Jonestown
Audiotape Primary Project : Transcripts
Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee, III. If
you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
Tape Number : Q 952
MP3 is available.
To read the Tape Summary, click here.
Jones: — give the love that you feel, or should feel, to your neighbor. Thank you. Give that love to a neighbor.
Sounds of passing the peace.
(Tape turns off for indeterminate period of time)
Jones: Famine, predicted, it says in today’s paper, the Chronicle, as a result of the prices of oil. One hundred million persons will starve to death yet this year, and 400 million will start suffering starvation before the end of this year, because of the worldwide shortage of high nitrogen fertilizers brought on by high oil prices. (Pause) Now, when the world press speaks to you through the capitalistic domination that we have in these individual monopoly newspapers, that 100 million persons will starve to death this year, and 400 million more will begin their starvation, situation is serious. (Pause) This is Tuesday, October 15, [1974] I’m sorry, San Francisco Chronicle. This is interesting also, The New York Times, to show the progress, though we approach socialism in our own means by our own vehicle, we are American, and looking for an American — not a Cuban, nor a Chinese, nor a Russian — solution to the American phenomenon of the class oppression. However, we see interesting parallels of development and progress in our sister republic to America, Cuba. Cuba before the revolution, 15, 14 years ago, was a minuscule, a microcosm of Mississippi. In every sense, Cuba was like the worst of Southern white racist society. There were indeed only a min— a few whites, just as in Mississippi, the majority are black. But those whites held on to the power and control under free enterprise Cuba under Batista [former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista], under capitalistic Cuba under Batista, before Castro and the communist revolution. The oppression was so bad that the Chronicle is even speaking about it. I’m going to read to you what the Chronicle — which is a capitalist-owned paper — (Pause) in this city, and I’m sorry I have to be so elementary, but some people don’t even know what— where the newspapers are. They’re still too busy looking at a ouija board or studying an astrological chart or meditating. Obviously, if any of you did see— someone called me and brought to my attention Mrs. Crewman (?) on the TV last night, after the doctors had gotten through with her the s— the week before, showing that she hadn’t healed anyone, not a living soul did Mrs. Crewman heal. She gave some test cases out to doctors, thinking the doctor would be biased in her favor, the doctor went through all of her healing and didn’t find anyone of them healed, and most of them dead. (Pause) And so McCall’s wrote an ar— a very very sad article about the results of Kathryn Kuhlman s ministry. And she’s subos— supposed to be the world’s best— of course, we’ve always known she was nothing, but the world considered her the best in the field of healing. Last night she said, publicly on TV, she couldn’t and never had healed anyone, and probably any healings that had been done were psychosomatic. That means that there wasn’t anything wrong with them in the first place. It said the di— the most difficult things you know, Johnny [Carson]— she looked like a drunk. Did anybody see her?
Murmurs. (Yes, Dad)
Jones: Now, would you not think— am I being out— outrageous to say she looked stoned?
Man: I don’t think so.
Jones: Her eyes were wild, and she held onto Johnny and it was indeed a joke to him. He had to have her on for equal time, because the doctors had gotten through making mincemeat out of her, and she said, (simpering tone) "Oh, Johnny, I know, I know what’s really in your heart. It’s your desire to minister." And he— he looked at her funny, give us all that funny-looking face. "You want to give everyone something to live by, and to be happy at the end of the day." She says, "That’s what I’m doing, I’m bringing everyone to (breathless tone)God." She said, "If I don’t heal anyone," she told, if someone came to her for cancer, didn’t get healed, three days she died later, after she prayed for him, three days later died (Pause) after supposed to be healed of cancer, she said, "But I brought him to (breathless tone) God and the (breathless tone) Holy Spirit." He tried to get her to define the Holy Spirit, and the woman went off like she had diarrhea of the mouth, so healing’s going to be in disrepute after a while. Folks won’t even want to name the name "healing" with a maniac like her running loose, good socialists like us won’t even want to be caught in the category.
Right.
Jones: I mean she— it’s— it’s crazy.
Applause.
Jones: All she could talk about, in her fine jewels, and she looked— actually, I— if you didn’t know it was her, you’d have thought it was someone doing a parody of her, and was doing a takeoff on her, because the old gal looked so bad in that expensive gown and that jeweled cross — the gown must have cost four or five thousand dollars — but when she smiled, she looked like the jowls of a bulldog.
Laughter.
Jones: Now, didn’t she? And they said, this young woman, Miss Kuhlman , anybody look at her would know that there was a ridiculous lie to think of the woman being young, when she— she was just really looked like the— the wreck of the Hesperus. Yet— (Pause) Anybody look that bad ought not to even call themselves a healer, they ought to heal themselves.
Applause and laughter.
Jones: She looked terrible. (Pause) Fuzzy old wig that she put on, because the woman’s been balding for some years, so they put some fuzzy old wig on her, and she re— she really looked outrageous. You couldn’t uh— I— I didn’t know whether she uh— what her mixture was, but she looked something between the— the orange tail of the, what are those kind of horses over in, um, Brazil, and then the face of a ba— baboon. An orange baboon.
Laughter.
Jones: But anyway the old woman went on and on and on till the— this is disreputable, it’s just (Pause) disgusting, and the number of people in there shoutin’ for God, I know, but the— they’re idiots, they’re sick. (Pause) She had her own stage, you know, she brought her own audience, and that’s— that stood out like a sore thumb. They clapped before she even finished her sentence.
Laughter.
Jones: And she was talking about no healing that she’d done. (Pause) She admitted— and she said (simpering tone) she loved everybody, just love— she had nothing but love in her. She said I even li— love this doctor who’s written about me. (Serious) But you tell by the twinkle in her eye then that there wasn’t much love when that came out. (Pause) Anyway, I didn’t um, want to stop on her as a subject. (Pause) We were discussing the accomplishments of Cuba. Now Cuba was much like America, only doubly worse, in that the white minority held tight reins, and blacks were in virtual slavery in the Cuban island. Now here’s what the Chronicle says that has happened in Cuba in its 14 years period. "The revolution that triumphed in Cuba under Fidel Castro is still going on in rather remarkable and peculiar ways. Aside from the more obvious changes brought by the introduction of free education and completely free medical care, subtler but equal potent changes are underway. Racism, once a dominant feature of Cuban society, especially in all of the cities, has receded to the point where it is hardly even noticeable, according to Nikolo Gillian, poet of mixed ancestry from eastern Cuba. Gillian, a si— silver haired and sprightly man of 72, began writing verse in the 1920s and soon turned to themes of race and racial— racial oppression. ‘My revolutionary feeling was awakened by the struggle against racism in Cuba,’he recalled in a conversation. Pointing to the buff skin on his face, he said, ‘I was considered black,’ even though he was just light tan, like Indian. There was clearly defined color line in Cuba, a product of 400 years of colonialism that included 60 years under the United States’ direct influence, particularly the Southern United States, which made Cuma— Cuba a miniature of a Southern state. No blacks were allowed in the American hotels here, and the Havana Club, the yacht club wouldn’t even admit President Batista, who was considered a mulatto" and yet he would be— I don’t know, Batista is light— light-skinned— This young lady, stand up. Yeah. Batista was lighter than she. And he could not even go on the beaches or in the uh yacht club. He was the president. He was a dictator, under capitalism, but the president— the prejudice was so ingrained that even he couldn’t override it. Now racism is severely punished with fines and jail sentences. It hasn’t disappeared altogether, but it is almost gone.
