"Devil's Emblem"

Six weeks ago when a Lynn teacher ordered her third-grade class to comply with Massachusetts' new patriotism laws and salute the flag, 8-year-old Carleton Nichols Jr. swallowed hard, remained in his seat while the class rose. "Please, Miss Brooks," he blurted, ''my father says I am not to salute the Devil's emblem." Carleton Nichols Sr. explained that as Jehovah's Witnesses he and his son could not serve both Jehovah and Country. Jehovah's Witnesses, otherwise known as the International Bible Students Association, count 2,500,000 followers in 34 nations (TIME, June 10). Strictly literal-minded, they believe that Biblical prophecies govern man's fate, that formalized religion, financiers, politicians and such emblems as the U. S. flag are agents of Lucifer, who is grooming himself for a terrific last-ditch fight with Jehovah. Leader of the sect is big, militant Judge Joseph Frederick Rutherford, onetime Missouri circuit judge, who campaigned for William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Pleased with publicity in Lynn, Judge Rutherford boomed to all little Witnesses: "Whom do you choose to serve, Jehovah or Satan the Devil?" Promptly the Lynn school board expelled Carleton Nichols Jr., found itself embarrassed by the State truancy law. By last week 28 Witnesses of Jehovah had popped up in U. S. public schools. In Lynn aging Cora Foster, who had taught in local schools for 40 years, faced dismissal after confessing that she, too, was a Witness. In nearby Saugus seven young Witnesses were expelled. In Weymouth high school Witnesses Charles & Harold Newcomb, who claim to be descendants of Betsy Ross, staged a sympathy strike against "the Devil's emblem." In Norwalk. Conn., a 13-year-old Witness was barred from all school activities except classes. Suspended from the Lakewood, N. J., high school, a 16-year-old was given a week in which to reconsider his scruples. When a teacher snapped, "Why don't you salute the flag?" frightened Alma Hering of Secaucus, N. J., mumbled, "It's contrary to my religion." was quickly expelled together with her sister Vivian. In Canonsburg, Pa. an irate teacher lost her job when she lectured the school board: "If you weren't so dumb, you would do a little investigating and become Witnesses yourself." Same day four Canonsburg teachers faced charges of whipping four recalcitrant young Witnesses. Meanwhile: Dr. John A. Spargo, onetime Socialist, now Nutley, N. J.. school superintendent, warned: "If a child does not love and respect the flag, instead of forcing him to salute it, keep him from doing so until his attitude changes." Poet Carl Sandburg mourned: "Such regimented oathtaking has in the past never achieved constructive good. It is failing today in Nazi Germany. It failed in Prohibition America. It failed in the reconstructed States of the South. It failed with Joan of Arc and with Galileo."

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