Golden Age, October 15, 1919

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Golden Age

Vel. I New York City, N.Y., Wednesday, October IS, !919 No. 2

CURRENT EVENTS—THEIR MEANING

A CUSTOM has long obtained throughout Great Britain of celebrating the first week of August as “bank holidays.'* In the summer of 1914 the Irish question was engaging the attention of England and causing much concern. At the same time there was a great deal of agitation among the laboring elements, and, it was generally understood throughout Great Britain that the beginning of the bank holidays that year (August 1st) would mark the beginning of a great strike, which would not only tie up commerce but would stop every wheel in the United Kingdom— the very thing that has just come to pass. Necessarily the tension was high in Great Britain at that r time and every one was in an attitude of expectancy. But just before the time for calling the strike, the great international war began. The labor agitation ceased and the labor elements joined hands with the other elements of the social order of Great Britain and went out to fight Great Britain's enemies.

But the war did not serve to permanently appease ' the wrath of the discontented of the labor and radical elements. Shortly after the war these elements in the social order began an agitation, and for the past few weeks Great Britain has been in the throes of not only a disturbed labor and financial condition, but what the public press terms a bloodless revolution. A metro* politan paper recently said:

“Great Britain's bloodless revolution is gaining fast and the Lords and Commons in daily session are progressing with proposals designed to equalise opportunities in every phase of life.

“The coal nationalization plan is gaining adherence in high places, despite the vigorous and virile attacks by the plutocratic holders and agents of coal'tracts. It is contended by the government's witnesses and experts that the titles to these . > areas are invalid and have been unjustly and illegally held for - centuries.

* “The government is having its hands full with the unemployment question, and cool heads alone will avert a dash. Americans may have a better idea of conditions when they learn that whereas in the United States, according to Mr. Gorapers, less than fifteen per cent of wage earners are organised, in the British Isles less than fifteen per cent are not In other words, labor is making tremendous efforts to gain entire control of the government Lloyd George has been driven to radical extremes to conciliate labor."

We frequently hear the expression, “History repeats itself.” We are forcibly reminded of the parallelism between conditions prevailing in Great Britain and those which once prevailed in Palestine. For centuries Jehovah dealt with the Jewish people, and Jerusalem was the ecclesiastical center of the world. English scholars have long contended that England occupies a position relative to the world similar to that occupied by Jerusalem in. the closing years of the national history of Israel. The Prophet Jeremiah, who was specially sent to Israel between the years 646 and 606 b. C, describes the enemies of Jerusalem as “the people from the north country," a rash, radical clement. This radical element from the north had come down and laid siege to Jerusalem. When word was brought that the armies of Egypt were marching toward Jerusalem, these peoples of the north, otherwise known as the Chaldeans* withdrew from the siege of Jerusalem to war against the armies of Egypt, and having defeated them, returned and again laid siege to Jerusalem with the well known result recorded both in sacred and profane history. ’

The peoples from the north described by the Prophet very fitly picture or represent the labor and radical elements of Great Britain that laid siege to the government of England in 1914; and hearing of the oncoming of the Germans they withdrew and fought the enemy until their defeat, only to return and renew their siege against the government of Great Britain.

In this connection we are reminded that according to Bible chronology the old social order of things reached an end with 1914. In other words, there the period granted to the Gentiles as a lease of undisturbed rulership of the earth ended. When Jesus was asked what would be some of the evidences of the end of the world (the old order) and the beginning of the new, he answered, “Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom,” and this shall be followed by famine, pestilence and revolution. All of this trouble, he set forth, would immediately precede the inauguration of his reign of righteousness, which would bring in the Golden Age. It is a matter of history that the international war began exactly on time, 1914; and that this war has been followed by the great pestilence of influenza, which claimed more victims by far than fell in the war; and also by revolutions and general food shortage, which might be described as a famine. These evidences indicate that the Golden Age is at hand.

Every sane person who believes in the existence of Jehovah as the all-wise Creator must know that all the events which are transpiring in the world are occurring m harmony with his foreknowledge. The Bible records, "Known unto God are all his ways from the beginning” (Acts 15:18). Jehovah, then, must have foreknown the conditions prevailing in the world, in? eluding all the strikes, labor troubles, revolutions, etc. We have but to refer to the Scriptures to know that he foreknew such. His prophet was directed to record these words: “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave diem neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1). Fire is used in the Scriptures as a symbol of destruction and fitly represents the destruction of the old and unrighteous order to make preparation for the new incoming better order of things.

The public press fully recognizes the disintegration of the present order; that the fire is burning away the old structure, but the reason for it has seemingly been entirely overlooked. The Los Angeles Times recently said: *

^One-half of the world is ablaze, the other half smoldering. The half capable of saving the property already on tire is just now OTcr-occupted checking the spread of the conflagration to Ha own home buildings. A saitvt pent spirit is at present the dominant incentive to most human action.

•For humanity is only just emerging, somewhat fearfully, somewhat recklessly, from the shadow of a great crime. The dawn of peace is obscured in the cloud-rack that follows the wake of the war tempest

•For the time being the tendency of social forces is toward discord and disintegration. Almost every newspaper dispatch, foreign and domestic, affords evidence of this dangerous trend. England, France, ' Germany Redi vivas, the three balance-wheels of Europe, axe running out of true.

“Our people at home are fretting under new laws and new obligations; restless and irritated, they are turning away from the wisdom of the ages. These psychological causes are manifest in violent disturbances. The whole world is mutinous.

