Golden Age, February 4, 1920

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Golden

February 4,1920. VoLL Na 10

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CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

LABOX and ECONOMICS

Doctor Eliot's Promm—.Ml Riotous Spending , . 293

Hides From the Sea.___293 Railroad Wages. ,. 294

SOCIAL ud EDUCATIONAL

More Druks Than Ever....295 Is Education tho Remedy ?_293 At Reed College..................295 Pastor Russell's Foreview_298

"Within Thy Gates”..........29G Miscellaneous Army Items_298

Cooperation in America....290 No Cut tor Five Years-----298

MANUFACTURING and MINING More About High Silver....299 Houses at $2200----------------300

FINANCE, COMMERCE. TRANSPORTATION

Shortage of Phone Girls.____________________________.——301

POLITICAL, DOMESTIC and FOREIGN

Canadian Farmer HopefuL.303 Democracy In Australia—...308 Austria Starving---------------spa Army Omcera Quit Jobs....308

AGRICULTURE and HUSBANDRY

Fanning Oorporatioiia Attracting Useful Blida—308

, ■, g0? No Use to Hoard...——308

SCIENCE ud INVENTION

The Month Calendar-------son a Mere WheeL. ...

Why Does Mercury Radio and Light Phones—310

Wobble?.___—_____309 No More Seasickness ,

HOUSEWIFERY ud HYGIENE

Care of the Body.......—....311 Cookie Recipes.

' RELIGION ud PHILOSOPHY God's Wrath—When. Why Juvenile Bible Study..—..318 and How Long............313 Back to Their Own Borders

Alienation and Restitution (poem).........—.———..318

(poem)

TRAVEL ud MISCELLANY

Cm Primary Colors____319 Mushy Halibut ,

Golden Age Calendar, February 4 to 17.1920—

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VoL I Noir York, Wednesday, February 4, 1920 No. 10

DOCTOR ELIOT’S PROGRAM

ONE of the “safe and sane” programs submitted to help society out of the difficulties occasioned and aggravated by the World War is that of Dr. Eliot. His plan relates particularly to the relations of labor and employer, and is summarized by Colliers. .The first part relates to employers, and appears like a reasonable requirement, it being understood throughout that there is intended no disturbance of the ownership of the industries:

1. “Abandonment of every form of autocratic government in industries.” This would hit most employers hard, for there is nothing an employer likes to take refuge in, when left without-a reason, like an arbitrary decision often bearing on the autocratic. This requirement would rob the average employer of his authority, and be readily conceded by few.

2. “Universal adoption of cooperative management tnroughorit the works or plant, the employer and workmen having equal representation in managing committees.” It is seldom a good plan to divide authority equally, because in case of a tie, a deadlock may result as disastrous as a shut-down. In most places where this plan is nominally in operation it is a camouflage behind which the weight of authority is exercised by the owner, often by seeing that the men chosen by employes for committees are only those fully approved by the owners.

3. “Adoption by all corporations, partnerships, and individual owners of every means or promoting the health and vigor of employes and their families.” A government report of the condition of corporations showed that only 20% of them were mhking any money to speak of and many were''breaking even” or losing. It is difficult to see how a management that can barely make things go could possibly go into an extensive welfare contract like this.

4. "Careful provision in all large services of well-trained employment managers for dealing with the engagement, distribution, shifting, promotion, and dismissal of employes.” This plan is an excellent one and is in successful use in many large concerns; but how is a little business going to stand the expense of such a highly paid employment manager as these specifications call for 1 Few business men themselves have the wide capacity to judge human nature and its abilities necessary to carry this put. Many of the employment managers today are adepts in keeping their jobs while seeming to perform the service expected of them, and their service, while acceptable to employers, is not liked by the employes of these establishments.

5. "Careful provision in all large services of the means of dealing promptly and justly with complaints of employes.” First get the employes to feel that they dare to make complaints, except through the trades union business representatives, without fear of discharge or the displeasure of a foreman and his petty persecution; and then this provision might be workable.

6. "Genuine adoption of a genuine partnership system between the capital and the labor engaged in any given plant whereby the returns to labor and capital alike, after the wages are paid, shall vary with the profits of the establishment, the percentage of profits going to payroll being always much larger than that going to shareholders, and pay-roll never to be called on to make good losses.” This is something that would not be acceptable to owners, who could not be blamed for not wanting to take all the risk and get only a limited share of the returns. How long could capital be expected to enter investments in a country where this provision was expected, when it could take wings to China, Jacan, India, South America or other locality where capital could expect large returns?

7. “Constant effort on the part of managers to diminish monotony and increase variety in the occupation from day to day and year to year of every intelligent and ambitious employe." Who is to decide who are to be the happy employes of “intelligence and ambition"? Management has something else to do besides entertaining the employes; besides, discrimination provokes jealousy.

8. “Universal acceptance of collective bargaining by elected representatives of each side." Just present this to Judge Gary, head of the United States Steel Corporation, or to the president of the American Manufacturers’ Association, and see the glad hand stretched out to it!

Dr. Eliot makes requirements of employes:

1. “Abandonment of the doctrine of limited output." A limitation of output does not help to lower the cost of living, but it keeps more workers in positions than the self-abandonment of the worker to the doctrine of the utmost possible output. Employes have discovered by hard experience that if they adopt real efficiency and turn out as much as they can, the larger output is made the standard for all, and every one has to work harder for practically the same pay as they received previously.

2. “Abandonment of the idea that it is desirable for workers of any sort to work as few hours a day as possible." Then why not go back to the original factory hours of sixteen, fourteen or twelve a day? It is leisure that makes for culture, and why should not workers have leisure as well as owners? Labor generally is of the opinion that a man should have to work only as many hours a day as are necessary for all to have enough, and that there should be a constant endeavor to give labor a chance to have “its place in the sun".