We have so many mixed marriages now. At the Hotel Habana— and naturally, it won’t disappear, after being trained 400 years, and domination of the white class of the 60 years of American rule, but to be almost gone is nothing short of a miracle. At the Ha— Hotel Habana Libre — that’s free — Ho— Hotel Hanna— Habana, it used to be the Hil— the Hilton, I was in that hotel just after the revolution. It’d been turned over to the poor people, and they were cleaning it up so nice, giving it— giving quarters to the poor and the black. At the Hotana — Hotel Habana Libre, mixed marriages are everywhere in evidence among the young Cubans. Couples honeymooning on the upper floors, nor does there seem to be any district of the country or capital or any enterprise or business or school where darker or lighter Cubans predominate. They’re all mixed, without reference to color. Full employment is imm— a fac— established fact in Cuba, when in 1959, there were about one million jobless. Although some of the rich who stayed have retained their splendid houses, they are subject to the same rationing of food and clothing as their fellow citizens. They have felt rather that to hurt the rich who had these homes, they would let them die, and then their homes would go on to the poor. Now that shows they’re not ruthless. (Pause) They let the rich Cubans keep their house, but they had to get the same food and the same clothing rationing that anyone else did. Wages of working people have been leveled in a fashion more radical than in other socialist countries, with the exception of China. At Cuba’s second newspaper, Youth Rebellion (struggles for words) Rebel Youth, that’d be, Rebel Youth, George Lopez, the 30-year-old editor-in-chief says that his wage of 165 pesos — 189 dollars a month — is less than the earnings of some of his reporters. However, of the 189 dollars a month, his rent is only six dollars. For an apartment, two bedroom. It is a question of seniority, he said, but we may have to do something one of these days about shifting the scales of remuneration. Right now, we don’t worry much about it, because we have money that we don’t need, because everything’s free.
The dynamics of Cuban wage policy at this stage are such that a professor of medicine might receive the equivalent of $615 a month, while a physician with a private practice might earn $724 a month. But God, that’s money in a place where there’s no telephone charge, no medical charge, no education charge, you can be a university professor or a doctor or lawyer without charge, you don’t spend any money for tuition or books, free dentistry, free apartments, even free uh, theater, free opera, free ballet, free dance, all the arts are free, and even ice cream is free. (Pause) All milk is free, by the way. The Cubans imbued with the revolutionary spirit — Lopez is one and Gillian is another — tend to play down the significance of numbers. Lopez said that whatever he and his editorial staff of 85 did on the outside in the way of writing or public speaking, they did for free, to help the cause of the revolution. The Cuban revolution retains some distinctive features that are closer to Chinese socialism than to the Soviet variety. That’s good. There appears to be a large amount of Chinese-style joint consumption of earnings, the term of free factory canteen meals for example. In addition, there are no incentives for saving money in Cuba, as Arnual de Vega, the director of sales and systems in the Ministry of Internal Commerce explained. There is no interest on savings, he said. You get out what you put in. And, there’s nothing that you need to buy. (Pause) Now that’s from the New York Times. (Pause)
(Sounds like tape paused, for indeterminate time)
Jones: From directly from the Promised Land. Anyone have any questions now. I set the tone. As I said, the healings and the dis— disreputable religious sector is getting so bad that we ought to have a loyalty that keeps us in this room, partially, if nothing else, out of the interest for the survival of our children, for they have no place to go now. It’s either to go to some place like Cuba or our Promised Land, which we are going to get out of this conflict between the capitalists and the socialist world, into a free socialist territory in the Third World. (Pause) We have no other alternative, for as of this week, Canada is passing a racial exclusion law that will not allow any Asiatics, Indians or blacks to immigrate in to Canada. From the floor of the Congress, the Parliament, and there is no doubt that it will pass. Now you people, wake up, by God. (Pause) Now I mean it. (Pause) Thank you. (Pause) The Indians in Ottawa are under such oppression in Canada tonight that they are talking— the paper (stumbles over words) you read it, I gave it to you, part of it Sunday. I read it from the pulpit. They are contemplating putting — seriously — all Indians, all people of color, black, in— in membership in the NAACP, into detention centers, in Canada. It’s already in England. England has gone to pieces. Read today’s Chronicle. England is without morale, it said. It’s— out— without morale, it’s without moral fervor, it’s without principle. The country’s about to divide. Scotland’s about to secede from Great Britain, it been with them for thousands of— hundreds of years. The Irish, of course, are killing the Irish. As I’ve told you repeatedly, we must stick together for survival. Again today in Argentina, again today in Brazil, whites killing whites, murdering ‘em every day, university professors seeking shelter in Peru, or Cuba, or Venezuela.
We, by the way, our Promised Land, as I told you, may be Venezuela. And it’s interesting to note, when these people run away from Argentina, that they are seeking, many of them, haven in Venezuela. And we are only 15 miles from Venezuela, and if 25,000 people do not settle the part of the Promised Land that we’re in by four years, three years and eight months, we will be Venezuelan. And Venezuela is a much larger country and is socialist in orientation and has one of the richest oil deposits in the world, and only the people with oil, according to all the economists, are those who are going to avoid starvation. And by the way, that’ll be quite a change, because we have no oil. (Pause) America has no oil. It’s all gone, for all practical purposes. We have exhausted our resources. The Alaskan oil, ah, is— is a very short supply. It’s not— It— It wouldn’t— If it were used moderately, it will not last through the nineties, 1990. If we use it, it will not be used through 1990. It’ll be exhausted. (Pause) Only the people— There are many people who are theorizing that oil will replace money, ‘cause it’s the only thing that has any value. Out of it comes everything, as you (struggles for words) heard what I just read to you, the other article that I put together, to try to stir up your pure minds, that 400 million are going to starve, 100 million will starve before the end of this year, because of worldwide shortage of high-nitrogen fertilizer which is necessary to raise foods, brought on by shortage of oil. You don’t have oil, you can’t get everything that you need for life. And Venezuela has got the oil, the Arabs have got the oil, and the Chinese are now going to get some oil. It says they’ve got rich deposits that they’re going to open, that have never been touched. So the Chinese, the Arabs, and the Soviet Russians — socialist Russia — and Venezuela has the richest deposit. And for any one country, Venezuela, right where we’re sitting, has the richest oil of any one area, concentrate in any place in the world. (Pause) Now— (Pause) People don’t seem to think we have a reason to be here unless we can pull rabbits out of a hat, or get some kind of a hilarious feeling from emphasis on spiritual healing, and I’m telling you, with the mess that’s going on, we as respectful people may very well want to get out of the entire healing business.