*Tn such sporadic outbreaks as the Winnipeg revolt, the Chicago riots, the promiscuous bomb-throwing at leading citizens in the United States, the Saturnalia of fixe dregs of the human race in unpoliced Liverpool, the general strike situation that threatens to paralyze England, we see the economic peril that springs from this general world-spirit of unrest, dissatisfaction and dislikes for all former restraints. As the cost of living goes up the price of human life goes down. The same spirit permeates not only popular tastes, but even popular decencies and morals.

"The horrors of the vilest war ever inflicted on suffering humanity have tried the world's soul to the limit of endnr-anee. The reaction has been violent Human nature to passing through a spasm of protest Hence, riots and extravagance and immodesty and jazz music and shimmie dances are a seething wash of unrest

*Is humanity going on the rocks? It seems to "be—the margin of safety at times appears to be cut down to a recklessly tine line. The ship is passing through stormy eeaa» steering closer than caution warrants to the reefs. And malcontents in the fo’Sslt are trying to unsteady the hand of the pilot,"

Of course the writer of the above does not use "fire" in a literal sense, but uses it symbolically to represent the destructive elements of society, one warring against the other; and this fire that is destroying the present unrighteous order has come because individual and national selfishness has gone to seed, and the time of God’s judgment is upon all such and the fire of his jealousy is burning away all the dross, preparatory for a better order. He foretold this long ago, saying, “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my .fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy” (Zephaniah 3:8). In harmony with the foreknowledge of Jehovah thus recorded, the secular press of the world is recording the happening of the events. While passing through this fiery time it is not enjoyable to any one, but the one who really appreciates what it means and what shall follow after will take courage and rejoice. It really means the passing away of a system of selfishness and unrighteousness to be followed by a time of blessing.

The Lord’s prophet, after using the above language applicable to the present time of burning, then says, “For then [after this fiery time of distress and trouble ends] will I turn to the people a pure message [a message that they can all understand and appreciate], that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.” There is real comfort in the thought that all of these troubles will but prepare the world to realize the blessings that God has in store for them. All these experiences are part of the Divine method of instructing mankind that the only feasible way of correcting the difficulties existing is by and through the agency of Messiah’s kingdom, the inauguration of the Golden Age. Before these blessings long hoped for and promised can begin, the present imperfect and unrighteous systems must end. .

Part of the people for centuries have been in an exalted position, while the greater number of them have been far below them. The exalted ones, then, would be represented by the hills or high places, while the valleys would picture those of the lower walks of life. And looking to that blessed time of the Golden Age, the prophet of the Lord says, "Every valley [low place, low people] shall be exalted, and every mountain and Ml [high people] shall be made low; and the crooked [unrighteous, profiteers, etc.] shall be made straight and the rough places [the courses difficult to understand or pass over] shall be made plain." This does not mean that the pcjor will ultimately dominate the rich, nor the rich be brought down to a low condition; but it does mean a general leveling process in which every one will have a fair opportunity for life, liberty and happiness under the righteous reign of the Messiah. It is, therefore, profitable for the people to appreciate the real meaning of this present disturbed condition and to prepare themselves to receive the blessings that must follow. •

Among the present or old order of things there are various elements; namely, the rich and the poor elements, the high and the low elements, the radical and conservative elements. The public press daily records the heated expression of these elements one toward another. The strike of the laborers is a protest against the capitalists. They give utterance to heated words and it is not uncommon to speak of affairs between these elements as growing "hot” This trouble is not confined to one part of the world, but is everywhere, in practically every nation. We append some appropriate excerpts from the daily press as evidence of the fervent heat that is prevailing among these various elements. The Philadelphia Public Ledger says:

"What have the people'of Italy been rioting about? High prices. To read the recent cablegrams from that land of long history and magic beauty one would have expected the rioting to be over Fiume or the Adriatic Islands or the - exclusion of Italy from the French alliance. But the source ' •* of the trouble was more commonplace and unsentimental. It * , was simply that the grocer charged too much for ‘eats’ and the tailor for clothes.

“Europe is thinking of its stomach and its back, not its political rights or its national boundaries.

"And Europe has no monopoly on this line of thought. The plain people of America are more interested to-day in the steadily mounting prices of most of the necessities of life and the constant warnings that things will be worse before they are better than they are about ‘Article X* or the true story of Shantung or the status of the Monroe Doctrine in relation to the League covenant This is not selfishness or Insularity, but the same mental process which causes a cinder in a man’s eye to engross more of his attention than does a new moon discovered in the neighborhood of Jupiter."

The London Daily Herald records conditions of unrest existing in France in the following paragraph:

■ • ■

The reactionary papers Hke the Actio* Fronfaiae and the DrmorrsrigiM Nowcllc are, of course, la a condition of hysteria, crying that it is all a Bolshevik polt, a German plot, a plot to ruin victorious France. Leon Daudet, in the Action says he cannot express his disgust and horror. In point of fact, the movement is not organized at all But this makes It perhaps only the more significant, for it is a spontaneous manifestation of the deeo discontent among the whole mass of the workers.

"The main immediate cause is of course 'la mr cAerr/ the high cost of living, which people in England cannot possibly appreciate. But apart from that there is a general sense of disillusionment and disappointment. Victory has turned Into dust and ashes, and the workers of France are realizing that for them four years’ struggle has brought nothing."

From Peris comes the word that the following trades are (or were at the time of the correspondence) on strike: metal workers, tailors, milliners, bootmakers, mechanical modellers, saw-mill workers, printers, plumbers, butchers, carpenters, glove makers, builders, newspaper employees, subway men, transport workers, bronze workers, taxi drivers, electrical workers at Bourget Company, employees of Maison Brassert, Maison Breguet, Maison Dufagel, and aeroplane workers at Courtevoie. In France outside of Paris builders are on strike at Valenciennes, timber, workers at Sainte-Tulle, tramway workers at Caen, gas workers at Nevers, metal workers at Grenoble, electrical workers in Lorraine, miners in Pas-de-Calais.

