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Faith on the March
A.H. Macmillan
Copyright 1957
PART THREE: THE NEW WORLD SURVIVES
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| THE TRIUMPH OF THE GOOD NEWS
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| Chapter 13
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NATHAN HOMER KNORR became the third president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society with hardly a ripple to disrupt the steady operation of our newly established theocratic arrangement. J. F. Rutherford had been loved and was missed. But he had, himself worked diligently to tear out the very roots of creature worship or dependency of the organization on individuals. The transition from his presidency in the midst of crucial conditions was a testimony to his success--and Jehovah's blessing on the arrangement. When news of Rutherford's death came, I was in North Carolina at Elizabeth City, a small place just south of Norfolk, Virginia. That evening a number of us went up to Norfolk since there was no congregation at Elizabeth City, where we were working. At Norfolk the congregation had its regular meeting, and the one presiding that evening made announcement of Rutherford's passing; but beyond that no more was said about it. None said, "What are we going to do now?" or
"How will things go?" Though many individually expressed sorrow to each other after the meeting, they talked generally about other interests of the work and none expressed doubts or fears as to what his passing might mean to the organization. That was typical of the reaction of all of Jehovah's witnesses. As members of a theocratic organization, we now realized the work would continue as the Lord directed, regardless of whoever might be taking the lead on earth. Rutherford had continually expressed that thought in The Watchtower; and by the time he died all associated in the work, including those of the headquarters staff, had become more stabilized and mature in their thinking. Although Rutherford was a vigorous and prominent figure in the organization, yet his somewhat sudden death caused no great upheaval in the work, as it would have if we had been following a man. But Knorr had his work cut out for him from the start. N. H. Knorr knew the organization inside and out. He had grown up with it--in fact had done much toward its development even while Rutherford was alive. Born April 23, 1905, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Allentown, Pennsylvania, High School in 1923 and that same year entered the full-time ministry and became a member of the Bethel headquarters staff. He worked hard and immediately showed his ability at organizing. Martin, who was general manager of the publishing office and plant, took a hand in training him for the work there and when Martin died in l932 Knorr took his place. Eight years later he was made a director and elected vice-president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society; when, on January 13, 1942 he became president, he was only thirty-six years old. But in the nineteen years he had been at headquarters he had made good use of the time and was well equipped to take on the responsibility of so vast a work. Besides, he had an unshakable faith in Jehovah's theocratic direction of the New World society and a keen desire faithfully to fulfill his own appointment.
With the work seemingly closing down on all sides Knorr's interest was in expanding the preaching. He had no thought of retrenching. He was confident that we had not begun to scratch the surface of the world-wide field that Jesus Christ had said was our preaching assignment. He set out to push the limits of our theocratic boundaries to the ends of the earth, to all lands and to all peoples. No corner was to be left untilled or unplanted.
| STABILITY AND STRENGTH DESPITE PERSECUTION
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While World War II still raged, Knorr made his first official tour of our branch offices down into Mexico, through the Caribbean area and on into Central and South America. His purpose was to learn first-hand what the conditions of our people were and how they could be helped to advance their activity by sending specially trained missionaries into these fertile fields. He was accompanied on this tour by Fred W. Franz, vicepresident of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, whose facility with the Spanish language made him an invaluable traveling companion. Franz had already shown his value to Knorr in assisting him to discharge his literary responsibilities. A scholar from his youth, Franz is a keen student of the Bible. Born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1893, he carried away the honors of the University of Cincinnati and was offered the privilege of going to Oxford or Cambridge in England under the Rhodes Plan. Instead, in 1914, he entered the full-time ministry. His mother was a devout woman and a sincere Bible student and had brought her children up in that way. When Franz came to headquarters in l920, Rutherford saw at once that he was a young man of literary ability and possibilities, so he put him to work as an editorial assistant. Besides Spanish, Franz has a fluent knowledge of Portuguese and German and
is conversant with French. He is also a scholar of Hebrew and Greek as well as of Syriac and Latin, all of which contribute to making him a thoroughly reliable mainstay on Knorr's editorial staff.