Applause.
Jones: Peace. (Pause) There was some dubiousness, because I think that there are many of you that do not stay— In fact, I have to repeatedly wake you up (Pause) when I’m talking on the truth, and you’re very much awake when we’re healing somebody.
That’s right.
Jones: You don’t have to be called out to be healed. My spirit, the spirit of socialism in me, will (voice overwhelms microphone).
Applause.
Jones: It’s only a matter of time. (Pause) The government of this country wants to break down every kind of group outside of Big Brother, and if they will go after Miss Kuhlman and her following — and she’s as anti-socialist as a rattlesnake — but she lives luxuriously, wealthily, and does nothing for her people. She get— doesn’t have one program to assist needy people, and rakes in the millions. And they’re afraid of her even, because she represents a group of people that would look to her instead of whoever they want to foster on us when the cris— the crisis comes, the final crash comes, if not Rockefeller, someone like him, they want to break down all groups, and so they are attacking her and exposing her for what we knew she was all along, unable to do anything but rob people of their money. And they studied all of her healings— the doctor didn’t do it to be a conspirator, he just did it out of an honest study, he studied all of her healings, as I said, and found not one healed and many dead that had been said to be healed in her literature and over her TV program. They’re all dead. McCall’s Magazine carries it, and now the TV’s are after her, and they’re after all these groups across the nation, most fiercely they’re after the Children of God movement. The Children of God moment is a movement that’s taken a little bit of a socialistic lens — that were really not, socialism for the peons, but fascism for the upper class, the upper class leaders have sex with whoever they please and do whatever they please and live in the Swiss Alps, getting $10 million a year, but they do have communes across the nation, then they have to c— raise so much money, each of those communes, each of the individuals have to raise, I told you, three hundred dollars a week, to send to their leader. So it’s not socialistic, but— and— and it still represents a group of people looking to somebody else other than good Ol’ Glory. And so they’re after them, and they’re going to be after every group— it’s a miracle of miracles that they haven’t come after us, because we would be the ideal group to come after. (Pause) Because we preach healing— we don’t have the buffer that she did, she get out of her corner last night by saying, (breathlessly) "God. God." And no one in this country wants to attack God, because that’s the way you control the country. You control the country by letting the people, the masses, believe in God. So every time she’d look like a perfect ass — and she looked like that all the time, really — but every time she looked like a perfect ass, Miss Kuhlman would say, "Well, it’s God. I’m leading the people to God." Well, no one on the TV will attack God. But you see, we’ve got a problem. We’ve already eliminated that God, and said God is here.
Applause.
Jones: Peace. (Pause) You’re clapping, and I’m not sure you understood me. (Pause) We are a perfect set-up— ‘course, they wouldn’t want to get in an intellectual discussion with me, because I— I’m sure that some of them avoid that for that reason, they watch me on The Dunbar Show, and they didn’t see anything, compared to what I will do when the final count comes (Pause) ‘cause I can hold up, if I’m not wasting my voice away totally on unnecessary meetings and all-night meetings, all day yesterday involved coming in this Temple, taking care of affairs, all night last night in affairs, it’s been not a bit of silence for the voice in two or three days, not a bit of silence for it in two or three days. When I don’t come down here, it means that I’m having meetings up there, very serious meetings with people, of high-level planning and programming for you, for your welfare, for your protection. (Pause) But in this case, if they come after us, we’ve got an entirely new ballgame. I can’t come out of a corner and say, "It’s the Holy Spirit that heals." I cannot come out of the corner and say, "It’s God that heals," or as she said, well, why don’t people get healed? They’re all carried away on wheelchairs and— and they— so many carried back (unintelligible word) stretchers, poor, mutilated people, she said, "Well, ah— (breathless) there is one thing I believe, in the sovereignty of God and his holy word." So she had the argument. (Pause) The class system won’t take on the Bible, because they’re going to use the Bible to reinaugurate slavery, because in the Bible is a perfect case for slavery (Pause) ‘cause it tells the slaves to obey their master, so they’re not going to attack that Bible. That’s the last thing the class system will do. The rich media will not attack that Bible, nor will they attack God, as long as they play it safe, like Kathryn Kuhlman , who doesn’t even believe in God, nor doesn’t believe in the Bible, because I knew Kathryn Kuhlman when she was an honest whore.
Applause. (Right.)
