Peoples Temple Newsletter, October 1970
On November 7th and 8th Jim Jones will conduct a humanitarian and healing meeting at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School on the corner of Scott and Geary. There will also be meetings at the auditorium on November 28 and 29, and December 19 and 20. Notice the additional November meeting!
See Special Prophetic Message Page 2
Current Activities At Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple continues to buy acreage in Redwood Valley for expansion of our humanitarian work. Our program includes providing a college education for our young people in two church sponsored dormitories with $7000.00 in aid coming from the Temple congregation. We have rehabilitated over sixty young people from a meaningless life of drug use to the Christian life of service to mankind. These youth have gone over two years without using drugs of any kind. Most attend college living in our church sponsored dormitories, while the others hold responsible jobs. We spend over $200 a week doing welfare work in this community alone which does not include the welfare work we do in San Francisco. We have now contracted with a company to obtain a good NEW reliable 90 passenger chartered bus for several weeks while our busses undergo major overhauls, so you who come from San Francisco will be provided with fast and convenient transportation to Redwood Valley. The bus will leave from 1415 Divisadero at 7:30 AM (call Carolyn Reese at 586-3378 to reserve a seat) every Sunday.
Next San Francisco Meetings
The next dynamic and inspirational healing and humanitarian meetings of Jim Jones will be held in San Francisco on the following dates:
November 7 and 8 November 28 and 29 December 19 and 20
The Saturday night meeting begins at 7:00 PM and the Sunday morning meeting begins at 11:00 at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School Auditorium at the corner of Scott and Geary Sts. Please pass this information along to others so that they too can hear the Word of Truth. We see many astounding instances where cripples have walked, the blind have been given sight and growths have been spit up at every meeting. We have patrolled parking for cars wherever we hold our meetings in San Francisco. Cars are protected at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School during every service so there is no damage to them.
We are going to be having a Thanksgiving service beginning at 11:00 in the morning with a free Thanksgiving day feast and an all-day service. Please write Peoples Temple, P.O. Box 214, Redwood Valley and let us know ahead of time if you will be in attendance so that we can make adequate food preparations. We will also have a Christmas service in which we provide gifts amounting to an equal amount of money to all children. The maximum amount to be spent on each child is $10.00. If you need help in meeting this level, please contact Peoples Temple. Also we must know in advance if you are planning to be a part of our Christmas day sharing.
Rev. Kirby Hensley, internationally famed founder of Universal life Church will be speaking here at Peoples Temple on Sunday evening October 18th. We are told by his wife that he plans to be in the service all day.
Dr. Carlton Goodlett will fellowship with us again after his two week trip to India. State Congressman John Burton sent his apologies for being unable to visit our meeting Saturday, October 5th due to illness. We will look forward to seeing our special guest in a future meeting.
Urgent Appeal For Blue Chip Stamps
Blue chip stamps are needed immediately in order to obtain more chairs for our vastly growing church and community center in Redwood Valley.
Removed Some From Mailing List; Urgent Need For Additional Financial Support For Expanding Human Services Missionary Program
Many of the over 15,000 who receive this newsletter each month are listed in our file by zip code and we have begun the difficult task of going through the names and removing people from our newsletter mailing list who have shown no interest in the Words of Life that it conveys. Your zip code may come up next month and if you do not write us regularly and attempt to give some support, if you are capable of it, we will drop you from the list. In fact, with the tremendous costs of publishing, mailing and distributing over 15,000 of these newsletters every month, our staff feels that each reader should attempt to send them an offering each month if at all possible! The prophetic gift a revelation will give us great assistance in the future as to whose names should be removed. If you would like to have back issues of Jim Jones’ outstanding sermons on reincarnation, power of positive thinking, and errors in the King James of England’s translation, you must write soon to P.O. Box 214, Redwood Valley and send sufficient money to defray the cost of reprinting (exceptions will only be made in hardship cases). Please enclose stamps in private letters which you send us. Our greatest need is financial donations for the newsletter mailing. We cannot use regular stamps that you can buy it on the newsletter because we have a special stamp. Since we send out 15,000 letters every month, which is a great expense, we would appreciate your donation.