Knorr's trip into Central and South America proved extremely successful. Not only were arrangements made to expand the ministry in those countries where Jehovah's witnesses already were operating, but continued efforts in this area saw new fields opening to these determined "husbandmen of the Lord's vineyard." Then, as soon as the war was over, he headed out for Europe with M. G. Herschel, a director of the Society and administrative aide to the president. The following year Knorr made an extensive trip throughout the Far, Middle and Near East. Again he was accompanied by Henschel, his secretary-companion. In the many lands visited conditions were studied and, as opportunity afforded, missionaries were scheduled and sent out.
The end of the war had brought some immediate relief to imprisoned Witnesses while others were helped as conditions improved in territory now occupied by the Allied forces. It can truly be said that the democratic "earth" had "swallowed up" the totalitarian flood sent out against Jehovah's witnesses,1 but the victory is God's, not man's. All of our freedoms to preach did not come easily in spite of the democratic conquest of totalitarianism. Constant effort and repeated appeals were required by our local ministers in these countries as well as a persistent battle by our headquarters staff.
What had been the result of totalitarian oppression? Had the voice heralding true freedom for the people been silenced? Had Jehovah's commissioned proclaimers of good news holed up for the duration, refusing to speak out for fear of dictator control, withholding the only comforting assurance of release and lasting peace through God's kingdom near at hand?
The record speaks for itself. The stability and strength of our newly-founded theocratic society is manifested in its
amazing growth in spite of persecution. In all of Europe Jehovah's witnesses came out of the war three times as numerous as they entered! In Poland alone this increase was six times, and within five years after the war they had grown to eighteen times their number! Released from the ban, after three years, Canadian Witnesses came above ground to find four thousand more ministers added to their former six thousand; while in Australia, after only two years, one thousand more had joined the 2,800. Just so, continued growth was evident in all parts of the globe.
| A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN ON THE HOME FRONT
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While Knorr was developing the expansion in foreign fields, he was still mindful of the bitter battle being waged against us in the United States. When he became president the fight was at its height and getting more intense. The battle for freedom of speech and worship in the United States Supreme Court had already won for Jehovah's witnesses under the able lawyer ship of H. C. Covington a number of significant victories, but Knorr did not stop here. He knew that our enemies were still determined to finish us as an organization by any means they could command. Deliberate lies about us were being told to people who relied on their informers for the truth. In America we were accused of being Nazis and Fascists, while all the time our Christian brothers in Germany and Italy and other Axis countries were being thrown into prison as American agents and sympathizers. This patriotic passion, fired by World War II, was at white heat.
Then in 1943, when Covington, a director and legal counselor for the Society, presented a new flag case to the highest court of the United States of America, the Supreme Court reversed its judgment on the flag-salute issue,2 ruling that conscientiously-objecting children have a constitutional right
to refrain from saluting a flag. In denying school boards the right to expel children from school for refusal to give the required salute to the flag, the court said: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalisms religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." The legal war on the home front in this country continued to be fought out in the courts of the land. Issue after issue, every legal barrier thrown up by the enemy was exposed and legally knocked out. Victory after victory was chalked up until, by the middle of 1955, over forty favorable decisions in the United States Supreme Court had buttressed our strong constitutional position.
| THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S LIBERAL VIEW
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During this struggle Knorr refused to compromise the principles of the Society in regard to our stand of neutrality. This firm position, misunderstood as it was by the general public and misrepresented as it was by our avowed enemies in clerical and "patriotic" circles, still was recognized and respected by the Federal Government. Throughout the entire period of World War II we were not disturbed on this government level. I was talking to our legal counsel, Hayden C. Covington, about this the other day, and his comments were interesting and revealing. "Hayden," I asked, "why is it that, since the Espionage Law is still on the books, the Government didn't try to prosecute us during World War II as they did in 1918 "The main reason why is because we weren't guilty and the Government knew it," he answered. "Had Jehovah's witnesses or any of the officers of the Society been guilty of illegal activity under the Espionage Law, they would have
been prosecuted during World War II under the same act. Failure of the Government to take action under the Espionage Law in World War II proves that none were guilty." "Hasn't the Government's attitude changed somewhat about prosecutions under this law?" "Yes. It's now recognized that conscientious objection to participation in the armed forces and explanations of the reasons of such objections to the public are not a violation of the Espionage Act. During the early part of World War II a number of favorable decisions were rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the validity of the work of Jehovah's witnesses and the non-seditious character of their literature. These decisions buttressed Jehovah's witnesses against a prosecution under the Espionage law and the Department of Justice knew that." "Don't you think the Government was more liberal during World War II?" "Yes, I do. The attitude of the Federal Government during World War II was much more liberal than during World War I." "Why do you suppose that was?" "I'll tell you the reason. It's that a number of court decisions in favor of freedom of speech were rendered after World War I and before World War II. These caused the Department of Justice to change its old reactionary attitude for limitation of freedom of speech of conscientious objectors. "It's commendable that the Department of Justice was more liberal and less susceptible to war hysteria under the Administration of President Roosevelt than it was under the Administration of President Wilson. President Roosevelt and his Attorney General, Francis Biddle, were highly in favor of allowing the maximum amount of freedom of speech in the United States, even while the war was being prosecuted. The very fact that Congress itself provided for the exemption from military service of persons having religious objection to participation
in the war also helped to make the attitude of the Department of Justice liberal."