As further proof of the spirit of discontent and the heat prevailing among the elements, we quote from the Portland Oregon Journal:

"When has there been such a tumult?

"A hundred thousand strikers in the building trades in Chicago I

"A hundred and fifty thousand railroad shopmen on strike fa America!

"A Los Angeles lawyer’s house dynamited and burned because he assisted in prosecuting radicals 1

"Whites and colored fa near civil war fa Chicago!

"Strikes fa full swing or incubating fa many American cities; labor unrest all over the world 1

"A night of riot fa Liverpool described by a newspaper as ‘the most distressing night ever passed in a civilized city' I

“Strikes of policemen, street car workers, railway operatives and mine workers fa various parts of England!

“Where are we headed for?"

The San Fraodeco CaH Pott, referring to similar conditions prevailing in different parts of the earth, speaks of it as Ma~general breakdown of civilized re- straints throughout a large part of Central and Eastern Europe.... The devil is let loose in the world and the > hearts of men are full of cruelty.” We quote:

‘'Often of late the atrocities with which the world still echoes seem less like the crimes of individual men than an obscene disease which has seized upon humanity. The course •f. this disease may even be mapped out It began, so far as this generation is concerned, in Armenia, where the Tur la lolled the Christians without provoking the so-called Christian nations to anything more than mild protests. It spread to the Balkans, where the second Balkan war was preceded and accompanied by the most appalling massacres. The official report upon these massacres, in which no one's hands were dean, was a sensation early in 1914

• . "With the outbreak of the war between Servta and Austria the disease biased up with renewed fury, and when the little war became a great one the germs were carried into France • and Belgium on the one side and into Russia on the other. The Germans and Russians committed atrocities upon each other in the east, and in Poland both sides persecuted the Jews.

"The Bolshevist revolution introduced a new element of hatred—envy and desire for revenge on the one hand, fear on the other. The number of killings by the BohhevHd has been exaggerated, but though it is claimed Lcnine has not killed wantonly, it is admitted he Spared no life that stood in the way of his success. On the outskirts of the revolution wavered a barbaric fringe, the offspring of poverty and oppression, who killed like beasts and were in turn killed, even by the revolutionists.

"The enemies of the revolution were from the first as bloodthirsty as the worst of the terrorists. In Finland, Man* nerheim is reported to have killed about nine thousand. Kolchak is known to hold down his 'liberated' districts with a bloody hand and has executed hundreds, including several members of the Constituent Assembly who took refuge with him from the Bolsheviki; the Japanese hold large parts of Siberia under a reign of terror, and Fetlura’s forces are charged with the almost incredible crime of killing or in' ttigating the killing of 84,000 Jews in the Ukraine. .

"Spontaneous as welt as organized cruelty has been rampant everywhere. The forces of order and of disorder are almost equally savage. What is going on. seems to be a general breakdown of civilized restraints throughout a large part of central and eastern Europe. It is just such a breakdown, apparently, as preceded the destruction of the old Roman ctviliration fifteen hundred years ago. The devil is let loose in thw world, the hearts of men are full of cruelty. Such a -degeneration can drag great masses of men down toward ■ fthe beast just as it can individuals. Conceivably the whole world may be attacked by iL Neither western Europe nor -America is safe. We do not know what tempests may sweep over us.

“There is no antidote except a clinging to a few old standards which have proven good. We can not tell what of our institutions will survive, or if any will survive unimpaired, but we can be sure that the more tolerant we are, the more kindly, the more willing to stu<^ the other man’s point of view, the more chance we shall have of bolding on to what we most value in civilization. This is no time for the cultivation of hate. It is no time to denounce or vilify even the worst and weakest of mankind. It is a time for understanding. Only that and its fruits can save us—only Christianity."

Capitalists have become convinced that the more they yield to the demands of the labor and radical elements, the more will be demanded of them, and there is a growing antagonism between the two dements. There* is a threat to withdraw capital from public and private enterprises, which, of course, would depress business and financial interests to the detriment of all. With both capital and labor idle, the two elements would disintegrate or melt, . With a constant warfare between the two the result would be the same.

Recently a bill was introduced in Congress that is known as the Plumb plan for thj control and operation of the railroads. Its chief provisions are these: -

1. Purchase by the Government of aU the railroad systems on valuations determined finally by the courts.

2. Operation by a directorate of fifteen, five to be chosen by the President to represent the public, five to be elected by the operating officials and five by the classified employees.

‘ 3. Equal division of surplus, after paying fixed charges and operating costs between the public and the employees.

4. Automatic reduction of rates when the employes' share of the surplus is more than five per cent of the gross operating revenue. >

5. Regional operation of the lines as a unified syr*. tern.

6. Building of extensions at expense of the communities benefited, in proportion to the benefit.

7. Payment for the roads made through Govern-merit bonds bearing four per cent, interest.

It is claimed there are six million members of labor organizations advocating this bill. The New York World commenting upon the bill says: “The difference between the Wall Street looting system and the Brotherhood looting system is that Wall Street provides the original investment for its operations, while the Brotherhoods insist that the United States must furnish the money."

A labor paper, speaking for the labor element on the same subject, says: “The American labor unions and the national farmers are not going ta permit the return of the railroads to private hands. The robbery of the people by the alleged owners of the railroads has been stopped, and the bandits are not going to be restored to their plunder by any means. Let every one take notice. The unions are out for national ownership of both the railroads and the coal mines. Congress will find out that any attempt to return the roads will precipitate a great conflict which will be won by the unions/'.