Jones: I don’t mind honest whores, I just don’t like dishonest whores. Now she’s a dishonest whore, and a dishonest prostitute of religion. Her whoredom — I don’t mind if she concealed her own whoredom in reference to physical attachments, but her whoredom of truth is, is most disgusting, and one day, the revolution will cause her— the judgment day of God will cause her to come to an accounting. (Pause) Peace. (Pause) Because these people know what they’re doing. They’re robbing the people, playing it safe, they got an easy game. They thought they had it made, but the system’s so threatened by any group this— this day, they want to disillusion people with everyone, so that people will look to Big Brother only, (Pause) or the Mark of the Beast, as you religious folks will want to say, when the President comes out and speaks for God, they want people to listen to him. (Pause) In God, if God be with us, as Mr. [Gerald] Ford is running out of the mouth with all the time, God this and God that, and [Vice President Nelson] Rockefeller’s talking about God— God willing, today he said, I’ll be vindicated, I’ll be able to tell my story, God willing. They want no one to listen to what God has to say, except what the president says God is saying. So even Mrs. Kuhlman didn’t count on the fact that she was going to be a threat too. (Pause) But not much of a threat. They’ll overlook her. They’ll probably finally gr— have to agree to work with people like her, before the fall of the system comes. They’ll probably have to use her. And they will. She’d be very willing to be used, because you could see how she hung all over Johnny Carson till it was disgusting. He didn’t even know the woman, and she talked so intimately and held onto his hand like she’d been his long lost (Pause) whatever. It was disgusting. It was feeble-minded, and a terrible revelation of where the American psyche is, although Americans in general are beginning to change. And England has changed rapidly, so rapidly that it would be ready for a revolutionary change if it had the proper implementation, the media. I saw in the Chronicle this week where only 23% of the British population still believe in God. It means 77% do not believe in God. They’ve suffered enough shortages (unintelligible word — sounds like "there")—
A lot of you won’t believe in God, either, when you don’t have any food, when you don’t have any toilet paper, you don’t have any meat, you don’t have any bread, that’s what happening to England, they’re suffering such hi— housing (struggles for words) crowding in such uh, terrible economic conditions that 77% of them don’t believe in God. And they went through the bombing of London, the Blitzkrieg and the rockets, and that helps— you people, many of you never been through war, you never seen children starve in the streets. I‘ve seen such a phenomena. When you see babies starving on the streets and you see hungry people begging for food, and if you gave them the food that you have, you’d too starve, and decisions have to be made for 10,000 people to die in a day, and I’ve seen just that happen in South America, deep in Brazil, 10,000 die in one day, (Pause) way way way from our Promised Land, thousands of miles from our Promised Land. But I saw 10,000 people die in a day. If you see that — I don’t mean with my own eyes, ‘cause no one’s ever died in my presence that hasn’t been resurrected — but, still the fact that 10,000 people did die in one day, I saw their dead bodies, their mutilated bodies, and they didn’t even have place to bury them, they just threw them over the cliffs, little babies, mothers left with their (Pause) nothing to do but to throw their babies, and I told you the little boy that I saved. I went into the place, the Catholic priest wanted me to go up with him on ah, this particular journey. I was wanting to take food, and I had food with me, he wanted to take sacraments. He took his black robe around him, till we chased him away, went into an old hovel, an old hovel of dirt, chicken-coop like, looked like a chicken coop. Little boy was sitting over a plank, standing by the side of a plank, looking down at his mother. Plank m— laid over two old, what do you call those old horses, what do you call them, the uh—
From crowd: Sawhorse—
Jones: Sawhorse. Setting over the sawhorse, she was laying, her arms wouldn’t even stay, rickety, absolutely mummified. She was only 27 years of age, but she looked like she was 85. And her flesh wouldn’t even stay on that plank, and he’d have to keep lifting it up, and finally they tied her hands, the Catholic priest tied her hands, wanting to say the Mass. There was one scrawny chicken left. His father had died with blancha de diablo which is— which is tuberculosis that killed thousands because no treatment. Thousands are dying across the world now, with no treatment. He was left with all children, he was nine. And he was left with four or five little children, nobody to take care of him, and he was standing in tears, looking over his mother who’d been dead for a day, waiting— or day or two days, waiting for the priest to come to say the Mass. And the priest— I said this child doesn’t need any Mass, he needs some help and love. He said, you’ll have rice Christians, that’s their common phrase, we heard that from every missionary. You can’t do that, he said, go—gotta give them faith in God because there’s no food. I said, I’ll give him some food. And we had a little fight, and he ended up running away. Anyway— wait, uh, don’t— let’s don’t clap, that was a— that’s a very small victory. Very small victory. Thousands and thousands like that across that one little hill, dying or dead. Millions across the world are dying or dead. I’m reading to you from the paper, they don’t want you really to know it, but they know that you won’t— the average American won’t read this, because average r— person’s in church tonight, praying, on their knees, talking to a fairy godmother, a holy spirit, a goblin, a ghost, a spook. Most people will not read what’s even in the paper so they can even give you a little bit of the truth. One hundred million persons will starve to death this year. And you believe in a God? You must be an idiot. You believe in any god other than what you can see in the spirit of socialism, that I happen to be at this moment in time and space incarnated, you must be an idiot. Anyone that can believe that there’s a loving God and allow 100 million people — that is half the population of the United States — is going to die before Christmas, (Pause) half— and I don’t mean in the United States, but they’re plenty of ‘em dying right here, too, of starvation every day. But 100 million people are going to die across this world, then you have believed in a loving God— How you can believe in a loving God is a reflection on your own intelligence. (Pause) All right, because let me tell you, nobody helped me. That’s what bothers me with some people. Nobody helped me. I came out of all kind of miracles happening to me. When I touch myself, I heal myself. When I touch myself, I got up when no one would help me. When I wanted to get something done, I got it done. When I wanted to create a church in a year in Indianapolis, the folk could tell you, in one year, it looked im— virtually impossibility, I had a great synagogue and a food commissary program and I got it paid for one day, just one day before the day I prophesied it’d be done. Everything I’ve ever set my mind to do, I’ve been able to get done, but I have never believed in any loving God. Not because—
Scattered applause.
Jones: Peace.
Applause stops.
Jones: (Voice rises through next several minutes) Not because of what was happening to me, because if I’d looked at my own life, I could have had a superiority complex and said, Oh my, there’s something working with you. But I could always look out and look at the precious number of black and Indian people that something wasn’t working for them. They weren’t able to get things done like Jim Jones. They weren’t able to heal themselves like Jim Jones. They weren’t able to heal others like Jim Jones. They were starving, hungry, despaired — there’s nothing more despairing than to be nine years of age with five little children, and he looked as scrawny as anything you’ve ever seen, you see it every night on your TV, these babies, till you can’t hardly stand it on how you can stand to look at it. (Pause) I don’t even get enough description of it to be able to describe it to you, ‘cause I can’t stand to look at it, it’s too painful to me. Seeing these babies flashed on by CARE and all these outfits, and most of the money is going into administration, going into big— people with big plush offices, all these children’s groups now, it came out by the government, had been, the money’s been siphoned off by the bigwi— rich leaders that’re living in fancy homes and fancy, uh, environments and fancy automobiles and fancy jewels, and they show these babies, show their faces, it’s— they looked like they’re dried mummies, the best I can see, and I don’t want to look at them anymore, there’s nothing to describe— they look like a preemie, three months old, they look like a three-month-old baby inside the mother’s womb. (Pause) The skin stretched, the eyes sunken. That’s a hundred million of them dying. So I don’t care that I’m sce— fed tonight, I don’t care that I am without want tonight, I don’t care that everything’s gone my way — and it hasn’t, since I got to knowing you, because all your pains fell on me, and I quit having it so easy — if I ever did have it easy, I gave it up, years ago, to take on the infirmities of others. But anyway, I cannot forget what others are going through, and if 100 million people are going to starve by Christmas, there is no loving deity. And I’m not Miss Kuhlman , and I don’t believe her malarkey, that I never questioned the sovereignty of Almighty God, she said. I never question the sovereignty of the Bible. I question it, because it’s what brought us here in slave chains. The Bible is the thing that brought us, that’s what they used to sneak us out of the rich lands of Africa and put us in the chains that we’re still enduring in America 400 years later. So I question the Bible, and I question their God that says, slaves, obey your master, I question everything, anything there is to question, I question it.
Applause.