| ARBITRARY DRAFT BOARDS SPURN THE LAW
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"What, then, would you say was the reason we had so much trouble over the draft in World War Il?"
"Most of our trouble resulted from the attitude taken by some local boards and District Courts. A small proportion of the draft boards during World War Il were extremely fair. At first great prejudice was shown by many federal District judges. But after the large number of cases continued to flow through their courts many of the judges began to change and mellow. They afterward took a more restrained attitude in presiding at the trial of cases involving Jehovah's witnesses.
"The National Headquarters of the Selective Service System, acting through General Hershey, was also fair. Arrangements were made between him and me for the exemption of our full-time ministers and members of the Bethel Family. He wrote an opinion for guidance of boards on this policy. Some draft boards obeyed this but others did not. It was the arbitrary and capricious determinations that were made by these boards denying the ministerial and conscientious-objector claims for exemption that resulted in prosecutions against Jehovah's witnesses for violating the draft law.
"Approximately 4,500 of Jehovah's witnesses were sentenced to prison in the District Courts because they were denied the right to show that draft boards had violated the law in denying the ministerial or conscientious-objector claims. This practice was approved by the Supreme Court in the Falbo3 decision rendered during the war. But after the war in Europe was over a change came. Then the court decided the Estep4 case in our favor, reversing and condemning the
practice of denying Jehovah's witnesses their rights to defend against the indictments brought against them.
"The attitude of the District judges, with exception of one or two throughout the entire United States, was totally antagonistic. They were against any defense being made by Jehovah's witnesses at their trials. This attitude, of course, changed when the Supreme Court decided the Estep case. But this was too late to help the 4,500 men who had gone to prison without a right to be heard."
| COVERING A CIRCUIT OF TWENTY PRISONS
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These 4,500 men presented a problem in the Federal prisons. Not that they were unruly. On the contrary. But prison officials as well as our Society had an interest in their spiritual welfare, and there were no prison chaplains in a position to give our boys the sort of Scriptural counsel they were seeking. Arrangements were finally made with Mr. James V. Bennett, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, for T. J. Sullivan and me to visit the prisons regularly to preach to our boys, comfort them and give counsel on the various Bible study meetings they were conducting among themselves as well as to help them and their wardens on any problems that might arise between them. In addition, arrangements were made for the Society's literature to be mailed into the prisons.
I was assigned to visit about twenty of these institutions once every six weeks. To make the circuit I traveled thirteen thousand miles. Trains were crowded everywhere with soldiers and their families being moved from place to place. I spent many nights in smoking-cars that made me feel like a smoked ham the next day. I spent many hours in small stations at junction points waiting for late trains. It was strenuous business traveling those days but the joys of my assignment compensated me.