3. “Abandonment of violence toward property or person in the prosecution of industrial disputes, and of the conception that unorganized laborers-^ arq traitors to their cause." Why, b?ess you—with everybody as kind and reasonable as 31 the ten provisions foregoing, there would be no disputes liable to run into violence!

Besides these arrangements there are two

Great .Commandments to help both parties in the internecine industrial strife:

1. “Willing adoption by both parties of the methods of conciliation, arbitration, and ultimate decision by a National Government board as sufficient means of bringing about just and. progressive settlements of all disputes between capital and labor." Canada has such a law, as has New Zealand, and it obviates much serious trouble, though it is not well liked by either party, and it is liable to abuse according to which party to the dispute controls the officials in government positions.

2. “General acceptance of the view that American liberties are to be preserved just as they have been won. They have been slowly achieved by generations of sturdy, hard-working people who valued personal independence, industry, thrift, truthfulness in thought and act, respect for law, family life, and home, and were always ready to fight in defense of these things.” This provision implies a population about like the original New England people, for what are described are the ideals of New Englandism, as derived from Protestant English stock, which was not without serious faults. The ideals of the American Colonists were on the whole the best that ever came to the country, for they produced the best form of government known; it would be a good thing if there could be evolved a population expressing the best social ideals in a variety based on different racial fundamentals. They are much needed.

It is quite evident that Dr. Eliot speaks as a clergyman and not like one that has worked in a shop. His ideas are forward-looking, and helpful, but as a whole are thoroughly unpractical when there are taken into consideration the low ability of the average employer, the necessity of making a profit to remain in business at all, and the mental attitude of the worker evolved from decades of painful experience with employers of every sort, race and disposition.

It is a good thing that prominent men aro thinking of the better ways of doing things, but they arc “up against" an impossible proposition. The doctor's requirements would take decades to work into the minds and hearts of the people, while there is a condition confronting the world that will not wait. Whatever solution comes, must come speedily.

The true solution lies in the arrangements of the Golden Age ■which is believed to be about to come a very few years hence. Then there will begin the reign, not merely of justice among ikien, but of a universal love, that will make all men like brothers to one another. Love is the solvent of differences and difficulties, and love and brotherhood are two of the great characteristics of the Golden Age.

Hides from the Sea

SCARCITY of shoe leather has turned the attention of leather men to the creatures that inhabit the sea: and this great source of supply is now becoming available, through the formation of companies that will fish for sea animals heretofore neglected.

The porpoise has for some time supplied an excellent quality of shoe strings; but now skins of the white whale are being used in England for belting and shoe leathers, and the hides of sharks and other great creatures of the sea are being used here for similar purposes.

Sharks weigh as high as a ton apiece; and not only are their skins salable, but the flesh is good for food and shark meat is now on sale in many cities of the Atlantic seaboard. The Government has furnished many recipes which have shark meat as the piece de resistance*

If they could catch a few fish like that deepsea monster caught off Miami six or eight years ago, what a lot of leather they would get! The fish in question was forty-five feet long, weighed fifteen tons, and had in its stomach at the time it was caught a blackfish weighing 1500 pounds, another fish (an octopus) weighing 400 pounds, and 500 pounds of rock which it had swallowed, probably to help its digestive apparatus.

This fish’s habitat is at 1500 to 2000 feet below sea level, and the specimen caught at Miami by Captain Thomas is one of the very few that have ever come to the surface. Its sHn is three to four inches thick, and its cartilages in lieu of bones all indicate the enormous weight of water it wast built to withstand. It had no fins, but flukes Tike a walrus: and in its death throes, after having withstood a rain of bullets and harpoons for thirty-nine hours, it smashed with a blow the propeller and stern of the steam yacht that had qpme out to tow it in to shore. It took nineteen barrels of formaldehyde to disinfect the carcasS and prepare it for exhibition.

This great fish has a mouth forty-two inches long and thirty-six inches wide, easily sufficient to swallow a horse at a gulp. Its carcass was on exhibition at Pittsburgh in the summer of 1919, and at Nashville, Tenn., in November, 1919, and has been shown in other American cities. It is supposed to have been driven to the surface by some seismic shock, as it seemed to be in a dazed condition at the time is was found and killed; Scientists calculate that this is a young specimen, probably about 500 years old.

The smart alecks, who have had so many sarcastic things to say respecting our Lord's statement that. ‘'As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the ketos [huge, gaping fish], so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40), because they claim a “whale’s” throat is not large enough to swallow a man, have not had so much to say since this fish was brought to shore. It may have been the very father or grandfather of this fish that swallowed Jonah: but it is far more likely that there are millions of them beneath the ocean's waves, and that the bodies of myriads of human beings that have been drowned have found their way into their cavernous maws. Anyway, here is a fish big enough to swallow twenty Jonahs and to provide leather enough to shoo a smallsized army.

Riotous Spending

MONEY in pocket still has the ancient trick of burning a hole. Du ring the war people stinted and saved and earned unprecedented wages; and now the money is coming out. Working people everywhere are reported to be on a spree of spending. A high public official puts it that they are parting with their money “like a drunken sailor”. There is a surprising extravagance on the part of people who have never been accustomed to having much money, but who have it at last and are rapidly getting rid of it; for they are throwing it away recklessly for meats, rents, clothing, food, musical instruments, furniture, and everything else that money can buy.

"Wherever the spending spree goes, reasonably-priced goods have no attraction. Dealers put shirtwaists on sale at $3. but the public turns its nose up. A butcher tried an experiment. He priced part of a lot of Hamburger steak at twenty-eight cents and the rest at forty-two cents; at the end of the day the high-priced part was gone, but not a pound of the twenty-eight-

cent variety could be moved until it was placed in the other pile.

