Herbert W. Armstrong 1892-1986
Autobiography of HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
Volume II
1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1987
Herbert W. Armstrong 1892-1986
Chapter 40
First Vision of Worldwide Work
THE "lean years" continued through 1938 and the succeeding decade. It was a constant struggle and hardship. Growth seemed so very slow. Yet, viewed today in retrospect, expansion has been consistently rapid. Occasional setbacks were discouraging. But the forgings ahead were far greater than the slips backward.
By June, 1938 -- four and a half years after The Plain Truth started as a mimeographed "magazine" the first two printed editions finally had been produced. Old files, more recently examined, have shown that the May-June, 1938, number was not actually the first, but the second edition to come off a real printing press. And they were only eight-page editions. Until then all issues had been ground out on a hand-fed, hand-cranked, antiquated neostyle, ancestor of the mimeograph.
But the expense of producing those two printed issues threw us into a financial hole again. So back to the frail old neostyle we went, hand-producing a combined July-August, 1938, issue, which finally was mailed July 28 that year.
New Facilities Needed
As the work expanded, through 1938 and into 1939, a few items of new equipment became an imperative need. I do not mean convenient wants -- but absolutely necessary needs.
According to usual office standards, we might have thought we needed a better office, with sunlight and ventilation. We might have thought modern steel filing cabinets were a need. I was still using cardboard cartons, obtained free at the grocery store, as receptacles for keeping correspondence files. We might have thought that office desks to work on, if only secondhand, were needed. But we were able to work, these years, on a few old tables we found in our little, stuffy, $5-per-month office room.
But when the old antiquated neostyle finally was wearing out -- about to lie down and cease functioning because of old age -- and we were still obliged to crank out The Plain Truth by hand on this piece of primitive mechanism, then a new mimeograph became an absolute need -- or else The Plain Truth had to cease publication and die a natural death along with the neostyle.
So it was that on February 4, 1939 -- five years after the first issue of The Plain Truth -- a letter to our few co-workers said: "I will have to tell you that we are VERY SERIOUSLY IN NEED of a new mimeograph machine. The present one is about worn out, and we are producing this issue of The Plain Truth under difficulties. I can get a very good used mimeograph, almost new, one capable of turning out the large amount of work that is necessary in this office, and [that] will last for several years, for $65. There is not one cent available for the mimeograph, unless some of our friends can send in a special and additional offering just for this purpose."
By April 5, 1939, a letter to co-workers found in an old file says: "At last, after many unavoidable delays, we are sending you The Plain Truth. This issue goes to about one thousand NEW READERS. It is still mimeographed, because we have not enough funds to print it, as we did two issues last year. It is a tremendous task, and nearly all the work is done by Mrs. Armstrong, our daughter Beverly who is office secretary, and myself."
In spite of inside office, lack of light or ventilation, lack of desks, filing cabinets and office equipment, the work was GROWING! The Plain Truth circulation was growing. We were not able to get it out every month. There were seven issues in 1938. The June number was only the third during 1939. It was issued as often as there was enough money for paper, ink and postage. Yet already this little mimeographed "magazine" was being read by a few thousand people -- and a hundred thousand were hearing on radio every week the very gospel Christ Himself preached -- besides there were almost continuous evangelistic campaigns reaching hundreds.
The few dimes, quarters, and dollars were producing fruits that were to last for eternity!
But now our old secondhand car was about to lie down and die of old age and much use.
Near the bottom of this letter of April 5, 1939, I find this: "Another serious need is a new car. The present one, five years old, is in the Albany garage for lack of a $50 repair bill. We are totally dependent on our car to transport the six of us (self and singers) to Portland and back for the Sunday broadcasts. We have to drive 600 miles every week -- 2,500 miles a month in Gods work. The present car won't hold out longer. We are doing the very best we can with what we have to do with."
This referred to the 1934-model used Graham car we had purchased as a result of Mrs. Starkey's letter sent out December 21, 1937. But we were not to be able to get another car until 1941. That old Graham blew connecting rods every few thousand miles. But it was destined to suffer some real punishment, with weekly trips to Seattle, before we could replace it!
God has promised to supply all our NEED. But during these years it was surely bare need, not wants -- and the needs were not always as great as they appeared to us.
How many of our readers, today, realize how much more than bare needs you are enjoying? Not many have had to struggle along with real bare needs, as we did through those lean years!
European Union and War Predicted
The February-March, 1939, issue of The Plain Truth contained another article on the resurrection of the Roman Empire to come. We have warned our radio listeners of this prophesied event since the first year we were on the air -- 1934. We have shouted this prophecy ever since 1934 in The Plain Truth. This issue carried a full-page map, which I sketched and traced an the mimeograph stencil, showing the territory of the original Roman Empire.
This map included four of the sea gates that control sea -- access to this entire territory. The article stressed the fulfillment of the prophecy of Genesis 22:17 and 24:60, showing how the U.S.A. and Britain were to possess the sea gates of enemy nations. This was part of the national dominance promised Abraham for his descendants. But the article also pointed out that our peoples, since receiving this Birthright inheritance have turned from our God -- our national sins have increased -- and God is going to have to punish our nations at the hand of this coming resurrected Roman Empire, with invasion, captivity, and slavery. These four vital sea gates, the article explained, must be taken from Britain before the "beast" power -- revived Roman Empire -- can rise. Britain, since, has lost Suez and exercises no real control over the other three.
This tremendous prophecy was fulfilled, in the form of the insignificant "sixth head of the beast," by Mussolini very shortly after this article appeared. But the all-important seventh and last "head" is being formed, today, before our very eyes! It is rising out of the Common Market in Europe -- out of which ten nations or groupings of nations will ultimately combine to form a new European Union!
During March and April, 1939, about 1,000 new requests were received for annual subscriptions to The Plain Truth! The work was GROWING!
The August issue of The Plain Truth, 1939, contained an article captioned: "World War May Come Within Six Weeks." The war started September 1.
In an article in the November, 1939, Plain Truth on "The European War," a paragraph or two may be of interest:
"Finally, remember this war is merely a resumption of the world war. It is not, so far as present events are concerned, directly and specifically mentioned in the Bible prophecies at all. But undoubtedly it is paving the way for prophesied events.
"One of two things may happen: 1) the Allies may go on to smash Hitler, possibly with the help of either or both of the United States or Italy; 2) Italy might yet come in on the side of Germany -- the battle sector shifting at once to the Mediterranean, especially Egypt (the Suez canal gate), and Palestine (as described with maps in the February-March Plain Truth)."
The uphill struggle -- climbing constantly in growth of the work in spite of inadequate facilities and financial backing -- continued into the year 1940 and throughout the decade of the forties.
The March, 1940, Plain Truth was the first since November, 1939. It was still mimeographed. The circulation was 2,000 copies. More than 100,000 people were listening to the message weekly. Expenses were being held to $300 per month -- including our family living of less than $85 per month.
Boys Growing Up
Meanwhile, our four children were growing up. The two girls now were twenty and twenty-two. The boys ten and eleven -- Dick almost twelve. For the boys, this, I believe, is the happiest age ever enjoyed by any person. Surely nothing to compare is experienced by girls.
I remember so well when I was eleven. My only sister, Mabel, died that year in an attack of spinal meningitis, at age nine. However, a year later my brother Dwight Leslie and his twin sister Mary Lucile were born. During those years, with other boys of the same age, I took up wrestling -- these were the days of our "heroes" Frank Gotch and "Farmer" Burns; we went swimming, skating in the winter, sledding. We dug caves. We had white mice and ferrets, and probably we stuck frogs in our pockets. I rode a bicycle everywhere.
At eleven and twelve a boy has few responsibilities -- devotes himself primarily to "fun" -- and yet, he does not altogether take a vacation from disappointments, humiliation and painful suffering. His problems are far more serious to him than they are to Dad or Mom or other grown-ups.
I have recounted how our younger son had given me a big kiss -- and when I asked what he was after now, he replied that was for picking out for him the best mother in the world. Only I didn't "pick her out" -- we both have always known, somehow, that God chose us for each other. But if our boys had "the best Mom in the world" she was best, except for just one or two things.
For one thing, our sons had a mother who wanted them to swim -- only she did not want them to go near the water until after they had learned how to swim. This problem was far more serious to young growing boys than Mother ever knew.
During the summer of 1940 we were returning to Eugene on the McKenzie Highway along the swift-flowing McKenzie River. The boys wanted to do some fishing. Finally, after much pleading, we stopped at a country store, bought a small roll of fishing line, a few hooks, and a bottle of salmon eggs.
Our elder daughter, Beverly, and her fiance, Jimmy Gott, were with us, and Jim cut two big "fishing poles" from a willow tree and tied the line to each of them.
From here on, I will let my younger son recount for you in his own words the humiliating experience he and his brother Dick suffered -- all because of the "best Mom in the world."
"We were on the way returning to Eugene from a trip, I believe to Blemis' home, or else up to Belknap Springs -- but at any rate, up the McKenzie Highway.
"Dick and I (I mostly, I believe) pleaded and pleaded, and finally, we stopped at a country store, and bought a small roll of fishing line, a few hooks, and a bottle of salmon eggs.
("Bev and Jim were along, I remember definitely because Jim cut us two big club-like 'fishing poles' and tied the line to each of them.)
"So -- we were carefully herded over the rocks, with deep pools swirling around through undercut areas, to the brink of the mighty rushing McKenzie at one of its fastest, deepest points.
"Having known only a little about fishing -- I did know you had to get the bait down to where the fish were. We had no split shot or weights, no leaders on our lines, no reels, so casting was impossible.
"Mom picked out the spot where it was SAFEST -- instead of letting us go where we thought we might find a fish. There we sat, with sour expressions on our faces, with the short line, a tiny gold single-egg hook and a bright red salmon egg-skipping frantically along the top of the gigantic rush of tons of blue-white water, on the edge of one of the fastest and deepest rapids along the McKenzie!
"There wasn't the faintest, remotest chance of ever ratching a trout under those conditions -- and we both knew it -- but at least, we were SAFE!"
No Hallucinations
On April 2, 1940, I had to write co-workers: "The only way I have managed to keep the work going has been my personal sacrifice -- taking money intended for our family living, letting my family suffer. One of my daughters has had to stop school. We are about to lose our home. We have gone without badly needed clothing. I could tell you more, but do not want to talk about ourselves -- our heavenly Father knows. We are willing and glad to make any sacrifice. BUT THE POINT IS, WE HAVE NOW COME TO THE END, UNLESS SUBSTANTIAL HELP COMES AT ONCE. The work cannot be held up by this method of personal sacrifice any longer. As long as it was only us who suffered, I said nothing. But now the Lord's WORK will stop unless substantial help comes quickly. For the work's sake I must appeal to our helpers. I would starve, before I would ask one cent as charity for myself. But I'm willing to humiliate myself in any way for the gospel's sake."
During the early years of this ministry, as I have noted before, no illusions of grandeur flooded my mind. I had no grandiose visions of conducting a great earth girding work reaching many millions on all continents. If anyone had then suggested that this work would grow to even a tenth its present scope and power, I would have regarded it as an empty pipe-dream.
This work has not grown to its present proportions because I planned it that way -- but because GOD planned it, expanded it, empowered it.
I was not without vision. When the broadcast first started, in January, 1934, I did envision a work reaching the entire Willamette Valley and probably Portland. After we reached Portland, I did envision going on to cover Seattle, and the entire Pacific Northwest. As the work grew, the vision for the future expanded with it. But this ministry was not started with any hallucinations, spawned in self-pride, vanity and egotism, as did a few ne'er-do-wells who have come to me, announcing: "Mr. Armstrong, I have come to announce to you that I am Elijah that was prophesied to come;" or "Mr. Armstrong, God has shown me in a dream that I am to be your right-hand man and soon to take your place."