Jones: (Intimate tone) But some of you work so hard, precious few of you that I love with such compassion, I don’t even get to you, because of the assholes that working me to death. They— They are awful, awful— One little exception. Yesterday, I got to come over and get Ro— Sister Rose Shelton to get her flu shot, ‘cause I know she’s always taking care of someone else, so I got her and tricked her into thinking I was getting a flu shot, got her over to Dr. Goodlett’s, and got her to get my shot. So she got my shot, but Sister uh— Sister Shelton, with the exception of that yesterday, I spent my entire time, and all night on the telephone to Brother Stoen and Brother uh— oh different ones, I won’t name all the ones I talked to, but all night and all day and all night, being with enemies— we are very glad to report that some of our enemies have decided to change their mind. For whatever reason, they want to be back with us, for whatever reason, and we’re not sure we’re taking ‘em, but they want to be back. Anyway, our enemies are in much disarray tonight, because what they thought they had, they don’t have, and they don’t know which one of them eh, are working for us, and if they did know, they would be surprised, and they don’t know how our people are working, and if they did know, they would be surprised. And we’ll sure not going to go (stumbles over words) into any more than that, but (voice rises) so many in this room — I just saw somebody a minute ago, making a move, just come tripping around — you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just on a glory ride, you’re just taking advantage of a church that’ll serve you, you don’t care a damn about hungry people, you don’t give one damn about the fact that it’s happening all around us, that Canada is going to exclude all blacks and Indians and Asians and start that mess too, that England’s already talking about putting their blacks out in the sea and letting them drown. They’re already talking about doing away with their blacks. It’s going to come to that in Canada too. And then it’s gonna come here. So why doesn’t it happen here? Well, because we (unintelligible word — sounds like "rob’) everybody under the country, everybody under the sun we (unintelligible word — sounds like "rob’), so we’ve got some reserves, but when we run out— look at the Chronicle today, it shows a great big panther hanging over the Me— America, over one of our cities and says, Racism. (Pause) ‘Cause they can’t even control Boston. Boston’s out of hand. They want— They’ve got the state militia, and the, the state National Guard, now they want the federal National Guard. They w— They want them to be brought up from Carolina, because they can’t control the city of Boston. Black people not safe in the city of Boston today. Boston’s where the brothers that came over here for a free country settled. As Brother Hallinan, Vince Hallinan said, Brother Vince Hallinan said, Of all the people, that the, the niggers of America, the Irish — that’s who mostly made up Boston — he said that the niggers of America, the Irish would turn on the blacks. Said the niggers of America, the Chinese — and don’t confuse the Chinese here with the communist Chinese, because no person in he— America friendly to Communist China, the mainland China, can stay here. All the people that you see that are Chinese here were the rich that got deposed in the revolution, and they’re from Nationalist China or the island of Taiwan, made up of the rich, power-hungry bigots, the old ruling class. So the Chinese you see here in America today are those that hate socialism, and that— it’d be awfully tempting for some of the black because, as Vince Hallinan says, why the Chinese, even those Chinese have been treated like dogs. They were rich over in China, but when they come— I mean the island of Taiwan, but when they— Formosa, but when they come here, they’re treated like dogs, they can’t get jobs, they work in old steam rooms or they work in old packed sewing centers and they have no uh, living wage, they don’t have a decent place to stay, it’s hell for them. (Pause) Let them people sleep on me, by God, wake ‘em up. (Pause) And yet we, as Vincent Hallinan said, that San Francisco, the best city in America didn’t have the good enough sense to elect to be judge — he lost four to one — you remember, he spoke in our church — and he lost the judgeship, grand man, he’s given us free legal advice over and over again. He said, if I went to any church, it’d be yours, though I’m a Catholic, he said, I’d give up on that stupid religion. (Pause) He said I’ll help you outside any way I can, and he has. Anyway, Vincent Hallinan said it’s— what a shame! (Pause) It’s in the paper today. (Shouts) Listen to me, goddamnit.
Crowd reacts.
Jones: This sermon is a (struggles for words) a seminar. (Pause) And if you get this sermon, we wouldn’t have so much trouble to do (Pause) or to go through. But when I say Goddamnit it, I guess I can damn it, because I’m God.
Applause.
Jones: And I shall remain that as long as you people hold onto superstitions. (Pause) Anyway (Pause) Vincent Hallinan said, what has come to America that the Chinese, the niggers, who’ve been treated like coolies and were slaves and were sold, that they, once niggers of America could treat blacks like they have been, here in San Francisco and Galileo High School. (Pause) This country has not even begun to feel the shortage yet. It will, though. Cats being killed, 650 of them today, throats slit, thrown in open graves, farmers said we cannot feed them, we’re gonna kill them, and they did before the eyes of the nation today, shot them again and killed them and slit their throats and dropped them into the open graves. This winter’s gonna be a damn cold winter, child. (Pause) S’posed to be the coldest winter— the loving God up there’s farted wrong, because it’s going to be the coldest winter — the snails have dug six inches deeper than they’ve ever dug in 40 or 50 years, and other insects that show by the way they dig down and furrow deep into the earth how cold it’s gonna be, so we’re in for a cold winter, and— wake up, dammit. I told you people to keep awake, or I will. (Pause) Now I mean, dammit, if I’m not a good speaker, that’s one thing, but I’m the best liver that ever come along, and by dammit, you’re going to listen to me.
Applause.
Jones: (Shouts) I’ll quit church, I hope you do, by dammit. If you don’t like the truth, that’s what you need to do. If you don’t want to help us fight for what’s right, if you’re here because of that stupid carryover religion, if you’ve still got that falseness that we have been using to try to build a better world, if you’re still caught up in religion, by dammit, we’d be better off without you anyway.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: Would have a church meeting, but the attorneys, like Hallinan outside who is an atheist and a socialist and others said, don’t stop it, and Dr. Goodlett yesterday said, please have your church meetings, that’s your only security. Haven’t been able to touch the Children of God because the First Amendment. Today’s paper, they said they wanted to do it, New York investigators wanted to put them away in various places, but said they haven’t found a way to get around the First Amendment. But they will. But right now it’s our only protection for freedom of assembly. And we’re the only people living the Christ’s life in the first place. Nobody else feeding the hungry. Jesus said the only judge of a Christian, the only way you could judge a Christian is if they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, took in the strangers, and by damn, we take in more people and feed more people and send food to more places, and do more for more people than anybody on earth. So we’re the only Christians, really.
Applause.