Workmen earning $S5 a week demand silk shirts at $10, regardless of whether they wear or not. Shoes are wanted, if they are high-priced. Good fish at eight cents would not sell; but at forty cents there was not enough halibut eaught six weeks before in the Pacific Ocean and brought across the continent The most expensive cuts of meat are insisted on and though hogs at wholesale have dropped 50% in Chicago there is no need to cut the retail price, for the people have the money and are going to spend it. Silk stockings cheaper than the old $1 variety go at $4.

The demand for luxuries is not confined to Boston. Munition workers in England are getting rid of their savings, where high wages earned by several in a family enable them to ride to work in their limousine. Girl workers in the prosperous factories “strut about in the streets in their furs and other finery all out of seasori and far beyond what they have over been accustomed to before'".

In Italy even the peasants are buying luxuries. People who never dreamed of such a thing are getting automobiles. Alen once poor now have thousands of dollars. The country is in a heyday of riotous spending and holiday making. ‘'After a while”, says a retired lace merchant, Mr. Narvonne, in the Wall Street Journal, “this spirit will subside and Italy will look like a jack-in-the-box as a commercial nation. It wiH'take a long time, though. I do not look for normal conditions for two or three years”.

These are the perhaps envious comments of well-to-do persons, who seem to fool bad when they see the “common” people haring something more than they used to have. It must be admitted that, from the economic viewpoint, spending for “ultimate consumption” does little good and produces a train of evils, which will have to I'm? reckoned with later, when it would be better to diminish rather than enhance the prevailing unrest. It would be better to invest theJnoney, and as capital make it produce goods for the nation; but what do people know about investment who for generations never had anything to invest! Soon will come the sore feeling of-yhaving had it and spent it, and of suffering the ol<K old grind of poverty. They must unavoidably realize that “he that lovoth pleasure shall be a poor man.”—Proverbs 21:17.

Railroad Wages

WE HAVE received from a railroad engineer a communication giving further light on the subject of railroad wages, and protesting against our article on this subject in the issue of January 7th. We stated there, on the basis of , the best information then obtainable, that “freight and passenger conductors now receive over $300 per month, and freight engineers , receive $392 per month”. We have received sev- ' eral similar letters from railroad conductors. ‘ The criticism follows:

CT am a locomotive engineer, but work in yard service. . My pay is eeventy-two’cents an hour, $5.76 for eight j hours. Before we were granted the eight-hour day I was getting $5.22 for twelve hours, so that you can see that, although I am working shorter hours, the actual increase in wages is small compared with the increased cost of J living, clothes, etc. As soon as I read the article in The Golden Age I went to the home of one of our freight engineers and inquired regarding the freight service.

“In freight service on our division an engineer gets eighty-five cents an hour and in pick-up or local work ninety-one cents an hour. This is for service on the largest engines on the division. About a year ago the officials put on a crew known as the shuttle crew, in which the men have the opportunity to make large sal-aides by working long hours. The engineer told me that t

one month he worked thirty-one days, fifteen hours each 1

day, and made over $390; but that it nearly killed him. There are some very large compound Mallet type engines working the mountainous regions where the engineer may get more per hour than in the case I invest!- J gated, but I am positive no engineer gets $13 for eight hours, and I do not think it fair to publish a supposed standard wage which can be made by an engineer only by working nearly sixty days per month on the eighthour basis, at the expense of his physical health. :

“I somewhat agree with you that the four big brother- | hoods used Jesse James methods in getting lie eighthour work day, but I suppose that is about the only way J the railroads would have agreed to them. It certainly was a blessing to me. When working twelve hours I ran an engine from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m.; and when I reached home in the morning I ate my breakfast and went to j bed. Thirty days in the month practically all I saw *' -

was my work and my bed.” :

In the preparation of articles for The Golden ; Age we try to use only data which we believe to M be reliable; but occasionally we get our fingers burned. Be patient, and we will tell you the ‘ ? truth on every subject as fast as we can learn s it. "While wo have excellent facilities for learn- ■ ing it, yet it takes time and effort to collect and i use the data we secure. J

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

More Drunks than Ever

IF DETROIT is representative of the country, there is an unprecedented wave of crime. It is due to the World War—that promised “spiritutilizer” of the warring peoples—for Germany has had her wave of crime, Paris hers, and England, Italy and Russia theirs. In fact, Detroit’s experience is mild compared with the increase noted in some other cities.

The figures are available for the corresponding three months of 1318 and 1919. They show that the percentages of increase of felonies and misdemeanors were 47% and 50%—substantially the same. The table of increases is interesting, and as follows:

Robberies______

_______460%

Concealed Weapons___________

_______433%

Beggars----

__350%

Assaults and Batteries_________

_______193%

Disorderly Conduct__________

---152%

Disturbing the Peace__

------J24%

Larcenies____________________

-------118%

Burglaries - - _ -

------- 83%

The interesting feature is that the chief increase is in crimes against the person, including robberies, concealed weapons, and assaults and batteries. Plain stealing, including larcenies and burglaries, show a far smaller increase than the more serious crimes of violence.

Evidently the doctrine of hate and violence, which was preached vehemently before and during the war, was planted in fertile soil. The crop sprouted well, both in actual warfare, and now in peace. It has become a problem for police authorities to know what to do with this dark fruitage of war.

Comment was made during the war that the universality of the method of getting the troops brought great numbers of criminal youths into the army. The character of the crime-increases suggests that in 191S these votaries of crime were busy in the camps and could not commit crime throughout the country; but now they are backvhoiae again, and are turning to account thejessons of violence learned from the world’s great teacher, Mars. Other causes of the crime wave are thought to be the current social unrest and the industrial turmoiL

The new note of violence is observed every, where. Before the war the hold-up man seldom shot his victim as now, but fought him with his fists, or gave him a quietus with a sandbag or blackjack. If the victim screamed or fought back the hold-up man usually decamped, but now ho is likely to shoot or otherwise injure him.