All self-important vanity had been knocked out of me by the successive business reverses, being knocked down repeatedly, and made for years to bite the dust of poverty and humiliation. But I had come to receive a new confidence. It was based on faith in CHRIST -- not in self. It was the faith of Christ, which God had given as one of the gifts of His Spirit.
First Vision of Worldwide Scope
But in May, 1940, God had begun to bring into my mind a glimpse of the future worldwide destiny of this work, for the first time. We could not know, then, whether World War II, already under way in Europe, would continue on into Armageddon and the END of the world. We could not know, then, that God would grant another recess in the world war -- and for the very purpose of allowing this WORK OF GOD to fulfill Matthew 24:14 in preaching and publishing Christ's gospel of God's KINGDOM to all the world as a witness, just before the END of this world and the coming of Christ!
But the sense of imminence of the END -- combined with the knowledge that this very message must first be proclaimed -- inspired a letter to co-workers dated May 23, 1940, which asked, in part:
"Dear CO-WORKERS: We enter, now, the most CRUCIAL period of our co-labors together in the powerful proclaiming of the gospel. The ZERO HOUR has struck! Whatever is to be done, we must do quickly. Soon we shall not be permitted to carry on this great work .... But now, as never before, people WILL HEAR! People are STUNNED by the war events in Europe! Everywhere, people ... are now beginning to realize the Bible prophecies are being fulfilled -- that we are in the VERY LAST DAYS! ... NOW is the time when Jesus said 'this gospel of the kingdom' -- the good news of the coming government BY JESUS CHRIST, the kingdom OF GOD -- 'shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the END come'!"
For the first time, I saw the real meaning of that prophecy. I knew of no other preaching of this very gospel. Nowhere else was this prophecy being fulfilled I saw, now, that THIS MESSAGE was to go worldwide -- to ALL NATIONS. I did not yet envision that this very work would be used of God in its accomplishment. But I did now see clearly that we should step up our energies and as far as it was GOD's will to use us in this fulfillment, expand the work.
I began, much more intensely than before, to focus attention on expanding the broadcast into Seattle. Almost a year before I had taken a trip to Seattle to explore the possibilities of obtaining a good time on a radio station. But no door opened then. And, in 1939 it was financially impossible.
A Heart-touching Sacrifice
The Seattle broadcasting was started by an unusual sacrifice made by a man and wife in Clarke County, Washington, listeners over KWJJ. This family had lost all they had in the great drought of 1934 and 1935. They then migrated from South Dakota and had made a down payment on a small farm a few miles outside Vancouver, Washington. The man and a son had managed to build the outside shell of a house. The siding was not yet on. A second floor had been partially laid -- just the subflooring. There was no stairway as yet -- and no partitions either upstairs or down -- just one large room on each floor. The children slept upstairs, gaining access by climbing up a ladder.
This man had, over two or three years' time, saved up $40 over and above bare family expenses and getting this much of a home built. The $40 was saved to buy lumber for the partitions for separate rooms in their house.
When these people heard we were trying to get started on the air in Seattle, they sent me that $40, explaining how they had saved it, and for what purpose. Since we were driving to Portland every week for the broadcast, I drove out to their little farm to return the money.
"I just couldn't take this money," I said, "when you have struggled so long to save it so you could have a home to live in."
Tears filled the woman's eyes. She shook her head, refused to accept the money back. "Mr. Armstrong," she said, "of course it would be nice for us to get up partitions and have separate rooms -- but that is not an absolute NEED. We just could not use this money for a temporary material home, when it will help get Christ's message of a home for all eternity in God's kingdom to many thousands of people!"
I realized, then, that it was really GOD's WILL that this money be used for His gospel -- and that these people were actually receiving a spiritual blessing in giving it that far outweighed the material benefit of using it for themselves. Incidentally, these people were blessed materially after that, and it was not too long until their house was completed, after all. Jesus Christ said, seek first the kingdom of God -- the spiritual values and the material THINGS shall be ADDED. God always does add them!
On the Air in SEATTLE!
When I sent out a letter to co-workers telling of this sacrifice, and the NEED to get on the air in Seattle, there was a surprising response. We received one day in the mail the largest sum we had ever received -- $100, for broadcasting in Seattle. It took our breath!
But, a few days later, two more $100 sums came, three contributed $50 each, and several sent in single dollars.
And so, finally, three long years after the broadcast expanded from Eugene into Portland, it now leaped into Seattle!
From Seattle, I mimeographed a new co-workers' Bulletin, the second such Bulletin in new form and dress, dated September 17, 1940. The leading caption stated the news: "NOW ON THE AIR IN SEATTLE!"
The program started there Sunday, September 15th, over 1,000-watt station KRSC -- twice the power of our Portland station, KWJJ -- and serving a larger population.
The exciting story of how we finally were enabled to add the Seattle area to those of Portland and Eugene in the broadcasting work was told in this Bulletin, and can best be told here in a condensation of that Bulletin: There was a subhead, "How God Has Answered PRAYER."
Then: "I want to tell our family of co-workers some of the inside story of our finally getting on the air here in Seattle. I want you to know something of the problem we had to solve, the difficulties in our path, and how God went before us, answered prayer, and worked out everything so perfectly.
Answered Prayer
"Radio stations, especially in Seattle, do not want religious programs on their stations. I learned that a year ago when I was up here. I knew nothing but prayer could open the way for us, but I had faith God wanted us to speak His Word faithfully in this Seattle district, and I know He would not fail us.
"Mrs. Armstrong and I arrived in Seattle late Wednesday afternoon. I did not feel we could afford the high cost of one of the five larger 5.000-watt stations here. This reduced our possibilities to two stations. One, KRSC, has never taken religious programs, and its owner gave me no encouragement when I saw him a year ago. The other station, same power, was throwing all religious programs off their station, didn't want any more, and the price was just double what we pay in Portland.
"It looked discouraging. But I decided to see the owner of KRSC again. He auditioned one of our programs. He became interested, said we had a splendid program that would attract a large listening audience. However, he would not take any outside religious program unless approved by the Seattle Council of Churches. He then called their secretary by telephone to his office to hear one of our programs auditioned. This man was well impressed with our program and also with The Plain Truth, which he carefully examined. It happened that he was familiar with the truth of our national identity in the House of Israel, and he was glad to see this truth published in the Plain Truth magazine.
"So the owner sidetracked a 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon news broadcast so we could have the same time we have over KWJJ in Portland, and then made me a rate just $1.40 more per broadcast than we pay KWJJ! Since this station has double the power of KWJJ, and is the highest class independent station in Seattle, I'm sure you'll realize how fortunate we were.
"There is but one explanation. God Himself worked it all out. It is surely an answer to prayer. Mrs. Armstrong and I will remain here until after next Sunday's broadcast, which I want to conduct in person; then we shall return home. While here, we are broadcasting by transcription from KWJJ. When we return home we will send transcribed broadcasts to Seattle."
The next subhead in this Bulletin was captioned: "LOS ANGELES NEXT!"
The vision of the mission to which God had called us, and in which the living Christ was using us, now expanded. World events made it clear.
The Bulletin continued: "The Lord willing, we hope now to add a radio station in LOS ANGELES next. Such a station would add a QUARTER OF A MILLION people to those now hearing the true gospel of the kingdom.
"As I wrote in the last Bulletin, GOD's TIME HAS COME for this last warning message to go -- and to go to the millions, with great POWER! The whole world is IN ARMS! God now calls us, His children, TO ARMS! THE WARNING MUST GO!"
Chapter 41
Impact on Pacific Northwest
Now that the broadcast had started in Seattle, the work began rapidly to take on new life.
Up until this time, it certainly bore no resemblance to what would be expected by most people to be the very WORK OF GOD. How could anything have had such humble and crude beginnings? Did anything ever start smaller? Looking back on those years now, I am, myself, astonished! It surely couldn't have happened. Yet, it did!
With Man -- Impossible!
What man could start out, without money, without support or backing, without any car and having to walk or hitchhike, on his own, with an unpopular message to which people were hostile, and expect to get that message preached and published to the millions on all continents around the world?
With man, it certainly is IMPOSSIBLE! But I was not looking to people for support -- I was relying on GOD! There is a Scripture that says, "With man it is impossible, but with GOD all things are possible!"
And that is the answer! Through the years I have encountered a few individuals who thought they had a vision to "preach Christ" and started out on their own, without backing, to do it. Some have gotten out some kind of mimeographed literature, or even managed to have a "tract" or two printed. But none I knew of ever grew. All soon gave up. Their work lacked the inspiration, the "spark," the vital "something" to make it tick -- and GROW! The answer, of course, is that the POWER OF GOD was lacking. They were, in true fact, on their own! Christ had never called or sent them. They were not speaking His Word faithfully! Without His guidance and the dynamic power of His Spirit, their work soon came to naught.
The only reason this work survived -- and grew -- is that I was not, after all, "on my own."
Pitifully small as this effort was during those first few years -- still it was, though assuredly not then apparent, the very WORK OF THE LIVING GOD. The divinely imparted dynamic spark was in it. People have asked, in recent years, what makes this now great work "tick." The vital energy and life that the living CHRIST has imparted is what makes it tick!
The Difference
The things God does through man must always start small -- usually the very smallest -- but they grow big, until they become the biggest. Jesus compared this to the proverbial mustard seed.
Today, for example [as this second volume goes to press], there are [nearly five] billion people populating the earth. God started this -- with one man, out of whom he made one woman. The nations of Israel, Judah, the numerous Arabs, all started with one man -- Abraham. The only true religion started with one man -- Jesus Christ! Ultimately those born of God through Him will fill the earth.
This work certainly had no professional appearance in those days, although there must have been power in the broadcasts -- they had the ring of sincerity and the truth the listeners had not heard before. And The Plain Truth, though crude in appearance, nevertheless reflected the years of professional writing experience. Mistakes were made. This was due to the human element. It was the guidance and power of God injected into it that gave it its real impetus -- but God was using a mighty imperfect human instrument, and so human limitations entered into the picture too. These caused some of the setbacks, and God allowed others to test and refine and help perfect the instrument He was using.
I know of evangelists who have been skyrocketed suddenly to fame before vast audiences. They started out big and quickly became celebrities acclaimed by millions. But they were started out by organizations of MEN. It was organized religion which pumped into their great stadiums, coliseums, supertents or vast auditoriums the multithousand crowds. And all such world-famous evangelists must preach only what is allowed by the denominations or churches who back them, and must refrain from preaching anything contrary to their doctrines.
Suppose, for example, such an evangelist backed by the conservative fundamentalist -- evangelical denominations should tell his audience the Bible commands them to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. Suppose a "big-time" evangelist with so-called "Pentecostal" backing in his giant circus tent should shout to his thousands that "speaking in tongues" is not the "Bible evidence" of "the baptism of the Holy Spirit." Immediately they would be branded HERETICS. Immediately they would lose their organized backing; they would be plunged into "disgrace."
But such men come and they go. Their work is foredoomed to die. If they are backed by men, supported by organized men, they must become the willing TOOL of such organizations. But when one is truly called and chosen of God, he must become wholly yielded to God as God's servant, and he must speak God's Word faithfully, else GOD's support is withdrawn. What a difference!
Redoubling Growth
Jesus Christ said, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13). Again, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" (Psalm 127:1). But, David was inspired to say (Moffatt translation): "Though I must pass through the thick of trouble, thou wilt preserve me: ... The Eternal intervenes on my behalf; ... thou wilt not drop the work thou hast begun" (Psalm 138:7-8). That PROMISE of God has sustained me through the years of opposition, persecution and trouble. God is still keeping that promise, and He will perpetually!
Looking back, now, over the actual physical circumstances, conditions, and happenings of those years, it seems utterly incredible that a work started in such a humble, crude manner without any visible backing could have survived, let alone continued to grow at the pace of 30 percent a year.
Of course this work did not double in size every day, every week, or even every year. But doubling in number of people reached, in number of precious lives converted, in radio power, and in scope of operation every two years and seven and a half months is, after all, a very rapid and almost unheard-of rate of growth. And that rate of redoubling continued nearly thirty years!
Plain Truth Printed at Last
If this work had the appearance, those first seven struggling years, of the pitifully insignificant and hopeless effort of an individual striving desperately "on his own," it began now rapidly to take on the appearance of a more substantial operation. Those with spiritual discernment began to recognize it for what it was -- the true WORK OF GOD.
A limited fund had been raised to start the broadcast on KRSC, in Seattle.
In preparation for this, a part of this special fund had been used to have the Plain Truth issue for August-September, 1940, printed! This was the first printed number since the May-June, 1938, number.
But at last, with this August-September, 1940, number, The Plain Truth graduated permanently from the handmade mimeographed class! Along with the other phases of the work, The Plain Truth was growing up!
It "grew up" only to a most humble start as a printed magazine, however. This issue, and the few to follow, were printed on a very low-cost yellow paper we had used for years for the mimeographed editions. It was only eight pages. And it was issued only bimonthly. On page 4, under the masthead box, appeared this notice: "This is the first issue of The Plain Truth since May. There was no June or July number this year. For the immediate future we hope to be able, the Lord willing, to publish one number each two months. Later we hope to be able to send you an issue every month, and to enlarge The Plain Truth to sixteen pages, just double the present size. Constant improvement is our goal."
That improvement came slowly through the years -- but the effort was never relinquished, and gradually the improvement did come.
Many months later, it did double to 16 pages. Circulation doubled and redoubled. After years as a 16-page magazine, it went to twenty-four and then to thirty-two pages. In publishing that first regular printed issue of The Plain Truth, an additional 500 copies were printed in anticipation of the first two months' response from the new Seattle broadcast.
Amazing Seattle Response
The broadcast had started on KRSC, in Seattle, September 15, 1940. By November 1 the receipt of mail from listeners was mounting rapidly. More than 500 requests for copies came from the first four or five broadcasts. The co-workers' Bulletin dated November 1 reported the subscription list of The Plain Truth had reached 3,000. We still had to keep the mailing list by handwriting, or typing, and in this manner personally address every copy. This required volunteer labor and several days' time. Mail response now indicated a listening audience of 150,000 with the three radio stations.
Although requests for The Plain Truth exceeded 500 the first five weeks from the Seattle station, there were, of course, very few contributions -- especially when none were in any way solicited. Nevertheless, for the encouragement of older co-workers, this November 1 Bulletin stated: "Offerings are just beginning, now, to come from listeners to KRSC, our Seattle station. First, $1. Then, later, another dollar; then $6 the next week $8 so far." It was now costing nearly $100 per issue to publish and mail out The Plain Truth.
In this issue of the co-workers' Bulletin (sent only to those who had become voluntary regular contributors), excerpts from several letters from listeners were reproduced -- seventeen of those from the Seattle station, and nine from the Portland station.
Portions of some of those letters are illuminating. Here are just a few:
"FROM SEATTLE: 'Am enclosing $1 to help a little in your God-given work. How I wish it could be more, but when I can possibly, will send more. Received the copy of The Plain Truth a few days ago .... I have wondered many times when these Scriptures would be revealed, and by whom; but God knew, and He has given the wisdom to one He can trust. You have my prayers.' " This letter accompanied the second dollar received from the program on the Seattle station. Jesus Christ said His sheep hear His voice. They recognize His message. They catch the difference instantly. Some of these letters came from people who discerned that this, indeed, was Christ's own gospel -- very different from that the world had heard.
"FROM BINGEN, WASHINGTON: 'Will you please send a copy of The Plain Truth. I thank God for men who tell the truth about His plan of salvation. There are only too few in this time of great need.' "
"FROM DEEP RIVER, WASH.: 'We listen to your broadcast every Sunday, and would like to receive the magazine .... I realize you do not ask for money, but I am enclosing $1 to help in God's work.' "
"FROM INDIANOLA, WASH.: 'The portion of your sermon, delivered over the radio yesterday, that I heard was most enlightening and constructive, and I should appreciate having you send me The Plain Truth. These certainly are the kind of biblical explanations that the world needs today.' "
Yes, some who hear the World Tomorrow program do recognize it as God's very own message, and it has been the generally unpreached truth of God's Word, and the power of His Spirit that has given this work life, and vitality, and caused it to grow from smallest beginnings!
Now just two or three portions of letters from listeners over KWJJ, Portland. These, too, are significant:
"FROM OREGON CITY: 'I received your message today and with tears streaming from my eyes, thanked our heavenly Father that the way had been opened for your Seattle broadcast.' "
"FROM LA CENTER, WASH.: 'I enjoy your broadcast so much, and regret when I have to miss one. I feel lifted, and see more light after listening. God is certainly with you in every word that you say -- one can just feel His presence. I would appreciate a copy of The Plain Truth, please.' "
"FROM PORTLAND: 'In your last broadcast you mentioned that the public might not approve your words. From your own teachings, your concern is to preach the TRUTH, just as you have been doing .... The LORD approves. That is enough. The Plain Truth is most excellent .... This old world is now in the critical time when we need a pilot to show us whither we are headed. You are doing a great job. I know you are giving the truth to those who never heard it, and probably never would, who will not go to the present-day church and who hold the church to be a hypocritical racket. But they listen to you. Keep up the good work.' "
Atheists Converted
This Bulletin carried a subhead on page 5: "Even Atheists Being Converted." It said: "Yes, even ATHEISTS those who have convinced themselves there is no God .... Seldom, if ever, have you heard of atheists being converted. Yet I know definitely of at least two who have been changed from death to life, through this work of which you are a vital part. Both are active co-workers now."
One was a young mother, prominent in the Communist Party. The facts in her case have been covered previously in the Autobiography. The second was a young man in Vancouver, Washington. I reported, in this Bulletin: "Last February 16, we received this letter the first we had ever heard of this young man:
"'Dear Mr. Armstrong: I started listening to your broadcasts in September, 1938, and since that time I have been coming to my senses. In other words, you have been the medium through which God has acted to blast away my atheistic ideas, false conceptions and idiotic philosophies. This, to me, is a modern miracle, for I have long considered myself impregnable to what seemed to be the greatest myth of all time -- God and the Bible .... I've been listening for a long time to various pastors, ministers and preachers, if only for the malicious pleasure of finding fault with what they say. The first time I tuned on you, I was stuck. Then I started thinking -- probably for the first time in years. Then I started regretting. I didn't deserve it, but found the door open when I knocked. It's marvelous how much different one's attitude is when it is taken from a spiritual angle. All things seem different. It's something God only can do for a person. I wish you could reach a much larger audience, and I'm praying for the time when you can.' "
This man, some time after writing this letter -- yet this was prior to going on the air in Seattle -- attended meetings I was holding in Vancouver (Washington), and was baptized shortly after this Bulletin went out November 1, 1940. His prayer for the expansion of the work -- along with many other prayers -- was answered, and he became a valuable instrument of God, collaborating with me in God's work. He was a nationally known artist. For many years Plain Truth readers read his Bible Story, which rendered the story -- thread of the Bible in plain, simple, dynamically interesting language. This man was Basil Wolverton. The letter quoted above was the first I ever heard from him. It gives evidence of some of the "fruit" God was producing through this work, even in those pioneer days.
This November 1, 1940, Bulletin ended with these words: "ON TO LOS ANGELES is our slogan now!" Yes, the work was growing up!
Christmas Slump
But immediately we encountered another obstacle threatening the work. The Christmas shopping season was upon us. Always December had been our toughest month to weather through. So many co-workers became so occupied with Christmas shopping, trading gifts back and forth among friends and relatives, many forgot and neglected any gift for Christ, whose birthday they supposed they were celebrating. I was forced to remind our co-workers of this in the next Bulletin, dated December 6, or see the entire work stop. It explained:
"The Seattle broadcast has had to start just as we come to the Christmas shopping season. Each year it seems that two-thirds or more of all our co-workers forget the Lord's work entirely through December. Brethren, the tithe is THE LORD'S for His work! Here we are, in the most serious hours of all earth's history! We are told in the Scriptures to preach the gospel, to keep at it, in season and out of season! This is the END-time, when Jesus said this gospel of the kingdom must go to all the world for a witness, just before the end comes! ... This message must not stop! Surely proclaiming God's message and the salvation of souls must come first -- material gifts second!"
It seems that with the results of that letter we did struggle through. Meanwhile the listening audience, and the Plain Truth circulation, continued to enlarge.
By mid-February, 1941, circulation of The Plain Truth had climbed to 4,000 copies. Mail response now indicated a weekly listening audience of 150,000 or more. Letters were coming from all classes of people -- women, laboring men, farmers, office workers, and also from business and professional men.
Suicide Prevented
In early February, 1941, we received a letter from a man who said he was on the point of committing suicide in his discouragement, when by accident -- or, as he himself suggested, intervention of God -- he heard the broadcast of February 9. He wrote that this message got through to him -- made him realize that what he needed was not suicide, but CHRIST! He wrote a heart-touching appeal to help him find his Savior and salvation. He was, of course, given personal help.
More and more, evidence piled up demonstrating the power of God working and energizing His work through us.
In the Bulletin of February 14, 1941, the following appeared:
"ANNOUNCEMENT: "Mrs. Armstrong and I announce that our daughter Beverly is to be married to Mr. James A. Gott of Eugene, on Friday morning, February 28, at ten o'clock, in the little church at the end of West Eighth Avenue, in Eugene.
"Beverly is the soprano in the Radio Church quartette, whose beautiful singing is so familiar to our radio audiences."
During this week of February 23, an exciting event had happened. We had purchased our first "almost new" car, taking delivery the night before the wedding.
First New Car
Somewhere around November, 1940, station KRSC in Seattle had switched our time from 4 p.m., which was the same time we aired on KWJJ, Portland, to 8:30 Sunday mornings. At first I suffered keen disappointment, feeling it would mean a smaller audience. But it proved a blessing in disguise. The listening audience picked up faster than ever.
Best of all, it made possible for me to drive to Seattle to put the program on live, instead of sending transcriptions. In those days our transcriptions had to be recorded in almost amateur manner on inferior equipment in Eugene. The "live" broadcasts made possible news reporting, and analysis of the very latest news, hot off the radio station teletypes, explaining the prophetic meaning with the Bible.
We were still limping along every Saturday afternoon and night the entire 320-mile drive from Eugene to Seattle in our old 1934 Graham. Constantly we had connecting rod trouble.
For many months this arduous routine was continued. I usually arrived in Seattle about 1 a.m., Sunday morning. I remember well tuning in Seattle's powerful 50,000-watt station KIRO, which I could hear on the car radio the entire distance from Portland to Seattle. How I wished we might broadcast over such a powerful station! But we couldn't afford it -- then. God later allowed us not only to afford it, but opened time for us on that splendid station twice daily.
The grueling routine of those weekend trips lasted, I believe, until the spring of 1942. Arriving at my hotel -- one of the newer but smaller ones -- a service was provided whereby the garage, a block down the street, came after my car upon arrival. After a very few hours sleep I was awakened at 5 a.m. -- showered, shaved, dressed, and down to the all-night fountain in the corner drug store, where I bought the morning paper and hurriedly checked through it for prophetic news while drinking a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee.
Then I hurried back to my briefcase and portable typewriter, and started rapping out script for the broadcast. In those days, even before the United States entered the war, security precautions required that every word be presented in script form -- one copy for the station announcer, one from which I was to speak. I did not dare deviate from the script.
I had to have the half-hour script completed promptly at 8 a.m., when I dashed down, checked out of the hotel, and found my car waiting for me at the hotel entrance. Arriving at KRSC at 8:15, I had fifteen minutes in which to hand over the station copy of the script to the announcer, scan quickly the news teletape for any last-minute bulletins of significance I had not found in the morning paper, and clip it and write out any comment on my portable typewriter. At exactly 8:30, the familiar "GREETINGS, Friends!" was going out on the air. At 9 o'clock I leaped into my car, stopped off at the old "Half-Way House" midway to Tacoma, for breakfast, then continued the tiresome jaunt, with a state 50-mile-per-hour speed limit, on the old horse-and-buggy winding highway to Portland. Stopping off at Chehalis for lunch, I usually arrived in Portland about 3 p.m., with one hour to again check teletapes for last-minute news. Then, on the air over KWJJ at 4. Off at 4:30. Arriving in Eugene at 7:30 I would find the little church filled with a Sunday night audience. Then an evangelistic sermon and, usually, preaching every night through the week, working daytime's in the office answering letters, writing The Plain Truth, or out making calls on people needing help, people interested, holding private Bible studies, etc. It was a grind.
From the time I started driving to Seattle, I had to put the old Graham in the repair garage regularly every week. Finally, by February, 1941, it was costing me $18 per week on the average for repairs, and then, on Monday, February 24, the garage owner told me:
"Mr. Armstrong, this car is not going to hold together for another single trip to Seattle. You've got a connecting-rod and a bearing situation that won't get you there and back. It will cost $110 to fix it. The blue-book value of your car, even after you spend that $110, is now only $105 -- so your car is now worth $5 less than nothing, actually. If ever you intend to trade this old hulk in, it's a matter of right now -- or never!" But I could not afford a new car!
Anyway, I went over to the DeSoto dealer, to see what could be done. The dealer himself showed me a car -- the most beautiful car, I thought, I had ever seen! "We've had this car in here six weeks," he said. "My wife has used it six weeks as her personal car. It's just barely broken in -- has 1,700 miles."
"But I can't afford such a car," I said. "You can afford this one," he replied, confidently. "Because my wife drove it that 1,700 miles, I can make you a deal you can afford. Come, take a ride in it."
With assurance I was not obligated, I got in. It certainly was different than the old Graham! We drove out to our house, and I persuaded Mrs. Armstrong to get in for a short ride. She was very skeptical. She knew it was beyond our reach.
While we were gone, another man had appraised the old Graham. On our return, he handed a slip of paper to the dealer. He offered several hundred dollars for the old car -- which I had just learned was worth $5 less than nothing. Anyway, it came to within $50 of making the down payment, and he offered me the car on $40 per month payments. That was much less than I was now having to spend on repairs. But I could not meet the $50 cash payment. "Look, Mr. Armstrong -- I want you to have this car. Can you get me $10 cash before the end of the week, and the other $40 before the end of the month? I'll let the regular $40 monthly payments begin May 1. Now can you meet that? I simply insist on having some cash before you take the car -- if only $10."
Yes, I could do that. Actually, it was not going to increase expenses, but reduce them. It was providential!
And so, as it worked out, I got the $10 in to him on Thursday evening and took delivery of the car. And that car turned out to be, actually, the best car I have ever owned, even to this day. Those 1941 DeSotos were great cars.
The next morning, I married my own daughter -- to Mr. James A. Gott. After the wedding, they rode with Mrs. Armstrong and me in the new car to Seattle. There was just one way Mrs. Armstrong and I figured we could give them a honeymoon. The nicest short trip we knew for such an event was the boat trip from Seattle to Victoria, B.C. In those days they were running the very fine ships, the Princess Marguerite, and the Princess Kathleen -- later, I believe, destroyed in the war.
We regretted having to intrude ourselves into their honeymoon as far as Seattle, but it was the only way we could afford it at all. I had to be in Seattle by Sunday morning for the broadcast. Jimmy was able to get off from work only the two days, Friday and Monday. By going with us to Seattle, they had their transportation for that distance without cost.
We stopped overnight at Chehalis, arriving early next morning at the boat docks in Seattle. They arrived back Sunday night. We drove back to Eugene Monday. Having that almost -- new car made it a wonderful trip. That was once that a slightly used car was everything the dealer claimed!
Chapter 42 On the Air in Los Angeles! BY MID-MAY, 1941, the weekly listening audience, over the three stations in Eugene and Portland and in Seattle, had grown to a quarter of a million people.
That seemed a huge audience. Indeed, it was a huge audience. The work of God, having been started so very small was, as stated before, growing up.
The circulation of The Plain Truth had gone up to 5,000 copies.
We had started on the air in Seattle, on 1,000-watt KRSC, on September 15, 1940. By February, 1941, the mail response indicated a listening audience of more than 150,000. Beginning with the issue of August-September, 1940, The Plain Truth had "grown up" from a mimeographed paper to a sixteen-page printed magazine, bimonthly. By mid-May we were receiving between 200 and 300 letters from radio listeners every week, and mailing out 5,000 copies of The Plain Truth.
Office Outgrown
Now we experienced "growing pains" in real earnest. Now we really did have a tremendous problem on our hands.
It was becoming an utter impossibility to continue handling this volume of mail, and a 5,000-name mailing list, and mailing out the 5,000 copies, without equipment in that unventilated inside office room.
For seven years we had struggled to build this work from nothing to its 1941 size, without equipment. We had paid $5-per-month rent for this small inside room. It was without windows, without ventilation, except for two transoms. One transom opened into the hallway. The other opened into a large adjoining room where labor union meetings were held. The only ventilation we received through this transom was stale tobacco smoke from the preceding night's union meetings. We were able to work in this office room only about two hours at a time without going outdoors for air. It was not a healthful place to work.
We had no modern office equipment, not even a desk. There were a few shelves along one wall. We had no mailing equipment. The 5,000 names on the mailing list had to be kept by handwriting or typing. Each issue, the 5,000 copies of The Plain Truth had to be hand rolled into thin paper wrappers, stamped, addressed either by hand, or by myself on the one and only secondhand typewriter.
After going on KRSC in Seattle, this became an impossible task for Mrs. Armstrong and me, without help. Twice we had one girl or woman helping in the office, but now we had to ask several church brethren for volunteer help to come to the office to address wrappers, and help us roll them and stamp for mailing.
Then on May 14, 1941, a wonderful thing happened. A larger, sun-lit office became available to us. It was in the old I.O.O.F. Building in Eugene, on the third floor, rear northeast corner. There was an inner corner room, and a double-size outer room opening off the hallway. I could not afford to rent both rooms, but the building manager offered to let me have the inner corner office for $10 per month. He also said we could use the larger outer office part time, if necessary, until we could afford to rent the whole thing. A much larger adjoining room was available for future rental, when need and finance arrived.
This office had nice large windows -- sunlight -- fresh air. Let me tell you right here, I never was so grateful for sunlight and fresh air in all my life. I had never before realized how thankful we should be for sunlight and fresh air. That is one blessing most people have, but usually take for granted without any thanksgiving! How about you?
I now managed to buy an office desk -- after seven years. That same desk was used in the television program in 1955, seen by hundreds of thousands, coast to coast. I continued to use it as my desk, after moving the headquarters of the work to Pasadena, until 1955 or 1956. It is still doing service for one of God's ministers.
Our First Equipment
This desk was the very beginning of necessary equipment to administer the work of God. We had been forced to wait seven years for it.
About the time of moving to this larger office, I managed to buy an antiquated, secondhand, foot-operated addressing machine. With it we installed the first beginning of the Elliott system of stencils for the mailing list. These stencils are cut on a typewriter, or machine very similar to a typewriter.
That old foot-operated addressing machine made so much noise that the tenants on the floor below complained vigorously. Perhaps our many employees today working in the large, modern, air-conditioned mailing room may utter a momentary prayer of gratitude to the Great God who has provided them with the very finest and most efficient equipment the world affords.
I do not remember, now, what I paid for that ancient addressing machine. I believe we still have it stored somewhere around the Ambassador College campus. Perhaps we should get out some of this ancient crude equipment and form a museum of our own! It probably cost all of $10 or $15 -- we could not have afforded more, then. I'm sure many of our employees would laugh at it, today. But it was no laughing matter, then. We struggled along seven years to have it. And I very sincerely THANKED GOD for it!
Think of just the two of us -- with at times the help of a girl who knew no shorthand and could not use a typewriter -- handling and answering an average of 250 letters a week, besides all the other things Mrs. Armstrong and I had to do! Then having to call in a half dozen church brethren for volunteer help in addressing 5,000 copies of The Plain Truth BY HAND. And in those days we had to paste 1-cent stamps on every copy. Mrs. Armstrong had to cook paste of flour and water at home and bring it to the office to paste those wrappers.
About the time we moved to this new office, I managed to employ a secretary. I believe she started at $10 per week. Also, I now purchased my first filing cabinet. It was a heavy cardboard cabinet reinforced at corners and edges with very thin metal.
If anyone doubts that this work started the very smallest, let him realize we had to wait seven years for this cardboard file cabinet -- and then we could afford ONLY THE ONE. How many modern steel filing cabinets do we have TODAY? I simply don't know -- but it must be hundreds -- not only at Pasadena headquarters, in many different buildings on the campus, and in dozens and scores of offices around the world.
This great work of God not only started small. It grew very gradually. There was no mushroom growth.
Writing these things makes me realize HOW GRATEFUL we should be -- HOW MUCH we have to THANK GOD for! And all this God has done without requests for money on the air, or in any of our literature -- all of which is given FREE, upon request.
New Consciousness of Mission
About this time God impressed on my mind His real meaning of the prophecies in Ezekiel 33:1-19, and 3:17-21. The true significance of the entire book of Ezekiel had been revealed for some time. But now, suddenly, it took on immediate and specific and personal significance.
I had seen that Ezekiel was a prophet with a message for the FUTURE. He himself was in the captivity of the House of JUDAH -- the Jews. But he was not set a prophet with a message to these people. The original nation Israel had been divided after the death of Solomon into two nations. The northern kingdom of TEN TRIBES had its capital, not at Jerusalem, but at Samaria. It was called THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL -- not Judah. The kingdom of Israel had been invaded and conquered by King Shalmaneser of Assyria about 120 to 135 years before the Jewish captivity by Babylon.
The people of the House of Israel had been up-rooted from their homes, their farms and cities, and taken to the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Buy by the time of the Babylonish captivity of Judah, in Ezekiel's day, some of the House of Israel had migrated northwest to northwestern Europe and the British Isles.
Ezekiel was made a prophet to this nation -- not the nation of Judah among whose captives he lived. His message was a warning of INVASION and TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE NATION'S CITIES. That invasion was for the far future. The prophecy came more than 120 years after Israel already had been invaded and conquered.
God did not say, "Warn the people where you are." He said: "Son of man, I SEND THEE TO" the House of Israel. God said: "go" from where Ezekiel was, with JUDAH -- "GO, get thee UNTO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL."
But Ezekiel did not go. HE COULDN'T! He was a CAPTIVE of the Chaldeans. And no such gigantic military invasion has ever befallen the kingdom of ISRAEL since Ezekiel's prophecy was written! The prophecies of the Bible are nearly all DUAL. They have a two-fold fulfillment -- the one, often in Old Testament times, a type of the second, in these end-time days. The Assyrian captivity, more than a century before the prophecy was the type. The warning is for our day!
Again, there is a story-flow -- a time-sequence running through the book of Ezekiel. Other portions of the book show the prophecies pertain to the time shortly prior to the Second Coming of Christ. The 40th chapter to the end of the book deals with millennial events, yet future.
So now I saw Ezekiel was set a WATCHMAN -- to watch international conditions as well as God's prophecies and when this invasion is preparing, and near, shortly prior to Christ's coming to RULE THE WORLD, the watchman is to WARN the people who had migrated, in Ezekiel's day, to northwestern Europe and the British Isles! But Ezekiel never carried that warning! It was not for HIS TIME! He was used merely to write it! It now became plain to me that God was to use a modern 20th-century "Ezekiel" to shout this WARNING.
The realization flashed to my mind with terrific impact that in WORLD WAR II -- already then under way -- America being then drawn closer to participation -- that I could see this "sword" of WAR coming! I looked around. NO ONE had ever sounded this warning! No one was then sounding it! I saw numerous prophecies showing how terribly God is going to punish North America and the British Commonwealth people for our apostasy from Him. I saw our sins, individually and nationally, fast increasing!
The conviction came. IF God opened doors for the MASS-PROCLAMATION of His gospel, and of this warning, nationwide, I would walk through those doors and proclaim God's message faithfully, as long as He gave me guidance, power, and the means.
I had no illusions that I was chosen to be the "modern Ezekiel" to proclaim this message. But I did know that no one was sounding this alarm. I did plainly see this sword of destruction and punishment coming. I knew the time was near. Perhaps, with World War II well under way, it was even then upon us. We could not, then, foresee that God would grant another recess period in the series of world wars before the final round to end at "Armageddon."
And I did see, plainly, that God said: "IF the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned" that God would require the blood of the people -- and now whole peoples -- at the watchman's hand!
That was a stern warning to me. At least I was one of the watchmen who did see it coming! God had already placed the broadcasting facilities of three radio stations at my disposal. A quarter of a million people now heard my voice weekly. Possibly ten or fifteen thousand people read the 5,000 copies of The Plain Truth .
Of course I had been sounding this warning all along -- but only in the Pacific Northwest. Now I began to see that God intended to send it to ALL ISRAEL. And He had revealed to me that that meant, today, the United States, the British Commonwealth, and the nations of northwestern Europe. The idea of my being used, personally, in reaching Britain and these other countries did not yet take sharp focus in my mind. But I did now, for the first time, begin to think actively and definitely about this work expanding to the entire United States!
Door Opens to Reach NATION
God works out His purposes on His definite time schedule. This vision of urgency to warn the whole nation and renewed sense of mission came just when God was ready to OPEN DOORS NATIONALLY!
In June that year-1941 -- Mrs. Armstrong's sister and a friend were planning a trip to Detroit to take delivery on a new car. Somehow the suggestion came for Mrs. Armstrong and me -- with them -- to drive our new car as far as Chicago.
Immediately it flashed to my mind that in Des Moines, Iowa, where I had been born and reared, was an exclusive-channel 50,000-watt radio station, WHO. In those days I could tune it in any night out on the Pacific Coast. Only eight stations had exclusive channels -- no other station on the continent on their channels. For our purpose, I knew that WHO was then the most valuable and desirable station in all the United States for our purpose -- located not far from the geographical center of the nation.
Normally, I knew our chances of obtaining time on such a high prestige station were exactly nil. But then I remembered my uncle, Frank Armstrong, youngest brother of my father. For years he had been the leading advertising man in the state of Iowa. Perhaps his influence might help swing open the mighty door of WHO. Of course, we could not afford to buy time on so powerful a station -- but I would see about it, anyway.
Let me say, here, for the benefit of those not familiar with the radio-television field, there is a vast difference in 50,000-watt stations. Some 50,000-watt stations have far less coverage than others. The quality of equipment, the location of the transmitter, and other factors make all the difference. But WHO was -- and is -- one of the very top prestige stations. Its signal was phenomenal. Today, there are many more stations on the air as then. Today, none of these big stations reaches out like they did then.
So we drove our new DeSoto car to Chicago, where the girls took a bus to Detroit. Then we stopped at Des Moines on the return trip.
I had not seen my uncle for fifteen years. We had arranged by telephone to have a family get-together at the home of my cousin -- his daughter -- and her husband, in Indianola, a county seat town thirty miles south of Des Moines.
I suppose we were all a little surprised to observe the change that had taken place in the appearance of each of us -- after fifteen years.
We visited old friends of both my wife and myself around Indianola and Des Moines for a few days.
While there, my uncle called the general manager of WHO on the telephone, told him about me, and asked him to see me. After I explained about our program, he said he could clear a late Sunday night time, at 11 p.m., except for one Sunday night, each month. The owner of WHO was Col. B. J. Palmer owner of the Palmer Chiropractic Institute at Davenport, Iowa. Col. Palmer reserved the time of 11 to 11:30 p.m. on one Sunday night of each month for a personal talk by himself. Mr. Mailand, the station's manager, offered me the other three or four Sunday nights at this same hour, at the very low cost, for so powerful a station, of a little over $60 per half hour.
This was a tremendous opportunity -- but it was still beyond our reach. I told Mr. Mailand we were not yet ready for it, but hoped to be by the following year. I had felt we ought to go on a Los Angeles station first, anyway. But now, definitely, our vision expanded to broadcasting nationally, as soon as we could grow to it.
Los Angeles Door Opens
We had planned to swing by Los Angeles on our way home to investigate possibilities on radio stations there.
If Portland and Seattle radio stations had been hostile to programming religious broadcasts, I found Los Angeles even more so -- although there were a large number of religious programs on the air in Los Angeles.
Station KNX, the powerful 50,000-watt CBS outlet, carried Dr. Maclennan of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, John Mathews, who billed himself as "the Shepherd of the air" and Charles E. Fuller of "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour." I had listened quite regularly to all three, since KNX came in like a local station at night in Eugene.
But I did not even contact KNX. I knew it was completely beyond our financial ability. To me, in those days, these three radio broadcasters on KNX were real "Big Time." On the human level they seemed to me as giants, and I as a dwarf, so low beside them I would not have presumed to encroach on their valuable time by attempting to meet and shake hands with them. Yet, on the spiritual plane. I realized that God had given me a message that was not being preached, anywhere, except on our program. But I felt very unimportant in my own eyes.
I found stations in Los Angeles closing their doors on religious broadcasts. Yet, when I went over to KMTR (it is now KLAC), I found the manager, Mr. Ken Tinkham friendly. He told me the station was cutting down on religious programs, though the station still carried several. It was only a 1,000-watt station, but Mr. Tinkham explained how the transmitter was directly over an underground river, which had the rather freak effect of giving their signal a power equal to about 40,000 watts. Underground river or not, I found it true that the station then had a better signal than any station in Los Angeles, except the 50,000-watt stations. It was heard like a local station in San Diego, 120 miles away, and even in Bakersfield, which is over the mountains.
As we talked, I could sense Mr. Tinkham warming up to Mrs. Armstrong and me. Finally, he said he would try, later, to open up a Sunday morning time for me. I had told him we were not yet ready to go on the air in Los Angeles.
An Eighteen -- Day Fast
The long strain of building the work through seven and a half years, without facilities or financial resources, had been taking its toll physically. I had been losing sleep. The constant driving on high tension to keep up with the growing work had told on my nerves. The weekly trips of 650 miles to Seattle and back added to the grind.
So, on returning to Eugene, Mrs. Armstrong and I with our boys, went over on the Oregon coast to one of the little-frequented beaches, and rented a small cabin. There I went on an eighteen-day fast for both physical and spiritual recharging. An unfit man cannot accomplish much. I returned to the new office in Eugene, August 12, 1941, refreshed and renewed, with new vigor. With the KMTR and the WHO doors standing ajar, just waiting to open to us, there was now redoubled incentive to push forward.
First Airplane Flight
By December of that year, I decided to ease the strain of those long drives to Seattle -- at least part of the time. Consequently on Saturday night, December 6, I left my car in Portland, and took the train to Seattle. I had found that the overnight train arrived in Seattle in time for the 8:30 broadcast at KRSC, if it was on time.
But on that particular Sunday morning, the train was late. But by getting off at Tacoma, and hiring a taxicab, I was able to arrive on time.
I had found that I could take a plane leaving Seattle somewhere around noon, getting me back to Portland in time for the 4 p.m. broadcast on KWJJ. This was the first time in my life I had ever been up in an airplane.
I shall never forget that night. About fifteen minutes after takeoff, I noticed the captain near the passenger cabin. He knelt beside the passengers in the front seats, and in low tones spoke to them. Then he repeated this to those in the second row. My curiosity was aroused.
When he came to me, he said he had just received word over the plane's radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor that morning, December 7 -- that the United States Navy fleet stationed there had been knocked out. The captain had spoken so quietly to prevent any excitement of hysteria on the plane. THAT MEANT WAR!
The United States, it flashed to my mind, was now drawn into World War II!
Arriving in Portland, I jumped into a cab and got to the radio studio as quickly as possible. I purchased the extra newspapers being sold on the streets. I carefully scanned the teletapes of latest news at the radio station. Out came my portable typewriter. A new broadcast was dashed off.
At 4 p.m. I went on the air with one of the red-hottest broadcasts of my life. I knew that all of my listeners probably knew, already, of the Pearl Harbor "day of infamy." I merely reported the very latest few items of news, then went into an explanation of the MEANING of it IN BIBLICAL PROPHECY. This was one of the exciting incidents of my life.
From that point on, my broadcasts took on more and more the nature of news analysis of the war. Listener interest increased now that the United States was in the war.
Music Dropped from Program
It was now, more than ever, that my twenty years' experience in the newspaper and magazine field profited the work. Not only did I have long experience in recognizing significant news, and in processes of analysis (of news as well as of business and merchandising conditions), but now, with a fourteen-year accumulation of biblical knowledge and understanding of prophecies, resulting from these years of intense and concentrated (as well as consecrated) study, I was able to produce radio programs that carried even greater public interest than those of the network news analysts.
At this time news reporting and news analysis constituted by far the number one listener interest on radio. A number of nationally famous news commentators and analysts gained the public spotlight -- such men as Elmer Davis, H.V. Kaltenborn, Raymond Gram Swing, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid and others just to name a few.
But these men knew nothing of biblical prophecy. Not knowing the real purpose being worked out here below, they did not grasp the true significance on the world of the future, of the news they were analyzing. They did not know where it was leading.
On the other hand, none of the ministers broadcasting religious programs had the newspaper and analytic background, nor, I may add, the true understanding of the prophecies, to connect that entire third of the Bible with the war events.
Putting the two together -- factual knowledge and analysis of war events, with biblical prophecies -- put at my disposal a powerful interest-compelling message.
Radio station managers recognized this. At the time, they welcomed and encouraged it. They began to suggest dropping off the music. I have mentioned before that when the program started, the first Sunday in 1934, it was not called The World Tomorrow, but Radio Church of God. It was, actually, the format of a typical church service condensed into a half hour. Only, instead of taking up most of the time with music, announcements, and special events with a fifteen-minute sermon, out of a service an hour and fifteen to thirty minutes long, I did get in a twenty-three- to twenty-six-minute sermon on a twenty-nine-and-a-half-minute program.
We started with our opening theme, then a lively two-verse hymn -- never more than two verses on the air -- then a short prayer with hummed music background, announcements, a short anthemette, then the sermon, then reminder of announcements about The Plain Truth, and sign-off over closing theme music.
But we noticed that not more than one in a couple thousand letters ever mentioned the music. What evoked interest, and brought response, was the MESSAGE.
At first I was both reluctant and afraid to drop the music. So I experimented by reducing it. No harm resulted. There was no lessening in the response or expressed interest. I reduced it still more. Finally, it was eliminated altogether. We found, as radio station managers had recommended, that our program attracted and held a much larger interest when it started off with analysis of world events and the MEANING, as revealed in biblical prophecy.
I Meet Future Son-in-Law
Shortly prior to our summer trip to Chicago and Los Angeles in 1941, our younger daughter had become engaged to Vern R. Mattson, a University of Oregon student. He had joined the Marines and at the time we reached Los Angeles was in boot camp in San Diego. Dorothy was then working in the office with the one secretary we had then employed. She insisted on coming to Los Angeles while we were there, to visit Vern.
When she arrived, it was necessary for Mrs. Armstrong to take the train back to Eugene, to help keep up the work in the office.
I drove Dorothy down to San Diego. It was the first time I had ever met Vern Mattson. I was not sure I approved of the engagement. When he came to the car, he virtually ignored me. I made some embarrassed comment in an effort to be friendly.
"Look, I'm not marrying you, I'm going to marry your daughter!" he snapped.
Mr. Mattson may be surprised when he reads this. He probably doesn't remember it now. He didn't really mean to be rude -- he was in Marine boot camp -- and it has the reputation of being REAL TOUGH. He was being put through the paces without being spared, and his nerves were taut. Actually, as I learned later, he is one of the most friendly men I ever knew.
I found him to be tall -- six feet three -- blond, and, as Dorothy insisted, the handsomest man in the world. But with his boot camp haircut and baggy garb, he did not appear quite that handsome -- to me. The war was to enforce a delay in their marriage for a few years and when, after having been in the 1st Division U.S. Marines at Guadalcanal, then in an Australian hospital, back to America and Officers' School because of his outstanding war record, and commissioned a second lieutenant, with grades at the top of his class, the war finally was behind him. I do not want to get ahead of the story at this juncture, but later on -- for some twelve to thirteen years -- Mr. Mattson served as Controller of Ambassador College, and Business Manager of the Radio Church of God, in charge of business and financial affairs.
At Last -- LOS ANGELES!
After boot camp, Vern was sent back to Quantico, Virginia, for final training for overseas fighting. In April, 1942, Dorothy received word the Marines were shipping out. Vern didn't know where, but thought likely they would sail through the Panama Canal, with some possibility of a very brief stopover at San Diego, Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Immediately Dorothy demanded I take her to Los Angeles to be on hand if there was a brief landing at one of these three ports. Vern would not be able to get word to her until they landed. There might not be over twenty-four hours-or even less. It would be impossible for her to reach any one of these ports in time from Eugene.
Of course, I could not leave the work for any such trip, which might last for several weeks. But, on checking over the state of the work, I felt we could now, at last, dare to take the step of starting on the air in Los Angeles. To do this I needed to be there in person, and put on the broadcasts live, until we were well established in Southern California.
So with Dorothy I drove to Hollywood, since KMTR was located in Hollywood. We rented a small apartment within walking distance of the station. Mr. Tinkham managed to clear good time for us -- 9:30 Sunday mornings. The time had come to drop the church-service type program altogether. Since the original broadcast name, Radio Church of God, did not invite a listening from nonchurchgoers whom we wished primarily to reach, and since in the world's language the message of the true gospel -- the kingdom of God -- is about tomorrow's world, I adopted the broadcast name The World Tomorrow!
And so, mid-April, 1942, The World Tomorrow went on the air in Hollywood. In Hollywood I was able to do several things to make the program more professional. I was able to obtain the services of a big-time network announcer to put us on and take us off the air.
Although I used four or five different announcers in the next few years, I think the very first one was perhaps the best known of all -- Art Gilmore. He was coast-to-coast announcer on such CBS shows as Sam Spade, Stars over Hollywood, and, I believe by that time, Amos and Andy, besides several others. Since 1947, Art Gilmore has been on The World Tomorrow as our announcer, and millions worldwide will hear his voice at the beginning and the sign-off of the program except some of the foreign overseas stations. We still believe his is the best radio voice in America to precede our program. He also does the announcing on our TV programs. Our readers may be glad to know that Mr. Gilmore is a fine, upstanding, sincere and high-principled man.
Another reason for going to Hollywood was that Hollywood was radio headquarters for the nation. Most of the top-rated network shows originated there. As a result, I could get a quality of recording for our electrical transcription discs there I had never been able to obtain in Eugene. We had now reached the stage where the amateurish, home-made type of transcriptions I was able to have recorded in Eugene would no longer be acceptable on stations like KMTR or WHO. In Hollywood I could obtain the very finest professional recordings.
While in Hollywood, I recorded the Sunday programs for the Pacific Northwest stations either Thursday nights or Friday mornings, drove to the airport (then at Burbank) and got them off by air-express. These top-level professional recordings, with a nationally known network announcer, and the program name, The World Tomorrow, elevated our radio program, at last, to top quality professional level.
Chapter 43 Impact of Daily Radio! WE WERE now ON THE AIR -- IN HOLLYWOOD! The radio station KMTR (now KLAC) had the very desirable wavelength of 570 kilocycles on the radio dial. This, combined with exceptional and unusual mechanical and transmitter advantages gave it a daytime signal almost equal to the average 50,000-watt station.
The mail response from listeners was at least double that of any of the three stations already used in the Pacific Northwest.
And Now -- DAILY Broadcasting!
Within about two weeks a new opportunity came. When Mr. Tinkham called me to his office and offered it I didn't know whether to regard it as an opportunity or a temptation to disaster.
One of the leading Los Angeles radio ministers, Dr. Clem Davies, had been using two half-hour periods on KMTR daily, at 5:30 in the evening, and a morning half-hour. He was now changing to one program daily at the more expensive time of around 7:30 in the evening.
Mr. Tinkham offered me the 5:30 p.m. time Mondays through Saturdays, in addition to the 9:30 Sunday morning half-hour. The cost would be nearly six times the amount per week I was already paying KMTR. It had been a big leap ahead, in expenditures, as well as in numbers reached, to take on the Sunday broadcasting in the Los Angeles area.
The thought of meeting this tremendous additional increase in expenses was staggering. Where would the money come from? There was no time to send letters to co-workers to see whether they would -- or even could -- pledge enough to guarantee this mountainous increase in expenses. I had to grab that open time within twenty-four hours or lose it.
Our readers will remember that I had learned the costly lesson back in the period from November, 1934, to late in 1936. The door of KXL, Portland, had opened. We then were on only one station, our original KORE, Eugene. But instead of recognizing that the living Christ, who heads God's work, had opened this door and expected me to walk through in FAITH, I wanted to rely on pledges from PEOPLE. When our brethren and co-workers pledged only half enough, I was afraid to incur the obligation. Christ did not open that door before me again for two whole years!
Now He had opened another door. To me, at that time, this was a stupendous door. It probably meant at least doubling the entire expenses of the whole work ¡n one sudden jump! And I had to pay each week in advance. too!
I telephoned Mrs. Armstrong at the office in Eugene. The total balance we had in the bank at the moment was exactly the amount of one week's daily broadcasting.
Well, even if it was our last dollar, God had supplied TODAY'S need for this colossal opportunity He had opened to us! Jesus' sample prayer teaches us to ask "Give us this day our daily bread." God does not often give us today our need for next year -- though He tells us elsewhere it is right for us to lay up in the summer for the winter's need, and even to lay up ahead for our children and grandchildren.
But I had learned the lesson at great price. This decision took courage. It took faith. God had opened now the biggest door so far. He had supplied the immediate need of that particular day.
I walked promptly through that door IN FAITH Blind faith! I could not see where the money for second week's daily broadcasting could come from. How could our income for the whole work suddenly double.
I decided that was GOD's problem and responsibility. I committed it to Him, and wrote out a check for every dollar we had in the bank. Now we were on the air, in southern California, seven days a week! That was by far the most tremendous leap ahead!
Tremendous Response
But, miracle of miracles! -- for once in our experience, the impact of this early evening DAILY broadcasting was as tremendous as the test of faith had been! Not once did I ask for contributions on the air, just as I had refused to do from the first broadcast in 1934. And the mailing address for free literature and The Plain Truth, offered on each program, was then Box 111, Eugene, Oregon.
Not only was there an immediate tremendous increase in mail from listeners -- there was a corresponding increase in tithes and offerings arriving in Eugene.
The first week rolled by quickly. On the day the second week's advance-payment for radio time was due, I telephoned our office in Eugene. The money for the second week's broadcasting was in the bank! And, a week later, there was enough for the third -- and then the fourth, and on and on! God continued, week by week, to supply the NEED!
This daily broadcasting was a new experience. At that time I had always spoken on the air from written script. During those war years it was required. To write the script for a half-hour broadcast, including the study and research for material, occupied my entire time.
It now became daily routine. Early in the morning, each day, I started getting the broadcast material assembled and outlined -- then putting it on the typewriter. Around 4:30 in the afternoon I pulled the last sheet of paper from the typewriter. Then the walk of a mile or so to the radio station, and on the air at 5:30.
Once a week -- it was Thursday evenings -- after the daily program, I went to a restaurant for dinner, checking the evening newspapers and the weekly news magazines for war news I could use -- then, whipping together an outline of the material, I went on to the recording studio to record the Sunday program for the three Pacific Northwest stations. Then a drive to the Burbank airport to put the large transcription discs into the air-express office.
It was a grind. But it was doubling the size, scope and power of God's work, and that was a rewarding thrill.
Week after week this routine continued. As the weeks passed, no word came from Vern Mattson. We learned later that the 1st Division Marines had sailed through the Panama Canal and straight through the Pacific to Guadalcanal, where they made their spectacular landing in the very first offensive, driving the Japanese back from the vast Pacific empire they had captured.
Training a Son
As soon as school was out in early June, Mrs. Armstrong called me on the telephone from Eugene.
"I'm sending Dick down to you on the next train," she said. "He's grown too big for me to punish, and I simply can't manage him any more."
Dick was then thirteen, and only about four months from reaching fourteen. He was sprouting up.
Two problems had presented themselves with our two sons. Ted (Garner Ted, but we always called him Ted) had always been a "little fellow" -- short for his age. Dick had been of normal height for his age. But our readers will remember that Mrs. Armstrong, over my protest, had insisted on starting the two boys in the first grade in school together. I had finally acquiesced to this. Ted had always been, as a small boy, a favorite with his women teachers.
Because Ted, sixteen months younger, had always basked in the limelight -- "stolen the show" so to speak -- Dick had developed an oversized inferiority complex. Here he was, sprouting up to a full man's height, almost fourteen, but seriously lacking in confidence.
From the moment Mrs. Armstrong said she was shipping Dick down to me, I knew I had to find a way to help him overcome his inferiority complex.
I decided on a definite plan. About the second day he was with us in Hollywood -- after showing him around Hollywood to some extent -- I asked him if he would not like to go over and see a boyhood friend, John Haeber, who lived in Hawthorne, south of Los Angeles. The Haebers' had spent a lot of time in Oregon, and our boys had become acquainted with John, about their age.
Next morning early I gave Dick enough money for car fare to Hawthorne and back.
"Well, Dad, I don't know the way. How shall I go?" Dick asked.
"Dick," I said, "you have to begin right now learning to be self-reliant and finding your own way around. You already have the Haebers' street address. Learn to 'carry a message to Garcia' on your own. I'm too busy getting the broadcast ready to tell you. Here's car fare. You're on your own. Find your own way. And be back here in time for dinner. Good-bye, son."
What went on in Dick's mind at that moment I never knew. But I opened the door, he went out, and he was on his own. Somehow, he worked out his problem. He arrived at the Haebers', and was back in time for dinner. That was the beginning of my program for him.
A few days later I asked him if he would like to spend the day out at the beach -- at Santa Monica and Oceanside. I gave him carfare. Again, I gave him no directions whatever, but told him to find his own way.
He was a little late returning. Somehow, he had lost his return carfare in the sand. I do not remember now how he managed getting back to Hollywood -- but he worked his own way out of his predicament without telephoning me for help. He lacked even the price of a telephone call, anyway.
A little later he mentioned going to the zoo. I didn't know where the zoo was, but gave him permission to go -- again on his own.
Dick was learning self-reliance. He was developing initiative. He was finding his own way around. I planned to have Mrs. Armstrong and Ted come down before we ended our summer and returned to Oregon. One last thing remained in my plan before they came. I took Dick two or three times boating on the lagoons in MacArthur and Echo parks, taught him how to use the motorboats rented out there.
Now I was ready for Dick's final exam in his course in self-reliance, and overcoming a feeling of inferiority to Ted.
Filling the Biltmore
Dr. Clem Davies, whose time I had taken over on KMTR, had been holding regular Sunday services at the Biltmore Theater, largest in downtown Los Angeles. About the time he relinquished the 5:30 evening time for the better 7:30 time, a dramatic or comedy show starring George Jessel was opening at the Biltmore.
This had forced Mr. Davies out of the Biltmore, and he had moved his Sunday services to an auditorium at the Ambassador Hotel.
Along in early July, probably close to the 10th, I heard that the Jessel show was ending its engagement and moving on to San Francisco. Immediately I went to the office of the manager of the theater.