Jones: Now we’ll have to prove that someday, you can bet your— you bet your bottom dollar, we’ll have to prove that. And the way you’re going to have to remember it is Matthew 25 and said, either why, we are the only ones doing the work of Christ. Christ said that the people that would be judged as sheep and goats, it was based on one thing. The goats were the people that had no concern for feeding the hungry or clothing the naked or going into the prisons and taking the prisoners out or ministering to the homeless, the widows and orphans in their afflicted— affliction. That’s the way he said you’d tell the goats and the sheep. And you’re going to have to memorize that, because we’re going to have a time— the only thing that shelters us is the First Amendment, and today’s paper— I have many articles ‘cause I read every kind of news magazine and news article to keep up with what’s happening around us. I’ve suspect I’ve read 15 newspapers today and five magazines, and I can’t incorporate it all and give it to you, dessimelate it like I ought to, because if I do, I speak on one level sometimes, others are on another level, it’s difficult to get a comprehension, and with all that I have on me to try to just protect this place from its— from our enemies, it’s a, a good thing that I can even remember my own name, much less what I read. I’m amazed— the greatest miracle is that I can remember my own name, ‘cause people work my ass off night and day, and give me no peace, night or day. (Pause) If you don’t believe it, you can just follow me. (Pause) I’m just looking through the— I have to go through everyone in the Promised Land, all their evaluations. Here’s a whole— whole file full of ‘em, I’ve been through that tonight. Their evaluations of one another, and their evaluations of each other. They’re doing a good job, uh, attempting to grow, but I have to pastor them too, and that means that every day, they have to write their evaluations of themselves and what they feel about everyone else. It’s a big job that is on my shoulders, and uh, it’s amazing that I can incorporate these facts sensibly enough to give them to you, and the least you can do, dammit, is stay awake over there. (Pause) Now I— I presume that we ought to be able to stay together without having to have a healing. We ought to be able to stay together — Shhh! — without having a song. But I got the feeling that there are a good many of you that would not stay together, and our advisers tell us we need bodies, that is, we need ‘em— maybe if I tear it all up, tear this place all to hell tonight, we wouldn’t— we’d have no problem, ‘cause I can take care— I could get you all to safety that would stay, ‘cause I— I could say enough that’d tear half of you out of here yet. (Pause) I sure as hell could. (Pause) I could drive half of you away, and it’d be nothing but truth that drove you away. No— because I am truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the unadulterated truth, the Word.
Applause.
Jones: Peace. Thank you for your clapping, it’s necessary at times. Our enemies need to know and count us— need to be able to hear our voices, and that’s what our advisors outside say. Don’t tell, Dr. Goodlett says, that there’s no God. Said obviously there’s no God. He told Rose Shelton and I, God’s quit hearing the prayers of black men. If he did, he’s dead. And he’s a member of the Third Baptist Church and a trustee. But he said obviously there’s no God. Say, if there were, He would have heard our prayers long ago. And you go into Dr. Goodlett’s place, and he’s had a heart attack, and see (stretches out word) all those sick bodies, all of those people crowded in lines, lines waiting on him, to get some attention. And he’s trying, but no doctor could meet the needs of so many people as fast as they have to meet them, and then do the other things that we’re working on to save the nation, which we won’t talk about here. He gave us some time, talking about some things we’re gonna do to save the nation, but it’s bad. Conditions are bad, he said, you cannot even get the plight of the black man’s job situation into the newspaper. He said we’re gonna have to get some of these newspapers, get control of them, because most black papers are actually owned by white people and fronted by black people, and you can’t even get what’s going on, he said, the starvation, the— the joblessness, the terror that’s happening to black people, the— the experimentation that’s being done on them in prisons already, he said, you cannot get it into the newspaper, because they won’t print it. He said even the Washington Post, which is suppo— supposedly the best paper in the nation, would not even print the findings of the terror of what’s happening to black and Indian people and poor white people in this country. Wouldn’t even print it, that’s what he told Rose and I. Said we gotta get a hold of some of these papers, or it’s hopeless. (Pause) But there’s one thing he doesn’t realize. It’s more hopeless than even he sees. (Pause) ‘Cause it’ll come to fascism here. And I think he doesn’t— ah, it’s a little harder for him. He’s made it, you know. He’s got a career, he’s got his child adopted, he’s got business, he’s got success. It’s awfully hard for him to face the fact that it’s nothing. So he still has a hope that we’re going to avoid total, outright tyranny. But every other breath, he’d say, well, they’re gonna put us in concentration camps. The last time I talked to him on the phone, every time, he’ll discuss concentration camps. Yet one side of him will say, we gotta do something. There’s nothing we can do, but get ourselves together to make a demonstration for the revolution, to be quiet and keep ourselves in limbo, or get ourselves to the Promised Land for training, or get somewhere. There is nothing for us to do. The people are asleep. Just like they are in this room, they are asleep.
They don’t give a damn, racism is at the heart of this nation, and the moment we have much more joblessness, it will not be safe for you to walk from your store, as a black American, or a person who associates with people of color, it will not be safe for you to go from your store to your home. (Pause) When they’ve got to have the National Guard in the city of Boston, the seat of democracy, where the Plymouth Rock— (Pause) All those lovely Puritans settled, because they wanted freedom for everyone, and now the very place that started freedom for everyone makes it unsafe for black people— they said tonight over the news, not a black person’s safe in South Boston. They don’t even go into South Boston. It’s not safe. (Pause) And you’ve seen nothing yet. So if— for that reason alone should be why we’re here. But it isn’t. There’s a blindness in this room. Stupidity in this room. You think you can make it. You go out, and you waste your damn money, you throw your money away, you get into the society, you think, ah, I see others making it out there. They’re not making it. Suddenly, it’s gonna be stopped.
(Pause) In the first place, we just get reports of these dear ones that left us. These young girls in the b— same bed with three different men at the same time. And then go to each other. Men with women, women with men, drunker than hoot owls. Say, how do you know? ‘Cause I hear it on a tape that somebody has. I don’t have to take any gossip about it, I hear it, because they think that some people that’re with them are not with them, and some have seen through them, that act like they’re with them, and they’ve gone completely apart. And they had a good start. They got together and gonna put their money together, and they had some money come in, they had money given to them in wills, and money turned over to them, they haven’t got a dime, they’re out of money now. Broke. (Pause) And that’s what the world’s doing right now. But you look at the black people and say, oh, they look happy. Well, false kind of happiness. Guess you can be happy in a fur coat, starve to death in December. I suppose that’s a s— a sort of happiness. Uh, I don’t know, it always fails uh, me, in ah, comprehending, I can’t comprehend stupid people who can find happiness, like some of our people do, by driving a big car that they can’t pay for. M— more than that now, you go in neighborhood after neighborhood, they can’t drive it, ‘cause they can’t afford the gasoline. And before very long, it’s gonna be the place they won’t ever drive it at all, because when you get ninety cents on the gallon of gas — and that’s coming sure as hell — because we don’t have the gas, baby. Mr. Ford’s getting on, said I know Americans gonna (drawn out) all sacrifice, he said, uh, my boy’s gonna ride bicycles and do away with their stereo, he sounds like a maniac. (Pause) Sounds like a two-year-old running this nation. We got idiots running the nation, and idiots in the churches like Kathryn Kuhlman , fools in the churches, fools in the government, talking about people volunteering that you’re gonna all go 55 miles an hour, and he’s know you’re all gonna do it. And you know damn well, I have to stand on you and threaten you with the fear of God to get you to do it in this room.
