Witnesses Examined

World War II has made patriotism a second religion for many a U. S. citizen. But not for Jehovah's Witnesses. The Witnesses believe that Biblical prophecies literally govern every earthly event, that the U. S. flag, financiers, politicians--and all religions but their own--are agents of Lucifer, who is at large in the world and now grooming himself for a terrific last-ditch fight with Jehovah. Witnesses have recently been mobbed from Maine to Cali fornia (TIME, June 24). Last week they suffered: 1) at Columbus, Ohio, where Governor Bricker refused to reinstate a canceled contract that would have permit ted them to hold their national convention at the State Fair Grounds; 2) at Clarks burg, W. Va., where they were struck from relief rolls for refusal to salute the flag; 3) at Ocean City, N. J., where Mrs. Ethel R. Winkler was jailed as a public nuisance for passing out Witness tracts. Last week Witnesses were given two searching examinations, one philosophical, one practical.

The philosophical examiner was Dr. John Haynes Holmes in the Christian Century. His summing up: "If I want to bring clearly before my eyes just how . . . early Christians must have appeared to the highly respectable and patriotic Romans of their day, I have only to look at Jehovah's Witnesses today. . . . They are a peculiarly aggressive, even obnoxious set of people, at least as judged by ordinary standards of polite, conventional life. Thus, they are not satisfied to enter a town and hold a set of respectable public meetings and services. . .

> The hour is at hand, Christ may appear on the clouds of heaven tomorrow, even this very night, and they must arouse the community. ... All this, to conventional folk, is disquieting, upsetting, alarming. ... So they try to drive the Witnesses away; they stir up the public authorities against them; in times of excitement and hysteria they organize mobs and beat them up. . . . Lastly there is the irritating question of the flag salute. . . . What were the early Christians doing but this very thing when they refused to put their pinch of salt upon the altars of the Roman emperor?" The practical examiner was Reporter Malcolm Logan of the New York Post, whose series of four articles disclosed that:

> Zealous Witnesses living and working at Witness headquarters in Brooklyn, N. Y. are paid a flat $10 a month plus room and board. They print the Witness magazines (Watch Tower and Consolation, circulations respectively 200,000 and 50,000), books and booklets (309,485,000 since 1920, 27,000,000 in 1939), make the phonographs and recordings which co-workers plug from door to door.

> Witnesses' pontiff is rawboned, militant "Judge" Joseph Frederick Rutherford, 70, who in 1896 accompanied William Jennings Bryan on his first Presidential campaign, who in 1930 startled the U. S. by deeding a California house, garage and two automobiles, in perpetuity, to await the reappearance on earth of King David, Gedeon, Barak. Samson and other Biblical worthies.

> The Witnesses' own radio station, WBBR in Brooklyn, and 140-odd others feature transcribed Rutherford lectures on such subjects as: "Is Hell Hot?", "The Keys to Heaven," "Where are the Dead," "The End of the World." Sample quote: "Religion, being an invention of the Devil, turns men away from God."

> In Canada they were banned as illegal, like Bundists and Communists, under the Defense-of-Canada regulations.

> Far from being fifth columnists, as alleged, Jehovah's Witnesses hate dictatorships as much as they do other churches.

Germany has thrown 6,000 Witnesses into concentration camps.

> In the U. S. alone Witnesses claim 1,000,000 followers, are prepared to proselyte in Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Bohemian, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek. Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lettish, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian and Yiddish, as well as English. All told they seek souls in 36 nations, in 88 languages.

> Persecution of Witnesses merely strengthens them in their belief that they are battling the hosts of Satan, that the millennium is drawing nigh, and that in the great battle of Armageddon--due any day now--the wicked will perish and Jehovah's Witnesses will be saved. "They do not wait to be thrown to the lions; they walk into the lions' den, and bat its occupants over the head with the complete works of Judge Rutherford."

At week's end Witnesses walked into the lions' den for fair, vowed they would hold their national convention this week at Detroit, lair of that most militant of Catholics, Father Coughlin, and only a river away from forbidden Canada.

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