The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-01-22
THE ROLE OF MISSIONARIES IN
The COLONIES
BY HARRY CANNES.

MISSIONARIES are just as important to- the
IVA imperialist masters in the colonies as their
armies and labor ministers, and the exposure OF
the action of the British government, condoned
bv Ramsay Macdonald, in the case of the mis-
sionary Keithan in Madura, south India China,
Africa. Indo- China and the Philippines to help
keep the masses shackled.
The Rev. Ralph r. Keithahn was sent to India
as a missionary by the American Board of Com
missionerS for Foreign Missions in the Madura
district. Naturally, being an American mission
airy his interests lay with Wall Street and not
with it's competitor British imperialism When
the Gandhist agitation began, Keithan good
missionary that he was made contacts with
friends of Gandhi, because this was good bust
ness for those who financed the American mis-
sionaries This angered the British in July, 1880,
and he was ordered deported Before Keithahn
was deported British magistrate, J. F. Hall,
wrote him letter. telling him what the imper-
ialist government expects of its missionaries.
Nowhere is there a more glaring example OF the
hand between the sky-pilots and the finance-cap-
italists in their common action in clamplng
down the yoke on the colonial masses than this
document 1t is not peculiarly British. 1t is the
basic policy of all mperialist powers and it is
followed implicitly by SO Cloths percent OF the
hoard of religious opium vendors in the colonial
countries. Kethan was told that the duties OF
missionaries in India were as follows:
ut is the duty not only of every servant of
the government, no matter in what department
he may serve, but also of every person what
ever his nationality may be, who belongs to
one of those nOn-official organizations which
are permitted by the government to participate
in any educational medical other public
work in India to show his disapproval of the
(natonalist) movement"
OF course the "disapproval" demanded by the
imperialists was not to be carried out in mega
tive form; and the degree of "disapprovap Of
workers and peasants revolutionary movements
erquired can well be imagined. Keithan, to-
gether with all other missionaries, was told that
their duty was to combat 'by informal talks"
all revolutionary activity and to encourage 10y
atty to the government'-that is, to the imper-
ialist government whether ruled by Macdonald
or Baldwin The instructions-the same given to
missionaries the world oyer-go on to say:
1.-THE government expects this service to be
faithfully performed and looks to you as
member of such missionary organization to
see that effect is given TO this expectation. Any
advice that you may require as to the partcu-
lar methods to be followed will be willingly
supplied by me on application"
The advice on methods which the magistrate
volunteered to give in secret was detailed in
structions on how to do spy work against revo-
lutionaries.
The same work is carried on by Roman Catho-
lie and other missionaries in the Dutch East
Indies, the French colonies, African colonies,
China, Indo-C hina-in every colony Of the i'm
peralist powers. The Standard Oil Co. has its
missionaries in China who do the same work.
Each missionary from the imperialst country
follows out the policy of loyalty to the govern
ment" OF his finance capitalist masters. That
is why millions are shelled out to them.
The China Century, missionary magazine,
published in China, in its issue of october 22nd,
admits that the American missionaries had gone
SO far in their open imperialist activities in China
that the "St Johns university, once the most
important mission college in China, now is mere
ly shell, due to the conviction of the Chinese
that, in time of test the college authorities
showed themselves out of sympathy with Chi
nese aspirations" And we may add, too clearly
showed their imperialist dirty work.
Missionaries are the poison gas carriers of the
mperialist butchers in the colonies.