No Deaths
Some people affiliated with the Temple are concerned that we have not yet purchased the building in San Francisco because they fear there will be no accommodations for funerals in case of their demise. It would be interesting for you to know that out of the active congregation of nearly 1000 members in Redwood Valley, Pastor Jim Jones has conducted no funeral services for years. Is there a message in this for us? We do now have approximately twenty three hundred dollars in Bay View Fell Savings & Loan towards the building program or expansion in San Francisco.
Miraculous Healings
On October 12, in our Sunday morning service, Mrs. Enlis Robinson of 591 Waller St., San Francisco told us that as she left home she had in her mind “That Jim would call her out” and that she would be healed. Her doctor had told her that she had cancer. There was nothing that could be done for her. Jim Jones called her out that morning telling her the exact point of pain in her body. She passed the growth during the service. She was so thrilled she wanted all to know of her miraculous healing. After sixteen months unable to work, Mrs. Christine Lewis of Burlingame, Ca. was instantly healed of a paralytic stroke which had left her left side and leg severely incapacitated. She tells us now that there is no trace of paralysis and she is able to work full time. Hosts of people write us telling us of their instantaneous deliverance from pain and difficulties they experience at the time to receive our newsletter.
Friday Night Meetings In San Francisco
Due to the fact that the last Friday night meeting in San Francisco was completely packed to capacity, we will be getting larger accommodations in the future. It was so crowded at our last San Francisco meeting at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School that scores of seats had to be placed in the aisles. Recent Friday night meetings have been dynamically filled with feelings, the sermons have been anointed, and the congregation has demonstrated more warmth than ever before. Pastor Jim Jones has been in attendance in all of the recent Friday night meetings giving his usual inspirational and dynamic message. Parking will also be patrolled at these services for the safety of your car. The following people can be contacted for the location of our Friday night services: Dave Garrison, Chairman, 4252 Buchanan, San Francisco 334-9019; Leona Collier, Secretary, 241 Scott St., S.F. 626-3365; Marie Jackson, Financial Secretary, 943 Somerset, S.F. 467-6624; Mr. and Mrs. B. C. Coleman, furniture store owners, 560 Valencia St., S.F. MA1-8385; Chris Lewis at 922-9209; Mrs. Florence Andrews, 1120 Ingerson, S.F. 467-9528; Carol Coston, 133 Williams VA6-2921. This Friday night’s meeting (October 16) will be held at 1530 Buchanan St. in the YMCA Recreation Hall. Jim Jones and his large youth choir and orchestra will be present at the following Friday meetings beginning with October 16: Oct. 23, 30; Nov. 3 & 20; Dec. 4 & 11. We will have no trouble in seating people anymore. These weekly healing campaigns are being held to try to establish a church in San Francisco.
San Francisco choir practice will be held every other Wednesday night at the home of Mrs. Florence Andrews, 1120 Ingerson Ave. phone 467-9528 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. Pastor Jones encourages everyone in the San Francisco church to participate actively.
Boat Cruise
On Saturday, November 7 from 4:30 to 7:30 PM, Peoples Temple Christian church will sponsor a boat cruise on the Harbor Prince to leave Fisherman’s Wharf at Pier 43 ½. A dinner will be provided free of charge. Donations of $3.00 per adult and $1.50 for each child will aid in the many worthy endeavors of the Peoples Temple humanitarian service program. If you are interested in tickets please contact Mrs. Bessie Johnson, phone 848-1654 in Berkeley. Our last boat cruise was a marvelous activity in which we had dancing and music provided by the Peoples Temple orchestra. Music and dancing will again be provided for your entertainment.
Humanitarian Work
We wish to thank those of you who contributed to a donation in the amount of $150.00 to the family of the Japanese police officer who was killed by a senseless act of anarchistic violence. We believe in bringing people to the concept of Apostolic equality and social democracy by nonviolent methods which are education, the electoral process and protest and dissent.
Message From The Prophet
Who Are The Real Radicals?
Every day in America brings another bombing: universities; courthouses such as in Marin County last week; scientific research laboratories; sports stadiums; theaters; airplanes; churches and police stations have all been focal point of bomb scares, gangland executions, and other terribly violent acts.
