Sometimes it is very easy to become very pessimistic over the hazards of today’s living. There are the Cold War, H-bomb fall-out, possible imminent economic crisis, anticipated effects of radio-activity upon succeeding generations, and the like. These things are all too horribly real, or potentially possible. However, it may be something of an antidote for such pessimism to realize that today is also a time of miracles. During the last half century, for example, more progress has been made in the conquest of disease than in all the centuries of man’s previous existence upon this planet. At the turn of the century, it was expected as a matter of course that some 7,000 children would die every year of whooping cough alone. Last year there were only 310 deaths from this cause. Yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox have been almost completely banished, while such diseases as diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, tetanus, rickets, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and pernicious anemia have all had most of the sting taken out of them. Tuberculosis killed nearly 200 people out of every 100,000 of the population in 1900, but in 1954 the death rate was only 10.8. One could go on enumerating the areas in which amazing progress has been recorded. However, amazing as this record has been, there is no reason why still greater progress cannot be made during the next 50 years.
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And while speaking of medical progress, it may be a good place here to call attention to another item dealing with medicine that came to my attention this past week. The American Medical Association, meeting in Chicago, has passed a resolution in its house of delegates demanding a halt in government distribution of free Salk polio vaccine. The resolution sets forth that free vaccine has “been extended to include many more than the indigent group, thus constituting unnecessary government spending.”
It is easy to wonder just what value the association really sets upon human life, and how far it will go, or try to go, in extending its monopoly over medical services that can mean life or death for millions. All of us are taxpayers, and I have yet to see a protest from any taxpayer about the spending of tax funds to provide polio protection for all who wanted it. It would be a great deal easier to sympathize with the cause of the association were it not for the fact that back in the 1930s, when not even doctors were making any money, the same association recommended a plan of compulsory health insurance strangely like that proposed in California by a Republican Warren and one proposed about the same time by a Democrat in Washington by the name of Truman. Yet, it was all right with the association in 1930; it was rank socialism when proposed 10 or 12 years later. Obviously, whether government spending is socialism or not depends to a great extent upon who is getting the benefit of such spending. Consistency and logic seem to have no place in such arguments.
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Every so often legislators – at least some of them – display an amazing lack of information or a complete disregard of certain constitutional passages. A few years ago it was mainly a very vocal senator form Wisconsin, more recently it has been a senator from Mississippi. The occasion for this item is based upon the hearings during the past week of a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the words are of one Rep. Bernard Kearney of New York. It appeared at the hearing that a president of a Long Island construction company, one Henry Wilcox, had, in 1952, gone to China to attend a so-called peace conference. He admitted in his testimony that the conference was mainly a sounding board for attacks upon the United States, and that he himself was disgusted with what took place, though he insisted that he had gone in good faith. Whereupon, simply because the witness admitted attending a communist peace conference, patriot Kearney promptly denounced Mr. Wilcox as a traitor, saying, “I’m firmly convinced that if there was ever a flagrant case of treason this is it. I suggest that the proceedings be sent to the Department of Justice.”
Now admittedly I have not had a chance to read the complete and official transcript of this hearing, but am basing these comments upon newspaper and radio reports. However, even Mr. Kearney should know that the framers of the Constitution took scrupulous care to write into that document a definition of treason, saying that it “shall consist only of levying war against the United States or of giving aid and comfort to its enemies.” And there certainly is nothing in published reports thus far to indicate that Mr. Wilcox did any of these things. Moreover, while Communist China may be our ideological enemy, we are not at war with her. It might be well for Mr. Kearney to read not only the Constitution, but also that portion of the Ten Commandments wherein it enjoins us that we “shall not bear false witness against our neighbor.” Let us hope that such irresponsible vaporings of McCarthyism dissipate in the sunlight of clear thinking and fair play. If Wilcox disobeyed a law, he should be punished. There is nothing in the record thus far to indicate he did. And, anyway, since when has it become treasonable for anyone to talk about peace with anybody? We cannot get peace with our enemies unless we talk about it with them.
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In Harrisonburg, Virginia, this week, ghosts of Calhoun flitted around the convention hall for a while where the Virginia Methodist Conference was holding its meeting. A state legislator had made an attempt to get a secession resolution through that would have taken the Virginia conference out of the national Methodist organization. Fortunately, cooler, and better-filled heads prevailed, and the conference adopted a go-slow approach toward solving the segregation problem, which was what the furor had started about in the first place. The conference unanimously adopted a committee report asserting that the issue must be faced up to in a spirit of Christian discipleship. “Let us realize,” it said, “that we cannot improve human relations by either forcing the matter or by avoiding responsibility. We can do too little too late as well as too much too soon, and God alone can cause us to see the fine distinction here.” And from this reporter as to that, the proverbial, “No comment.”
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Washington: Churches, labor unions, and merchant’s associations in many parts of the country are joining forces in an effort to curb retail stores from conducting business on Sunday. Once Sunday selling was confined largely to drug stores and delicatessens. But for a number of years the open-on-Sunday sign has been appearing at automobile agencies, appliance, hardware, and furniture stores, even supermarkets. Both Protestant and Catholic leaders consider it a greater threat to the church’s teachings than Sunday movies or baseball.
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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII is moving to his summer place at Castel Gandolfo a month ahead of schedule. Vatican sources say the pope will go to his villa 16 miles south of Rome on June 30 instead of July 30, as he did last year. He’s leaving early to escape the heat, which contributed to his recent case of fatigue. Other sources say the pope may call a consistory in November or December to fill eight vacancies now existing in the College of Cardinals.
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Norwalk, Connecticut: Nine missionaries of the Roman Catholic Holy Ghost Fathers are on their way to assignments in the United States, Africa, and Puerto Rico. They completed their studies at St. Mary’s Seminary in Norwalk and were assigned to their new destinations by the Very Rev. Regis C. Guthrie, of Washington.
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Moorhead, Minnesota: The Augustana Lutheran Church has decided to admit to membership in its synod churches from nationalist congregations which conduct services in their own language. Heretofore the church has had a basic rule that all member congregations must conduct their programs in English. In adopting a resolution to reverse the stand, the synod pointed out that foreign-language-speaking congregations would be expected to develop English-speaking programs at the earliest moment.
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Seattle, Washington: Five Russian Baptist leaders attended opening sessions of the eight-day American Baptist Convention at Seattle last Friday night. The convention is being attended by an estimated 10,000 persons including ministerial and lay delegates and their families. Five Russian clergymen have been visiting with American Baptist groups during the past month. They will return to Russia following the Seattle convention.
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Ocean City, New Jersey: The Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church has wound up its sessions without taking action on a request for a new episcopal area in West Virginia. The West Virginia delegation had asked for a sixth episcopal area and a new bishop, but the conference postponed action on the proposal until 1960. The conference represents 12 states from Maine to West Virginia.
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Knoxville Tennessee: The head of the United Presbyterian Church’s foreign mission charges that the regime of Premier Nasser is seriously hampering missionary work in Egypt. Dr. Don C. Black of Philadelphia says the Egyptian Revolutionary Council considers itself responsible for the total welfare of every individual, including medical care, education, and religion. He said missionaries in Egypt either must teach Islam to Moslem peoples or get out of education work.
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Knoxville, Tennessee: The United Presbyterian Church of North America has elected Dr. Robert W. Gibson as moderator of its 98th General Assembly. Gibson is president of Monmouth College, Illinois. He succeeds Dr. George A. Long, president emeritus of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and will serve as moderator of the General Assembly and as titular head of the church until June 1957.
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Shanghai, China: Early yesterday two U.S. Roman Catholic priests reported their release from a Red Chinese prison. They also asked, in a telephone interview, that their loved ones be informed they are well. The freed churchmen are the Rev. John William Clifford and the Rev. Thomas Leonard Phillips, both of San Francisco. The Chinese Reds announced their release Friday, exactly three years after they were jailed. Last November, during their imprisonment, they were convicted of espionage and counter-revolutionary activities against Red China. Fathers Clifford and Phillips were given three-year jail sentences and apparently got credit for their previous time in jail. Eleven U.S. citizens, including missionaries and businessmen, still are in Communist Chinese prisons.
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The largest Roman Catholic child-caring home in the U.S. is increasing its facilities. This coming week a new quarter-million dollar cottage for high school girls and a health and recreation wing will be dedicated by the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, at Mount Loretto, Staten Island, New York. The 80-year-old mission is one of the 36 child-caring institutions among New York Catholic charities. It shelters and educates more than 1,000 dependent and neglected boys and girls from 3 – 18 years of age. The child-caring center is gradually converting from what is described as the congregate type to the more modern cottage system of institutions. It began in Lower Manhattan in 1871 as a newsboy’s lodging. Now the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin comprises a farm, home school, with about 50 buildings and cottages, including a church, elementary schools, a trade high school, athletic fields, gymnasiums, and a half-mile beachfront.
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Evangelical churches backed by U.S. citizens have won a victory in Italy. The Italian Constitutional Court has ruled police permission is not needed to hang a sign or poster. Thus ends a three-year battle by the Evangelical Church of Christ in Rome against a police rule dating back to fascist days. Police had torn down the sign three times. A suit by the Church went through five courts until it reached Italy’s highest tribunal, the New Constitutional Court. The decision is a broad one that also permits political posters without prior police permission. Italy’s own non-Catholic churches also will benefit.
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Communist Polish newspapers have admitted anti-Semitism is still widespread in their Red-ruled country. They place the blame for the anti-Semitic trend on Stalin’s “Cult of the Individual” and on Berianism. The latter is named for the one-time Soviet police chief, who was executed by Russia’s current rulers.