Another paper, the mouthpiece of another branch of the radical element, says: “Nothing less than the foundations of private ownership of every public industry are menaced by the Plumb plan bill now in the lists against the old system of railroad control, which has run its course and amply proved its inefficiency and ' worthlessness.** Continuing, this writer points out that "the working class" has in its favor "the menacing unrest due to the soaring cost of living, the ability of the workers to counterbalance capitalist control of Congress by the general strike if aggression should force the use of this weapon, and the plain fact that the Plumb plan is the only workable way out of the railroad impasse, something which no amount of slander , regarding it can disprove.” \

Another great daily, speaking for the financial side of the question and which shows how the two elements are increasing in fervent heat one toward the other, says:

* Financial men do not mince words; they state pointedly they will back employers to the Hmiy win permit every important industry in Chicago and in the Middle West territory te be strike-stricken rather than Submit to an unreasonable wage or unjust conditions. If it must come to a drastic issue between employer and employee, well and good; they, the representatives of capital declare, will not evade the contest; let the thing be settled now and definitely; they are ready to meet and combat it to a final conclusion, is the assertion.*

There is an ecclesiastical element which is described in the Scriptures by the symbolic term "heavens,” and it is well known to all that this element is melting and disintegrating. The Rev. Dr. Graham is reported recently to have said:

'‘World-rocking social upheavals, threatening to destroy all religion, are due to come in the next few years. America, in the meantime, is in peril of becoming drunk with a sense of its power and of being destroyed, therefore, as have other nations in the past”

The Rev. Dr. J. R, Stratton of New York City is reported by the New York .fwuriccH as saying:

;. “We see churches inviting opera ‘stars' to sing at their ' * services and securing 'movie artists' in the frantic effort to . attract the crowd, and very recently we had the announcement in our papers of one pastor who introduced the Jazz band into kis services.

*T believe, my friends, that these new church methods are a shameless surrender to the worst tendencies of the times.

“And the next stage—what shall it be? More pronounced vaudeville features? Tight-rope walking across the heads of the congregation from the gallery to the choir loft? Consecrated cleg dancing and the ‘religious ballet,’ between the preacher's 'stunts'? Are we to have this?*

The condition recorded by the public press as above quoted is not one that has come suddenly upon the world but has crept in gradually as a thief in the night. It is impossible to read this record of present-day events without having in mind the prophetic words recorded nineteen centuries ago by the inspired ajrostle and prophet of the Lord who said: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. . . . Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” —2 Peter 3:10-12.

It should be remembered that St. Peter was a prophet as well as an apostle; that he, as other prophets, was a mouthpiece of God, to expound or give utterance concerning things that would come to pass. As were other of God’s prophets, he was moved to write of things which, not being due in his time or day and therefore not appreciated then, are now due to be fulfilled and can be appreciated by those who observe the events transpiring in the light of the testimony recorded in Holy Writ.

Throughout the Scriptures"earth”when used symbolically, represents society, or the prevailing social order. "Heavens” used in the symbolical sense means powers of spiritual control or ecclesiastical elements prevailingat a stated time. "Fire” used in a figurative sense, as in the Scriptures quoted above, represents or pictures destruction. With prophetic vision, this apostle, looking to the end of the age, the time through which the world is now passing, refers to the period as "the day of the Lord” and states that it will come upon the world "as a thief in the night,” that is to say, unobserved except by those who are watching; and during that time the heavens (meaning the present powers of spiritual control) shall pass away with a great, hissing, troublesome noise. And so we see the present ecclesiastical elements mixing up with the worldly elements and disregarding the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and melting away or disintegrating. Continuing, the apostle says: “And the elements [clearly meaning the rich and poor elements, the financial and labor elements, the radical and conservative elements, etc.] shall melt with fervent heat;” that is to say, they will become so hot one toward another that the result wilt be a withdrawal of capital and a suspension of labor through strikes, causing the elements to melt or disintegrate.

It would be distressing indeed if the present order should pass into a chaotic condition, and there would be no basis for our hope of a better condition to come. > But the Lord, through his prophetic Witness, the Bible, records a sure basis for our hope of a better condition to follow immediately after the present disturbed conditions. St. Peter further says: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). Those here referred to as "we” of necessity must be the class to which St. Peter himself belonged; and since he was a fully consecrated Christian, following in the footsteps of his Master, Christ Jesus, he must have meant all who come into this covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ and who strive to be obedient to the Lord’s arrangement, who have full faith and confidence in the promises of God and who look for, as well as hope and pray for, the coming of Messiah’s kingdom—that class who have learned to sincerely pray as Jesus taught them to pray: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is done m heaven.” Looking for these things, they confidently expect them, and they base their expectancy or hope upon the sure Word of prophecy.

The Apostle Paul tells us that the god of the present world is Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4), who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience, and that he has blinded the minds of the people to God’s real purposes. The old order of things is the outgrowth of the best efforts of selfish man; and it is clearly demonstrated that where selfishness prevails and the order of society is directed by selfish agents the best results cannot be attained for the people in general. b The “promise” mentioned by the Apostle in the above quotation evidently means the great promise which God made to Abraham, assuring him that “in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” St. Paul clearly defines what is meant by this seed, saying, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). The term Christ means Messiah. For centuries the Jewish people have been looking for the Messiah. The Apostle then describes who shall constitute this Messiah—the Christ, the seed of Abraham—saying, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

This class, then, relying upon the Scriptural assurances, have confidently looked for the time coming when Messiah would constitute the new, invisible ruling power—the “new heavensand by the establishment of his rule in the earth through his perfect human

agencies would institute the “new earth,” otherwise described as the Lord’s Kingdom, which would fully establish and bring in the Golden Age. In that age righteousness will prevail and blessing will be administered unto all the people who yield themselves in obedience to the righteous government. * .