Many progressive Americans think, and unfortunately now are verbalizing, repressive ideas because of the above anarchistic activities which may very well be planned and carried out by the same type of corporate fascists (big business) interests which burned down the German Senate or Reichstag in the early 1930’s under the leadership of their elected leader, Adolph Hitler.
There is nothing on earth that contributes more to the mass confusion that we now have about what a true radical is than the news media, the bombers, and the various so-called “silent majority” of Americans who call such acts and deeds of violence “radical”. Nothing is less genuinely radical in America than violence because we have been saturated with violence from the beginning of our history. Our murdering violence began with efforts to dispossess and kill the American Native (Indians) which we did in countless military endeavors; for example, the Battle of Wounded Knee at which time our army murdered all of the Indians, men, women and children, while they were on their way to a peaceful religious observation of their ancient and beautiful creed. Again on another occasion under orders of the U.S. Government, blankets were taken from U.S. soldiers who had died of smallpox and were given to American Indians knowing full well that it was an act of genocide (murder) which would enable the U.S. Government to get the land and eliminate the Indians at the same time.
To further establish our points, we can relate the merciless lynchings of thousands of Black Americans in both pre and post slavery times. In fact, mob lynchings and other terrorist acts have been done to Indians in our state and neighboring states reportedly even as late as the 1940’s. Surely there was blood and violence in our own revolution! Our national anthem glorifies it by mentioning the “rockets and bombs bursting in air” and our own so-called Christian civilization hatched such murderous schemes as a conquest during the Crusades and the horrifying persecutions done in the name of the church as revealed in Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Also, in the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648 many of our forefathers in Germany in a religious war between Catholics and Protestants managed to kill off two thirds of the entire German population and destroy half of the landmass. Our settlement of the West was a parade of lawlessness and vigilante mobocracy. Yes, violence is as common to our history as cherry pie.
We have had countless acts of violence between unions and industry. An example of union violence was revealed to us startlingly in Pennsylvania recently when a high-ranking mining official, along with his wife and child, were murdered in a grotesque manner. Let us consider further our imperialistic adventures in Latin America, the Philippines, and in our annexation of Hawaii by subversion, our world wars, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which was the most Christian city in Japan. Now many informed people in government at that time have stated the Japanese had already sued for peace by an unconditional surrender through the Swiss embassy even before the bombs had fallen.
We have to speak with tongue in cheek when we refer to violence as being a radical act in American society when we consider the numerous assassinations of present day political figures. President Kennedy, according to the intensive study in an article by a nationally famed electronics magazine, was killed by a conspiracy which involve almost every level of governmental life. Let’s look at the violence recently by the hard hat white construction workers who attacked young people merely because they carried out their constitutional right of dissent. Yes, violence is quite characteristic of American life. We used napalm and other anti-civilian weapons on the countless disadvantaged millions in Viet Nam. Surely we have not forgotten the atrocities of My Lai and the pictures in one of our national magazines where our soldiers are shown murdering innocent women and children in the name of protecting them from Communism.
My friend, the genuine radical is not one who acts on the premise that violence is something revolutionary in the American picture. No, the real radical is one who is engaged in a determined struggle to break out of the vicious cycle of violence that is part of our everyday life. The so-called revolutionary who bombs a research center such as Wisconsin University and kills the antiwar researcher who was the father of three children, and afterwards releases and all too remorseless warning that future action “of an intensity never before seen in this country” will be taken by our cadres – open warfare, kidnapping of important officials and even assassination, are acting consistent to the American tradition and their price for stopping such traditional American terrorism was expressed in three demands to be met by the last of October this year; namely, elimination of ROTC on campus, and of all things curfew for freshmen women, and the release of three professed revolutionaries in Milwaukee who are charged with the shooting of a policeman. In the intensive bombing of North Viet Nam did we not threaten a similar type of violence and in fact carry it out. However, if we are to yield to the demands of the type we have just mentioned in order to avoid terror, it will only compound terror, repression and dictatorship in America. Let us note that this so-called revolutionary violence has not helped the students, the socially deprived Blacks, Whites or Browns in our country, and on the contrary if it has aided any one, it has been the tyrannical hold of the rich and the super rich in their attempt to suppress all dissent to their right to absolute power. The violence has accomplished nothing but to bring one repressive law after another out of the halls of Congress and State Assemblies. Thus, it well could be that these terrorists are the paid representatives of the wealth establishment of our country, but again is this not the pattern of history?
