Censored at the Source – Sunday, May 26, 1940
A phrase commonly printed in connection with the news of the day is this: “Censored at the source.” Especially is this true of word that comes to us from across the troubled waters. It is the warning of an honest purveyor of news that no report can be relied upon with certainty, and that everything we read and hear is colored and modified to serve the purposes of those who control the news at its source.
It would be a happy day if all of the things that we read and hear were presented with like honesty – with frank admission that they are censored at the source. In both private conversation, and public declamation it is difficult to know when we are hearing truth, half truth, or unmodified falsehood. The teacher often censors facts for the ears of his students by placing his own interpretation upon them. The statistician often censors his information by quoting only part of the figures, or by giving his ‘Particular interpretation of the figures quoted. The public official, likewise, and also the writer of crusading books and pamphlets and. also the over- zealous promoter of goods and services, and also the neighbor who speaks in low and meaningful terms over the back fence, and Satan, himself, is, no doubt, skillful in the art of censoring news at the source. With so many claims and counterclaims, with so many extravagant representations and so many false accusations, and such a bedlam of conflicting views and contradictory reporter unless a man is wary, indeed, he will spend his lifetime on a diet of news censored at the source, and form his opinions and make his decisions on the basis of false information. We look with welcome to that day here or hereafter, when confusion will be cleared away, and when man will renew their communication with the source of all uncensored truth, even God, who is the Father of us all, and with whom uncensored communication is still open to those who will but attune themselves to it, even as in times of old.
As the nation prepares this week to remember those who have departed this life, the subject of death rises to challenge our thinking. There are many things to be more feared and less welcomed. Increasingly, as we go through life, we come to know that it is the common lot of all men – not that death which, with finality, consigns men to annihilation, but that ‘which is at once an ending and a beginning – by which men leave behind the cares of morality and enter an existence yet more glorious. None of us can avoid it. It comes alike to king and pauper, to the righteous and to the unrighteous Wherein we differ is not in our ability to avert death, but in the attitude with which we meet it, whether it be unto us or unto those we love. Learning to face it with trust and confidence is one of the greatest triumphs of the soul, and it belongs unto him who can say when asked whether death will take him: I go where the love and the mercy and the wisdom of my Father in Heaven wish to take me. Over him who can face it with such serenity, death can hold no terror and no sorrow beyond that of a temporary parting. Viewed with such certain faith as this, death becomes merely the last venture of this life, and the first great adventure of that life which is to follow .
May 26, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,562