St. Paul referred to the suffering of humanity, the distress amongst the people, and the coming blessings when he said, “The whole creation groaneth arttf travaileth in pain together until now. waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, 22). The word travail here used has application to the spasmodic pains of a woman in child birth and pictures the incoming of the new order. Truly the human race everywhere is groaning and travailing now in a condition of pain. It is longing for deliverance and a better time, but knows not how it is coming. The apostle says men are waiting for “the manifestation of the sons of Godthat is to say, for the kingdom of Messiah, the inauguration of the Golden Age. All this unrest and confusion, therefore, is but a sign, evidence or proof, to the thoughtful and reverent person that we are approaching the day of general blessings.

An unanswerable argument proving that this is God’s due time for the introduction of the new order of things is that he is lifting the vail of ignorance and gradually letting in the light of intelligence and invention upon mankind, exactly as his prophets foretold. (See Daniel 12:1, 4.) Great enlightenment has come gradually to the people. Had knowledge come sooner the trouble would have come sooner; and though society might have reorganized itself after the storm, it would not have been “a new earth [social arrangement], wherein dwelleth righteousness,” but a new earth or arrangement in which sin and vice would have abounded much more than before.

It is the privilege and duty of the Christian at this important hour in the world’s history to aid and comfort his fellow men. The Christian cannot engage in the strife that breeds more discontent. Rather should he strive to point the world to the sure Word of prophecy now in course of fulfilment and to the sure promises that a better day is coming. The poor world groans, not only under its real, but also under its fancied ills, and especially under the discontent, selfishness, pride and ambition which fret and worry men because they cannot fully satisfy themselves or be satisfied. The Christian can see both sides of the question, and it is his privilege and duty to counsel those willing to hear to be content, avoid strife and patiently wait until God’s due time and way for bringing in the blessings so long promised to mankind. • ** ' 1 ' ' ■

LABOR and ECONOMICS

TUB CHALLENGE TO STEEL

HE little David of the newly-organized-into-union employes of the steel industry in his challenge to the steel.Goliath makes demands, that are

interesting and typical of the wants of workers affiliated with the trades unions. Whether the reasonableness of the unionmen's position can find its way into the reactionary philosophy, which Goliath has assumed since Andrew Carnegie's-Homestead battle remains to be seen, for the unionized employes are said ' to be few and the employers belittle their, efforts.

In the long-ago the relationship between employer and employe used to be that of a relatively well-to-dp friend to his working friend who was good at carpentering, or something else. As an employer hired more men he knew each man less, and finally he knows the worker not at all, save as a producing unit in a cost record. The human element gradually vanished, and employers cultivated political economists to think out justifying reasons for the unsentimental treatment of workers. The economists devised the theory that labor, that resultant of human effort and emotion often unto death, was a “commodity” to be traded in like hides or copper. This is the accepted economic theory, and the workers in compact groups have adopted it to force from employers the price for their “commodity” that will enable the worker to have a good home for wife and children, with plenty,to eat and wear, and enough education, besides so that the coming generation may get out of the evil conditions forced upon labor and excused by the “commodity” theory. So labor demands the right to turn . the employer’s theory against him and to sell him in one big bargain the labor of all the workers, instead of continuing to give the employers the right to - force undesired prices for labor upon the men individually. Employers do not like this “collective bargaining” for it does away with some of the profits they have secured on under-paid work, but it stabilizes - labor prices, and all hands know what to figure on as . 1! long as the uniform price scale is in force.

■ No one likes the man that compels another to do something he objects to doing, particularly if it cuts down one’s personal purchasing ability. So the employer does not like to keep in his employ workers that strive to force the employers to pay a price agree* able to the workers for their “commodity.” Such men are marked for future reference, and at a con

venient moment are quietly dropped from the pay rolL The steel trades union seeks to have such men reinstated, so that the workers may be represented by men of adequate ability to cope in bargaining with the employers ; and they ask that such representatives of 4a-» bor as may have been discharged be. paid for the time lost from work since their discharge. ' ,

In the. dawn of the industrial age, when water wheel and steam, engine was first hitched up to a string,of machines, employers hired men on the theory that the longer hours a man worked the greater his aggregate production. Men, women and even little children were worked such long hours that they seldom saw the sunlight outside of factory walls; for seven days a week was none too much for “Christian” employers to exact of workers who were poor and couldn’t wear good clothes and who sometimes swore or lost tfieir tempers, to the scandal ization of refined and “noble" ladies and gentlemen. But by hard battles and the assistance of philanthropic friends-of-humanity in high places, the fourteen and sixteen-hour days were cut to twelve, then to ten, to nine and to eight, and there is considerable unbiased opinion among efficiency men that the hours might drop to six without diminution in production. So the steel workers ask for a universal eight-hour day throughout the industry.

The galley slave chained to the immense oar of an ancient ship, used to work day in and- day out till he dropped* down sick at his post and was neatly dispatched and fed to the-sharks of the deep. In pagan countries men drag themselves to work in a hopeless every-d^y grind. In a revolutionary France, insanely doing away, with everything savoring of a dreadful past, they had one day without work in ten. In America we have what is scientifically conceded to be the most efficient arrangement, viz., one resting day to six working days. But in our steel industry thousands work every day without respite, for what can one man do against Goliath, even though conscience and a' weary body demand the needed ration of rest to work? So labor asks the steel chiefs for “one day’s rest in seven.”

It seems inconceivable that in a day when stores close evenings at five and Wednesday afternoons, and women workers are not permitted to work more than so many hours a week, that there should be straight twenty-four hour shifts of work anywhere in America. Yet there are shifts in the steel industry when

the worker goes on say at five, and afternoon follows morning, and evening to midnight succeeds the <ky, and then the wee small hours ran on to another five A. M. before the worker rests from his labor. Men work like this not because they want to but because an impersonal industry forces them to do so or suffer a dismissal which may keep them from getting work anywhere :n the country such as they are fitted for. Labor is eager to work, but it wants to work like a human being, and so it asks Goliath for the abolition of the twenty-four hour shift.

