-nizingly in the mirror before leaving home to engage in our ministerial assignment. Does our reflection say we are calling for a serious and important purpose ? Does our face show we are glad to be there to give good news? Are we anxious to speak with confidence on subjects with which we are conversant? If so, then we see our lady minister fulfilling her high calling in an acceptable and pleasing manner, before God and men. Paul and Timothy said long ago: ‘We are therefore ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making entreaty through us. As substitutes for Christ we beg: ‘Become reconciled to God.’ ”—2 Corinthians 5:20, New World Trans.
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