Golden Age, March 17, 1920
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March 17.1320, VoL 1, No. 13
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Vole mi 1 WEDNESDAY, MARCH IT, 1920 Ncmm* 11 CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE
POLITICAL, DOMESTIC- tad FOREIGN
PeJestiBe Rlseth Before Our Eyea.—..........-
Justice and the Poor........................
SOCIAL «nd EDUCATIONAL A Dying* Profession................. ■—■
LABOR tad ECONOMICS Coot Livinr tn 18&&_____393 Konare-Deal Johnoon
Tho Suffer Situation.......„.39fl Telephone and Storm.—.—393
TRAVEL and MISCELLANY
Color Quality and Quantity 399
Malrta* Kalahari a Garden 399
Waldo* Up to the
Typewriter—.............
Tr« Houses Healthiest
Tin Phone Booths
Canned Puddin* Exp!odsd~400 A Great Mineral Depoeit.401 Governmental Llmitatlcnn-401 Parmen In Politkn ...401 New Powers In Politics—.402
FINANCE, COMMERCE. TRANSPORTATION Far el ess Street-Cars _____________________________________-
AGRICULTURE and HUSBANDRY Arid Acreage at 1523_____________________________
SCIENCE aril INVENTION
Fisht-Day Watches_________________________
Why Does the Earth Go 'Bound t
HOUSEWIFERY and HYGIENE
Lfitratenoas Therapeutics --------—
RELIGION ud PHILOSOPHY Rusaelltsm Will Not Down. -------...—,------ -------
Juvenile Bible Study.......—
Be Just and Fear Not---------------------- -
Mahs remittances to TA« Golden Age
Golden Age
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Tolwae I New York, Wednesday, March 17, 1920 Number 13
PALESTINE RISETH
WHEN the Zionist movement was young, and that's duly six years ago, its ardent enthusiasts used to dream of a Palestine of 4,000,000 people, and possibly 6,000,000, living in a land made agriculturally rich by irrigation and industrially prosperous by hydro-electric i plants furnishing power to a varied selection of » industries; a country dotted with model garden *** and industrial villages and cities, connected with each other and with other parts of the East by railroads, electric lines and highways; a nation whose merchant marine reaches out to ■ all comers of the world from Haifa, terminal of Asiatic trade with Europe.
This dream is coming true, before our very eyes, because:
1. The pledge of Great Britain, made through ; the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, to do all in its power to establish the Jewish National Homeland, is about to be redeemed through the signing of the treaty of peace with Turkey, granting Great Britain a mandate over : Palestine. The mandate is expected at any time
(and may be promulgated before this is printed), as the Turkish treaty is now under discussion in Paris and it is said on the most reliable authority that the mandate to Great Britain is contained in the first ten articles of the treaty.
2. Millions of Jews throughout the world are awaiting the politic;’.! settlement of Palestine’s ' - status so that they can begin a mass-migration to the Holy Land, which so far has taken all the power and resources of the International Zionist Organization to restrain until the proper time for emigration arrives.
3. A reconstruction program prepared by the Zionist Organization to restore Palestine as the
BEFORE OUR EYES t
Jewish National Homeland has already been * put into operation on a small scale by the „ establishment of Jewish agricultural colonies, * reclamation of swamp lands to rid the country of mosquitoes, and medical and sanitary measures put into effect by the American Zion- : ist Medical Unit. To begin this program on a more elaborate scale and to take the first steps j toward the establishment of a flourishing coun- ; j try in Palestine, the Zionist Organization of ] America is raising $10,000,000 throughout the 1 United States this year for its Palestine Re- 1 storatiori Fund. '
4. Winston S. Churchill, English Minister of ! , War, in a recent article in the London Sunday
Herald, reiterated the pledge of his country’s
cooperation to the fullest extent with the Zionist
Organization in preparing Palestine as the Jewish National Homeland, and declared that the
present generation would yet see a population
of from three to four million in the Holy Land. ’ ;
The reconstruction projects which the Zionist
Society of Engineers will initiate through the
fund now being raised throughout America,
include water-power development, by building canals, reservoirs, aqueducts and hydro-elec-trie plants; reclamation of the Hullah valley, including the drainage and clearing of the Hui-lah swamps, over 5,000 acres, and the reclama- -tion of 3,700 acres in the-Upper Jordan system; construction of a modem harbor at Haifa, making it the Amsterdam of the Mediterranean: connecting this new, great port with all parts j
of Palestine and its hinterland and with the entire Near East by a system of standard-gauge railroads; building of roads and pavements throughout the country; providing water supply by conserving the heavy rainfall through reser-
voirs and wells; establishing a sewage-disposal system and converting the sewage into fertilizer; organizing various industries, chiefly cement mills with which to do most of the construction work in Palestine, owing to the lack of lumber, which will not be available until the afforestation projects are developed; shoe, clothing and furniture factories, canneries, tanneries, foundries and blacksmith shops.
Linked up with the industrial, commercial and agricultural rejuvenation of Palestine, are the plans for establishing a merchant marine, for which the Zionists propose an initial expenditure of $10,000,000. With Haifa made into the leading harbor of the entire Near East, as experts have claimed it will be, when life in Palestine is flourishing again its fleet of merchantmen will ply between all the leading ports of the world, carrying the new products of the Holy. Land. The first ship in this merchant marine was recently launched at Jaffa to sail between Beyrut, Haifa, Jaffa and Egypt. Elaborate ceremonies were held to commemorate the establishment of Palestine’s merchant marine, the wife of the English commandant at Jaffa christening the craft “Hecholutz” (The Pioneer) while Italian warships in the harbor at the time gave an official salute of twenty-one guns when the blue and white flag of Zion was flung from the mast.
With all the vast agricultural, industrial and maritime plans which the Zionist Organization is putting into operation for the reconstruction of Palestine, what is probably attracting more world-wide attention than anything else is the establishment of a Hebrew University at Jerusalem. .Prof. Patrick Geddes of the University of Edinburgh, considered as the world’s most famous town planner, is now in Jerusalem working on-the plans for the Hebrew University, under commission from the Zionist Organization.
