The Nome Nugget

BRAVE MEN CHOOSE

BY DR. FRANK N. D. BUCHMAN

This address goes to the world through press, television and radio from the Moral Re-Armament World Assembly at Caux, Switzerland—on the occasion of Dr. Buchman's 83rd birthday, June 4. At this Assembly leaders from every continent are meeting to plan a global strategy to answer corruption, Communism and war.

FORTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH there came to Oxford a man who had some knowledge of life, some insight into the ways of East and West, who had spent days with Gandhi in India and Sun Yat-sen in China. In what is now Kerala he met an English Bishop who said, "You must go to Oxford. They need the experience you have found."

During those forty years, the conviction he brought to Oxford has been a live issue, rousing men and nations through those who have chosen or rejected his challenge.

It was an Oxford man, who had been in the British Parliament for twenty-five years, a man who played a part in the Cyprus settlement, who this week spoke up for this conviction in public debate. A week before, the head of a college spoke boldly of it in introducing that great African film, "Freedom," to an Oxford audience. These men, and many others, are in the line of those who in Britain's history have brought integrity into national life by their decision. The title of this speech, "Brave Men Choose," is taken from a book by an Oxford man on this very theme, that brave men turn the course of history.

One such man in Oxford was Professor Streeter. The message rang a clarion-call to this great scholar. It challenged him. It touched him. In Oxford Town Hall, before many speakers of the University, he said, "I have been watching this work with what diplomatists call 'benevolent neutrality.' Tonight I have decided... During these last years I have felt the world situation becoming more full of depression, more full of despair. There is a great deal of goodwill, but there is not enough of it to solve our tremendous problems: war, class war and economic breakdown." Later he said, "Modern civilization can only be saved by a moral awakening. It can happen in Britain. It will happen if those who lead Britain learn to find in God their inspiration and direction. And Britain thus led would save the world."

"I have decided." There is the key.

A REVOLUTIONARY FAITH

Eleven distinguished members of senior Oxford paved the way for Dr. Streeter's decision among them the Master of Balliol, the Master of University College and others who later became heads of colleges. They stood for justice and fair play for this message. It captured a wave of men in Oxford. Oxford became a voice to the world of a revolutionary faith.

It was another great Oxford man, the late Marquis of Salisbury, who speaking in the House of Lords said, "The cause of the world's state is not economic. The cause is moral." He echoed Dr. Streeter's conviction when he said, "If I may use a phrase which is common in a great movement taking place at this moment in this country and elsewhere, what we want are God-guided personalities to make God-guided nationalities, to make a new world. All other ideas of economic adjustment are too small really to touch the center of the evil."

He, too, decided, and to his home invited this man to meet with the leaders of British life to see how they could unitedly give a moral and spiritual leadership to a world on the brink of collapse.

Under the Hatfield trees he walked with friends old and new, among them Lord Lytton, who was later to say that that walk had left an indelible mark on his life.

In East London, in the cradle of the British Labor movement, where Moral Re-Armament was launched, there were also brave men who chose.

There was Tod Sloan, Keir Hardie's fellow fighter from the docks. He wrote, "Chaos cannot obtain if we work, live and practice Moral Re-Armament. It is a really laughing, living, loving obedient willingness to restore God to leadership. This to me is the only revolution that matters: the change of human nature—and it does happen."

There was Ben Tillett, pioneer of the dockers' unions across the world. From his death bed he sent this word, "Tell Frank Buchman to go on fighting. You have a great international movement. Use it. It is the hope of tomorrow. It will bring sanity back to the world."

The Earl of Athlone, who first met this message in 1929 when he was Governor-General of South Africa, speaking in a radio broadcast to the British Commonwealth in the early days of the war, said: "The call for Moral Re-Armament has encircled the world and become a source of fresh hope to millions of men and women. Heads of states, national, civic and industrial leaders of all classes, creeds and parties have welcomed it as the cure for that deep disease of the spirit from which civilization is suffering."

"Moral Re-Armament stands for a change of heart, for that new spirit which must animate all human relations. It calls on us to make the will of God the guiding force, as for individuals, so for homes and nations."