One of the more serious problems I had to deal with, as I remember, was vaccinations. An order was received from the health department in Washington for all the inmates and guards to be vaccinated. Some of our boys in one prison in particular considered this the same as blood transfusions, and refused to submit. This caused considerable trouble. Then the order came from Washington to put all the men who refused to be vaccinated in solitary confinement. This did not change our men. The prison authorities hesitated to be overly strict about it; still they had their orders from headquarters. Well, during the excitement I arrived on my regular visit. Now the matter was put up to me to advise our men. I asked the Warden to permit me to talk to all the men who refused to be vaccinated. He said, "We can't do that because all the men are in solitary on orders from Washington and they'll have to stay there until they submit." "Well," I answered, "they'll be there all their lives, then, for they're not the kind to go contrary to their consciences. Now if you'll permit me to talk to all the men we can do something, but with some in solitary I'm helpless." Then the Warden phoned Washington and told them what I said. He was told to permit all the men to attend the meeting and to allow them to spend as much time in the meeting as Macmillan thought best. We had an interesting time. For about half an hour the men talked about the evils of vaccination, and so on. After all had had their say, I told them, "We're wasting time talking about the evils of vaccination because much could be said both ways. The point for us to consider is what are we going to do about being vaccinated. They have you all where they could vaccinate an elephant, and they will vaccinate you all." Up spoke the leader of the resistance and said: "What would you do if you were in prison and were called up for vaccination? "
"I was in prison," I reminded them, "and I bared my arm and received the shot. Furthermore, all of us who visit our foreign branches are vaccinated or we stay at home. Now vaccination is not anything like blood transfusion. No blood is used in the vaccine. It is a serum. So you would not be violating those Scriptures which forbid taking blood into your system.5
"You might think the vaccine would pollute the blood stream and that you should refuse on those grounds. Remember the account of what happened to Paul when he was shipwrecked.6 He went with others to gather wood to keep a fire burning to warm them and a deadly viper attached itself to his hand. The heathen natives of the Island thought Paul might be a murderer who, since he had escaped death in the sea, was to be punished by death from that viper's bite. However, Paul shook the viper from his hand into the fire and suffered no harm.
"Now why don't you act as the prophet Jeremiah did when the princes were urged by the clergymen to try him and have him put to death? He said: 7 'I am in your hands, now do with me as you wish, but know if you put me to death you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and this city, for Jehovah sent me to tell you all these words.' At that the Princes told Jeremiah that they did not think he was worthy of death."
| HEEDING SCRIPTURAL COUNSEL
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Our discussion lasted about two hours, then the men decided to submit to vaccination after making a token resistance. Furthermore they agreed to write a letter of apology for the trouble they had caused through their first stand taken.
It was now about 10 P.M. I went down to the Warden's office where the prison doctor and Warden were waiting. They wanted to know how I had got along with the men. I
asked them, "If the men submit to vaccination, will any of their privileges or good time be taken away from them for their refusal in the first place?" The Warden answered, "No, all will be forgotten if they do as you say. We like your men and believe they're sincere, and don't like the idea of punishing them for refusing to do what they think is wrong." To this the doctor agreed. "But what I'd like to know," the warden continued, "is how did you get the men to agree to being vaccinated?" "Well, I simply showed them their responsibility and pointed out that if evil resulted the government would be held responsible." "We told them that, too, but it didn't convince them." "The difference was, I talked the Bible to them, and that Book Jehovah's witnesses obey." "Yes, I'm beginning to believe that," was the Warden's conclusion. The attitude of this warden was quite generally manifested throughout the entire penal system. The Bureau of Prisons and the wardens in the various institutions cooperated in every way and all deeply appreciated the good relationship we were able to establish. Early in the war all misunderstandings were cleared up and from then on everything went smoothly. In fact, many of our boys incarcerated in prison made lasting friendships with officers under whom they served. I know I have in my own possession a letter, which I value highly, written to me by Mr. Bennett. The concluding paragraph states: "I write this note just to thank you for understanding our position and aiding your men to understand it also. This is not the first time that you have helped us with some of the perplexing problems with which we have been confronted. I most earnestly hope that whenever you are in Washington you will drop in to see me. You will be cordially welcome at any time."
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| OVERCOMING THE WORLD
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The memory of these 4,500 young men imprisoned for their faith often stirs my mind. Talking to them as I did, discussing their personal and collective problems, my faith was immeasurably strengthened. Have you considered what it costs a man to voluntarily submit to a penitentiary sentence for his conscience's sake? I knew what those boys were up against, for I had been in the same condition. Yet when I thought of our Christian brothers in the concentration camps of Europe, as these boys also did, our load seemed lighter.
Paul, the apostle, admonished us: 8 "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."
The perfect example for all whose Christian fortitude is being tested to the limit is Jesus Christ. He died for us, yet through his death provided release. "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." 9 Is not that victory worth any price we must pay to attain it?
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