A man’s wage in the ultimate consists not of money but of the things obtainable through the day’s labor. If anything happens, designedly by the employer, or otherwise, whereby he gets less for his money, he suffers an actual cut in wages. Rising prices are another name for diminishing wages. If the wage before the price raise was scarcely enough for subsistence, the actual wage reduced by the high cost of living places the worker in a plight For America to remain the America that was a good place for the common people, the worker must receive a real wage enough to keep up his health and his family's health, buy good clothing, food and other necessities for all, give the children an education to make life worth while, and lay by for rainy days and old age. Therefore the steel worker asks for “increases in wages sufficient to guarantee American standards of living.”

If the same .wage is paid in all brandies of an industry for the same kind of work, it places the buyer on a basis where he knows where he stands in his own competitive affairs. With the present varying wage scales, the highly paid employes in one plant may be kept partly idle while work is diverted to plants paying less for the same kind of work, thus increasing the number of low-paid employes at the expense of the high-wage ones, and decreasing the chance of the low-paid workers securing suitable raises in pay. The workers are seeking “standard scales of wages for all crafts and classification of workers."

Any man expects to work a reasonable number of hours. That time is sold to his employer. The rest of the day and of the night is his own, time, as much as the clothes on his back or the watch in his pocket. . ' To devote personal time to an employer’s use is like ' : loaning the employer one’s overcoat or shoes, and for - such service he should receive a return added to the regular wage rate. The question of loyalty to an employer might enter in with an employer who had personal relations with the employe, but where an employer deals with labor as a “commodity” the suggestion of loyalty in connection therewith is a contradiction of terms, for steel, sugar or a typewriter

have no sentiment of loyalty for anyone. Labor is not unreasonable in requesting “double rates of pay for all overtime and for work on Sundays and holidays." . '

On the impersonal “commodity” theory of wages the relations of employer and employe are theoretical- . ly like those of two machines handling parts of * product. Labor reasons that in the long past employ* ' ers have compelled labor to do a great many thing* that it did not do willingly, and why should not the employer be compelled to do some things unwillingly himself? Labor finds some difficulty in keeping the union men paying their dues when the pinch of bad conditions is not felt and there is no strike on.

In the interests of efficiency, which signifies the obtaining of the last grain of product per wage unit, employers favor having only the most nearly physically , perfect men working for them. This is bad for the ‘

men who are a bit old or not very well or very strong, *

but who are as well qualified as the stronger men to do not an excessive but a good day’s work. The employer can hand the younger men better/ and they work harder for the advancement which several year* 1 of experience will teach them comes to few, and to •

obtain which the young men are willing to sacrifice all the rest of the workers on the altar of personal i ambition. So, to take from the employer another instrument giving him undue advantage in bargaining for the great industrial “commodity," the workers demand “abolition of physical examination of applicants for employment."

No matter what concessions labor may obtain from its employer, or vice versa, neither party will be fully satisfied. If the employer* should own the whole thing bodily, including the plants and the workers as slaves, they would possess no real satisfaction, for their good would be at the expense of their fellow men. Men are not a commodity, the economic fiction notwithstanding. And even if labor should reach the extreme of taking over the ownership and management of the plant, there would be no contentment therewith. ! Both parties are operating from the point of selfinterest, whereas happiness and contentment reside at the other pole of unselfish interest, by each in all and by all in each. At no very distant day all parties will attain that happiness which they seek, and then labor troubles will cease forever. The Golden Age solvent of labor difficulties is the golden rule. Before long the oft-repeated prayer will be answered and God’s will will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. The steel industry will become a vast brotherhood with the union motto realized of “One for all and all for one.”

SOCIAL and INDUSTRIAL

REBUILDING THE WORLD

CCORDING to Lloyd George the world is about to be rebuilt into a world of sunshine for all. Of the old world the British Premier paints

a sombre picture: “What was the old world like? It was a world scarred by slums, disgraced by 'sweating' where unemployment through the vicissitudes of industry brought despair to multitudes of humble homes; a world where, side by side with want, there was waste of the inexhaustible riches of the earth, partly through, ignorance and want of foresight, partly through entrenched selfishness." ■■ '

Lloyd George has lined up with the inevitable, and set his face "against further existence of the order that has “waxed old,” and which by 1914 had begun to pass away. He says, “If we renew the lease of that world, we shall betray the heroic dead. We shall store up retribution for ourselves and for our children.”

Among millions of others the great Welshman sees the futility of seeking to perpetuate that which is worn-out; “If any are inclined to maintain this old world, let them beware, lest. it fall and overwhelm them afld their households in ruin. The old world must and will come to an end. No effort can shore it up much longer."

The Golden Age is coming and Lloyd George may be among the billions to hail its glory and in some little way help to extend its beneficent influence, for he professes willingness to help: “It should be the sublime duty of all without thought of partisanship to assist in building a new world where labor shall have its just reward and indolence alone shall suffer want.**

Much as the great ones of the present order prate about “rebuilding," they will be permitted to play but an insignificant part in that work, for their very contact with present evil methods disqualifies them from constructing the pure edifice for restored humanity. Their stewardship has about come to its end, and into 7 their place will step men whose unswerving loyalty to ’ *God has qualified them to carry out the divine pur-poses for the restoration of a . distracted and crushed world. /

Concerning the sequence of coming events the Biblical prediction is, first, concerning this worn-out world: “They shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end." Of the “rebuilding** the Great Book says, “And die kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given' to the people [the truly faithful Jewish and Christian people] of the saints [the prophets and apostles] of the most High, and all dominions [rulers] shall serve and obejZ him. Hitherto is the end of the matter." (Daniel 7:26-28.) In due time even the Lloyd Georges will turn to God alone fpr divine aid in remedying conditions too hard for human wisdom to control.

HOW PROHIBITION WORKS

IN practice, prohibition works better than some thought it would. There were some who looked upon the closing of saloons, breweries, distilleries, malt houses and bottling * works with alarm, lest the • army employed in these' places should be without employment and a considerable burden be added to an -already heavily-burdened people.

Now it appears that the matter is rapidly adjusting itself. The buildings are being turned into factories and salesrooms for the production and distribution of all kinds of things that men and women need and use, and which many are now able to get instead of the liquor that once consumed their surplus earnings.

It is no loss to a community when the money once spent for liquor goes for ice cream, soft drinks, movies and other frivolities; it is a gain, for the worker is enterta’ned, and without his injury. Aad if the mon**y once spent for liquors goes for better food for the family, better clothing, better furnishings, music, books and the thousand and one other things that improve health and comfort of mind and body all" can rejoice in the change, even including those who once had profitable work in the liquor business, but who could never take satisfaction in it because their fellows ' were cursed and cursed only by the work they did. :

The Lord used the war as the deciding factor for bringing the liquor traffic to an end. We do not believe that it is the will of the Lord that the American people should ever have in their midst again a means whereby some can rob others of reason and health and bring misery to their wives and children by pandering to their diseased appetites. Nor do we believe that the American Government would ever wish again to license it.

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging." (Prov. 20:1) Before the prohibition era statistics showed that 72 per cent of all criminals were made so by strong drink.

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PROHIBITION FOR THE POOR

ON the physiological effects of alcohol the school books leave but one answer, for mentally, morally and physically the total abstainer always has the bat of every user of alcohol From a criminal viewpoint the desirability of sobering the southern negro speaks volumes for national prohibition. From an economic point of view efficiency men are quite unanimous in preferring the non-drinker. The voice of science concurs that the drug alcohol should be placed with other habit-forming drugs beyond the pale.

Thoughtful men, however, felt that there might arise from prohibition consequences easily as serious as the continued use of the drug. The prohibition leaders are well meaning persons, but largely men and women of the zealot type, rather narrow-minded, unacquainted with the broader aspects of public or private administration, and particularly inept in the foreseeing and weighing of psychological results which to the sophisticated politician are his hourly stock in trade. The prohibition “fans” either did not understand the psychology of a prohibition forced upon an unwilling population, or they regarded it a negligible factor.

Some would-be managers of other people conceive of the handling of human beings as like the moving of insensate raw materials—just get them in a legal steam shovel and put them somewhere, and there they stay put. But people have minds, while things have not; and if they are to be made to go, they have to go first with their minds, and afterwards they mat-* their bodies go. There is no permanence in an arrangement where bodies are put somewhere first without minds being put there also. Physical force fails; it puts bodies without putting minds. Unless extreme coercion makes the minds think it is wiser to go along * with the bodies, the minds sooner or later try to put bodies back; and then not merely is the trouble for nothing, but perhaps brute force stupidly outrages mind by putting the bodies back again.

It is claimed that the putting of drink away from the people was accomplished without first converting the minds of the people. If the many had been accorded the chance to vote, it is not quite certain that prohibition would have come. Pressure was brought to bear upon a few—the legislators. Legislators are peculiarly susceptible to the methods of the zealot reformer; their political stability depends on the voters* state of mind; and if a moral-reform zealot happened along in war time, when no one dared to be suspected of hindering the Great Crusade, the legislator went docilely along with the reformer rather than have the voters all worked up over him. So war prohibition went through, with little thought about it by the common people as something for peace times also, in the most difficult form to change back again— an amendment to the federal constitution.

The popular mind not having assented to the peace prohibition proposition it is at work to get back where, it started from. All kinds of arguments are being suggested to the people why the prohibition which is, ought not to be. There is dissatisfaction, and there are not lacking powerful financial! interests to spend money to see that anti-prohibition thoughts get into the disturbed minds of the people.

Thoughts of discontent travel in flocks; and, not' because the people care so much for beer, but because they have a grievance over a sumptuary law, they conjure up the whole family of grievances, real and imaginary.

First is the personal-rights grievance. The man who wants to get tipsy likes to assert his personal right to abuse his health, his mind, his job, his reputation and his wife and family, and is able to build up a plausible argument Covering an extensive field of personal rights versus civil rights.

A curious phenomenon of the war-prohibition situation is that the saloons remain open. In this is an astute psychology. Users of liquor find that taking away drink signifies taking away a method of life. The bar across which the soft drink now finds its way was once a center of good-natured discussion. Now eveiy bar. is a protracted indignation meeting.

Prohibition appeals to a large number as a wrong, because many consider that it was inflicted on them “dishonestly," slipped over when itT was unsafe for one to assert a right, because some one else could vociferate that said assertions might be inimicable to the war.

The news is out through waiters, servants and merchants that the wealthy have stocked their cellars with drinkables and -that there is no prohibition for the man who had a few hundreds or thousands of dollars to invest in liquid refreshments. Most drinkers are poor, and they object that what puts them under the prohibition law and others not under it is the distinction between poverty and wealth. This the brewery interests find no difficulty in magnifying into a national scandal. .

