December, 1938
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
406
Views and Reviews of Current News By D AN GILBERT San Diego, California, and Washington, D.C.
certain: If democracy becomes dictatorship to win a war, democracy loses. The idea is too absurd for serious consideration. A war to defend democracy, under this system, would mean the death of democracy. If de mocracy is going to die anyway, to give way to dictatorship, it might as well sur render without a struggle, without the war! Americans should write their representa tives in Congress, urging them to oppose any and all of the pending bills which would permit war to be used as a pretext for sweeping away the God-given, Consti tutional liberties which our fathers died to establish, not to destroy. WAR HORRORS MULTIPLY: The hor rors of the “next war” continue to strain the imaginations of men. A news report states that three European nations have now tak en to training the blind as "air raid war dens.” It is a known fact that blind persons develop excessively acute hearing. They become supersensitive to sound. The militarists believe this cultivated fac ulty of the blind can be exploited in war "defense.” The theory is that blind persons, by reason of their acute hearing, can “spot” or sense planes quicker than ordinary indi viduals can. Presumably, the helpless blind will be stationed on high buildings or in ex posed outlying districts where they will “stick by their posts,” relaying news of the approaching air raid, until they fall victims of it. SOVIETS RENEW ANTI-GOD DRIVE: Soviet school teachers were summoned to intensive antireligious work among chil dren in an authoritative article appearing in the current number of T he T eachers' Gazette, organ of the Commissariat of Edu cation. The article rebukes the Commis sariat itself for failing to push antireligious instruction. As a result of the teachers’ indifference, the article states, there has been a consider able upsurge of religious feeling among children. The discussion deplores the fact that last Christmas the children in many districts went about the houses of the col lective farms singing Christmas carols, that many children observed Easter by standing in the churches among the elders with can dles. The article demanded that all Soviet teachers concentrate and center their efforts upon a drive to convert school children into active fighters against religion. THE DEFICIT DEEPENS: Strong pres sure will be put upon the 1939 Congress to enact a program to subsidize medical care for the poor. At least six bills already have been drawn, providing for the appropria- [C ontinued on p a g e 436]
“inevitability” of our participation in the next war is becoming more and more widely accepted, and even approved, by many who are in a position to influence public opinion. WAR REGIMENTATION PROGRAM: For several years, plans have been carried forward in Washington, D.C., to have everything in readiness “just in case” America should be drawn into another world conflict. The program is now vir tually complete. The various bills now pending in Congress will doubtless be amended to provide that maximum of “war mobilization” conceived by military strate gists. The plan provides that the moment America goes to war, democracy shall be abolished. Free speech will be suppressed. Labor and capital, as well as youth, will be conscripted. Martial law will prevail at home as well as at the “front.” Workers in factories and farmers tilling their own fields will be under military discipline—sub ject to court-martialing for disobedience to the bureaucratic slave-drivers who will ty rannize over once free Americans. Once our United States goes to war, democracy is suspended and dictatorship takes over in our country. This action may, or may not, be neces sary to “win the war.” But, one thing is
WAR PREPARATION PROCEEDS IN AMERICA: A pell of Washington news paper men recently revealed that three out of live of them regard “war preparation” as the most immediate menace to “peace and freedom” in the United States of America. The menace lies not so much in demands for increased armaments; its chief threat lies in the subtle propaganda being spread on all sides—propaganda aiming to con vince Americans that a plunge into war would "serve the interests of democracy and the stabilization of peace.” And men today are not given generally to a careful weighing of statements which they are asked to believe. A recently returned ambassador to a great European nation has suggested pub licly that America “had better declare war on the three military machines before they gain too much momentum.” The three mili tary machines are Germany, Italy, and Ja pan; and the theory seems to be that Amer ica should lead other nations of the world in another “stop militarism” war. A state of public mind is being prepared which will accept war as a logical, and even desirable, eventuality. The past two years have witnessed, in high and low places, feverish and widespread “war talk.” The "peace of Munich" may have quiet ed “war hysteria” in Europe. It has fanned it to greater intensity in Washington. The
International News Photo
ATHEISTIC P R O P A G A N D A FOR A LL A G E S IN RU SSIA Christmas carols may be sung in many parts of the world, but they are not welcomed in Russia. From the small boy in the background at the right to the aged man in the front row right, Rus sians of all ages are subject to the most blasphemous atheistic propaganda. Pictured are mem bers of a collective farmers' group listening to reports in a meeting at the Moscow peasants' house.
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker