Windham County Observer

Witnessed Hitler Reign Of Terror

EWART E. TURNER

Religious Battle In Germany To Be City Forum Topic

Ewart E. Turner, Four Years In Berlin, To Speak At Second Meeting In Elks' Hall.

Communistic Threat Subject For Mar. 19

An accurate, authoritative and uncolored picture of existing conditions in Europe, and particularly in Germany, with emphasis on religious intolerance in that country, will be presented by Ewart E. Turner, in the second in a series of meetings of the Putnam Public Forum to be held Sunday afternoon in Elks' Hall.

Mr. Turner, who for four years was pastor of the American Church in Berlin, will speak on the "Battle of Religions in Germany." During his tenure at the Berlin church Mr. Turner saw the three years of the Republic which failed or was overthrown, and the first year of Hitler. He was a witness of the entire Nazi revolution.

Many feel the American scene is becoming cluttered with itinerant bag-men and half-literate literati, who after a week or month in Europe undertake to interpret its recent and momentous social upheavals to the American people. These intellectual fakers with a few smattering facts and mere opinions, gathered in the most casual unscientific and sometimes prejudiced manner, undertake to tell us what is transpiring in Europe. Information from such individuals merely adds to our existing confusion of thought. It increases rather than decreases our perplexity. After listening to them we are in a deeper mental fog.

Ewart E. Turner, the Sunday Forum speaker, can be said to be distinctly not of the category mentioned above. A friend of the Protestant pastor Niemoller, now long languishing in a concentration camp, he also knows personally many Catholic and Hebrew clergymen. Last summer he was received by three Catholic Bishops and eight Rabbis. These men were not afraid to tell Mr. Turner, an American, their thoughts.

Every thinking American realizes that Hitler's present push Eastward is merely a part of a world movement planned in his fevered brain. One has but to read "Mein Kampf," the story of Adolph's life, to realize this. Readers of his book also know that he is the enemy of the formal religions which we have known through the ages. In "Mein Kampf" he has made the statement
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Religious Battle
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That "Religious feeling is still more
deeply rooted than all national and
political considerations." He regrets
this and may be said, in his severe
restrictions on the religions, to be
attempting to crush all things of the
spirit.
The speaker at Sunday's Forum
Mr. Turner, will endeavor to show
from first-hand experience how Hit-
ler is succeeding. Provisions are
being made to accommodate a ca-
pacity audience in Elks' Hall Sun-
day. On Monday, March 6th, Mr.
Turner will speak at the noon as-
sembly at Putnam High School. The
public is invited.
The Forum's executive committee
has announced that at the next pub-
lic meeting to be held Sunday, Mar.
19, the Rev. Laurence V. Doucette
pastor of All Hallows Church, Moo-
sup, will speak upon the subject.
"Communism As a Menace to De-
mocracy." Bernard J. Sandys will
be chairman for the meeting, assist-
ed by Miss Eleanor M. Murphy,
principal of Israel Putnam School,
and Merrill Abbey, county 4-H Club
agent.
An informal meeting is planned
for Monday, March 6, at which time
a general discussion of Sunday's
talk will take place.
Anyone interested in becoming a
sponsoring member of the forum is
asked to communicate with the Rev.
Erastus H. Green, chairman, or Mr.
Arthur Kaminsky, secretary.