As the ideological struggle intensified across the world, a growing multitude caught the fire of these pioneers. For only men ablaze for the right can ever hope today to win men who burn for the wrong. "Fire from Heaven," that is how Don Sturzo, patriot-priest of Italy, described Moral Re-Armament in a message sent to the world assembly on Mackinac Island. His thinking inspired the Christian Democrat parties of Italy, France and Germany, which have given three great Europeans to the world: Prime Minister de Gasperi, Prime Minister Schuman and Chancellor Adenauer.

Prime Minister de Gasperi expressed his conviction that Moral Re-Armament by going "to the root of the world's evils will bring about the understanding between men and nations for which all people long."

Prime Minister Schuman wrote, "What Moral Re-Armament brings us is a philosophy of life applied in action. It is not a question of a change of policy. It is a question of changing men. Democracy and her freedoms can be saved only by the quality of the men who speak in her name."

Chancellor Adenauer knows the value of Moral Re-Armament. He says it has played "an invisible but effective part in bridging differences of opinion between negotiating parties in important international agreements."

These brave men chose. Now a world-wide army is surging forward on every continent.

LATIN AMERICAN OFFENSIVE

Four weeks ago there arrived in Brazil, a focal target of the Kremlin for Latin America, a force of 150 from twenty-four countries. Thousands flocked to see the Japanese play, The Tiger, showing the answer to the Tokyo riots. Thousands more who could not get in saw films giving the answer to conflict of race, class and ideology.

The President summoned this force to the capital, Brasilia. Led by General Bethiem, former Ambassador of Brazil in Pakistan and Bolivia, the man whose decision had brought them to his continent, there came to meet the President a modern group of men and women ablaze with conviction.

The President heard from the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, a former Mau Mau fighter from Kenya, a former top Communist student leader from Kerala, an American educator whose experience of Moral Re-Armament had led him to give his life to Negro education in America, the son of an American Ambassador to Brazil and Peru, an Indian chieftain from Western Canada, a Nigerian nationalist, a member of the great Mitsui industrial family of Japan, a Frenchwoman who was a member of the central committee of the Socialist Party and leader of the three million Socialist women of France, and a British admiral, descendant of the Lord Cochrane who helped liberate Chile, Brazil and Peru.

The Corriere Della Sera, carrying this news to Italy, wrote: "President Janio Quadros received today a delegation of Moral Re-Armament at his residence. He gave them a cordial welcome and said, 'I have followed the activities of Moral Re-Armament now for several years. I am convinced that the world as it is today cannot survive unless men stand for the ideals for which you are fighting. The disorder in the world today—economic, social and political—is due to the fact that men have stopped being concerned about spiritual and moral forces. I have listened with deep emotion to your convictions. I want to let you know that as far as I can I will do all that is possible so that we in Brazil will understand better the moral values of our civilization.'"

Responding to the invitation to come to the conference for Moral Re-Armament which opens in Caux, Switzerland, on June 1st, Quadros said, "I will send a personal representative."

When he learned that the Japanese play, The Tiger, was available, he telephoned to the General in charge of his Military Household and said, "Provide all that is needed to bring The Tiger to Brasilia. Instruct the Mayor to obtain the theater, provide transport in the city and, further, have the Air Force put at their disposal so that this work can be known in city after city through all the centers of Brazil."

COMMUNISM-CONFRONTED

General Bethiem, describing in the press the impact of this force, writes, "For the first time—on this continent—Communism has been confronted with a positive alternative and for the first time it is being made to retreat. I have found a real revolution in MRA. We Brazilians are being challenged to give this to Communists, non-Communists and anti-Communists alike. Many of us have been confused through our moral compromise. I have found clarity through change. We need to wake up. The ideological war is already here. Which way Brazil goes, so goes Latin America. The situation is deadly serious. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs told me, 'Cuba has brought us to the brink of war. MRA may be the last hope. If Brazil gets it the world will get it.' The Minister of War said, 'We will do everything we can to make Brazil the capital of the answer. You have the winning idea in MRA.'"

"In the Catholic University of Sao Paulo where it was stated, eighty percent of the students were pro-Castro, one professor-priest said, 'Since you have given your films and plays and held an assembly in our university, there have been no political demonstrations. Moral Re-Armament is being talked about everywhere.'"

