TALKS BY RADIO TELEPHONE

Southland Times, Issue 23818, 16 May 1939, Page 7

TALKS BY RADIO TELEPHONE

MORAL REARMAMENT CAMPAIGN LONDON SPEAKERS HEARD IN AMERICA (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 15. Novel radio telephone talks from London to New York to an audience of 20,000 at Madison Square Garden is described in cable messages received by the Oxford Group in New Zealand from its London headquarters reporting the inauguration of the moral rearmament campaign in America. Special facilities provided by the Post Office enabled speeches spoken into the London microphone to be transmitted across the Atlantic, carried by landline to the New York audience and rebroadcast throughout the United States and Canada.

The speakers from London included Lord Salisbury, Tod Sloan (a former East London dockland agitator), Sir Lynden Macassey, leader of _ the Parliamentary Bar, and Mr Austin Reed, a business man, and from New York Mrs James Roosevelt, the Mayor (Mr F. H. La Guardia), the Governor (Mr H. H. Lehman) and the former Governor (Mr Al Smith). In addition to the speeches, many messages from Britain to Dr Frank Buchman, leader of the group, were read at the meeting. The Lord Mayor.of London (Sir Frank Bowater) said: “May the world’s greatest cities lead in moral rearmament as the foundation for the new world of tomorrow. Others to send messages included Mr Joseph Hallaworth, chairman of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress, 123 Scottish Mayors, the Lord Mayors of Dublin and' Cardiff, 43 Mayors of London boroughs, the. secretary of the South Wales, Miners’ Federation, many leading sportsmen, including the Duke of Beaufort and Sir Pelham Warner, 3500 mothers (for mothers’ day in America), including Lady Elphinstone (the Queen’s sister), leaders of women’s movements and Dame Sybil Thorndike. Among the messages from prominent Americans read at the Madison Square meeting was one from the Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull): “The post war period has seen a general lowering of the standards of conduct, moral, political, social and economic. International morality has seldom been at a lower ebb. The time is ripe ’ and the need urgent for the renewal and restoration of the former high standard, both for individuals and governments.” Mr Harry H. Woodring, United States Secretary of War, sent the following message: “The heart of national defence is the rebirth of true patriotism among our people. Moral rearmament deepens and strengthens that love of country, without which no nation is secure and it deserves the support of every loyal American.” Speakers at the meeting included Dr Buchman, who said: “Moral rearmament is a national necessity to win a war against chaos. It is a race with time to remake men and nations.”. H. W. Austin, the tennis player, said: “The trouble in the world is the plain selfishness in everyone. Moral rearmament is a war on selfishness. To change the world we must change the people. I had to begin with myself.”