The last Jessel performance was to be Saturday night. Would the theater be available on next Sunday?
"Why, yes, the theater will be available," he said, "but you couldn't afford to rent it."
"How do you know I couldn't?" I demanded. "How much will it cost?"
"Now look, Mr. Armstrong," he persisted. "Dr. Davies had been holding services here a long time. It took him years to build up a good-sized audience. He took up three collections at every service -- and he just barely took in enough to pay the rent. You've only been on the air down here about three months. You haven't had time to build up a fraction of Dr. Davies' following yet. Even if you took up four collections in your service, you'd never get enough to pay for it -- and besides, I'd have to have the entire rent in advance. You haven't been on the air down here long enough yet to fill a big auditorium like the Biltmore."
"Well, that's what I'd like to find out," I replied. "And I will not take up any collections at all! But how can I tell whether I can afford it, unless you tell me the amount of the rental?"
I think it was $175. And it was already Wednesday, late afternoon.
I told him I would be back with the decision in a few moments. The Biltmore Theater occupies one corner of the large block occupied otherwise by the large Biltmore Hotel. I went to the hotel lobby and called Mrs. Armstrong at our office in Eugene by long distance telephone. Once again, we had just enough money in the bank to pay this rental in advance, and the price of postal cards for the Los Angeles mailing list.
I dictated over the telephone an announcement to our secretary, instructing them at the Eugene office to have the announcement mimeographed on the cards, all addressed to those on the Southern California mailing list, and get them in one big package into the air-express office addressed to me, yet that same evening. It was then only about fifteen minutes before closing time at the post office.
I dashed back into the theater lobby and up to the manager's office and wrote him out a check for the following Sunday's rental.
In those days, because of the war and fear of Japanese bombing, we were having blackouts every night. I had been advised that people in Los Angeles would not come out to a religious service at night. Theatergoers would attend the theater for night performances -- but for some reason people were afraid to attend a religious service at night. It merely demonstrated where people's hearts and interests were.
So the meeting had to be held on Sunday afternoon -- I believe the time was 3 p.m.
Next day, Thursday, the large package of printed and addressed postcards arrived. I took them to the Hollywood post office. There was a vigorous protest about letting me mail them there. I had not bought the cards there. That post office lost the credit for the sale of the post cards, and objected to having the expense of handling charged to them. But I explained our emergency, and there was no other way I could have done it. They finally took them.
Then on my program, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, I announced the Sunday afternoon meeting at the Biltmore -- and finally, again, on Sunday morning. People received the postcard announcements Friday and Saturday.
After the Sunday morning broadcast, Dick, Dorothy and I went back to our apartment very tense. Would enough people come to look like a fair-sized audience, or would the small crowd simply look LOST in that big theatre seating about 1,900 people?
"Oh BOY!" Dick had exclaimed excitedly, as soon as he had heard I had rented the Biltmore Theater. "I'm going to sit in a BOX! I've always wanted to sit in a box in a theatre. Now my Dad has rented the whole theater. Oh BOY! I'm going to sit in a box at last!"
We took a streetcar to the theatre, arriving about 2:15. A few blocks away I noticed the streets were unusually crowded with people -- especially for Sunday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. I wondered what was going on!
We soon found out. It seemed all those people were going in one direction -- toward the Biltmore Theater!
I thought it best that I not get involved in a handshaking experience until after the service, because I still had to prepare the sermon. So I went in through the rear stage door, while Dick and Dorothy entered by the lobby entrance.
I learned later what happened. All of Dr. Davies' former ushers were on hand, and it seemed they had gotten divided somehow into two divisions. There was no one in charge, and there was a dispute over which group of ushers was taking over. Confusion reigned.
Dick's experience in self-reliance and initiative now paid off. Immediately he -- not yet fourteen -- took charge. He called all the ushers to one side.
"I'm Dick Armstrong," he told them, "and I'm taking charge here."
Then he snapped out orders. He said he would use all the ushers, since the crowds were literally streaming in -- and each would do whatever he assigned. He then, without any previous experience, organized the two groups, assigned stations to each man, directed everything, and from that moment there was order.
It had never occurred to me we would have a crowd large enough to need ushers -- and I would certainly not have known where to turn to obtain ushers, anyway. But God worked that out, supplied the needed ushers, and used Dick to restore quick order and system.
No Collections
Although I had never taken up any collections in any public evangelistic service -- and have not to this day, and never shall -- I did have two things done hurriedly on Thursday and Friday of that week. I had a sign painter turn out large lobby signs for the theater, and I had two wooden boxes made, about the size of a shoe box, with a slot in the top of each. These were placed at each end of the inner lobby of the theater by Dick -- one side, and not in the direct path of the exits from the inner aisles.
Actually, Dick did get to sit in his box -- but by the time service was to begin, all the boxes were crowded full. Nevertheless, he went into a box, told them who he was, and the people managed to squeeze a little closer and make room for one more.
The first floor and the balcony were packed solid, and the second balcony half or more than half filled. The attendance was 1,750!
I had decided to conduct the service just like a broadcast -- precisely on time! At precisely 5 seconds before 3 p.m., I walked briskly to the pulpit in the center of the stage, arriving at the pulpit at 3 o'clock to the second. Before I could say a word, I was surprised by an uproarious burst of applause. I had never seen or heard anything like that at a religious meeting. But I learned later that this was common practice in Los Angeles, and ministers are commonly called "doctor" whether they possess any such degree or not. Up in the second balcony there was the blowing of a foghorn. A well-known Los Angeles character, who went along barefoot and with long, flowing white hair and, I believe, in a white robe, whom I heard called "Father Time," had come in. But there were no others of that type.
As soon as the applause died down, I started with the usual, "GREETINGS, FRIENDS!" -- then another burst of laughing applause. I said, rapidly, that although I loved to sing hymns as much as any of them, that right now we were in a WAR, prophecy was being rapidly fulfilled, and I had things of too great importance to say to take up time with either singing, or taking up collections. I said that I knew some would be disappointed if they could not leave an offering, and for those who wanted to, there were the two offering boxes in the rear lobby -- but that they would not see them unless they went out of the usual path to find them -- that we never took up collections, never asked for contributions either in such services, nor over the air.
Then I got immediately into my message, and closed the service right on the exact second -- I think it had been announced to close at 4:15 -- just as the broadcasts have to end precisely on the second.
Later, when we opened the two offering boxes, what do you suppose we found? Yes, I think you guessed it! Exactly, to the penny, the precise amount of the expense of hiring the theater, extra cost of janitor and electrician, the lobby signs, and the postcard announcements. That is, to the penny. THERE WAS EXACTLY ONE CENT MORE THAN THIS EXACT AMOUNT!
Dick's "Final Exam"
We engaged the Biltmore for the following two Sundays. We decided, for those two Sundays, to hold TWO services each Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure, now, of the exact time, but I think the first service started at 1:30, ending at 2:45, and the second service started at 3:30, ending at 4:45.
It was planned to have Mrs. Armstrong and young Garner Ted, then twelve and a half years of age, come down in time for the final Biltmore service, and our whole family would drive back together.
At each of these two services at the Biltmore, total attendance was estimated at 2,000. There were 1,300 or 1,400 at each service, with several who attended the first service coming back for the second. For this reason I preached different sermons at each service.
But I had another motive in getting Ted down to Hollywood before returning to Eugene. I needed his presence for Dick's "final exam" in snapping him out of feeling inferior to Ted.
Our office secretary and her husband drove them down in our car, which I had left at home when we left in April. They were there three or four days, and it seems we started back to Oregon on July 31, after the final Biltmore service.
When they arrived, I explained to Dick that he would have to take Ted in tow.
"Now remember, Dick," I briefed him, "Ted is not as old as you, and he's never been to Hollywood before. He'll be pretty green. I want you to look after him -- take him places -- show him Hollywood and Los Angeles. Take him boating on the lake in Echo Park, but don't let him handle the boat -- he wouldn't know how." During those few days, Dick was the complete leader. For the first time in his life he was made to realize that he was not inferior, but LEADER over Ted.
Dick passed this "final exam" with flying colors and a grade of "A." The feeling of being inferior to Ted was gone. And, it did no harm to Ted, for he did not realize, then, what was being done. However, it was some time after this that Ted went into his intensive "muscle-building" program.
But Dick was still human. And it is human to go from one extreme to the other. Once back in Eugene, far from feeling whipped and inferior, Dick now was suddenly a "big shot."
It was a glamorous thing to have been in Hollywood. Dick had spent most of the summer there. The other boys had not been there.
So now I had to go to work on him again, and get him back in the "middle of the road." And with God's help this was achieved, and later he came to have the supreme confidence that is FAITH IN GOD rather than confidence in self, and to have full assurance, yet in humility. That is a difficult state for any human to attain -- but one of the supreme right goals of life!
Chapter 44
Work Leaps Ahead -- World Tomorrow Heard Nationwide
THE YEAR 1942 was by far our biggest year of progress up to that date. The response to daily broadcasting on station KMTR (now KLAC) was an eye-opener to me. The effectiveness appeared to be more than seven times that of the once-a-week program. Response was immediate. And even though no request for contributions ever was made, voluntary contributions were sufficient, from the very first week, to pay the multiplied expense.
But after the three Sunday afternoon evangelistic meetings held at the large Biltmore Theater in downtown Los Angeles, the last three Sundays of July, it was necessary to return to Eugene, Oregon.
At that juncture I had to drop off the daily weeknight broadcasting. Recording facilities in Eugene were not adequate to carry on a seven-programs-per-week schedule from our home office in Eugene. Yet I had learned by this experience the tremendous POWER and impact of daily broadcasting.
Planning Expansion
Back in Eugene, after almost four months in Hollywood, our co-worker list had grown to at least double. In other words, twice as many or more were now co-workers with me, supporting God's work regularly with their tithes and offerings.
Although I was unable, because of lack of facilities, to continue the daily broadcasting at that time, it was most gratifying to be able to now make a big expansion in other directions.
As related earlier, that superpower station WHO, Des Moines, had offered me time. On our trip to Des Moines and Chicago, the summer of 1941, this tremendous opportunity had opened.
Of course, in 1941, this giant WHO was still completely beyond our reach. But by early August, 1942, with our income doubled, and with the very low rate offered by the Manager of WHO, I felt ready to take this leap.
Before going to Des Moines, I decided to reinforce our radio coverage of the Pacific Northwest. Station KGA, Spokane, had offered us time at the early Sunday morning time of 8 a.m. In Seattle, station KRSC had moved us to the earlier time of 8 a.m. from the better time of 8:30. Once again I employed the old Postal Telegraph lines for a network broadcast between Seattle and Spokane. We called it the Liberty Network.
I overlooked mentioning that, before leaving Hollywood, I had arranged to release the program Sunday mornings over station KFMB, San Diego. At that time the old KMTR signal was so strong in San Diego, more than 100 miles distant, that KFMB was able to pick the program out of the air and rebroadcast it at the same hour, 9:30 a.m.
And so now, with coverage on the Pacific Coast over stations in San Diego, Hollywood, Eugene, Portland, Seattle and Spokane, I took the train to Des Moines, Iowa.
And now NATIONAL!
On Sunday night, 11 p.m., August 30, 1942, for the first time in my life I was speaking, from the studios of WHO, to a nationwide audience! I have before me, now, the script of that program.
The announcer's voice -- recorded, and I think it was the voice of famous network announcer Art Gilmore, as it is today -- heard in all parts of the nation, was saying:
"The WORLD TOMORROW! At this same time every Sunday, Herbert W. Armstrong analyzes today's world news, with the prophecies of The WORLD TOMORROW!"
And then, for the first time heard nationally: "GREETINGS, Friends! We enter the fourth year of this war next Tuesday. We entered the ninth week of the supreme CRISIS of the war today! In all probability the ultimate outcome is being determined right now on the Russian front!"
