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scribable. Jehovah's witnesses have been assaulted, kidnaped, driven out of towns, counties and states, tarred and feathered, forced to drink castor oil, tied together and chased like dumb beasts through the streets, castrated and maimed, taunted and insulted by demonized erowds, jailed by the hundreds without charge and held incommunicado and denied the privilege of conferring with relatives, friends or lawyers. Many other hundreds have been jailed and held in so-called "protective custody" ; some have been shot in the nighttime; some threatened with hanging and beaten into unconsciousness. Numerous varieties of mob violence have occurred. Many have had their clothes torn from them, their Bibles and other literature seized and publicly burned; their automobiles, trailers, homes and assembly places wrecked and fired, resulting in damages totaling very many thousands of dollars. This demonized violence has completely possessed the people and officials in hundreds of communities of America, so that ~hey have falsely charged J ehovah's witnesses with sedition and like crimes of being "against the government". This character of persecution flared highest in Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana. In Kentucky ten brethren await trial for sedition, which carries a maximum penalty of twenty-one years in the penitentiary. In Indiana two harmless women have been convicted of "riotous conspiracy" because of possessing literature which the American Legion terms as being "against the government", and have been sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary. In numerous instances where trials have been held in mob-ruled communities, lawyers as well as witnesses have been mobbed and beaten while attending court. In almost every case where there has been mob violence the public officials have stood idly by and refused to give protection, and in scores of instances the officers of the law have participated in the mobs and sometimes actually led the mobs. bea~en,


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