Crime has become well organized since the war. There are thought to be several large organizations for committing a variety of crimes. Toledo is reported to be the headquarters of one —a band of interstate shipment thieves, drug sellers and safe blowers. Chicago is the center of one of the largest systems of crime known.

Before prohibition was adopted it was predicted that in the cities it would not materially reduce the drunkenness. This is borne out, for the Detroit experience shows a 102% increase in arrests for drunkenness. This is due to the increasing use of raisin whiskey and other “moonshine” drinks, which are also blamed for the 152% increase in arrests for disorderly conduct of various kinds.

It is safe to say that if the degree of morality attained in the present tag end of the dark ages has brought about the national prohibition of liquor, there will be a most effectual prevention of its use, when the Golden Age is well under way. Crime will fall to nothing, for under the measures of that age it will be practically impossible to commit crime. Moreover the incentive of a sense of social inequality and of injustice will be lacking. Crime would not pay even if possible, and the certainty of instant detection of even the attempt and the sure retribution instantly to follow, will deter the most determined.

At Reed College

REED COLLEGE, located at Portland, Or% is credited with having been founded in 1911, and having 320 students, exclusive of 92 with the colors, 30 teachers, 138 graduates, college colors of “"Richmond Rose,” and a distinctly audible college yell. It also has a student publication known as the Reed College Quest, supervised and supposedly approved by the faculty, which is intended to represent the views of the undergraduate body. Reed College is of quite recent birth, and, not being fettered with ancient traditions, should be up to date in its ideas.

One of the undergraduate concepts published in the Quest related to the religious attitude of the boys as follows:

••Any student who comes to Herd College with a religious enthusiasm loses it, hides it, or gets out. Even in this day and age people who are cultured enuf (!) to want to go 10 college have deep religious beliefs. Reed gets some of these. Under her nurturing hand they cither lose what they had—or they hide it—ur they get out.

“Of course, as an enlightened group, we, students, faculty and all, do not deny that much good has come to the world from certain religious enthusiasm—Christianity, for instance. Civilization has been greatly benefited by doctrines which it fosters. On the other hand we have caught a glimpse of a rational existence, and to us much of the so-called ’spiritual’ in religion appears unjustifiable in view of the indestructibility of matter, the .conservation of energy, etc. From our mature ( !) standpoint it is so obviously unscientific for A man to pray that we—we wonder v.by people don’t use better judgment. Wc imply as much tu our college friends, and they—well, no matter.’7

Such a view is not confined to the West nor to new colleges, for the opinion of a teacher in a large Eastern university is that "‘any one that believes in the Bible is a back number’.

Possibly the writer in the Quest should not be taken seriously, as he may have been a Sophomore, and we were taught that the meaning of the word is •‘Wise-Fool.’’ However, it is an index of current undergraduate opinion and may serve as a suggestion to Christian parents in deciding whether they want their boys to go to college or learn a trade. At an}' rate the suggestion of one ‘'hack number’’, the prophet David, is that “the fear [reverence] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, and “the fool [ignoramus, thoughtloss person] hath said in his heart, Thore is no God”.—Psa. 111:10; 14:1.

“Within Thy Gates”

THE Mosaic law v.as very particular to specify that which practically all civilized nations acknowledge in theory, namely, that a nontribal sojourner in the midst of the Israelitish tribes was to be treated with the same regard for his tights and comforts as a native-born person. The law said : "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppose him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt”. (Exodus 22:21) Of course, the requirement was made of the stranger that he be obedient to the laws of Israel, though it was not at all necessary for him to become a Jew in order to dwell in peace and safety in the land of the Jews. The foreigner, therefore, was not merely the object of toleration; he had a legal standing, with rights.

We wonder whether all the respect which is justly duo to the stranger within our gates is being paid to him. The stranger within our gates is not merely the man of non-tribal birth (if there could be such a tiling in cosmopolitan America), but much more the man of nont ribal ideas. Do we follow the admittedly righteous principles enunciated in the ancient code of Israel or do wo follow the unwritten code of the South Sea Islander—lull and eat on sight any man who dresses himself or his ideas in other than conventional garb?

Some tendency to the latter course is perceptible in the conduct of the American Legion at various points in the country. They have not always shown the magnanimity which one might have reason to expect from the defenders of democracy. In some cases they have exerted themselves to interfere with advertised meetings which some of their members felt they could not heartily approve. Sometimes the meetings were political, sometimes they were purely religious, though of an unconventional tinge. We cannot think that the better clement in the Legion approves this rash interference with constitutional rights. If anything unlawful is said or done at a meeting, there is ample machinery already for punishing such offenses; and the civil courts have not distinguished themselves for leniency in the last two years against cases of political and ecclesiastical heresy.

Cooperation in America

XPERIENCE has proven that the American people do not take well to the idea of cooperation. A great number of the cooperative societies that have been formed in this country have proven failures: but what is to be done to change the gruesome fact that at present America is literally starving in the midst of plenty? One of the answers is that she had better take another look, and a long one, at this subject of cooperation.

Cooperation is not a new thing. There are in Europe cooperative societies still in successful operation that were formed 142 years ago.

Even the groat Rochdale society is almost a hundred years <>ld. This was formed by twentyeight Lancashire weavers, so poor that their first capital ol $140 was collected in installments of two pence weekly. Their first purchase was a barrel of oatmeal; and it was quite some time ' before they had anything more than flour, butter, sugar and oatmeal to sell. Now they sell everything. ■

One-third of the people of England now buy their food and apparel through cooperative societies. In Germany the total membership in cooperative societies runs into the millions, and one bank in Bavaria has 2,654 cooperative societies among its customers. Tn Switzerland there are thousands of these societies, and in addition to their other enterprises they even own and operate a r-anal. Cooperative societies are to be found all ov< r Europe.

OL course America has successful cooperative organizations ol' some sorts, A Building and Loan Association is nothing in the world but a cooperative society devoted to a specific end. As long ago as 1SS2 the students of Harvard University organized a society for supplying themselves with books and stationery, and it has been a great success.

In New York City there is a cooperative school, occupying two floors and eight large classrooms, in which the students endeavor to supply education at cost. The school is governed by a council of twelve students elected by the students themselves, and supplies a large curriculum of required and elective studies. School hours are 6:30 to 10:15 p. m.

In Chicago there is a cooperative association of working mothers. These mothers employ a matron who looks after their children, and supplies them with better influences than would be possible if the children were allowed to run at large while the mother is away.

In Washington there is a sub-postoffice where the. postmaster is secretary of a cooperative society. Patrons of the station can leave orders with lu'm lor needed articles. He fills the orders and delivers them by parcel post. Deliveries are made at the door for cash, the same as in Europe.*^ In three years the postal packages delivered Iron) that sub-station have grown to six times their former volume; and the postal route where the patrons live, then run at a deficit, is now turning in a profit of $20,000 to the Government Postoffice Department.

Tn California in 1915 the peach growers were without organization and received but fifteen cents for every dollar’s worth of peaches sold to the consumer. The railroads and middlemen got the balance. Three years later, as a result of cooperative buying, selling and general management, the price to consumers had been reduced from seventeen cents to fourteen cents per pound and the growers’ share of the consumer’s dollar had risen to fifty-five cents.

The Government has made a studj’ of cooperative stores as managed in the United States, and finds that these stores achieve their main object in helping to reduce the cost of living. They also exorcise a beneficial influence in deterring other stores from charging unreasonable prices for their goods.

Of the stores investigated, 36% paid dividends regularly out of their profits and 34% paid dividends irregularly. The stores averaged to turn over their stock four and one half times per year, and on this turnover charged a gross profit of* 17.7%. The average cost was 11.7% of the turnover and the average net profit realized was 6%. Thus the stockholders and patrons of the stores received two profits, 6% on their turnover and a much larger profit in the way of reduced prices on their purchases. ,

The managers of the stores investigated were paid on the average only $106 per month, which is not enough compensation for a high-grade manager in times likes these. This accounts for the failure of some of the stores, some of the managers receiving as low as $45 per month.

Enthusiasts, who have started many American cooperative enterprises in the past, have laid more stress on sentiment than on business efficiency. This type of promotion soon brings the business to a disastrous end. The leader of a cooperative movement must be a good mixer, have the faculty for leadership and must stay with the organization until a self-perpetuating movement has been built up; otherwise it will go to pieces when he withdraws.

Cooperative stores are more likely to succeed in communities where there is a strong predominating nationality, a common occupation, a strong church organization, and where some great and strong commercial organization is not already closely covering the field and making sure that no competitive institution gains a foothold in its territory’.

The very first cooperative society ever organ-izcd came to grief. Their plan, was to build a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven”. (Genesis 11:4) Probably their thought was to protect themselves from another disaster similar to the flood. Such protection was unnecessary, however, the Lord having already given the assurance that never again should “All flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth”. (Genesis 9:11) We see no reason why people should not go into cooperative associations to reduce their living expenses. We urge them to do so, and to pay close attention to their management.

Is Education the Remedy ?

HERE seems to be a general impression that something is the matter in the world, though there is a wide divergence of opinion as to what the matter is and as to what course should be taken to right things. Some have given up in despair and frankly admit that they do not know what to expect. Others aver that everything will come out right, because things have managed to worry along heretofore. Others tell us that if people with unconventional ideas would just stop rocking the boat the storm might settle. Few hare the disposition to believe the Bible explanation of present discontent.

Now conies Dr. John H. Finley, State Commissioner of Education in New York, and says that the great social and economic questions of the present day can be remedied only by education. But what kind of education, Dr. John? Is it education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, or does your proposal include algebra, music, and vocational training? Is it not a fact that there never was a generation so well educated as this one is, in the sense of having information and having the knowledge of how to apply it in practical ways?

It is education that the world needs, but it is education in the basic principles of justice and love. And there is no one person and no group of persons or any other agency on earth wise enough or powerful enough to instruct men in the principles of justice and love. Superhuman Xvisdpm and superhuman power are necessary £pr such a task; and Messiah's kingdom is just ahead for this very purpose. On this point Isaiah, the Prophet, long ago said: “The earth shall be full of the Imowledgo of the Lord as the waters cover the “sea”.—Isaiah 11:9.

Pastor Russell's Foreview

The collapse will come with a rush. Just as the sailor who has climbed to the top of the mast can fall suddenly, just as a great piece of ma-cliinery lifted slowly by cogs and pulley will, if it slips their hold, come down again with crushing and damaging force, worse off by far than if it had never been lifted, so humanity, lifted high above any former level, by the cogs and levers of invention and improvement, and by the blocks and tackle of general education and enlightenment, has reached a place where (by reason of selfishness) these can lift no more —where something is giving way.

Miscellaneous Army Items

“The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.”—Ezekial 7:15,17,19.

The Scriptures contain one interesting passage on the pay of army men, but it does not seem to have any special reference to our days, so far as we can judge. It reads:

“And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, iknd what shall wo do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."—Luke 3:14.