Crowd: Right. (Scattered applause)
Jones: They’re not gonna do it. (Pause) They’re not gonna do it. And so in a few weeks, they’re gonna slap you with the damnedest tax you ever seen on your gasoline, and you’ll have the same old fuel shortages, and these black people that you think they’re— we’re envying out there will have nothing, (Pause) and we could save our people, if you want to save it, or if you want to stand up for what’s im— important and true, even make a revolution. I don’t mean to cause any violence to anyone, but to protect our spirit of nonviolence here, to protect our work, and make a stand. You understand what I’m saying. If you don’t, hell, you never will. (Pause) And some of you never will. (Pause) Some of you never will. (Shouts) Wake up, dammit. (Pause) Well, I could ask that— had you ask questions tonight, but we have to change things, and everything gets in a lull and a routine. Some of you are too damn white, though, you white-y assholes, you make me tired, you don’t have a problem, you don’t think you got a problem, you’re too damn white, so get lost.
Applause.
Jones: Offerings, lousy. Everything lousy. Fighting, and then some of you— some of you are not gonna know this problem. You don’t get involved with it— (Pause) I’m looking at a white one then, that doesn’t get involved with it, ‘cause you’re too damn white. There’s one thing I should’ve made. I should have demanded it, and we got all kinds of hell started because somebody going after— to prove their nomena— to prove their homosexuality, yes that’s what I started to say. To prove their homosexuality, they’d get somebody else’s wife and mingle with somebody else’s husband, rather than do what I said. But I said there ought to be a requirement here, that if you have nothing more than name only, that you had to be married to black, if you’re white, or have an adopted child if you’re white, because unless you’ve got this problem firsthand in your home, you don’t know what the hell this problem is.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: No way to get some of you people involved in it. And I’m nervous about you. (Pause) (Away from mike) Go down through here. I want to get some of these people tonight, by God, some of you folks, or I’ll get— You good folk won’t mind going along with the bad folk, will you? (back to mike) Saying this stuff on— saying something over the tape recorder?
Voice: No.
Jones: Had tape recorders all over this place. Get ‘em. (Pause) How many in here have not signed the slip? I had you all sign the slip one time. (Pause) How many have not? (Pause) Yoo! Too many, too many. (Pause) O-o-o-oh, any kind of slip, honey, you just sign it.
General noise.
Jones: If you want to be protected to me, it su— sure shows I don’t do anything to hurt anybody, ‘cause I get all kind of people in trouble if I wanted to. I got so much on people that’ve gone out of here, I could just snap a finger, they’d all be in jail. I’m not that kind of person. I want to protect you. People who’ve— before they get in here, before they take a membership card, they ought to have to sign some things. They ought to have to sign two sheets. (Pause) Membership secretaries hearing that? They don’t want to sign it, they don’t get to see it, they don’t get it. (Pause) They shine— sign two sheets. And by the way, you all are supposed to get your new membership card, not gonna be worth the paper it’s written on, you got to do that quickly, there’s a new membership card coming out in Playtex, plastic, can’t be broken, your picture’s on there, it’s ah, insulated in plastic, and you— it’s a very lovely thing, it’ll be good for identification, and you’ve got to have it. (Pause) How many have bought theirs thus far? Or gotten it? Be sure to get one. (Pause) Your membership card now has your picture on it. (Pause) (Mike cuts back on) —there never have signed anything, put your hand up again. (Pause) Mmm. Oh yes, you did, Gracie, fought all (unintelligible word) one night, you did too.
Laughter.
Jones: You raised a lot of hell about it, but you finally signed it.
General hubbub.
Jones: (Laughs) Oh yes. I’d say that’ll do it right now. (Pause) Sign, everybody in the damn house, sign one of these, right now.
Voice of man too soft.
Jones: All, all of these that’ve not— they’ve gotten your membership card don’t need to. If you already have your new membership card, you don’t need to. But everybody else sign ‘em. Only problem is, you got folk in here that’ll say they haven’t, won’t sign, have signed, didn’t sign, said they did, the ones that said they did didn’t— (Pause) You hear what I’m saying?
Voice of woman too soft.
Jones: That’s clever. Thank you, Patty. Show your membership card, you won’t have to sign. (Pause) That’s a very simple solution. Thank you. (Pause) Glad somebody had more sense than God there and helped him out.
Laughter, then general noise.
Jones: Oh no, not in the long haul, but in the quick short in, we can certainly be of help to one another. I’ve got enough intelligence to get you through every situation, but I certainly can stand your help on advice and counsel in our business meetings. Glad to get it. (Pause) That’s why I have so much power, is because I’m not misusing it. Don’t think better of myself than I am. I know exactly what I can do, I know exactly my limitations and I know my strength. That’s why I’ve not gotten you into any trouble, yet. That’s why I’ve brought you through safely, because I know exactly how far to move. Some of you are too much in love with yourself, that’s why you get us in so much trouble that I have to get you out of. (Pause) I never got myself in any trouble, but I’m always getting somebody else out of trouble. (Pause) When you find any of those that don’t have membership cards, go along with that, and they can make some statements, too. (Pause)You only got one of them? How many— uh, you go through, show your membership card. (Pause) Gonna follow through there, follow through. (Pause) ‘S be a little later meeting tonight than we want it to be, but we want to protect ourselves, don’t we?
Crowd: Yes.
Jones: You don’t give them the damn thing, you have it signed, and brought back in your hand right now. You give them the pencil and you sign it. You people don’t know a thing about how to protect your house. (Pause) You get it signed right now. (Pause) Yes, Brother Newman.
(Voice too soft)
Jones: Shh!
(mike cuts on) —our card, see. I— I picked—
Jones: What’s that?
Man: Will you let us see our membership picture, each fellow sitting beside of us, see, (unintelligible phrase), right through the line. And that way we’ll know— we’ll get everybody, see?
Jones: Did you understand what he’s saying, Patty? (Pause) Oh, it’s because of clarification, that he’s not coming through clearly, so— (Pause) Two of these. (Pause) This way they won’t give you no trouble, if they want anybody— if anybody’s a Judas. Most of you don’t need to sign this at all, but some do, and so everybody going to have to sign one, that’s the only way you can do it. (Pause) This resigns from the church— Whenever we get ready for you to resign, you’ve already resigned. See what I’m saying? Then nobody can go out when we get ready and get our Promised Land, or get something set up for safety, ther— somebody won’t be able to say, well, I— I have so much in this place, I’m a member. Won’t be able to do it. Say, well Father, what about us that are in? Well, obviously you know what I’d about you, I’d take care of you. You’re not in based on a card, you’re in based on my heart, that’s what makes you in.
Applause.
Jones: You remember when Chris Lewis was out? Remember when Chris Lewis was out? (Pause) (Aside, away from mike) No, it’s not um— no, it’s not enough, they need to sign it up here. (Taps) They need to sign it up there. Up on the top. Thank you. (Back to mike) She want— I want that signed and— you can sign it down there too. Sign it up there— and then, then on the blank space up above it. (Pause) See there? See that one there? (Pause) Uh, where it has witness? Like here. You sign down here like uh, this brother or sister has, then up there, you’re to sign your name too. (Pause) ‘Cause that down here, it restricts the use of it. This paragraph restricts the use of it. (Pause) Hmm? It’s all right. It— He needs that signature, he needs that bottom half. He needs that, but he uh— another signature— signature up there, he can still use it for whatever purpose that uh— it all goes to me, honey, this all goes to me. I have all these. We don’t let these things running loose. So nobody gonna get you in any trouble by anything you sign. (Pause) Deep in a vault, nobody ever gets to it. Nobody. (Pause) These things are turned over to me, every one of them has to be accountable. (Pause) ‘Cause I know I won’t ever use them, only if somebody wanted to do you harm. (Pause) And everybody gets in this church membership, it ought to be done that way, folk. Secretaries ought to get that done quickly. (Pause) Membership card should never go out unless it’s signed, just like I’d showed the membership secretary how that’s to be signed. (Pause) All membership secretaries should see this.
Voice in crowd too far away.
Jones: No, old membership cards won’t do. Old memberships aren’t worth uh, aren’t worth dung. Takes a new one. ‘Cause those that have signed the new one have filled these forms. (Pause) The old cards are— after a while, the— the old cards will not even be in good standing, ‘cause we made a new amendment to the charter, that all— the— unless you have this kind of a plastic card, you’re not a member, so you gotta get a plastic card. (Pause) Anybody doesn’t— has any question why we’re doing this? It ought to be plain as the nose on your face, but I’ll tell you, I don’t ever trick nobody. (Pause) Anybody got any question? I’ll tell you.
Voice too soft.
Jones: What’s that? (Pause) Thank you, darling, that’s a very good request. Cara, uh— help her, help her get the new uh— help her find out where she gets the new card. Brother Mertle and Sister Mertle issue the new cards. (Pause) (mike cuts back in) —everybody. (Pause) I (unintelligible word) say what, up to 12— over 12. (Pause) Make it 11, then we’re safe. (Pause) ‘Cause a year’s time, we’ll have our destinies made out. Probably. (Pause) Age of accountability is 12, so do it 11. That’ll catch all those that get 12 in the next few months. (Pause) Anybody have any question? (Pause) Yes. Shh! Quiet. Counselor?
Voice too soft.
Speak.
Woman: I’d like to know if we have some provision that a person can sign to the effect that um—
Another woman: Can you get any closer?
Jones: Can you bring it closer to her, dear? Uh, it was the counselor speaking, that’s who— I want to see—
Woman: Uh, ca— do we have any provision that a person can sign that whatever they put in this church remains in, should they decide to go out?
Jones: Uh, automatically, uh, th— that isn’t bad idea, but automatically, so— so done. Because every offering we take is a free gift, free will. We don’t have um— we don’t have pledge, um, uh, what do I, what I— not— that’s not the word, "pledge" is still free gift. We don’t have um— (Pause) Oh, what is it they issue— Bonds! We don’t— we don’t do anything of that sort, this is automatically a free gift, and if you give it freely— but I still think it’s a good idea, ‘cause some people don’t know, they’re— they’re— they’re ignorant of the law. I think it’s a good idea what she said. I— I yield to the counselor, I think um, Mertle drafted should be forms that whatever I’ve given, (Pause) I will never ask for a penny back from this church.
General hubbub.
Jones: Understand that? (Pause) Get a form filled out. Of course, you can’t anyway, because your father’s always been careful in that way. These are free will offerings, you’ve been told exactly what I stand for, you can never say that there’s been misrepresentation, because I told you there was no God, I told you I was the only God there was, I told you there was nothing else but truth, and only truth is socialism, and I’ve told you so nobody can go out of here and say they had any misrepresentation. That’s the only way you can get money back, is that if money has been taken under false pretenses, and honey, I sure can be accused of many things, but I never took money under false pretenses. (Pause) I told you exactly what it was— what we were doing, what we were trying to do, where we were going. I’ve hid nothing from the people, not a thing have I hid from the people. (Pause) What? Can you read it? You should trust me enough not to have to read it.
Scattered applause and cheers.
Jones: If you start read it, everybody in the place will want to read it. (Pause) Give it to me. (Pause) I’ll read it, once. You ought’nt have to, though. This is— (struggles for words) My God, I went to— I went— when Chris Lewis wasn’t uh, even a member and was acting like a regular ass, I went and got him out of jail and spent thirty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars— thirty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars to save him, because he was a member at one time.
Voice too far away.
Jones: Well I— How many heard that? (Pause) The sister back there said she didn’t. Well, it’s true. He’s— Reverend Brown’s right, they talk too much. I said, you should not have to worry about anything, because I have proven my character. What did I have to do for Chris Lewis? Nothing. He quit church. He wasn’t coming to church. I never forget any child. They’re halfway trying. I did make a requirement after that, if you quit church, we’re not obligated to do anything. If you quit church, we’re not obligated. Not by signing this. This is all— all this says, "I certify the above information is true and correct. I hereby agree and consent to the use of this statement and my photograph in the publications and other communications sponsored or otherwise influenced by Peoples Temple Christian Church. This statement may be used in whole or in part, and may be edited as is reasonable. I sign this freely without duress, because I believe in the human service work of Peoples Temple Christian Church." The other one says "I hereby resign my membership in Peoples Temple Christian Church. I am resigning because my beliefs and activities are at variance with the beliefs and activities of Peoples Temple Christian Church and Jim Jones, the pastor of said church. I have no criticism of the church or the beliefs and standards of the Peoples Temple Christian Church. My only reason for resigning is that I do not feel I can uphold these beliefs, and my current activities take up too much of my time. I have been treated fairly, and with justice and love by Jim Jones and the members of the Peoples Temple Church. At no time have I any reason to be unhappy and to disagree with any of the treatment that I have received. Signed."
End of tape.