A-Bomb Reminder : ‘Peace Pole’ Has Timely Message

Larry and Pearl Miles had come to the “peace pole” on the lawn of the Redlands City Hall on Wednesday morning to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

They were alone, but they didn’t mind that no special ceremony had been planned this particular day around the slender, six-foot red cedar pole, a universal symbol of peace inspired by the horrors of the bombing that killed more than 100,000 people and leveled Hiroshima.

“This simple pole is yet another seed of peace. It is here to remind people who pass it every day to think of peace and do everything they can in their own way to promote peace on Earth,” said Larry Miles 71, a retired budget analyst for county governments.

Miles and his wife, peace activists for the last 30 years, bought the pole for $55 and presented it to Redlands on behalf of the Redlands Peace Group, of which Larry Miles is the secretary-treasurer.

The pole was officially accepted by the Redlands City Council and anchored in concrete beside a Japanese-style garden on the City Hall lawn. It was dedicated last June 4.

“We hope it will serve as a reminder to all passing the peace pole to think of peace and do everything they can in their own way to promote peace on Earth,” Pearl Miles said.

It was Japanese religious leader Masahisa Goi, founder of the Society of Prayer For World Peace, who in the wake of the devastation at Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, advocated the placing of peace poles in public places and inscribing them with the message: “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

Today there are 51,525 peace poles in Japan and several hundred in 50 other nations, including about 250 in the United States. Of the 25 states to have peace poles, California has the most, 36, said Joe Spaulding, who with his wife, Carol, has been making poles for distribution in America under the auspices of the Society of Prayer for World Peace, headquartered at Ichikawa, Japan.

The Spauldings, peace activists for 20 years, are making the poles in a workshop in the woods on the outskirts of the village of East Jordan in northwestern Michigan.

“Peace poles are the healing acupuncture of the Earth,” said Spaulding in a telephone interview. “It was Masahisa Goi’s theory that prayer could change the direction of negative forces on Earth.”

After visiting the peace pole Wednesday, the Mileses left for San Bernardino for a peace vigil at the Ballistic Missile Center. Since the mid-1950s, Larry and Pearl Miles have participated in anti-war marches, anti-nuclear demonstrations and peace vigils.

“Whatever money we have we plow it into peace groups. We’re living on a modest pension,” Miles said. “We’ll send $10 to this peace organization, $15 to that peace group. We’re members of organizations like Fellowship of Reconciliation, SANE, Witness For Peace, Nuclear Freeze. We do our best as individuals to try to achieve peace in the world before the world blows itself up.”