No Cut for Five Year#

PRE-IVAR wages are impossible—so affirms the New York State Federation of Labor— and labor will not submit to wage cuts for five years. This stand is modified by the hint that if the cost of living drops, labor may accept reductions, such as will not reduce the actual purchasing power of the wage. The workers, how-. ever, do not propose to get caught by a drop in pay, on the promise that a drop in expenses will follow. Sad experience has proved that the cost of such an exhibition of public spirit is borne by labor alone, and that other members of society reap all the profits.

MANUFACTURING AND MINING j

More About High Silver

IN the last previous issue of The Golden Age we gave some of the facts respecting the silver situation, but a few more have come to light which we tliink will be of interest to our readers. We are all interested in money; it is something that everybody has to handle. Most of us could handle a lot more of it than we do, or we think we could, anyway.

The value of the silver in a silver dollar has been a fluctuating one. In 1862 it was worth $1.04; in 1909 it was worth but forty cents; in 1915 it was worth fifty-two cents; In 1918 it was worth seventy-five cents, and in 1919 it was worth $1.08. It is not believed by financiers that silver can fall below $1.00 per ounce for the next ten years, however, on account of the extraordinary market for it in India and China.

India and China have always been a market for the silver of Western countries, because they-are silver-standard countries and because they are accustomed to require the payment of their bills in actual gold or silver coins. They have always done business this way, and during the war many of them became frightened and refused to accept any other kind of money. In India the situation was so serious that the natives made a run on the Treasury, presenting notes for redemption in silver rupees. Just then the situation in India was so difficult for the British Government to handle that they appealed to the United States to release a part of its vast silver holdings. So the Pittman act was passed, empowering the Secretary of the Treasury to melt down and ship abroad a maximum of $350,-000,000 of American silver dollars. Of this amount $260,000,000 was melted into bullion and shipped to India. Large quantities have since been shipped to India, China and Japan. Early in December silver was being exported from San Francisco to the Orient at the rate of a million dollars a day, but this was stopped by the Government under a law which forbids silver exports, except for the specific purpose of balancing exchange.

Another reason why the price of silver if high and why there is a scarcity of coin for circulation is because of the hoarding and melting that is going on in various parts of the world, and because of the withdrawal of gold coin from general use. It is hard to enforce laws forbidding the melting of coin when tlw silver in the coin is worth more than the face value of the coin, and in Mexico the disparity between the face value of the dollar and its silver content is so great that silver dollars have practically disappeared and the Mexican Government has had ro buy 50% of the output of the silver mines for its own use. The United States differs from other countries in having no law against the melting of coins and if the price of silver continues to advance the silver dollar is bound to disappear. In fact, the claim is freely made that many thousands of silver dollars have already disappeared in that way, and more are liable to follow them.

After the Pittman act of April, 1918, was passed, and the bullion shipped to India, the silver money left in America amounted to $260,-000,000; on November 1,1919,. the total stock in the country was $208,145,OCX), of which amount $156,135,714 was held in trust to redeem silver certificates which are still outstanding. On November 20, 1919, the number of free silver dollars in the country, i. e., dollars that were not held in trust to redeem silver certificates, was $67,124,669, Of this amount $10,000,000 has been melted and made up into subsidiary coin— halves, quarters, and dimes. On December 11th the free silver dollars in stock amounted to $52,183,538. It will thus be apparent that Uncle Sam is gradually running short of change. The reasons here are the same as elsewhere— hoarding and melting, besides exporting. New York is now the world’s free silver market.

The Government has no way of knowing to what extent the stock of silver in circulation has been depleted by private hoarding or melting, but it docs know that the withdrawal of silver certificates by persons who anticipate redeeming them in silver dollars was so great just before the holidays as to cause a shortage in small bills, greatly hampered retail trade. Federal Reserve Bank Notes increased from $228,165,000 on September 12, 1919, to $257,-680,000 on November 21, to make up for silver certificates withdrawn from circulation.

The weight of a United States silver dollar is 4L2.5 grains* of which amount 90%, or 371.25 grains, is of* pure silver. There are 480 grains in an ounce of silver, and at $L per ounce the silver in a silver dollar is worth seventy-seven cents. When silver is worth $1.2929 per ounce, the silver in a silver dollar is worth just $1.00. When the price of silver goes any higher than $1.2929 the dollar is gradually heading toward the melting pot, and the higher the price goes beyond that the surer the dollar is to land in the pot. On November 24th silver touched $1,375 at Now York.

The subsidiary coins of the United States do not contain the same ratio of silver as the dollar. While a newly minted dollar contains 371.25 grains of pure silver, the newly minted fractional currency contains only 347.22 grains, so that the value of the silver in the smaller coins is less in a dollar's worth of them than is the silver in a silver dollar. When silver is $1.3828 per ounce, the silver in a dollar s worth of subsidiary coins is worth just $1.00. The reason for making the subsidiary coins worth less than their face value was to prevent their being exported or melted.

The disappearance of the smaller coins is largely attributable to hoarding. All the mints in the country are now working twenty-four hours per day* but are unable to meet the demands for subsidiary coins. Canada is in the same predicament and is discussing the advisability of reducing the percentage of pure silver in the subsidiary coin, so as to further insure against its being hoarded, melted or exported.

The Chronicle (financial), of New York, says that if steps already taken to preserve the integrity of United States money do not succeed, ‘‘There are only throe courses * remain! ng. The first is to release more silver by reducing the value ni our fractional coins, a step which naturally is approached with some reluctance. The second is to sell more goods in the Orient. I have already mentioned the difficulties in the way of this. A third alternative, which seems equally impossible, is that Americans and Europeans shall stop buying in the East.”

On VDpc^mber Sth a bill was actually introduced 4u the House of Representatives by Representative Platt providing for the rocoinage of t all subsidiary coin in the United States* on a basis of 300 grains of pure silver to the dollar

of fractional currency, a proposed debasement of 22.23%. ' . -

The real trouble is that there is not enough actual gold and silver in the world to properly gngfn_in the great amount of business.

Housesat$2t 200

AT UNION, New Jersey, Charles H. Ingersoll, brother of the Ingersoll Watch man, has been making substantial, handsome houses for $2,200 apiece. , .

The method is much the same as was experimented with a few years ago by Edison, who is watching the work with interest, as something greatly for the good of the common people. The houses are fireproof and indestructible; for they are made of poured concrete. The plumbing, the pipes for electric wires, gas and heat are first put into place within the mold for the concrete; and when mold and piping are all in place, the concrete is poured. After a few days for the setting of the material, the mold is taken down; and the house is don£. Everything is of concrete, including walls, floors and roof. The work takes about one month. The molds cost $7000 and can be used over again about a hundred times. Each house comprises five rooms—dining-room, living-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, and a bathroom. These houses present a very pleasing appearance.

Before the war an equally commodious house built of wood cost about $3000 to $4000, and today would cost double that. Made of brick, stone or cement blocks the cost now would be prohibitive. Houses and lots costing $3000 to $3500 mean monthly rents of but $25 to $30, and should start competition that would go far to solve the high-rent problem. With rentals as high as they are today, there are few families, earning fair wages, that could not afford to buy one of these houses for, say $500 down and monthly payments of $40. Even if the total cost to the buyer ran to $4000* that would be cheap compared with the price of even second-hand houses, and very little compared with that of new houses.

With improved methods of building houses to last indellnitely, this day of preparation for the Golden Age is getting ready for the time when every man shall own his property and enjoy the security and comfort of feeling that the roof over him is his own.

__________________The Golden Age for February 4, 1920 301

FINANCE -COMMERCE -TRANSPORTATION~|

Shortage of Phone Girls

THE world is always short of good girls (the dear things!) and although there are a lot of them in the world, yet there is a more acute shortage of them just now than ever before, at least in the telephone business in New York city, so we are given to understand.

In the telephone business the effort is to get refined girls, girls of education and pleasing address, and for the last two years it has been difficult for the telephone companies to obtain enough girls of this class to keep up with the growth of the business. The growth of the telephone business in New York since the armistice was declared has been phenomenal, amounting to a 20% increase in traffic—far beyond what was anticipated by the engineers of the company. In Manhattan and the Bronx it has been necessary to install ten or twelve times as many new switchboards and new lines as was originally estimated. This has created a shortage of over 600 operators.

Although the company has advertised widely for telephone girls, and pays a bonus to every girl in its employ that brings in another girl, yet it has not been able to recruit a normal force of operators. The training school, which for many years has supplied the new "hello" girls, has not been able to train more than needed to take the place of those resigning. To cope with the situation, the company has coaxed some of its married ex-operators to work in the evenings, and brought in 147 operators from out of town, and installed them in dormitories specially equipped for their comfort and convenience. Even with all this the service at certain times and places reaches a point where calls cannot-be answered. The present situation provides only about two girls for the work three should do, resulting in overworked girls and relatively inefficient service.

The fiipt thought of many would be that here is a situation which could be readily corrected by increased wages for the operators, but from the company statements it does not seem that the matter of wages enters as largely into the question as one would expect In New York the initial basic wage is, we understand, $12 per week. The first two or three weeks are spent in schooling, and at the end of the first month the wages are increased fifty cents per week; at the end of the year they are $14 and at the end of six years are $20. Within the past two years the average annual wages of' the girl operators have increased from $659.80 (which is $12.69 per week), to $841.91 (which is $16.19 per week).

The wages and working hours differ somewhat in different cities. In Beaton the maximum wage for operators is $21 per week, obtainable in seven years. In Helena the girls receive $19 per week at the end of the first year (at which time a telephone girl is at the height of her efficiency), with double time for Sundays and holidays. In Seattle the girls receive time and half for Sundays and holidays. In Vancouver the girls have a seven-hour day. In Boston, Helena and Vancouver the girls are organized into unions, and in Boston have equal representation at the conference tables where their wages and working conditions are discussed with the employers.

The operators in small exchanges do not fare so well In Wisconsin the proposal has been made to pay these operators in small exchanges a monthly allowance of fifty cents per telephone. Their wages hitherto have been twenty-two cents per hour.

Reverting again to the situation in New York city, the statistics show that the annual labor turnover is 37%, which means that more than one-third of the operators are changed annually. One half of all the girls who drop out of the service are from those who have been less than six months at the switchboard. The reasons assigned by the girls for their leaving are chiefly other employment, marriage, home duties, hours of work, and other working conditions, in the order named. The wages are seldom mentioned. It is apparent from the statistics that the girls particularly dislike giving up their evenings, and when one considers that the evening is the only time when a girl can reasonably expect to meet her possible future life-companion this is not to be greatly wondered at Besides, telephone girls, some of them, must necessarily work Sundays and holidays, for people will use the telephone then as at other timpa And some must be on duty all night.

While the published statements would seem to indicate that the telephone companies had done about all they could to make the work congenial, yet the work is one involving a high degree of mental and physical tension. The operator cannot let her memory relax for an instant, and at times during the day averages more than two arm movements per second in some of the New York exchanges where the shortage of operators is greatest This induces great fatigue, headaches, stomach trouble, eyestrain and other symptoms of neurasthenia. The girls are necessarily under very close supervision, and necessarily also are denied the privilege of talking with one another. As a consequence of these restrictions few girls can stand the strain more than three or four years.

In Chicago and in numerous other places there are automatic telephone systems, where no telephone girls are used. The subscriber indicates his desired number by certain adjustments upon a dial devised for the purpose. If the line is busy he gets a regular “busy” signal, intimating to him that he had better wait a while. The system is very satisfactory, not as much so, from some points of view, as the "voice with the smile” which has become so much a part of our daily life, but is probably the system that will ultimately prevail. The telephone engineers are making some moves in this direction now, and the time will probably come when the telephone operator will be a thing of the past. No one is indispensable in business.

It would be unreasonable to expect that the market for telephone operators would forever continue as favorable as it now is. Observation and reflection show that such expectations would be unreasonable, indeed impossible, for several reasons. The prosperity of the past century has been—under divine supervisor^ Dan. 12:4) —directly the result of the mental awakening of the world, printing, steam, electricity and applied mechanics being the agencies.

Invention was stimulated by the demand, and it has pushed one labor-saving device upon another intp the factory, the home, on to the farm, everywhere, until now it is difficult for any to earn a bare living independent of modem machinery. All of this, together with commerce with outside nations, waking up similarly, but later, has kept things going prosperously.

It is worthy of note that while wages have reached an unprecedented height in recent years, the rise in the prices of the necessaries of life has more than kept pace with the increase, thus exercising more than a co n n tpr IiaI an ring influence. What will be the result, and how long must we wait for it 1

When machinery was first introduced the results in competition with human labor and skill were feared; but the contrary agencies, already referred to (general awakening in Christendom and outside, the manufacture of machinery, wars, armies, etc.), have until now more than counterbalanced the natural tendency; so much so that many people have concluded that this matter acts contrary to reason, and that labor-saving machinery is not at war with human labor. But not so; the world still operates under the law of supply and demand; and the operation of that law can be made plain to any reasonable mind. The demand for human labor and skill was only temporarily increased in preparing the yet more abundant supply of machinery to take labor’s place, and the climax once reached, the reaction cannot be otherwise than sudden, and crashing to those upon whom the displaced weight falls.

Suppose that civilization has increased the world’s demands to five tim^s what they were fifty years ago (and surely that should be considered a very liberal estimate), how is it with the supply? All will agree that invention and machinery have increased the supply to more than ten times what it was fifty years ago. A mentally blind man can see that as soon as enough machinery has been constructed to supply the demands, thereafter there must be a race, a competition between man and machinery ; because there will not be enough work for all, even if no further additions were made of either men or machines. But more population is being added; the world’s population is increasing rapidly, and machinery guided by increased skill is creating more and better machinery daily. Who cannot see that, under the present selfish system, as soon as the supply exceeds the demand (as soon as we have over production) the race between men and machinery must be a short one, and one very disadvantageous to men and women workers. The one true solution to this problem is the oncoming kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—the promised Golden Age.

POLITICAL-DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Canadian Farmer Hopeful

THE Canadian reactionaries, or supporters of things-as-they-have-been, are desirous of postponing a general election until 1923, but the people, and especially the farmers, having tasted the good things of government in Ontario’s recent election, wish an election immediately. The result of the election just held, it will be remembered, gave the majority to the combined United Farmers and Laborites with fifty-seven votes in the Ontario Legislature, with the other parties' combined vote of fifty-two—the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Independents.

The United Farmers have safeguarded themselves against treachery or bribery by requiring each representative to give his local backers a signed letter of resignation, effective whenever his backers desire to make it so. This amounts to a recall and safeguards the voters.

The Farmers and Labontes, having succeeded so well in the most conservative province, Ontario, want to try out their strength throughout the entire Dominion, and are clamoring against the postponement of the general election. The United Farmers have perfected an organization all over Canada, and expect to have eighty votes in the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament This, together with the Labonte votes, it is expected will control the Parliament for the next five years, unless before then Parliament should be dissolved and another election ordered.

The immediate result of the Ontario election was to cause the politicians to try to placate the farmers and working- people, who had become weary of the continuance of war-time conditions'during peace. Throughout the World War the functions of the regular governmenthad been given largely to the Privy Council, representing the Imperial Government of Great Britain, for the sake of efficiency in war, and Orders in ftourieil had taken the place of laws passed by the Parliament. As announced in a recent issue the fears of the reactionary politicians caused them at the close of 1919 to withdraw practically all the Orders in Council, including those regarded most oppressive by the people: relating to the free exercise of speech, press, assembly and religion.

In the announcement of this good news to the people the Winnipeg Tribune put side by side, as shown in the accompanying illustration, the

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jnutwU confidence and feed well anon* ail claeaes l» UUa reandtrud* ttoa period._________________

OTTAWA,-Deo.. XL—Toatoht at mldairht aJi art*r»-ln-«uneH td and atxtorctd vtrtuo of tha War Kaaauraa act weoma tacttae-1 ((▼a acffi* babarada of orders b«ta*

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URGES BETFZ LAWS TO LABORS

Judge G? ,W

toun* to trade a*d naaadal mauen. and deata< wtth Wie enemy, roosta la etfeci tmtH end of Um forth* comtnt. eaeeioa to parUamaot. ■ .

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' eolaa** 'and' raid ayport; toadln* w wUh Uto tnamy ahd toterncnofxt of aliens, ahd Uie order relating Lo Um *

New* Items in the Winnipeg* Tribune concerning the *T—tanti— ef Liberty in Canada

announcement of the new liberty for Canadians and the reactionary resolution of the Methodist Ministerial Association of Toronto, questioning the advisability of restoring freedom of press and of speech. Just why the Canadian clergy should want war-time restrictions maintained during peace was not stated, but it is well known that during the war and since, some of the clergy have acted in what was termed a highhanded, oppressive and intolerant manner in connection with some who did not agree with them in all things religious. Possibly the ministers think that time heals all wounds, and if the matter can be kept quiet it will be forgotten in a year or two, and are playing for a safe position in this respect

…