Cultivated discontent is, now a specialty of the liquor interests and may be expected to come to the surface through devious channels. The unclosed saloon becomes the center of strike propaganda. The saloon-keeper is a pastmaster in politics, and he who has been able to control votes can now control currents of discontent. Struggles over wages may be more numerous and show a vicious spirit because of the class propaganda which is quietly going on in comer saloons. And it is easy to imagine that strikes may not be the only methods employed to harrass and annoy those whom they are led to regard as the privileged classes.

There is no human cause better than temperance in general, but it is questionable whether at this particu-a lar critical time the interests of temperance have not been somewhat hindered by what is essentially a wartime measure.

The Good Book says, "Be not among wine-bibbers for the drunkard shall come to poverty” (Proverbs 23 20), and "Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions? who hath wounds without cause? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine” (Proverbs 2J:29-30); but it also says, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak." (Ecclesiastes 3:1-7) In due time under Golden Age conditions the people will be elevated enough not to want any drug stimulation, alcoholic or otherwise.

SIDE ISSUES OF PROHIBITION

THERE is no reform without unexpected minor results. One of the outcrops of prohibition is the effect on the vineyard industry. California is hard ■ hit. Investors have $200,000,000 in the grape-growing industry and some 50,000 men, women and children work in the vineyards and allied interests. The 400,000 ton 1920 crop worth $12,000,000 is at stake; it is too much to be eaten, and is a loss, it is feared, if not crushed and converted into wine.

At great cost of time, labor and money 170,000 acres of practically useless land, some of it almost a desert, has been transformed into vineyards by some 8,000 grape growers. One of the tragedies of prohibition is that hundreds of families, aggregating perhaps 40,000 persons, may lose their all should these wine-grape vineyards lapse back to sagebrush or desert land.

Another by-product of prohibition is the mental exercise it is giving jurists and lexicographers in trying to find a definition for "intoxicating.” The new constitutional amendment forbids "intoxicating” beverages, and it is necessary now to know what this means. There is a grave difference among men and women of high purpose on this point. The brightest minds of the country have applied themselves to supply the definition. It is said that the Honorable Elihu Root took enough of his valuable time to go through numberless judicial decisions and to compile from thirty-five of them the following definitions:

“Intoxicating liquors are those liquors which are intended for use as a beverage and which contain alcohol in such proportion or percent, that when consumed in any quantity that can practically be drunk by an ordinary man, or in any quantity that the human stomach can ordinarily hold, will produce a condition4 commonly known <as intoxication or drunkenness.*

This is an ideal definition from a legal viewpoint, because it contains so many words that would require legal construction or interpretation. The words “intended,” “practically,” “ordinary,” “ordinarily,” and “commonly” are sufficiently indefinite to give employment to courts and lawyers for a total of many months or even years. Of course, lawyers must live.

The other learned definition is: "Drunkenness or intoxication is a materially abnormal mental or physical condition manifesting itself in the low of the ordinary control of the mental faculties or bodily functions to a substantial extent.” This definition also contains four good words for the courts to wrangle over, namely, materially, abnormal, ordinary and substantial.

If many states follow.New York State, another byproduct of prohibition may be laws impinging somewhat on personal liberty. Home brewed root beer with "any trace of alcohol” may incur liability to a fine of $100, $500 or $1,000 and imprisonment for six months. The ailing person who needs wine “for his stomach’s sake” is under the same liability, except when protected by a physicianrs prescription. The farmer's cider is a menace to his pocketbook and liberty, unless made unfit to drink or de-alcoholized. The man who never would "snitch” at school will have to find new principles of honor, for he can be compelled to tell where he got his liquor or be jailed in contempt of court. The great question of the old English common law will probably come again to the front on account of armies of professional and amateur spies bent on tracing down the scent of alcohol and incidentally turning up anything else. That old question was "whose home is safe ?”

TENS OF MILLIONS FOR COLLEGES

HE cause of "higher” education receives a distinct advancement in the twenty million dollars

recently given to Yale University. This sum will be expended for a memorial building and for fellowships, professorships, scholarships and prizes.

Another institution of higher education is combing the nation for a ten million dollar increase in its endowment fund. Before the drive was a day old four million dollars were subscribed by a donor who had already given seven million dollars to the institute. Whoever it is that has put up this eleven million dollars he is a fairy godfather, for no one knows what his name is.

The high cost of living has invaded college precincts and among the low-paid workers of the nation are college professors, and particularly the instructors who do most of the direct teaching.

The same high cost has struck a . hard blow to the college man. The tuition fee at New England's greatest technical institution has been raised from $250 to $300. While this is a large sum to a poor young man, it does not represent nearly all of the cost of the education of the students.' The actual expense to the in-sitution of one of its courses in technology approaches $800 or $900. When the student has paid his $300, he is the beneficiary of charity to the extent of $500 or $600 more. The average college student rather prides himself on his independence; yet he is as much an object of charity as the inmate of an almshouse.

The cost of supplying education in the colleges has gone up with the general cost of living, and every educational institution which has not received a liberal increase in interest-bearing donations is ‘'hard up.'*

EFERZBOPr JAS4JVE/

HAT everyone else has a screw loose except ourselves is a truism. George Bernard Shaw says that “the longer I live, the more I am'inclined to the belief that this earth is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.” A “scientist” has calculated the number'of years until, at the present rate of increase, the entire population will be “off” enough under alienist standards to be fit for the asylum.

Some figures are available for estimating this, if American standards are representative of world conditions. In the fourteen years from 1890 to 1904 the percentage of the United States population in insane institutions rose from 0.17 per cent to 0.183 per cent The populace then had not begun to go to movies and r, were not living at the present dizzy rate, but in the six years from 1904 to 1910 the rate rose to 0.2042 * per cent, and in the seven years to 1917 to 0.2276 per cent. Statistics are not available for the war year of 1918 and the high-cost-Living year of 1919, but institutions for the insane must be increasing their borders.

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