But the true radical in our Mother Land differs from the assassins, the bombers and the rioters in every respect. The American radicals are not those that seek violence by short circuits to democratic educational policies even though they may call themselves in some instances the New Left. Issues of violence attributed supposedly to the liberal Left actually destroyed the possibility for the Left to become a mass movement or effectively bring about any real social change. Nihilism (senselessness) and hedonism (pleasure seeking) have only succeeded in fragmenting all progressive movements in our country. Certainly we who affirm apostolic equalitarianism, and social and racial justice have nothing whatsoever to gain from this insanity of violence, but could it enhance further the stranglehold of the military-industrial complex on the United States which even President Eisenhower warned us in the early 1960’s was a danger to our great country?
A Christian must be a radical for Scripture has declared “I would that thou wert cold or hot because the lukewarm I will spew out of my mouth” Revelations 3. But, a Christian radical attempts to transform society not by hate, animosity and fear which is now at the very heart of our institutions and souls, but by a positive activism, protest and dissent and non-violent participation in the electoral process. We can bring about total racial and economic justice, and an end to war and poverty in no ther [other] manner! Read the requirements for entrance into the Kingdom of God as stated by Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew 25 and consider in concluding this reading the admonition of the Apostle Paul when he said “Therefore if thine enemy hungers feed him” Romans 12:20. This is true radicalism of a non-violent, but very constructive, nature which has never once been tried on the American scene!
Prophetic Warning
The extension of the war to Cambodia, the deaths of students and others protesting at Jackson, Kent, Augusta, Chicago and Los Angeles, the retreat everywhere from the decisions of the Supreme Court for racial justice, the failure to cope with inflation and mounting unemployment are totally inconsistent with the concepts of equality as spoken about in Acts 2 and 4.
The dictatorial type of emphasis on “Law and order” being heralded by nearly everyone in Washington and apparent majorities in Congress has been described by our most prominent present-day historians as leading to the very destruction of our country. We might be the first ones to go Fascist “Hitlerite or Stalinist” by the democratic vote.
As a positive response to these events, Blacks, Browns, Whites and especially the youth, who all have a common interest in the American people, must stand steadfast in our belief that interested people pressing the Congress and ultimately bring us back to our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. This message is designed to present us with a specific warning found in the laws concerning civil rights. Some of these laws are now in effect and are almost ready to be passed. You still have time, though very little, to contact the various people of the many executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government and express your sentiments on these important matters.
Under the heading “warning” my message has been cut short so that I can give you actual facts of the laws that concerned civil liberties. Remember the scripture that says “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1.
Laws Concerning Civil Liberties
As a patriotic American you should inform yourself about the following laws and if you feel you should, write your Congressman and asked their opinion before the crucial November 3rd election.
1. The Concentration Camp Law: This law gives the President the authority without the approval of Congress to determine an “event of… Insurrection…” which is not defined, and declare the existence of “an Internal Security Emergency.” Anyone who is believed to, or probably will engage in certain future illegal acts can be apprehended and confined in places of detention. This is the type of bill used against the Japanese American citizens during World War II which put them into detention or “concentration” camps taking away all of their property; many times without payment for it with any trial. The formal name for this law is Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950 (Emergency Detention Act).
2. Defense Facilities and Industrial Security Act: This bill has already been passed by the House of Representatives but is still in committee in the Senate. This bill gives the power to the President to authorize investigations concerning any person or organization. The investigation could include past or present membership in or affiliation or association with any organization which could be considered questionable. Those who would accuse a person of violating the security of the nation cannot be cross examined. “An act of subversion” could include encouraging or advocating peaceful, non-violent change of government by means of the ballot. That means that it could be considered subversive to advocate change in government by voting for different laws.
3. House Committee on Internal Security: This committee has the authority to call out individuals to come before them and submit themselves to questioning about their activities, thoughts and beliefs and associations. When a person comes up before this committee, he has no right to cross-examine his accusers and his accuser can remain anonymous (unknown). This can have the effect of “black-listing”, or giving a bad name to, a person who is called before this committee. The committee has the power to investigate areas where Congress is not allowed to make laws because of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The committee can ask questions covering all forms of political activity and is not limited to action at all. It can question forms of speech, assembly or other expression. It is a new form of the former Committee on Unamerican [Un-American] Activities and it receives all the records from the committee. There is another committee called the Committee on the Judiciary which can reliably assure the security of the United States.
4. District of Columbia Crime Law: This law provides detention without bail for an arrest of her crime which is not a capital offense. A person could be in jail for sixty days without being tried and without being offered bail. It expands police powers to wire-tap (in other words to listen to peoples phone conversations). It includes a “no-knock” provision which allows a policeman to enter a house without a warning and allows a search warrant to be obtained on “hunches” of a policeman. It allows for 16 year olds to be treated like adults if they are simply suspected of serious crimes. It denies (does not allow) the judge to use his own discretion in punishing a second serious offense. In other words a judge could not take into consideration a great improvement in a person’s behavior if it were after his second serious offense. This is already a law but efforts have been made to repeal it. Some in government have proposed that this law become a model for all the states.
5. Anti-Riot Law: This law allows for the imprisonment or a ten thousand dollar fine for a person who crosses state lines or uses the mail, telegraph, telephone or any other form of communication which crosses state lines with the intent of encouraging a person to participate in a riot. A riot can simply mean an act of violence by one or more persons which would result in injury to the property of another. For example, a person could be in a protest march where injury to property resulted in the subject to the penalty of this law. Efforts have been made to repeal (abolish) this law.
6. Organized Crime Control Act: This bill has already been approved by the Senate but is in committee in the House of Representatives. Under this bill a person could be given a thirty year sentence for a vague kind of crime called “special dangerous offenders”. Under this category no limitation on information used by the court in giving the sentence is required. In other words coersed [coerced] confessions, heresay [hearsay], illegally obtained evidence and withheld information could all be used by the court to convict the person. The bill can be used to apply to civil rights and peace activists. No longer would two witnesses be needed to prove another person has lied in court (for perjury). There would be no limit to the kind of wiretap evidence which could be used in court. It would force a person to accept immunity if it were offered to him rather than prosecution for crime because if he did not accept immunity he could be given an indeterminate to three year jail sentence. In other words, if a person confesses to a crime which involves other people, he may be promised his freedom. But, if he doesn’t testify against others, he could be given a jail sentence. This bill is still in the House Committee on Judiciary.
7. Investigation Committee of the U. S. Senate: There are two other committees much like the House Committee on Internal Security which are: the Senate Internal Securities Sub-Committee and the Senate Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee. As in the case of the House Committee on Internal Security, the area of questioning covers all forms of political activity; legal as well as illegal, and includes forms of speech, assembly and other expression. Thus, again the committee could investigate areas covered in the First Amendment over which Congress is not allowed to pass laws. Both of these groups are committees within the Senate of the United States.
8. Armed Forces Act (HR 959): (a) Provides penalties up to $10,000 and 5 years imprisonment for “whoever… willfully… attempts to give … any money… or thing… for delivery to… any… group engaged in armed conflict with… the United States.” Could apply to a humanitarian medical aid groups. (b) Provides penalties up to $10,000 and 5 years imprisonment, for “whoever… maliciously breaks into any… room… used by … in a recruitment… service… of military or civilian personnel for the Armed Forces… or… having entered any such… room… mischievously remains and, after notice… to leave… fails immediately to depart.” Could apply to campus ROTC, etc. protests.
9. First Amendment Freedoms Act (S.3976): This bill would give the attorney general or private parties authority to ask for federal court injunctions against possible “disruptive noise” or (heckling) in a public gathering. One who violated this law would be punished for comtempt [contempt] of court and might in some instances not be given a jury trial. This bill is presently before the Senate.
10. Bail Reform Act (S.2920): Is a bill which would allow a person to be detained in jail in non-capital cases if he were considered a “dangerous person”. This bill is similar to the District of Colombia Crime Bill, but would include all areas under federal authority. This bill is presently in the Senate under consideration.
“The Household Of Faith”
We should patronize one another’s businesses, thus fulfilling the scripture “take care of those in the household of faith.” Please patronize the following places of business which are owned by Peoples Temple members: Mrs. Edna Mae Ellis’ Lake Street Rest Home, 1325 Lake St., San Francisco, 387-4969; Mary L. Bassett, Amway distributor (own your own business; small investment; anti-pollution products; small electrical appliances, TV, and auto care) 20 Ashbury St., San Francisco 752-2873 or KI2-1337; Joseph Cooper Natural Wigs, 122 Baker St., Apt. 1, San Francisco 863-3037; Mrs. Eurdell Simonds, The Debonaire Clears, 837 Divisadero 931-9843; Mrs. L. J. Andrew’s Foster Home for Parolee Teenage Girls, 1120 Ingerson Ave., San Francisco; Henderson’s Rest Home, 1660 Page St., San Francisco; Leon Trucking Company, 831 Ocean Ave.; Robinson’s TV, 4614 3rd St.; Charlie Mudd’s Radio & TV Repair, 932 Central Ave.; B.C. Coleman’s Furniture Co., 560 Valencia Street, and 2059 Mission; Mac’s Cleaners, 3077 24th St. (they recently did special cleaning projects to help the Temple ministry free); Browns Moving Service, 2827 Pine St.; Regina Beauty School, 1415 Divisadero; Duncan’s Beauty Salon, 517 Laguna; Edward Coston, 133 Jules St. for light hauling an odd jobs evenings and week-end; Arebesco Airlines, Inc., Cargo Bldg. 3, Door 21, San Francisco Airport; Bob Gillespie’s “Butch’s” Gulf Station, 997 S. State St., Ukiah. If you have a business that you would like to advertise, please let us know so we can mention it in a later issue.
Regular Peoples Temple Services
You are cordially invited to attend the regular services of Peoples Temple on Sunday morning at 11:00 AM at the Center on East Road in Redwood Valley. Children of every race are invited to ride the ponies and swim in the indoor heated pool. There is a free banquet meal served everyone after every Sunday morning service. Pastor Jones is allowing children to have a diversion during the Sunday morning service by some swimming in our pool, playing outdoors and horseback riding. We have a new trend in our evening service which is developing the soul, moral and ethical growth of all of us. Please don’t miss these challenging services.
We have a birthday party on the second Saturday of every month. An equal birthday gift is given to every person born in that month. Let us know when your birthday is so that we can share this event with you at our monthly party.
Peoples Temple Helps Indians
Peoples Temple has had food, clothing and other supplies sent to the Indians at Alcatraz. A donation was taken up for the Indians at Alcatraz. If anyone has any supplies or donations they were like to contribute to the Indians they should send it to Peoples Temple , P.O. Box 214, Redwood Valley, CA 95470 and designate that this is where you want to contribution to go. We wish to thank all of those who have given donations to help this worthy endeavor.
Need For Good And Used Clothing And Other Articles
Peoples Temple always has a very worthwhile need for food and clothing. Although we have requested no offering to recently there are always those in need and our demands from others become very heavy. Last Christmas alone we gave out over 2000 gifts to needy families outside of our church. We have a need for children’s clothing for the coming Winter season. Needy families come to us every day for assistance and none are turned away. Because of the many animals which have been left for us to care for, our animal refuge shelter continues to grow. If you have a special care for animals, please contribute dog food to help us care for them.
Our two church sponsored college dormitories are in need of furniture and household articles. We also need blue chip stamps as we use them to purchase chairs and other items for the church. If you have any of these items you can contact any of the following people and they will either pick up the articles or they will contact other people to pick them up: Mrs. Ethel Bradley, 1160 Stanyon, San Francisco 731-3517, Rev. Harry Williams, CA6-2921, Mrs. Eva Brown, 2827 Pine.