The cornerstone for the Univerity was laid recently on the Mount of Olives. Prof. Geddes has reported to the Zionist Organization that, through funds now being raised, the chemical laboratories will he completed by the end of this year, so that graduate students from the leading Universities of Europe may come to Jerusalem to work out there immediate problems arising from the agricultural rebirth of the Holy Land.
World-famous Jewish scholars have already volunteered to assist in the establishment of the University and to become part of its faculty, the most noted being Dr. Albert Einstein, who recently astounded the scientific world with his new theories on light rays, and Prof. August Wassermann, noted as the discoverer of the blood test which bears his num*. When the Jewish National Homeland is established in Palestine and hundreds of thousands of Jews begin their mass-migration to the Holy Land, the Hebrew University will, according to the plans of its founders, be the world center for Jewish culture and education.
In addition to working on the plans of the Hebrew University, Prof. Geddes is designing the new Jerusalem, a modern city to be the center of the new Jewish life that will soon be thriving in Jerusalem. He is planning a spacious modern city which, while capable of supporting a population several times its present size, will still retain its historical and sacred landmarks. In connection with the University, Prof. Geddes has reported that he is designing a Museum, which will be to the University what the British Museum and Louvre are to their respective Universities in London and Paris.
Lack of an adequate water supply has been Palestine’s vital need since Moses led the return from Egypt; but James Haines, secretary of the Zionist Society of Engineers and one of the leading engineers working on the reconstruction of the Holy Land, declares that there is enough rainfall in Palestine to support a population of 15,000,000—over two hundred and fifty times its present population.
“The average yearly rainfall of 26 inches, which falls in five months of the year, can easily be stored by the erection of reservoirs,” said Mr. Haines. “This rainfall is one-quarter greater than in California. It will supply a future population of 6,000,000 with a daily per capita supply of 2,055 gallons, which is over 1,200 gallons more than the average daily consumption in New York City.”
Because the Mediterranean is at a higher level than the Jordan and the lakes, and because of the stony underground surfaces which retain the water so easily, Palestine is favored in engineering projects planned to store up large quantities of water, according to Mr. Haines.
Irrigation of Lower Palestine will also be
, accomplished by tapping the Nile, according to Zionist engineers, who will follow British engineers in this, as all of Southern Palestine was .supplied with water from the Nile in a remarkable engineering feat of the British Royal Engineers. It has been estimated that there are between 3,000 and 5,000 square miles in the Sinai peninsula alone, requiring irrigation, which would be furnished from the Nile.
Isaac Herbst, another Zionist engineering expert, has brought forward a plan to utilize Palestine’s vast water power for hydro-electric plants, because of the lack of coal in the Holy Land. He proposes building two hydro-electric > v plants in the Upper Jordan Valley and Lake Tiberias, with a capacity of 100,000 horsepower ’ an hour. Two canals necessary for the plants will divert the Jordan from the Hullah swamps and convert eight square miles of useless land into fertile fields, he points out. These plants will mark the first step in the rapid industrial development of Palestine, says Mr. Herbst.
i While millions of Jews throughout the world are awaiting the word that will permit their leaving for Palestine, there are thousands of tourists and pilgrims, anxious to visit the Holy ‘ Land in far greater numbers than before the war, according to the Zionist Organization. To provide for them, the erection of a chain of Urge hotels throughout the Holy Land has been proposed by the London Zionist Organization, with the principal hotels in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, and smaller ones in such historical spots as Tiberias, Safed, Hebron, Gaza, Acca and Beersheba. Health resorts, built around Palestine's hot springs and mineral waters and bathing beaches near Haifa and Jaffa, have also been proposed.
Haifa, according to the Zionist engineers, will be the largest and most important city of Palestine after the Jewish National Homeland is established, as they claim it will be the principal outlet for all Asiatic trade to Europe, because of its connections with the Bagdad railroad. To provide for its increasing population, it is proposed to continue the city along the beautiful slopes of Mount Carmel; while on the summit of Mount Carmel, according to the plans, a large hotel and resort will be erected to welcome visitors to the Holy Land. Dr. Chaim Weizman, President of the Zionist Organization of England and head of the Zionist Administrative Commission in Palestine, discussing the vast commercial prospects of the country said recently that Palestine would be the bridge between Bagdad and Cairo and between Constantinople and Calcutta.
Thus ancient prophecy and modem practical idealism are uniting to bring to pass a great vision to gladden the hearts of all mankind.
Justice Und The Poor Reginald Better Smiilt, of the Booton Bar
(2) DENIAL OF JUSTICE—THE FACT
HE realization that there are grave defects in the administration of justic& Mas come but slowly. Had. not enough laws beejci passed, enough courts organized, court Mouses built, judges, clerks,, and officers provided and paid salaries? What more was necessary? AVher. Roscoe Pound delivered his epoch-making address on “The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice” before the American Bar Association in 1906, his was like a voice crying in the wilderness. From the reported discussion,* one would judge that most of the lawyers were incredulous, and that not a few were indignant at the intimation that pux’ justice was not closely akin to perfection itself.
In the twelve years that have followed, the evidence has become overwhelming. The facts, though not the causes which underlie .them, are well known. The administration of American justice is not impartial, the rich and the poor do not stand on an equality before the law. the traditional method of providing justice has operated to close the doors of the courts to the poor, and has caused a gross denial of justice in all parts of the country to millions of persons.
Sweeping as this indictment may appear. It' is substantiated by ample authority.* A few statements deserve to be presented here:
“If there is one sad anomaly that should stand out in our present days of conscientious self-searching, it is the harsh fact that, :vith all our prating about justice, we deliberately withhold it from the thousands who are too poor to pay for it*
“The sources from which industrial unrest springs are: ... 3. Denial of justice in the creation, in the adjudication and in the administration of the law.”
