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Offered is a first edition, first printing, of "The Prevalence of Terror: The Reverse of Reverence for Life," the text of a sermon given on February 22, 1953 at The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles and published in print form by that Church. A left-stapled pamphlet measuring 6-1/8" by 9-3/8" and containing 12 pages including front and rear covers. Here are a few excerpts: "The pilots of our bombers drop death and ruin on villages far away; they see only a brilliant orange and black mushroom far below, but mothers and children, soldiers and farmers are slain, mutilated, burned with incurable napalm sores. War is the terror that reaches around the globe in a network of diabolical efficiency. The terror is organized, commercialized, rated on the stock exchange, recorded by ingenious business machines" - "The refusal of men to do all possible to use negotiation and the tools of honest compromise of issues is a voluntary continuation of this terror over body and soul in war. Surely we who profess religious values, who believe in reverence for life, can and should do far more than we are doing to insist that the terroristic methods of atomic bombs, liquid fire, and all other devices of annihilation be replaced by the sanities of men who have discovered thought, reason, bargaining and concessions. Terror multiplies terror and violence corrupts the powers of men to be human." Outer covers sunned; a few light corner creases; light wear. The REVEREND STEPHEN H. FRITCHMAN (1902-1981) was the minister of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, California, from 1948 to 1969. Affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, the Los Angeles Church embraced numerous progressive social causes, supported Hollywood writers and actors black-listed during the Joseph McCarthy era, and was opposed to the American wars in Korea and Vietnam. The Unitarian Universalist Association writes of the Rev. Fritchman, in brief, "He called himself a heretic and called the Unitarian Universalist church a radical organization. Both friends and critics would affirm that he was correct about the first, and the kind of church he gathered around him in Los Angeles made him right about the second. In his earlier years he was frequently viewed as a highly controversial figure because of his espousal of radical causes. He focused his intellect, talents, and energy on the great causes of our time - peace, disarmament, racism, the ongoing struggle against intolerance and hatred.".
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