Part 3—The “Triumphant Kingdom” Assemblies of 1955
Dallas, Texas, July 13-17, 1955
THERE were about 500 friends out at the Dallas airport to welcome the Society’s president and his two traveling companions on their arrival Tuesday evening, July 12, by plane from Los Angeles. Movie photographers were on hand to record the event, and KRLD-TV telecast the arrival over channel 4 that night. About thirty-five out-of-town newspapers had published advance news releases concerning the coming convention at the Cotton Bowl. Famous throughout the United States, the Cotton Bowl is the second-largest stadium in the South, having a seating capacity of 75,347; and here witnesses of Jehovah from many lands were to meet for five days in the fourth of the 1955 assembly series. In addition to the Cotton Bowl the large livestock pavilion nearby in the Fair Park was to be used for the holding of a simultaneous convention in Spanish. To this the friends from all Latin-American lands were invited. The program was accordingly printed in English and Spanish.
Because of the intense heat that was expected in the open Cotton Bowl from a broiling afternoon sun, no meetings were programmed for afternoons. The afternoons were left open for field service by the conventioners; and the president’s meetings with the servants of districts, circuits and congregations, usually held in the morning, were held under cover in the early afternoon. All assembly sessions were timed for mornings and evenings. The practicalness of this could be better appreciated after the temperature rose to 101 degrees Fahrenheit the first afternoon and then climbed to 104 degrees F. the second afternoon. At the Vancouver (B.C.) assembly thousands of witnesses of Jehovah had braved the cold and rain; here in Dallas they braved the heat and also a sudden downpour. Here also the assembly took on an international touch, with ten delegates from Hawaii and other brothers from Argentina, India, Alaska, Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba and Puerto Rico besides those from forty states of the American union.
Running with sweat, the president delivered his opening address in the morning to an audience of 8,172, in the Cotton Bowl. At the same time the same speech was being delivered in Spanish by the vice-president to 745 of Jehovah’s “sheep” at the Livestock Pavilion. This totaled up to 8,917 for these simultaneous sessions. Instead of dropping for the night sessions, the attendance increased to 10,658. During the final half hour over at the Pavilion the president by means of an interpreter spoke to 980, for a while answering prepared written Bible questions and then speaking extemporaneously to them on advisable things, which they much appreciated. To their surprise and joy he released to them the new booklet in Spanish, “This Good News of the Kingdom”.
Incidentally, tonight, far to the east, in New York city, 500 Europe-bound delegates entrained for transportation to Quebec City, there to board two ocean liners, chartered by the Watch Tower Society, the Arosa Star and the Arosa Kulm. They were given a big send-off by New York brothers who had to remain behind. From other directions other brothers also were converging on Quebec City, and on the afternoon of the following day, Thursday, July 14, the Star and the Kulm steamed down the Saint Lawrence River with 1,589 joyful conventioners aboard, bound for the international assembly in London, England.
In Fort Worth, Texas, this Thursday morning two stations telecast some of the activities at Dallas. This evening a thunderhead came up to cool off the atmosphere, and there was lightning, also wind. For a time the Cotton Bowl became a “dust bowl,” and it was necessary to fasten down things on the speakers’ platform. From then on the convention temperature moderated somewhat. The night’s attendance for both English and Spanish was 13,426, and all were thoroughly enjoying the spiritual feast. The convention here also received international attention, for messages, telegrams and cablegrams from brothers in Latin America and distant lands, including those in the Orient, kept pouring in with greetings and prayers for this assembly.
The Friday morning baptism had eighty-seven Spanish-speaking ones among the total of 468 immersed. Because of the racial distinction that still dominates the local situation, the thirty-five candidates of African extraction were immersed in Exline Park swimming pool, all the others in the Randall Park swimming pool. But where one is baptized makes no difference; in any place this symbol of baptism denotes the same obedience to the divine will. Similarly the assembly at Dallas was one international assembly, although the language difference separated 1,738 Spanish-speaking Saturday night from the 14,341 English-speaking assembled in the nearby Cotton Bowl. Among the telegrams received this Saturday were two interesting ones: the first from the Arosa Kulm assured us here that the 795 passengers aboard were remembering the Dallas assembly; the second from the Arosa Star also bespoke that the 794 aboard had us, 16,079 here, in mind and heart. The two chartered ships bound for England were then cruising off the shores of Labrador.
Late Saturday night it rained and there were heavily clouded skies Sunday morning. This morning there were six interesting delegates to the assembly. At Seagoville, some sixteen miles to the southeast of Dallas, there were six young witnesses of Jehovah detained at a federal correctional institution because of holding fast to their integrity to Him. The request was made to the prison warden that these might be permitted to be brought to the nearby assembly to share in the Sunday morning sessions. The warden applied to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons at Washington and he authorized their attendance. So eight seats were reserved at the Cotton Bowl, and the prison warden and a guard brought the six young men to the assembly and they all occupied the reserved seats. After the “closing remarks” by the president the entire group were taken to the assembly cafeteria and treated to a free dinner. About twenty young men volunteering their services at the cafeteria recognized the warden, shook hands with him and expressed appreciation of how nicely he had treated them when they too were at Seagoville. The warden was much impressed by their kindly attitude. Also, the police at the Fair Park were impressed by the unusual co-operativeness and cleanliness of the conventioners. One policeman confessed he had never taken an interest in us before. “You people have something!” he added. But religious prejudice kept the newspaper publicity down to 517.5 column inches.
Incidentally, today during the progress of the Dallas assembly two “Flying Tigers” at New York city’s Idlewild airport took to the air loaded almost to capacity with conventioners availing themselves of early flight facilities across the Atlantic to be on hand for the London (England) assembly the following week.
The public lecture on “World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom” was billed for eight o’clock tonight in both English and Spanish. During the hour-and-a-half program that preceded this a threatening storm cloud began approaching from the southwest and fanned out over Dallas. All other clouds closed in with it to form a pitch-black cloud mass over the city, from which lightnings flashed. The effect on the thousands of the public who may have thought of attending the public lecture in the open, coverless Cotton Bowl can be imagined. So only 14,825 turned out for the talk by the president in the Bowl and 1,508 for the same talk in Spanish by the vice-president in the Pavilion, or a total of 16,409. As soon as the president under the drapeless canopy on the platform began to speak, down came a heavy rain. Fortunately he had donned his raincoat and rubber overshoes, but thousands before him in the Bowl moved back under cover of the corridors beneath the stands. Many, however, kept sitting under umbrellas in the rain in full view of the speaker, who offset the sudden difficulty by endeavoring to make this his best delivery yet of this powerful lecture. The rain beating down on the tin top of the canopy over him produced a background noise over the loud-speakers, but the message continued going out till its grand climax and the release of the free booklet to this faithful audience. Over at the Pavilion the booklet was released for the first time in Spanish and elicited a great applause that kept up till the speaker departed for the airport with the president to fly to New York city. The conventioners now began to depart to share their blessing with those back home, and the nine congregations in Dallas with a total of more than 700 active Kingdom ministers were left to take advantage of all the fine effects of the assembly upon the inhabitants of Greater Dallas.
(To be continued)