DCF: about persecution: Jehovah's witness have performed a great service to this nation in defending the civil rights of minorities:
"It is plain that present constitutional guaranties of personal liberty, as authoritatively interpreted by the U S Supreme Court are far broader than they were before the spring of 1938; and that most of this enlargement is found in the 31 Jehovah's Witnesses cases of which Lovell v. City of Griffin was the first. If 'the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,' what is the debt of Constitutional Law to the militant persistency--or perhaps I should say devotion--of this group" Minnesota Law Review Vol 28 No 4 March 1944 pg 246.
DCF it wasn't recently that my friend was hanged in Texas, it was during WW2 in a mob action. They took a new thick rope from a hardware store, threw it over a lamp post and pulled him up. The rope broke, the mob was astonished, apparently saw this as divine deliverance, and they fled. He continued his ministry and eventually was the featured speaker at a large assembly in Lansing MI in 1956, where I met him and heard his tale. I was serving one of the Battle Creek congregations then.
JWs all over this country were targets of violent persecution because of our neutrality. Several of the Supreme Court cases were from Texas, On May 3, 1943 12 of 13 cases were decided in our favor, then on Flag Day, June 14, the Supreme Court reversed itself, in our favor, and also set aside a Mississippi conviction of 3 witnesses given 10 year sentences. Re: the 1938 Alma Lovell decision: We were in the same congregation for years. Members of my family were repeatedly jailed in PA for preaching. There were hundreds of mob assaults against us over a period of 15 years or so. You shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake
I'll respond later to the Nazi matter, which we discussed with PMs last July.
Don |