"A missionary monk who had come down from North Brazil where the Communists are training small armies and guerrilla bands in the hills, said, 'Brazil is just like Spain was before the Civil War. Can you fill my truck full of your literature?' But I do. I can distribute it through all the cities up and down the Amazon?

"The owner of a national newspaper said to me, 'Many of us have lost faith. We have regained it again through MRA.' The president of the largest newspaper of Latin America said, 'MRA is not only an idea on the march. It is a force on the march. Our newspaper is at your disposal. Everyone must be reached with this idea.'

"The inescapable choice for Latin America," concludes General Bethlein, "is Moral Re-Armament or Communism. We will never succeed in this fight unless we change men. We are out to clean up the nation and the world. I have committed my whole life to this fight."

General Carpentier of France, servant of his country in many campaigns and former Commander-in-Chief of the Central European Ground Forces of NATO, was flown to Brazil to join this force, spoke to a vast audience in Rio de Janeiro.

"From the heart of the best men," he said, "must come this tremendous wave of Moral Re-Armament which will win over Communism. In this ideological war we must confront Communism with another ideology that ideology is MRA. It is because I am convinced of that that I am here to conduct a war.

"We need tactics, strategy and means. Some people think that strategy can come from a meeting of men who are responsible in the political field, but I do not believe it. I have read in the newspapers for the last ten years accounts of men who meet in Washington, Paris and other great countries. But it is from all free men who fight for Moral Re-Armament that the answer will come."

FOR GOD OR AGAINST GOD

Workers and military find unity in this ideology. Daimasio Cardoso, militant dockers' leader of Rio, told all his fellow-workers and their families.

"I pray to God that what happened in my family will happen to every family in the docks. We are either for God or against God. The choice for all of us is MRA or Communism."

The Catholic priest in the docks, who before Cardoso's change could not enter the quarter where six hundred dockers and their families lived. added, "By their fruits ye shall know them. MRA is a tree. You can see its fruit. Moral Re-Armament has become a much more powerful weapon than any military weapons of Russia or North America. The most powerful weapon is absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. I want to declare here that in me MRA has a friend, admirer and fellow worker."

That gifted artist, Louis Byles, from Jamaica. ninety miles from Cuba, speaks for many in Latin America and the Caribbean when he says, "We have very little time left." He starred in that film, The Crowning Experience, as the man who plays the part of a convinced Communist captured by the fire of a superior ideology. He has just shown this film to the leadership of his island. Said one of the government officials, "This is not a film. It is God. We must get this out immediately to Jamaica. It is exactly what we need."

It will take brave men to free, unite and save the continent of Africa. Philip Vundla, who represents 600,000 Africans in Johannesburg and was a founder of the gold miners' Union, says, "There is great bitterness in our country. South Africa is being used to divide East from West on the basis of color but the real issue is not color but character. It is not only the white men who have to change in South Africa. We have to change too. We need it, and I wish everybody to know that.'"

Vundla chose the ideology that brought unity and rejected division. His choice almost cost him his life at the hands of extremists, but his steadfastness has won him the respect of friend and foe alike.

In Kenya, threatened again by bloodshed and chaos, the branch secretary of one African party faced the choice between two ideologies. He said,

"I had an airplane ticket to the Communist conference of African leaders. Instead I came to the Moral Re-Armament Assembly. I did not know there were such people committed to eradicate hate, fear and selfishness. Our leaders went to the other conference with a calabash filled with the waters of freedom. The Communists punctured it, and our freedom is pouring out. MRA will seal the holes so true freedom can be maintained. I must bring the light of this answer to our country in darkness."

THE CROWNING EXPERIENCE

A woman former Mau Mau leader, detained for eight years, said, "Here my hatred of the white man has ended. We women played a big part in leading our nation in the wrong direction. Now we must play the fullest part in rebuilding the country." Calling her children to stand beside her she said to each in turn, "Forgive me. I have been full of hate and have led you into hatred."

Another former Mau Mau district secretary said, "Bitterness has been the disease in our land. From my heart and home it spread like fire until there was bloodshed and chaos everywhere. God give us all new hearts to put right what is wrong in time."

At the recent conference for heads of African states in Monrovia, great applause greeted the special showing of The Crowning Experience. "We are your debtors," said President Tubman.