“The equal administration of the laws is a right guaranteed by the fundamental law of the land; and yet no person will deny that this privilege is more honored in the breach than in the observance; for there arc ver.' manv people in every American community who, through ignorance of their rights or their inability to pay the imposts levied by the state as a condition prece-
dent to the pursuit of justice in the courts, are con-^tantly being denied that equal administration of the laws and the justice that is supposed, logically, to follow it.*
■’Taking the country as a whole it is so obvious that we have almost ceased to remark it, that in petty causes, that is, with respect to the every-day rights and wrongs of the great majority of an urban community, the machinery whereby rights are secured practically defeats rights by making it impracticable to assert them when they are infringed. Indeed in a measure this is so in all causes. But what is merely exasperating in large causes is dowqright prohibitive in small causes. While in theory we have a perfect equality, in result, unless one can afford expensive and time-consuming litigation, he must constantly forego undoubted rights, to which in form the rules of law give full security, but for which, except where large sums are involved, the actual conduct of litigation affords no practicable remedy.*
“Many causes have contributed to this neglect which disgraces American justice.”*
The majority of our judges and lawyers view this situation with indifference. They fail to see behind this denial of justice the suffering and tragedy which it causes, the havoc which it plays in individual lives, and the influence which it exerts in retarding our Americanization program. “The judicial department”, said Chief Justice Marshall,* “comes home in its effects to every man’s fireside. It passes on his property, his reputation, his life, his all.” Because law is all-embracing, the denial of its protection means the destruction of homes through illegal foreclosures, the loss through trick-or chicanery of a lifetime’s savings, the taking away of children from their parents by fraudulent guardianship proceedings.* Hundreds of thousands of honest men, many of them immigrants, have been unable to collect their wages honestly earned.*
Denial of justice is not merely negative in effect; it actively encourages fraud and dishonesty. Unscrupulous employers, seeing the inability of wage-earners to enforce payments, have deliberately hired men without the slightest intention of paying them.* Some of these employers are themselves poor men, who strive in this way to gain an advantage. The evil is not one of class in the sense that it gives the poor over to the mercies of only the rich. It enables the poor to rob one another; it permits the shrewd immigrant of a few years’ residence to defraud his more recently arrived countrymen. The line of cleavage which it follows and accentuates is that between the dishonest and the
honest. Everywhere it abets the unscrupulous, ,' the crafty, and the vicious in their ceaseless plans for exploiting their less intelligent and < Jess fortunate fellows. The system not only robs ' the poor of their only protection, but places in the hands of their oppressors the most powerful and ruthless weapon ever invented. ’
The law itself becomes the means of extortion.
As Lord Brougham said of the English administration of justice in 1800, it puts “ a two- I edged sword in the hands of craft and oppression”. From the cradle.to the grave the poor man is the prey of a host of petty swindlers,* who find it easy, through such devices as fraudulent assignments, trustee process, or garnishment of wages for fictitious debts,* to rob and despoil. There exist today businesses estab- ? lished, conducted, and flourishing on the princi-pie that as against the poor the law can be violated with impunity because redress is beyond their reach. It is this situation which allowed such unrestrained abuse of the laws regulating the assignment of future wages that a sort of quasi-slavery resulted, which brought the loan shark into being, and permitted flagrant usury to grow into a monstrous thing.*
The effects of this denial of justice are far reaching. Nothing rankles more in the human heart than the feeling of injustice. It produces a sense of helplessness, then bitterness.* It is brooded over. It leads directly to contempt for law, disloyalty to the government, and plants the seeds of anarchy.* The conviction grows that law is not justice,* and challenges the bo-lief that justice is best secured when administered according to the law. The poor come lo_ think of American justice as containing only laws that punish and never laws that help.* They are against the law because they consider ■ the law against them.* A persuasion spreads that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.*
How this comes about can be simply told.
One afternoon Arthur V. Briesen, President of , ।
the New York Legal Aid Society, took Theodore Roosevelt, then Police Commissioner of New York, to the society's office to see what went on. They sat at the interviewing desk. A glazier came in and related that he had set twenty-two panes of glass in a barn, and that the owner of . the bam had refused to pay him $6.G0, the agreed price.* He had been out of work and needed this money to buy bread and milk for -
his family's sapper. On his way from the West Side, where ho had worked, to the East Side, where he lived, he crossed Fifth Avenue at Forty-Fourth Street and passed the luxurious restaurants on either corner. His own children went to bed supperless. The next morning he sought out a lawyer, who told him that to bring suit the costs and the fee would be $10. This he could not pay. From there he went to the Municipal Court, originally known as “The Poor Man’s Court”, where he saw a judge, who was obliged to explain that he had neither the time nor the money nor the right to undertake the necessary proceedings; that as the man had no money, he could not prosecute the case; and that, inasmuch as the expenses would exceed the amount in dispute, he had better drop it. As the man told his story in the office of the legal aid society, he was an incipient anarchist
• The effect on the immigrant is peculiarly unfortunate. He comes to this country, often from lands of injustice and oppression, with high hopes, expecting to receive fair play and square dealing. It is essential that he be assimilated and taught respect for our institutions. Because of the strangeness of all his surroundings, his ignorance of our language and our customs, often because of his simple faith in the America of which he has heard, he becomes an easy prey. When he finds himself wronged or betrayed, keen disappointment is added to the sense of injustice. Through bitter disillusionment he becomes easily subject to the influences of sedition and disorder.*
The essentially conservative bench and bar will vehemently deny any suggestion that there is no law for the poor; but, as the legal aid societies know,* such is the belief today of a multitude of humble, entirely honest people, and in the light of their experience it appears as the simple truth. Consider, for example, this actual case !* A woman borrowed $10 in 1914, and for two years paid interest at ISO per cent. In 1916 a law was enacted fixing 36% as the maximum rate.* The lender, by a device contrary to the statute, compelled her to continue paying 156% interest. The law also provided that if excess interest were charged, the Ioan would be declared void by a suit in equity.* The law was on the books. The court house was open, the equity court in session with its judge on the bench and its officers in attendance. All that was of no avail to her; for the law could not bring its redress until $5 was paid for service of process and entry fee, and $10 to an attorney to draw, file, and present the necessary bill of complaint. Fifteen dollars she did not have and, because of her condition, could not earn. For,her there was no law.
Repeated warnings have come respecting this: "When litigation is too costly, the result for many persons is a denial of justice. Such denial or partial denial of justice engenders social and commercial friction. The sense of helplessness thus caused incites citizens to take the law into their own liands. It causes crimes of violence. It saps patriotism and destroys civic pride. It arouses class jealousies and breeds contempt for law and government.* '
‘'The problem is fundamental. It strikes at the very root of our economic, social, and political structure. The man or woman who has honestly toiled and cannot obtain the wages earned, loses faith in humanity and the efficacy of our laws and courts; is often turned out a beggar, vagrant,.or criminal, or seeks redress by forcible means.*
‘If ever a time shall come when in this city, only the rich man can enjoy law as a doubtful luxury, when the poor who need it most cannot have it, when only a golden key will unlock the door to the courtroom, the seeds of revolution will be sown, the firebrand of revolution will be lighted and put into the hands of men, and they will almost be justified in the revolution which will follow.”*
In that direction we have imperceptibly, unconsciously, and unintentionally drifted. The end of such a course is disclosed by history. By the third century A. D. class distinction had been set up by the Roman law. For an excellent statement, see Davis, “The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome”, page 323. Differences in the ability of classes to use the machinery of the law, if permitted to remain, lead inevitably to disparity between the rights of classes in the law itself. And when the law recognizes and enforces a distinction between classes, revolution ensues, or democracy is at an end.
•The- statements are taken from such authorities os the American Bar Association Review, American Judicature Society Review Bulletin. Chief Justice Olson in the Annual Reports of the Chicago Municipal Courts, various law books, and other works. This is the .-econd of a series of articles reprinted from a work of limited circulation published by the Carnegie Foundation fur the Advancement of Teaching and entitled "Justice and the Poor”. The articles are: .(U Freedom and Equality of Justice: The Ideal: (2) E>enial of Justice: The Fact; (hi L •erects in the Administration of Justice; (4) The lir.-t L>e>:t: Delay: (u> Tho Second Defect: Court <’osrs and Fees: (6). The Third Defect: Expense of Counsel. Letters are welcome from readers giving on account of their experiences with the administration of justice.
r SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
A Dying Profession
THE teaching profession has had the most exciting year in its history. It has been the most docile of all professions, and one of the most useful. It lias until recently numbered 750,000 in America and from early morning until late in the afternoon has had the care of the 20,000.000 little men and little women that in a few years will be the bulwark of the country. It has done more to Americanize the children of immigrants to this country than have all other forces put together. It has been true to its trust.
During the war the number of teachers was necessarily reduced, the estimated number of vacancies in urban and rural schools running to 50,000. It was hoped by lovers of America and American institutions that with the opening of a new school year these vacancies would be filled and the work of instructing Young America would take on a new life.
It was a shock, therefore, when it was discovered that 22% of these teachers during the summer of 1919 had quietly folded their tents and disappeared. They did not strike. They simply quit. In six of the Southern states it was estimated that one-third of the schools were left without any teachers. Subsequently more than half of these vacancies were filled, but with teachers that were inexperienced and incompetent as educators of Young America.
Reports reached us from Utah. Colorado, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and New York states that many.schools were without teachers. In West Virginia 400 schools were without teachers, and in New' York 1000 schools; the total shortage of teachers in New York state was estimated at 5000., It was estimated that at the beginning of the school year 6% of the nation’s schools were unable to open for lack of teachers. This meant that about 1,000,000 of America’s little men and little women could receive no education at all for a part of the precious time during which they fit themselves for life’s battle.
Moreover, the teachers that quit were the best ones, and this quitting of the best teachers has been a constantly progressing evil. In 1SS0 43% of the teachers in the United States were men; in 1914 this number had been reduced to 20%. There was a reason why men would not stay in the profession.
The United States does not stand as high in education as it did, or as it should. It is now eighth among the nations in literacy; one of every ten adults in cities can not read or write; and one of every five adults in the country is illiterate. In one state last year, many of whose schools were closed on account of lack of teachers, there were 10,895 children that did not have a day’s schooling in the entire year.
School-teachers have a good many discouraging conditions to meet. They do not have the equipment w'hich they should have; they do not have even enough room for all the children that should be required by law to attend. If all the children of school age in America did attend the public schools, 40% of them would have to stand, as there would be no accommodations for them.
Many have left the teaching profession because of their conviction that it is not for the best interests of themselves and- their pupils that they should have nothing to say about formulating courses of study, selecting textbooks, choosing types of buildings and equipment, and formulating budgets; and it is a fact that in many places boards of education have been dictators, and incompetent if not malevolent ones at that, of matters about which the teachers knew far more than themselves.
In a few places the teachers have also objected because they thought they were not given sufficient liberty in respect to their political opinions; but as a rule teachers in the United States have generally and properly had a large amount of personal freedom in such matters.
Wages the Real Trouble
THE teachers have not wanted to say much about it, and many of them would deny that they have left the teaching profession on account of insufficient pay; but the facts are that, the profession has been almost ruined by a tradition which has somehow fastened itself upon society that teachers do not expect and should not receive a living wage, as though teachers were a necessary evil instead of one of the greatest assets of the country.
While the United States was still poor, and even after its riches had begun to be developed, the wages of school-teachers were usually $2 per week and boarding around. There was not much inspiration to high endeavor in wages like that; but when it was die best the district could afford it was accepted as a matter of course, though merely as a stepping stone until the teacher could get something else to do. Up to 1900 it was a good country school that paid more than $35 per month; but board was only $2.50 to $3 per week and what was left would go much farther than it does today.
Within the past year the whole subject of wages has been pretty generally overhauled in public. The school-teachers are among the most intelligent of all readers; and as they read the published facts they began to think of their own wages and to make invidious comparisons of what they considered the public thought of the services of others as compared with their own.
The average teacher spends fifteen years preparing for his work; but at seventy years of age his total earnings, counting the value of board and room, are not much above that of a domestic servant. When he is seventy years of age he has received only as much money as a plumber can make by the time he is forty. Teachers receive 16 cents an hour, but skilled manual workers 60 cents to $1 an hour. The average teacher receives $1.63 per day; she must usually spend hours at night preparing her lessons, with no pay for overtime.
It is said that school-teachers in New York begin with $80 a month, while ragpickers get $33 per week, window cleaners $7.50 per day, and bricklayers $8.75 to $10.00. The street cleaners, garbage collectors, motormen, subway guards, janitors, teamsters, and laundresses are all better paid. The street cleaners get $400 per year more for initial salary than do the teachers.
In an issue of the Raleigh News Observer appeared two advertisements, side by side, one for a colored barber, guaranteeing $25 per week with $35 if satisfactory, and the other for a white teacher of Latin in a high school at $70 per month for the ensuing nine minths. Thus, for improving the inside of the head a total of $630 was to be had, but for arranging the hair on the outside a possible $1820.
An investigation conducted in La Crosse, Wisconsin, showed that in a year the high school pupils expend $4000 more for candy and movies than the sum total yearly salaries of the high school teachers. There the parents seem to think more of the entertainment of their children than of their instruction, their life capital, so to speak, though actually not so. But what can we say to the children when the grown folks pay a single player $20,000 for six months’ service on the ball field, and a prize fighter $250,000 for a single fight and do not pay their professors enough to live on?
Last Fall the Manchester Union advertised for 100 teachers for New Hampshire rural schools at $15 per week, while most of the young women in the neighboring cloth and shoe factories were making $30 per week. About the same time, in England, the Kent Urban District Council advertised for an official rat catcher at £250 per annum, but pays its teachers £240 a year after twenty years in the service.
There were twenty-nine American states last year where the average teacher’s wage was under $550. The minimum wage of the teachers of Worcester, Mass., is, or was until recently, $675 per year. The minimum wage in Iowa is $57 per month, in Illinois $1000 per year. California, Massachusetts and Illinois pay the highest salaries to teachers and have the least shortage of members of this profession.
What has happened is that low wages have driven many of the best teachers into better paid positions, and that those who are left very probably, whether they would admit it or not, feel a certain amount of resentment against the public for treating them so unjustly; and yet it is upon these teachers that the chief responsibility devolves of making the boys and girls into true Americans, proud of their country aud of its institutions.
Practically all the college women are turning away from teaching to better paid occupations. One woman’s bureau reports more vacancies than applications. The teaching profession is dying at both ends. Attendance at normal schools is falling off. In New Jersey, where there were 2200 students in the normals in 1916. there are now but 1400. New York state normal schools also report a big decrease in enrollment. Ambitious young men and women will not train to be teachers when there is not a commensurate living in the work.
In this country there arc oeelesin’tical politicians of a certain type that would like well to see America's public schools ruined. These
same ecclesiastical politicians are to be found in all so-called civilized countries. Their constant effort is, and for fifteen centuries has been, to get education out of the hands of the people and into the hands of priests and nuns, thus to kill it. Illiteracy in Spain is 70%, in Italy 73%, and in South America it is 90%.
The country needs more teachers, not fewer. There was never a time when they were so much needed. Besides the regular school-teachers we need a trained corps of visiting teachers to make a constant round of homes, prevent truancy, prevent children leaving school prematurely or unnecessarily, prevent delinquency and other-f wise assist socially. To draw proper talent
J ‘ from other lines of business and save a ruined
profession the minimum wages of all teachers L should be at least $1500, sufficient to allow for f proper culture in the form of travel, books, I music, and necessary recreation.
jj Teachers* Labor Unions
WITH everybody else organizing, it is hardly to be wondered at that the prevailing fever f should have hit the teachers. Some time ago the American Federation of Labor had 126 local 1 organizations of the American Federation of Teachers affiliated wi th them. These locals were f to be found among the college professors of the ( University of North Dakota, the University of Montana, Columbia University, sixteen other universities in New York state, high schools in Kansas City, Kansas, and many other places. Practically the whole teaching force of California was said to be thus organized. These unions have succeeded in some instances in raising the 1 minimum salaries of grade teachers over 100%.
The teachers in Pittsburgh must be organized, too; for we notice a dispatch saying that they ■ have served notice on the board of education that they must be paid a flat increase of $500 per year, to take effect within thirty days, or they will quit in a body. Similar demonstrations • have recently taken place in New York.
Teachers’ unions operating along similar lines have been organized in France and England.
, When the British government awarded its railway men 100% increase as the least they could offer in view of the greatly increased cost of living, the teachers also demanded 100% in-• crease, not discerning any good reasons why 1 heir advance in wages should be no more than 10% to 30%.
During the vacation season last Summer the New York Mayor’s Committee of Women on Reconstruction and Relief proposed to assist the teachers who did not get enough wages to exist upon, and at the same time to aid the women who did not want to do their own housework wliile on vacation, by sending out a letter advocating the employment of teachers to do the work. The letter suggested that the teachers do the work for about half the usual pay, and thus get a nice vacation in the country.
Most of the teachers to whom the plan was suggested did not seem to see anything very attractive in a proposition to cook for a large family of summer vacationists as a means for obtaining a “nice vacation’’ for a tired teacher, nor were some of them able to see their way clear thus to break down the wages of the regular household servants. They prefer to be paid a just wage for the services they render to society and to plan their own vacations.
In the long ago the teachers taught only a handful of followers grouped about their feet. Thus the Apostle Paul speaks of himself as . “brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel”. (Acts 22:3) We have no doubt that Gamaliel was well recompensed for this work, as he should have been. St. Paul is supposed to have come from a wealthy family and to have been well able to pay adequately for service rendered. We do not suppose it was necessary for Gamaliel to wash dishes during vacation in order to make a living.
There is one kind of teaching that will be entirely discontinued some time in the earth, and that is religious teaching. This all seems very strange in view of the strenuous efforts now_ being made to get pacific China, Siam and India up to the high standard of the three great Protestant nations: Germany, England, and America , as they were on August 1,1914. Yet the Scriptures are very plain. They read:
“After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me. from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.’’'—Jeremiah 31:33,34.
___________________The Golden Age for March 17, 1920 395
I LABOR. AND ECONOMICS |
Coot of Living in 1896
For cost of living and doing business "the happy days” were in 1896, which marked the low water of several decades. Comparing 1896 with today, we find that a dollar would buy a certain volume of the ninety-six different commodities which are chosen as representative. As the years have passed since 1896 the dollar has grown smaller and smaller. In other words, the purchasing value of the dollar has shrunk, as shown by the table below:
1896____
____$1.00
1908____
__$ .74
1897____
___.97
1909____
_____ .69
1898__
_____ .90
1910____
_____ .66
1899____
_____ .82
1911___-
_____ .68
1900__
—- , . .73
1912__
__.64
1901____
__.78
1913____
____ .64
.7 5
1914____
.66
1903____
---- .74
1915____
____ .60
1904____
. _ .74
.50
1905___
__.73
1917____
__.36
_____ .70
1918.
. .32
1907__
---.66
1919____
____ .32
These figures are authoritative because based on the universally recognized monthly “price index” published by Bradstreet’s. If the objection were raised that the comparison is made with the lowest year, the figures would be increased only a few percent if comparison were made with the average of the years 1895 to 1899.
In other words, the dollar is worth a third now of what it was in 1896. The 1896 dollar would buy three times what the 1918, or 1919, dollar would buy. If, instead of the average buying power of the twelve months of 1919, the month of December, 1919, is compared with 1896, the buying power of the dollar is 29 cents.
Expressed in terms of salary or wages, the 1896 clerk earning $100 a month ought to have had a salary of $345 in December, 1919, in order to be able to purchase the same quantity of the ninety-six commodities in both instances. The laborer earning 1.50 or $2.00 a day then should earn a wage of $5.17 or $6.90 today. A worker that is earning less than 345% of what the same position paid in 1896 is that much poorer off than he should be.
Figure up your wage or salary, and see how well off you are. Then, if the production of President Day, of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, comes true in 1920, watch the 29-eent dollar shrink; for he, and other members of Big Business think ‘ the possibility of reducing the high cost of living is very remote”.
It is all right for presidents and financiers to spend money prodigally; but it is an economic evil for common people to pour out easily-earned funds like water, if said people are not in the president-financier class. “The war”, laments Mr. Day, “thrust upon us an unnatural and unbalanced prosperity and left us a legacy of inflation, speculation and excessive improvidence. A large volume of easy money has found its way into the pockets of many people to whom a substantial cash surplus "was a new and tempting possession, followed by a great passion for expenditure and pursuit of pleasure by those of improvident and self-indulgent tendencies. With so many people in this spendthrift mood, so many outbidding each other for some of the necessities and most of the luxuries of life, any material reduction in the cost of living seems a remote possibility.”
But are the people such spendthrifts f To do a normal amount of spending in December, 1919, one would have to spend 345% as much as in 1896 for the same things. To enjoy a really 100% spending spree a man—or a woman— would have to exceed perceptibly the 345% limit; and it is doubtful if the many are so doing.
One class that is hard hit by the 245% rise in living cost is the owner of bonds, mortgages, notes, or of other documents or securities pronu ising only a fixed rate of interest. In the earlier period of 1896, a first-class bond paying 44% would sell at, say, $100. Conversely a high-grade railroad bond could be sold for $100, if it paid 4|%, the regular earning power of money.
Thousands of careful investors in the '90’s filled their safe deposit boxes with securities bought on a 4.50%o basis. A $1000 bond would pay its owner the modest sum of $45, and the $45 in money would buy a real $45 worth of commodities. For that investor to be as well off today as he was in 1896, his bond ought to earn him 345% as much as in 1896. A $1000 bond should pay the investor now 345% of $45, or
$155.20. If it does not, its owner is that much poorer. The value of railway bonds, expressed in terms of the purchasing power of income, has declined about 70% since 1896; for the income will buy only about 30% of what it would then. The value 01 the bond itself has gone off a like amount for the same reason. The owner of a snug little figure of $100,000 in 1896, if he still has the $100,000, is really worth only about what an 1896 savings of $29,000 would have amounted to; for $29,000 in 1896 would buy the same things as $100,000 today. The other things that make up a fortune have lessened in worth. Land, houses, stores, apartment houses, factory buildings are worth as much less today than they would have been worth in 1896, if their selling value, or the rentals they pay have not kept up with the 245% increase in commodity prices. Stocks that sell for $100 today are of the same real value as stocks that sold for $29 in 1896.
In this invisible manner rich and poor alike have grown poorer in the last few decades, excepting the favored ones that have received the 245% increase in income. It is curious that something like this was foretold about 1900 years ago in the following language: “Go to now, ye rich men. Your riches [money, stocks, bonds, properties] are corrupted, and your gar-• ments [fortunes then consisted partly of costly garments stored away] are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered [rusted away]. Ye [profiteers] have heaped treasures together for the last days.” (James 5:1-3) But these strange things are now seen to be among the steps by which the Father is leading the world as he guides them to the doors of the Golden Age, the portals of the kingdom of heaven on the earth, for soon men will be more like brothers, and the pride of wealth and the envy of poverty will no longer exist.
The Sugar Situation
THE average American family consumes 465 pounds of sugar per year, 116 pounds of which is produced in America; 302 pounds comes from Cuba and the balance from Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Cuba lies so near the United States that during the war, when shipping was hard to procure, practically the whole crop was marketed here.
Prior to the war Great Britain had obtained her sugar from Germany and Austria; but during the war this supply was not obtainable and the ravages of the conflict destroyed a large part . ' of the fields and factories of France, Belgium, | Germany, Austria, Rumania and Russia. These 1 former sugar-producing areas are not now pro-during half of their former output, but merely enough to take care of their own requirements.
During the war the cane-sugar countries increased their production from 10,000,000 to 12, 000,000 tons per year, in partial offset of the reduction of output of the beet sugar countries < from 10,000,000 tons per year to about 5,000,000 tons per year. It is estimated that in the Fall 1 of 1919 the net situation was that at the conclu- ■
sion of the canning season the world had about
4,000,000 tons less on hand than is usual.
Directly after the armistice, and for several ' months following, the times were not good in the
United States or anywhere, and the allotted - * American two-thirds of the Cuban sugar crop
did not find ready purchasers. Additionally the Atlantic Coast refineries and warehouses were crowded with the Allies* allotted one-third, sent there to be refined. Meantime, speculators who understood the real situation secured op- . tions upon immense quantities, and concealed it * with the sure knowledge that in 1920 they would be able to make great profits upon it
The close of the 1919 canning season found the American portion of the Cuban crop gone, but the warehouses still bursting with the sugar which had been reserved for the Allies, and to which they were entitled. Since then we have , been on a sugar rampage.
During the war the United States was Cuba's only direct customer; but when it came to disposing of the 1920 crop she refused to be gov-emed any longer by the war arrangements and, before Uncle Sam knew what she was about, had sold half of her crop to foreign buyers. So it happened that in the Fall of 1919 we were short of sugar, largely through the activities of ’ speculators, and we shall be more short in the Fall of 1920, for Europe is to get still more of f the Cuban crop than in 1919. \
Some estimate the shortage as running to several million tons and are fearful that the price to the consumer may go to 35 cents per pound. The experts agree that there is an actual sugar shortage in the world due to the destruction of European fields and factories and that it will be some years before new fields and factories, there and here, can meet the situation.
In the end the sugar scare will be a good thing
for the United States. It will encourage sugarbeet farming, which will improve vast areas of now unprofitable land. The sugar-beet tops and pulp, when returned to the soil, enrich it and make it suitable for production of other crops. The United States has only 514,000 acres in sugar beets, while Europe has 6,000,000 acres but there is enough available sugar-beet acreage in the United States to raise all the sugar in the whole world. Meantime, even at present high prices, it is best for Golden Age readers to buy sugar during March, April,, and May, when it will be on hand in good supply, if they want any later. Uncle Sam has been paying for foreign sugars $500,000,000 per year. ’
Crystallized sugar, made from sugar cane, was imported into Europe from India as early as 500 A. D. In Bible times honeys and syrups took the place of sugar. For an interesting honey story read Judges 14:1 - 20.
Square-Deal Johnson By j. r. aoranfio
INDUSTRIAL rest and prosperity in and around Binghamton, N. Y., are due largely to methods that will obtain during the Golden Age. Endicott, Johnson & Workers, Inc., the largest shoe manufacturers in the world, are the direct cause. Mr. George F. Johnson, who has risen from a shoe worker at the bench to the managing head of this large concern, deserves the lion's share of credit and is able to appreciate the position of both capital and labor.
All through his thirty years of management Mr. Johnson has kept the confidence and esteem of his employes, and is thought of not as one who has exploited labor in the past and has watched to take advantage at the first opportunity, but as an elder brother or father: one to whom they can go in trouble of any land and receive help and advice cheerfully given.
Mr. Johnson says that the employer should be the natural labor leader, and that if he is not, labor will look elsewhere for a leader. So he has instituted what he calls the square-deal policy ; and the workers, appreciating that they are getting a square deal, have erected an arch at the entrance to Johnson City, N. Y., and Endicott, N. Y., with the inscription: “Entrance to the Square-Deal Towns".
The Endicott-Johnson corporation believe that their responsibility does not end with just compensation for work done in the shop, but that the outside environment should be made as pleasant as possible. To quote Mr. Johnson, “I do not believe in having a few millionaires’ homes on the hills overlooking the factories, and tho workers living in poverty". But he suggests what he calls his labor creed: “A great industrial establishment should as closely as possible follow the old idea of small business, in which the master had his shop and his house adjoining, and he and his workers and apprentices lived as well as worked together".
And this creed is carried out by this employer. His home is not a great mansion, but a modest home right among the workers—not even a “Keep off the grass" sign, or a fence to keep others from enjoying the lawn surrounding it. Not content with having a home for himself, his present building program calls for approximately six hundred modern homes which are being built and sold on easy payment plan to the worker at cost Thus we can see already having a fulfillment conditions of which tho prophets spoke, when each shall live under his own vine and fig tree.
Then, too, spacious parks are provided for the use of the workers and their families as well as others, no one in the community being barred from the privileges. There are playgrounds for the children, swimming pools with all kinds of contrivances for water sports, and a racetrack with some of the best horses in the country appearing there free to all. The best bands in the world are brought here for open-air concerts without charge. In addition to this the musical program calls for the services of about ten local bands, which give free concerts throughout the community each evening.
The health of the workers is looked after at the corporation’s expense, they maintaining livery efficient and up-to-date medical department, equipped with all that the latest medical science affords, the service of which is also free for the use of the workers’ families. A sick relief, whereby the worker receives $15 dollars a week when ‘sick, is maintained at a cost of 10 cents a week to the worker, the company making up most of the amounts paid out in benefits.
The old dinner pail and cold lunch have given way to large, modern restaurants, where good wholesome food is served three times each day for 15 cents a meal, a posted notice calling attention to the fact that this price entitles tho worker to all he wants to eat.
Under the control of the corporation is a number of theaters where the best high-grade pictures are shown tor a small price, the company paying the difference between the admission charged and cost of operation. A monthly magazine is published which is open to the employes for exchange of ideas, suggestions of efficiency, etc., subscription free to the workers.
A forty-eight-hour week is maintained with Saturday a half-holiday. Recognizing the need of change and recreation, each worker receives two weeks' vacation with pay, and in addition is paid for five holidays annnally.
Although we find many heads of different industries with ideal policies, yet very often these policies are not carried out by their subordinates. In the case under consideration this is guarded against in that the power to discharge any worker has been taken from foremen and superintendents and now rests solely with the general manager, who is always willing and anxious to hear any grievance or complaint the worker may wish to bring to him.
Much has been written recently regarding the bringing together of capital and labor and having them work in harmony. It also has been pointed out that this is impossible under the ordinary arrangement, because their aims are opposite. Mr. Johnson has evidently solved this problem by making the aims of both capital and labor identical, through a bonus or profit-sharing plan. Under this arrangement the management claims that capital is entitled to a fair return for money invested and that labor also is entitled to a fair wage, good working conditions, reasonable hours and proper treatment—the remaining profits belonging to neither capital nor labor, but to both.
So after paying a 7% dividend on the preferred stock and 7% dividend on the common stock, and 3% to reserve, the balance of the surplus is split fifty-fifty between the workers and the owners of the common stock, which profit may be distributed in common stock or in cash, at the option of the board of directors.
To qualify for this distribution the worker has to be in the employ of the company throughout an entire year prior to the day upon which the dividend is declared. All workers share alike. The liigl st paid man and the lowest paid office boy get exactly the same share of surplus, their varied abilities having been taken care of in their salaries or wages. A further policy of the company along this line is that all the best jobs in the factories are filled from the ranks—no good positions filled from the outside, but always from the inside.
Nor has the good work of this great concern ended with the immediate community, but the entire world is a benefactor; for this company has eliminated practically all middle-men and, instead of taking the middle-man’s profit, has given it to the consumer by having its own tanneries as well as retail stores, thus carrying out the concern's slogan, "From hide to wearer".
Telephone and Storm.
WHAT a storm may do to the telephone service is little appreciated by any but the executives and the workers of the telephone system. In Northwest Ohio a hurricane swept out of the north, and before blowing out over Lake Erie greatly injured that part of the telephone investment represented in outdoor equipment.
The wind ran as high as ninety miles an hour, which is 132 feet a second. The pressure exerted upon a building, tree or pole with its wire equipment may be appreciated from the simple fact that every second the weight of air hurled against a 30 by 30 foot side of a building at .080681 pounds per cubic foot would be 4.79 tons. Terrific pressure is brought upon often weakened poles when the wind blows, as it did, 78 miles an hour at Toledo, 79 at Elyria, 65 at Sandusky, and up to 90 at some points. The poles went down by wholesale — 798 in the Toledo exchange and hundreds at other points, totaling over a thousand, about 80% of which could be reset. Where poles did not go, wires were broken, putting hundreds of individual phones out of commission. Trees went down before the wind and tore down the wires. Tn one place a barn door sailed through the air and brought down its quota of lines, together with three poles, which could not stand the impact in addition to the wind pressure on the swaying wires. Everywhere the damage was repaired in remarkably short order. Within an hour after the storm struck Dayton, where 160 poles were down, and 51 circuits out of commission, the repairmen were out; and within twenty-four hours service was restored on all but one line out in the country with 85 poles gone over a distance of forty miles.
Users of telephones realize little of the amount of hard and dangerous work sometimes required to keep the service going.
I.
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
COLOR £ G-l A WO® • ® • 8 ■ ■ ▲
JWr Cta«r fM glut g*. tet
Color Quality and Quantity
rpHREE factors enter into the determindtion -*• of color quality; viz., hue, value, and chroma or intensity, as there are three factors in connection with tone (i. e., pitch, intensity, and duration), three in connection with light (i. e., wave length, wave amplitude, and wave complexity), and three in the realm of the electric current—voltage, amperage, and ohmage.
CH/ZOHA
Hue has to do with the chromatic scale of primary and binary colors, ranging from pure yellow as the highest note to pure violet as the deepest. But any one hue on the chromatic scale can be diluted with either white or black, thus forming tints and shades respectively, ranging all the way from almost white to almost black. All these tones (either the normal color or its tints and shades) we call values of the given normal color. A new scale is formed by this process, very much as a singer ascertains his own “register’, then sings the scale within his own range and with his own personal quality of note. Or it is perhaps more nearly comparable with a musical key. But any value of any hue can be grayed by the addition of its complement, and thus the intensity or luminosity of the original tone is reduced.
A color dictionary has been published with some thirty thousand hues, values, and intensities printed and designated. This means that instead of the twelve hues shown here, there would be, say, sixty; instead of seven values there would be, say, fifty of each hue; instead of two intensities there would be, say, ten. This would make the thirty thousand, though the hues, values, and intensities may not be divided in just that proportion. Probably the trained eye can discern twice this many tones, but they would not be practical for present-day commercial purposes.
Mass is, of course, the sole distinction as to quantity; but it is important. A small amount of brilliant red might be very pleasing, but a great quantity abhorrent.
Making Kalahari a Garden
ALL Africa needs”, every one from Africa says, “is more water and more good people." Turning the vast Kalahari Desert in South Africa into a garden spot is one of the new projects. This desert covers some 300,000 square miles, and is sandy and dry beyond any present use. It is proposed by. irrigation to bring into being in this immense area a lake twice as big as Lake Erie. The Chobe River in the long ago ran through the Kalahari Desert? and the proposition is to dam up its present course and turn it back to become the agency for making happy homes for the thousands of immigrants that are to be attracted.
Rivers and lakes disappear in the Dark Continent. It seems as though much of the vast territory of the continent might dry up and become as Sahara and Kalahari. Lake Ngami in British South Africa was described by Livingstone as a vast inland sea; now it has become a body of water some twenty miles long and but five miles wide. Once there were large rivers in this region; now they are gone. At times in heavy rains, the level country is covered with water as far as the eye can see; but it quickly-dries up. The estimate is made that in a hundred years this section of Africa will be seemingly a hopeless desert like the Sahara.
The move to recreate a great lake in the Kalahari is something that looks forward to the better things to come, when the minds of great and powerful men will no longer be upon war and destruction, but upon gigantic projects for the beneficent purpose of making this a better world to live in; for it is written that in the Golden Age, “in the wilderness shall waters break out ’ [probably by irrigation, but no doubt partly by divine power], and streams in the desert: and the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water'”.—Isaiah 35: G, 7.
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