And then followed an outline of Hitler's "Thousand-Year Plan" for world rule by German Nazis. On this very first program heard nationally the coming UNITED STATES OF EUROPE was proclaimed. By that time it was already becoming apparent to me that Hitler would be defeated, and that this resurrected ROMAN EMPIRE would precipitate a third and final World War, at a later time after another recess between wars.
Then, in that first nationwide program, GOD'S Thousand-Year Plan was explained from the Bible -- the coming millennium! Hitler's plan was indeed a satanic and clever counterfeit, aimed at producing diametrically opposite results. Where Christ's millennial rule shall bring freedom and happiness, Hitler's would have produced slavery. Where Christ's reign shall give eternal life to multitudes, Hitler's would have brought torturous DEATH to enslaved millions.
Twelve-Page Plain Truth
Before going to Des Moines to begin the broadcasting over WHO, I had written and turned over to the printers in Eugene the articles for the August-September issue of The Plain Truth. We were not up to twelve pages, although it still was coming out bimonthly.
The leading article in that number revealed the amazing Japanese plan for conquering the United States. It was based on a Japanese Mein Kampf, called the Tanaka Memorial. This plan had been in process of development for three hundred years -- growing out of an ancient document dated May 18, 1592. The great national hero of Japan, Hideyoshi, had set forth in this document the great national plan for world empire and setting the Mikado on the throne to rule the world.
This had been a Japanese national dream for three centuries. Then on July 25, Baron Tanaka, then Premier, presented The Tanaka Memorial as a definite blueprint for world conquest to the Mikado. This led directly to the bombing of Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. It was based on the religious conviction that the Mikado is the direct descendant of the Mother of Heaven. Being, therefore, the SON of Heaven, the Emperor had to be established on the throne of the world to show that he is GOD. Thus even the Japanese attack had vital significance as another counterfeit of CHRIST'S GOSPEL of the kingdom of God -- and of Jesus Christ as the true SON of GOD, who is to RULE THE WORLD!
An article captioned "The WAR, at the Moment" said this: "We entered the supreme CRISIS of this war the first of July. It came with the launching of Hitler's supreme gamble for the Russian Caucasus .... The situation is this: We do not have to WIN the war this year, but Hitler does! United States power is mounting fast. It is only a matter of perhaps ten to twelve more weeks until this nation shall be able to hurl such crushing power against the Axis that, with this power steadily increasing, the ultimate outcome will be assured, with victory for the Democracies .... It might, even then, take us until 1945 to end it, but the outcome would be predetermined .... From now on Axis power cannot increase, while Allied power will ....
"And so it is A RACE AGAINST TIME .... The Germans, to win, must win before we get set with the power we shall have by approximately November 1st. They must knock Russia out of the war. They must take Suez and drive the British out of the Mediterranean and the Near East. They must be ready to turn west, against the British Isles, without fear of attack from behind, free to hurl their WHOLE POWER against Britain in one supreme final victory, before we can launch the much-talked-of offensive against Hitler's Europe .... Hitler staked everything on his death-gamble that he could knock out Russia before the Allies can open the second European front."
There, in summary, was the analysis of the war as of August, 1942, as reported in The Plain Truth. Looking back in retrospect, the analysis was accurate. Hitler did take too big a gamble. United States' might did turn the tide before the end of the year. And it did take until the spring of 1945, just as predicted, to END it!
Now POWERFUL Pressures
The work of God was now really beginning to "go places"! The message for which Jesus Christ was crucified -- the message the world has rejected ever since -- was for the first time being heard in every state in the Union!
But if God now was granting us to grow in power, He also allowed the persecution, opposition, and pressures aimed at STOPPING God's work to increase in power. Never before had we felt any truly MAJOR-power opposition. But now we did.
Along about the end of January, 1943, I received notice of cancellation from radio station WHO. I was in Hollywood at the time, broadcasting daily again for a few weeks on KMTR.
Consternation seized me. To be thrown off WHO at this stage might prove fatal to the whole work. Even though the charge they made for time was exceedingly low for such a station -- because of my uncle's local influence, I had been given a local rate -- and a religious rate at that, which was, as I remember, just half of the local commercial rate -- yet it seemed very large to us at the time. After five months we had spent quite a sum of money, for us at that time, as an investment in WHO broadcasting. We had not been on long enough, as yet, with only three programs a month, to have established the financial support from new co-workers hearing the program on WHO. Remember, we made no request, even indirectly, for financial support over the air. Nor was there any in the free literature we sent to listeners.
The WHO broadcast, our most costly so far, was being supported by Pacific Coast co-workers. It was not paying it's own way -- yet.
Immediately I obtained train reservations for Des Moines. Then I wrote out a letter addressed to WHO listeners who had written me in response to the program. In the letter I told our listeners what had happened, and asked them, if they wanted the World Tomorrow program to continue on the station, to write the station and tell them how they felt. Then I dictated the letter to my secretary in Eugene by long-distance telephone, and asked her to mimeograph it and mail immediately to the entire WHO mailing list.
Tremendous Response
That list had mounted and multiplied into many thousands. By this time we had received letters from all forty-eight states.
I remember one WHO broadcast in particular. I had recorded it at the Studio & Artists recording studios at Columbia Square, Hollywood, on a Thursday night. I had been overworked, losing sleep, and was tired. I was not up to usual broadcasting form that night. I knew it, and felt very badly about it. I tried, but for a half hour of speaking into the microphone it just seemed the usual spontaneous enthusiasm wasn't there.
"Mr. Armstrong," said the owner of the recording studio after I finished, "you ought to remember that WHO is a very important station. You ought to take it more seriously. This broadcast we just recorded was not good enough. You usually do better."
Now I felt worse. I knew only too well how poor it was. But I had tried. I had done the best I could. I just was too tired to be at my best. But there was no time to do it over. I had to rush it to the airport.
But what I had lacked in that program, God more than made up. That Sunday night God caused the weather to be extraordinarily cold -- all over the continent. In Iowa it was one of those twenty-below-zero nights, without wind -- cold and still! That is the kind of weather in which radio waves radiate with extraordinary sharpness. That very "poor" broadcast, as we thought when recording it, heard at 11 p.m. in the Central time zones, at midnight in the East, brought a total of TWENTY-TWO HUNDRED letters -- 2,200!
I think that was some kind of a national record for response to a half-hour speech starting at 11 p.m. on one station only! That one program brought mail from every state in the Union!
After that phenomenal record-breaking response, my sorrow over having thought I did poor work was turned to real JOY!
Well, that was a record! It will give the reader some idea of the way the mailing list had grown from WHO broadcasts.
Many thousands of letters went out from Eugene to these listeners the same day I dictated the letter by telephone.
Door Stays Open
A few days later I arrived in Des Moines. The cancellation had come, not from Mr. Mailand, but from the sales manager. So I went first to his office.
He stared at me. "Are you the man who has been flooding this station with all these thousands of letters of protest against canceling your program?" he demanded -- somewhat angrily, I thought.
"Why, I suppose so," I replied, rather startled. "Is that wrong?"
"Wrong? Why, man, don't you know that showering such a downpour of 'inspired' mail on any radio station is the very last way to influence the station? That kind of mail has no influence on us at all -- but it is a mighty big NUISANCE!"
"Well, I didn't realize that," I replied. "I thought you'd want to know how our program was being received by listeners. I surely didn't mean any offense."
"Well, let me tell you, Mr. Armstrong, I certainly learned that lesson! A while back we were appearing before the Federal Communications Commission in Washington. Before I went down there, we put out an appeal on the air for our listeners to write to the FCC. They did! And the officials of the FCC didn't like it."
"Well," I asked, "if I had to learn by experience, the same as you, and if you made the same mistake I did, then do you think you ought to blame me?"
He had to laugh at that. Nevertheless I found I was really on the spot -- and in trouble. I had not met this sales manager before. Because my uncle had known the general manager and arranged an appointment for me, I had transacted business with him. I saw immediately that this sales manager was a very able and competent man for that job -- undoubtedly very valuable to the station. But he did not like our program. He didn't say why. And I rather guessed that he felt I had taken matters over his head in going to the general manager of the station. Further, he explained that very powerful pressure had been brought on him from New York against selling time commercially for religious programming.
We went into Mr. Mailand's office. I learned that Mr. Mailand did like the program, and sat up Sunday nights until 11:30 so he could hear it. He was on my side, but his sales manager, a very aggressive man, was insistent the program go off.
I then explained to the two men our own position -- how we were a very small church in Eugene, Oregon, and how hundreds of people, mostly very poor people on the West Coast, had made great sacrifice to finance our broadcasting on this powerful station heard nationally.
"Mr. Mailand," I said, "I signed a year's contract with you. All these co-workers have backed me in good faith. I signed the contract in good faith. I believed that you signed it also in good faith, and that when you opened the door of this great station to us, and signed a contract to keep it open for a year, that WE COULD RELY ON YOUR WORD BEING GOOD. All these co-workers have backed me for five and one-half months feeling that, in due time, a sufficient number of interested listeners would voluntarily join them as co-workers backing this work financially to make the broadcasting to all the rest of the nation self-supporting. You know we never request contributions over the air, or in any literature. If you cancel now, YOU WILL CAUSE VERY GREAT INJURY TO US! You have given us a YEAR'S contract in which we trusted, and have taken this hard-earned money contributed by all these poor people -- and now threaten cancellation BEFORE we have had a chance to be on long enough to relieve those people of this burden. If you had told us you'd keep the door open only five and one-half months, we surely never would have signed the contract or started -- or have spent any money with you. Would you want to INJURE a Church by breaking your contract?"
"Well, Mr. Armstrong, of course we wouldn't. The way you put it, you make it mighty hard for me. Would you mind if Mr. B. (the sales manager) and I talk this over privately a few moments, to see what we can do?"
I was shown to a reception room outside. I was alone there, and quickly knelt before a chair and appealed to the God of Heaven. He had opened this giant DOOR. He had said no man can shut doors he opens. I asked Him to intervene and save His work.
When I was called back to Mr. Mailand's office, I was able to talk to him alone. He explained that he had opened that time and signed the contract in perfect good faith -- that he liked our program and was himself one of our interested listeners -- that he certainly didn't want to do us any injury -- but on the other hand, he didn't want to lose a very able and valuable sales manager.
"Mr. Armstrong," he said, "if we compromise by letting you fill out your contract and complete the year, will that give you time enough to become thoroughly established, and possibly to get on other stations that will maintain your coverage?"
Well, of course, I could not be sure, but it certainly would be a lot better than stopping the broadcast right then.
"Well, if I leave The World Tomorrow on the station until the year's contract is finished, will you agree to go off then?"
There was nothing else I could do -- I certainly had no contract beyond that time. Reluctantly I had to agree to this -- and actually it was a tremendous victory, after all.
We Go on WOAI
I have mentioned that there were, at that time, only eight stations in all America that enjoyed absolutely exclusive channels. One other, which by its location I felt might have a better chance of being heard nationally than most, was 50,000-watt WOAI of San Antonio, Texas.
From my hotel I immediately called Mr. Hugh Halff, manager of WOAI. Did he have 11 p.m. Sunday nights open -- could he clear it if he found the program acceptable? He could, but would have to know more about the program and audition it.
I caught the next train for San Antonio. I think Mr. Halff might have called Mr. Mailand, when I told him we were on WHO. Anyway, he had no objection to the program after listening to a transcribed broadcast, and the doors of WOAI swung open to us. The expense of adding this station six and one-half months before going off WHO gave us a tight squeeze, but it seemed imperative that we get our listeners established to listening to WOAI before we went off WHO and lost them altogether.
And so, although through the years, the individual doors of some radio stations have closed to us, the general giant DOOR of TV, radio and the printing press has never closed -- just as Christ has said that NO MAN CAN SHUT IT!
And every apparent setback has proved like the cocking of a gun -- it actually results in shooting us ahead faster than ever!
There probably are no finer, higher-prestige radio stations in the United States than WHO and WOAI, and today the World Tomorrow telecast is also hea