"Everyone in the country must see this film." He added, "I will make every possible effort to meet Dr. Buchman in Caux this summer." Two out of the six pages in the conference edition of The Liberian Age printed the news of Moral Re-Armament, underlining the statement that "Africa can be lost in the sinking sands of the materialism of East and West. Leaders of Africa welcome Moral Re-Armament because it is the solid ground on which a hate-free, fear-free, greed-free continent can be built."

President Tubman shares the view of the Maharajah of Mysore, who said at a showing of The Crowning Experience, "The only hope for mankind is to give up no quarter to the powers of evil, internal or external. Human nature is so constituted that it cannot be taken for granted that good will automatically prevail over evil in an indolent or uninterested world. It is of the utmost importance that we carry on this task of Moral Re-Armament with ceaseless vigilance. The armament of morality is invisible, but it is of matchless power, and its army includes, or should include, the whole of mankind. Let us all, both individuals and nations enroll ourselves in this army."

From Geneva, where the fate of great portions of the Asian and African continents is being discussed at the conferences on Laos and Algeria, a Swiss editor spoke over one of Europe's most powerful radio stations, reaching millions on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He said, "Through all the confusion caused by many different meeting places, press rooms, delegation headquarters and police-bodyguards, move the men and women of Moral Re-Armament who have come down from Caux, high above the lake of Geneva, and with a very compelling sense of dedication are making available to friend and foe alike their Whitsun message. This, too, speaks of overcoming difficulties in the meetings of politicians from East and West and I quote Robert Schuman's word that it was only in Caux that he found encouragement and hope."

The future of Asia may well be decided by which idea wins the Buddhist nations. Leaders from Japan, Laos, Cambodia, South Viet Nam, Thailand, Burma, Ceylon and India are convinced that Moral Re-Armament is the ideology with the answer. Buddhism has just been made the state religion of Burma. Five senior abbots from that country have come to plan at Caux for the mobilization of the Buddhist world in the ideological struggle. These revered leaders were seen off at the Rangoon airport by a hundred monks and senior officials. They have just been received in Oxford by the heads of two colleges, by the Mayor of the city, and the President of the Union. They were shown the rooms in Christ Church where this work had its beginnings forty years ago.

CONDITIONS OF SURVIVAL

This is the word of a man on his eighty-third birthday who has spent a long life up and down the world meeting and knowing men, who in 1915 paid the first of eight visits to Japan and was there the guest of those who laid the foundations of modern Japanese finance and industry, Baron Sakatani and Viscount Shibusawa, whose grandson, a minister of finance, his great-grandson, and even his great-great-grandson, are working with this force today. They come with former Prime Minister Kishi and other leading Japanese to Caux this summer to forge a unity of statesmanship among the free nations. They carry forward the work of which General Ho Ying-chin, former Prime Minister of China, says, "More unity has been created between the nations of Asia at one Moral Re-Armament assembly in the Philippines than in ten years of post-war diplomatic activity."

It is the word of a man who has known the personal friendship of Viceroys and Governors of India and of the men who opposed them, and brought them together: who knows the problems of Africa at first hand since 1929, and these statesmen of Europe and the Americas for more than fifty years. He has seen the development of two materialist ideologies and the devastation of two world wars, the retreat of freedom, and now the advance of a mighty answer.

We are facing world revolution. There are only three possibilities open to us. We can give in, and some are ready to do just that. Or we can fight it out, and that means the risk of global suicide. Or we can find a superior ideology that shows the next step ahead for the Communist and the non-Communist world alike. What we shall never do effectively is to patch things up by pretending that basic differences do not exist or do not matter: nor by supposing that an ideological challenge can be met by economic, political or military means alone. Absolute moral standards are not just questions of individual conduct today. They are the conditions of national survival. We need to scour out the dirt in our national life, our political life, our economic life, our school life and our home life through a change in men. Wherever men give man the place in their lives that God alone should have, slavery has begun. "Men must choose to be governed by God, or they condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants."

There is no neutrality in the battle between good and evil. No nation can be saved on the cheap. It will take the best of our lives and the flower of our nations to save humanity. If we go all-out for God we will win.

"Then it is the brave man chooses.
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied."