Golden Age, April 28, 1920
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April 28,1920, VoL 1. No. IS
•J3B Published every other lySl iceek at SS Myrtle Atmute, VW yew York, X.Y., Z7.S.X
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VOhuma 1 WTONH8DAT. Arm 28, U» Itabv it
CONTENTS o/ The Golden AGE POLITICAL. DOMB8TIO til FOREIGN ^^^Sdr leaning, ,.—^.__483 Justieo and the Poor
LABOR nd XCONOMZC8 HOW tO
■OCTAL nd EDUCATIONAL
Chfldroa Moot PUy^—.^491 About BngUab CMdren—4« MANUFACTURING nd MIXING
Hngland and the American Manganese
Geld Standard. 498 Improved Car Refrigeration 494
PTHANCM COMMERCE. TRANSPORTATION British Nafiwayw—^^..493 Shrinking Bank Deposits—49< British Trade BaUneea_49S
AGRICULTURE nd HUSBANDRY the Cheops* Fertiliser—-.497 Anything But the Farmsrs Mon Inquiaitiv»....498 Real Reason....
8CIZNCH and INVENTION ghowero of Blood..—____499 Springtime in Old
The ’•Bun of tho Unireraar-499 Kentucky
HOU8XWXPERY nd HTGIBNB Food Cssabtaatfona ...............—.
TRAVEL and
Dtphtbanga tad
Triphthongs la Onlor 503 Needs of tho Far Ma* , —508 40% Predt tn Sugar____504
HBUGION and ■he TOO ef Team.—'......BOO
mscsmurr
Life In the Country...—.304 Disinfected Wheat —505 Brening World Sees
Something --------koa
Coming. Millions Strong—^BOB
PHILOSOPHY
Juvenile Bible Study—J18
Tan Cbnxs 4 Corr—41.58 a Tia*. Mako remittances to The Golden Ape.
Golden Age
Volume I 1 New York. Wtafacaday, April 23, 1920 Number 16
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CURRENT EVENTS—THEIR MEANING
THE world's weather—social, political, ecclesiastical, economic—continues unsettled. The majority of people know that it is unsettled*, although there is a division of opinion as to how it will end. Here or there 13 a fatuous group that, while rubbing its hands from cold, calls for the imprisonment of the thermometer, as though the thermometer were responsible for the changes in the weather.
The Spartanburg (S. C.)EerM recently carried an editorial which sums up the sentiments of the average person very well:
"Not even the wisest men of our day seem able to make out what is next ahead of us. Opinions of every conceivable variety are laid before us day by day, but agreement upon any single prediction—there is none. Never was there such complexity in human affairs. There are so many competing forces straggling to prevail that the probable result is not to be calculated by any mathematics nor perceived by any intuition at our command.
“More than half of Europe is in such a fluid, unsettled state that anything may happen within the current calendar year. In our own country a national campaign for control of the government is on, and not a soul can figure even on probabilities as to the outcome. Anything may happen there before this calendar year is gone. Will prices begin to recede or ascend still higher? On this point even the keenest minds are all at odds. Will the senate ever ratify the League of Nations covenant? Who can say? What of the railroads, what of the ships, what about our military system henceforth? Nobody can hazard even a reasonable reliable guess as to where we shall be when 1920 has become history.
"Here we are in a world better equipped with ways and means of knowing all the facts as they stand from day to day than ever before. We have more trained men, accustomed to survey and marshal complicated data so as to get at the proper conclusions. Yet they all alike are helplessly baffled by the endless complications of life as it is now. We are just groping along till things clear up somehow. That is about the simple truth. We take ear# as best we for today and trust for tomorrow.
“But it is a critical year—this same year now slipping by us. It will in due time settle many questions now asked in vain, and it will raise probably just as' many more to puzzle thinking minds twelve months hence. A new order of things is doubtless on the way, but what it is to be like—well, there is no oracle can tell us and in patience we must abide until it has arrived.”
All agree that very significant symptoms are present. The disease is selfishness, of course; but the particular phase of the disease which is most apparent in all the world today is disregard for the idea of authority. Every one wants to be a leader and no one wants to be a follower, for fear the leader will gain some prestige or advantage not enjoyed by all the followers. All men are not equal in endowment; and nearly all men recognize this fact, though they do not always acknowledge it. Those who are more generously endowed in some respects are able and generally very willing to carry a little more than their own responsibility. On the other hand, the world is full of people who are trying to dodge responsibility. If they can find some one who is willing to assume a partial oversight over their affairs they are glad of the opportunity to be relieved from a burden which they cannot easily carry. So the world has been divided for the most part into masters and men, though the names have changed to suit the taste of changing times.
If the masters, having assumed the responsibility for others, have not carried that responsibility with fair consideration for the interests of the men, the men have taken steps to get new masters. There seems to be a deep and very general impression in the world that the masters of the last fifty years—political, financial, ecclesiastical—not only have not taken their responsibilities seriously enough but have actually used their advantageous positions for selfaggrandizement to an extent hitherto unknown in modern times. Whether this impression is founded entirely upon fact or not is beside the question; the impression prevails. And it is because of this distrust on the part of the tnen in those who have superior endowment or advantage that almost no one is willing to do quite as he is directed, even though the direction be accompanied with the most elaborate reasons why the directed cdurse is best.
This condition is partially recognized, and hence only partially expressed, by an editorial writer in the Tulsa (Okla.) Daily World *.
<rEf you rift most of the complaints lodged against things as they are you will discover that they spring from an unwillingness to earn promotion. There is a worldwide revolt against discipline. Mankind in the mass refuses to recognize superiority in either God or government. Armies are turned into impotent mobs because all the soldiers want to be commanding officers. - Industrial establishments are bereft of efficiency, because every member on the pay-roll insists on becoming boss.
“In our Quixotic attempt to make the world safe for democracy we appear to have succeeded only in making democracy unsafe for this or any other world.
“That only a good soldier can make a good officer, is a doctrine no longer accepted. Discover a man nowadays who adheres to the theory that he who has proven his ability-to execute orders is the only man safe to entrust with the authority to issue orders, and you will have found a rare specimen
Possibly this would be looked upon as capitalist "propaganda”, but it at least contains a modicum of truth.
The Reverend Richard AV. Boynton recently told members of the Social Workers" Club in the Hotel Iroquis in Detroit that
“There is no certainty the world is going forward to better days”.
“This is not pessimism. It is looking the facts in the face. Our generation has got to get down to the hard facts. The world is closer to barbarism today than it was in June, 1914, and life will be sterner for us of this generation so long as we live. Our generation will have a job on its hands that will try it to the utmost?"
But it is hard to get the facts. If we try, for Instance, to get the truth on even the commonest of subjects, we find that the newspapers have long been bought up for propaganda purposes. We find that dispensers of facts unwelcome to the aristocracy were for a time heralded in magazines; whereupon these were bought up or controlled to the suppression of information. More recently the book, which had been rather relegated to the background as a medium of anything else than entertainment, has been made use of in the world. Life thinks man’s wisdom is as a small light in a murky world, adding:
“Our world is desperately befogged, and the wisdom of man is stumped to find a course for it to safe harbor.”
Mexico, like several of the countries of Europe, has had an epidemic of revolutions. As one result there has been a very general effort on the part of those who are not enthusiastic about a revolution in the United States to make it appear that everything in Mexico has been on its last pair of legs for many years. The mistake was made of trying to hold the emotions up to a strained pitch too long. The last pair of legs seems to be holding out pretty well.
In the last few weeks it has become less elegant form to speak slightingly, of Mexico. The Rocky Mountain News (Denver) contains an editorial as follows:
"The news from Mexico is not all blood, thunder, and petroleum. Comparative peace is permitting the Mexicans to start a new decade in a way that leads to better things in the way of civilization and prosperity.
“Some facts and figures for the year 1919 are beginning to come through from the land of the Montezumas. For instance, Mexico is a land of silver. Its soil is full of the white metal; and a good deal more digging was done last year than for many years previously, with the result that shipments of silver to the United States for the twelve months totaled $10,000,000 more than the previous year.
“The crops of Mexico in 1919 were the best in years and of course sold, when shipped out of the country, for the highest figure on record. The abundant yield made food plentiful and far cheaper than in the United States.
“And after all is said about the wonderful mineral resources of Mexico, they are nothing to what that great country can be made agriculturally. Her future is in farming. But the prime necessity for successful farming in many of her states is irrigation, and it is interesting to know that the government has worked out a great irrigation program and is already spending money to carry it out. ■
“With reasonable scientific education and management, the agricultural possibilities of Mexico startle belief. No other country in the world has such a variety of soil and climate; within its territory can be grown every product useful to mankind. Every one of its thirty states is highly productive. A noted American agricultural expert, after a risit to all these states, ventured the opinion that, given even a half-hearted effort to extend the neglected farming industry, Mexico by 1950 will be one of the first countries of the world in the volume of its agricultural products?"
To this the New York Evening Sun adds:
‘‘Thirty billions of unbacked paper money issues and an Oriental trade growing by leaps and bounds are features in the present situation that promise untold wealth in the years to come for the American and Mexican owners of silver mines. Silver must be found to back almost unlimited quantities of Europe's paper money. Silver must be found wherewith to pay China and India for a trade balance swollen greatly in volume and made up of greatly increased units of value.”
Russia was rubbed off the visiting list of the polite smart-set nations of the world some two years ago. Of late there has been a somewhat grudging and reluctant inclination to stop fighting the Russians and to trade with them. How to get the cheese of Russian trade without springing the humiliating trap of Soviet recognition is a problem which claims the attention of the most astute statesmen of Europe and America.
Meanwhile a somewhat cautiously presented course of instruction is being given the public. Very gently the light is being let in on their perceptions. Gradually they are being given to understand that the Russians walk on two feet rather than on four, and that while they may grow a little more beard than other men, they really do not have horns. The Rocky Mountain News, of February 20, contained one of these entering-wedge editorials, parts of which read:
"How to resume business with Russia without beginning diplomatic relations with the Soviet Government at Moscow is now the problem that confronts the council of Premiers in session in London. Hence comes the proposal to send a special commission to find out what is the situation in that country, and whether or not the reign of terror has come to an end.
"Berlin has notified the world that unofficial negotiations, or conversations, between a Soviet trade agent and German representatives have progressed in the direction of a working agreement This is the significant and outstanding fact in the situation. While the Frenchbalk because they want to be reassured that the Soviet Government will recognize the loans made to Russia, largely by the French, under the old regime, they naturally have no desire to see Germany enjoy anything like a monopoly even for a time of a great source of supply of food and raw material.
"Anyhow Great Britain, France and Italy need to do business with Russia because they need the money to pay America and for other purposes. Besides in extremities they might fall back on the good old self-determination theory to prove that Russia has in the present system the sort of government that she desires.”
Another one appeared in the New York Sun and Herald of February 25:
"Today was the first time since the advent of the Bolshevik! in Russia that the Allies have officially mentioned diplomatic relations with the government of that country. The official communique of the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference today outlines a policy of testing the Soviet’s international reliability. The encouragement of trade with Russia and the discouraging of anti-Bolshevist activities by the states bordering on Rus-, sia already are foreshadowed here, but a positive step in the direction of recognition of the Soviet was made when the Premiers decided to ask the League of Nations to send a labor investigation commission into Russia to study the situation there. This is construed in high circles here as representing an unexpected triumph for the prorecognition policy of Lloyd George "and Nitti.”
Carl W. Ackerman, correspondent of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in its issue of March 14, goes even further:
"England and France today are looking to Russia for food, raw materials and cooperation. The United States is criticized, denounced and hated. The suspicion thkt we are a 'dollar-chasing nation’, which was always talked about during the war, is now a conviction. England and F rance—England more than France, and Italy more than England—look to Russia instead of to the United States for future economic assistance.
"I do not believe it would be a rash forecast to say that within considerably less than a year England, Italy, and possibly France, will extend de facto recognition to the Moscow government. Today everything tends toward such an official step by these three great allied powers.*
The European nations are in hard financial straits. These facts have been very generally published in the newspapers. We quote from the Houston (Tex.) Post:
"Owing the United States $18,000,000,000 Europe ia bankrupt and probably will never pay its debts, in the opinion of Mark O. Prentiss, chairman of the board of directors of the Bankers’ Foreign Credit Clearing House.
"Mr.. Prentiss, who is in Washington participating in conference on the foreign exchange situation, said Friday that he looks for the repudiation by the Allies of their enormous financial obligations 'as the only way out’.
" 'The world is sitting on a volcano that may start its eruption at any time with the result that the financial structure of the world, as we have grown accustomed to it, will be totally destroyed/ said Mr. Prentiss.
" ’The nations of Europe,’ he said, 'are now trying to devise some form of promises to pay which really partake of the character of receivership certificates. There arc few men who really have any hope that any part of the international debts will be paid.’
"Germany is worth $50,000,000,000, Mr. Prentiss estimated, and owes $55,000,000,000.
" •'We do not like to disclose Great Britain’s plight’, the banker continued. 'The people are prone to look to Great Britain aa the meet solvent of nations; and thought of British repudiation ia one that we have refused to entertain. But here are the conditions:
w ^Before the war Great Britain had $20,000,000,000 invested throughout the world. This has been reduced 75% by forced sales, shrinkage, destruction and other causes, leaving $5,000,000,000. The income of Great Britain last year was $10,000,000 per day less than her national expenditures) and it is estimated that the discrepancy is greater today. The British government is under tremendous expense to maintain the 'penny loaf’, which costs $5,000,000 a week; and this expense is steadily increasing. Her interest charges are $1,840,000,000 against a pre-war interest charge of $122,000,000.’ ”
This statement was published partly with a view to eliciting American sympathy for the British plight so that those canny financiers without too much abruptness could decline to pay interest on their large American loans and would therefore be in a position to use such financial resources as are at their command, before America can start in the same direction, in opening up trade with Russia and in extending their activities in South America. American financiers have been willing to play up the situation, thinking that their chances of getting the interest on United States loans would be greater after, say, three years of British forehandedness in foreign trade than they are now.
But was not the interest of these foreign loans to be used, in part at least, to pay the interest on the American popularly sold bonds! Yes. And how is the interest on those bonds to be paid now! Indirectly by taxation. The poor and moderately circumstanced bondholders are selling their own bonds, at a reduced price. As a result they pass into the hands of a financier who does not pay the taxes but who does receive the interest on the bonds which he has bought at a reduced figure.
And how is it that the great and strong financiers, perhaps it would be better to say the profiteers, do not pay their share of the taxes! The Oakland (Cal-) Daily Post gives this as the answer to the question:
"The burden of the world’s war debt would be heavy enough to make every human being feel it in some way, even if every sane adult should do his very best to carry his just share of that burden. Is it any wonder, then, that it is crushing the hope out of millions since so many selfish individuals are dodging responsibility, compelling othera to do all the paying for the sins of Europe?
‘Tn theory the federal income tax wag to compel the rich to pay in cash as the poor had paid in blood to free civilization from the blight of Prussian militarism. In practice it has only whetted the avarice of the rich! It has only succeeded in making them bolder so that they take even a greater share of the medium of exchange.
"Study the financial news * follow the reports of the gigantic combinations of capital and you will learn that many of them laid away larger net profits during 1919 than during any previous year 1
"That is, they paid all the income taxes Unde Sam demanded and still had left, out of their enormous gains, a greater interest return on their investment than during any year before the income tax was suggested!
"The men at the head of such unholy enterprises sat back comfortably amidst their luxurious surroundings while the youths of America crossed the seas on their way to eternity. They allowed others then to do all the sacrificing; and now they greedily take all they can get, and refuse to make the slightest effort to help heal the wounds of wartorn humanity.
"It is rank hypocrisy for any rich man to say be is paying income taxes when he insists first on gathering profits of such outrageous proportions that he can surrender the taxes and still have normal profits I
"If a man, who had been laying aside profits annually equal to 6% on his investment should so regulate his business that he continued to receive profits equaling only 6% interest return and then should reduce that income by giving part of it as tax to the government, he could honestly say that he was helping pay the cost of the salvation of civilization.
"But money-making becomes a vile habit just like the use of morphine or cocaine; and, like the drugs, it drives the decent instincts out of moat mortals.”
As one result of this state of affairs the men of small means are bearing a disproportionate amount of the enormous taxes which the war has brought upon the populace at large. The Phoenix (Ariz.) Gazette informs us:
. “Government taxes during 1921 will amount to approximately $550 for every family in the United States, Representative Luce, Republican, of Massachusetts, declared ... in the House. Criticising the federal reserve board for issuing $3,000,000,000 in notes, Luce said there was an impending ‘financial menace’.”
The New York American speaks of the financial condition thus—and the Hearst interests cannot be accused of being pro-British:
“Some optimists still make themselves beEeve that England can pull through. But when the situation is considered soberly and calmly, England’s prospect of pulling through is practically hopeless.”
“Undoubtedly England is in better financial condition than is any other European nation. And yet with everything taxed practically to the limit of taxable possibility, England's expenditures at this very time are almost double her income.
“An examination of the taxable wealth of England shows that if she were to raise revenue equal to her going expenditures she would have to take the whole of every individual and corporate income and take besides a part . of everybody's property and actual capital?*
Even as thorough-going a Britisher as General Smuts is reported in the Manchester (Eng.) Guardian as saying that “the British Empire ceased to exist in August, 1914”.
On top of this financial condition, and in all probability not dissociated from it, is discernible a growing tension in this country against the British and a similar tension in Great Britain against things and influences American. The Philadelphia Public Ledger, of March 14, has the following to say:
‘Anglo-American relations, unknown to the world at large, are drifting into a state of tension that is beginning to cause anxiety. Anti-British agitation in the United States is provoking equally intense anti-American sentiment in Great Britain. It is unquestionable that a condition of strain is coming about which, if un" checked, must sooner or later directly affect the official relations between, the two countries.
“Charges and counter-charges are being flung back and forth across the Atlantic. Attacks on Britain in the United States Senate are met with recriminatory references to America in the British House of Lords.”
It is not, let us explain, the purpose of this journal to be either socialistic in its views or capitalistic in its sympathies. It is no part of our mission to deepen class feeling, but rather to tell the facts as best we are able to ascertain them, and to call attention to the significance of the affairs of the day. •
The New York State Bar Association believes that some of the unrest, which aristocratic agencies are wont to call Bolshevism, merely because tha’t word sounds so much more dreadful, is due to a too careless regard for the spirit of individual liberty. On this the New York Evening World says:
“Fear for ‘all that we have saved in the evolution of human justice, when so much of constitutional liberty and protection is lightly set aside simply because it seems inconvenient to the single-tracked mind? is expressed in a report given out by the State Bar Association’s Committee on Law Reform.
“‘As a result of war conditions there is danger’, the report says, ‘that the fundamental spirit of individual liberty may be seriously impaired in the ^apposed interest of public safety and efficient administration.' ”
Justice and the Poor Reginald Ke&er Smith, o/ tXo Botlon Bar.
THE First Defect: Delay. “While the law is enforced, justice waits. The possibilities of delay and of enforcing a compromise to avoid expense and annoyance induce litigation by those who wish to escape the faithful performance of their contracts. The calendars are crowded with such cases. In such a game the poor stand little chance against the rich, or the honest against the unscrupulous.”—Elihu Root
Although the days of Jarndyce y. Jarndyce are over, the course of American justice still amply provides the opportunity for delay “which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right”. Delay is not entirely bad. In cases where it serves to cool hasty tempers and stay spiteful litigation it is desirable. Bat when it becomes so prolonged that the issue ceases to be that of the merits of the case and becomes one as to the respective length of the parties* pocketbooks, it is altogether intolerable.
This evil of delay is established, and the injustice which it causes is universally recognized. It works to defeat justice in two ways: first, by making the time required to reduce a cose to final judgment so long that persons unable to wait do not start the case at all but give it up; and, second, by forcing unfair settlements and compromises on persons so situated either before suit is brought or in discount of a verdict after trial in exchange for a waiver of appeaL In a wage claim speed is the essence of justice, for the suit is brought to obtain the means of livelihood. A judgment years or even months later is little better than no judgment. In negotiations between counsel for the settlement of personal injury cases it is customary to deduct something for the amount agreed on as fair damages on the theory that less is better now than more three years hence in the due course of the law. The evil tends to aggravate itself by encouraging parties without meritorious defences to make a sham contest so that they may avail themselves of delay and perhaps beat down the claim against them. The natural delay of the system is thus increased by this artificial burden; it is like throwing sand into unoiled gears.
Delays are mainly of two sorts: those encountered in getting a case, after taking its cn-try in court, actually heard and determined; and those occasioned by the taking of appeals on points of law to the highest courts.
The following case illustrates the delays in securing a final judgment in Philadelphia before the creation of the Municipal Court in 1913 and ia typical of a condition which has existed in every large city:
A wage earner jhad a claim for ten dollars, which represented a week's work. On January 19,1911, the Legal Aid Society tried his case in the Magistrate’s Court and secured judgment. On February 8,1911, the defendant appealed to v the Court of Common Pleas, which gave him the right to have the entire case tried over again. On March 11,1911, the plaintiff’s claim was filed in the Court of Common Pleas and the case marked for the trial list. Owing to congested dockets the case did not actually appear on a trial list until February 7, 1912,
Here entered a rule of procedure which would be incredible if it did not exist. A case marked for trial Monday must be tried Monday or Tuesday or else go off the list entirely. That is, if any prior case or cases marked on Monday’s calendar should occupy the time of the court during Monday and Tuesday, then all other cases assigned on that list are cancelled and the parties must begin at the bottom again, re-marking the case for trial and awaiting the assignment. While this is going on in one session, another cession of the same court may have no cases and so be obliged to suspend; for, under the legal procedure, it was forbidden to do the commonsense tiling of transferring cases from a congested to an empty session of court.
The wage earner’s case, assigned for February 7,1912, was not reached on that day, or the next, and so went off the list. It was re-marked and assigned for April 3, 1912. Not being reached on April 3 or 4, it again went off and did not reappear until October 10, 1912. Fortunately it was reached and tried on October 11, 1912, and judgment entered for the plaintiff.
It took one year and nine months and required eleven'days in court for both attorney and client to collect the original ten dollars.
In the criminal law, delays while awaiting trial are even more serious; for, where the defendant is too poor to furnish bail, delay is equivalent to a sentence of imprisonment for poverty.
In appeals taken to the courts of last resort on points of law, a reasonable delay is to be expected. The right of appeal cannot be cut off, and a certain deliberation of the points raised is desirable. Such appeals are relatively few in number and are not objectionable. But wheu the highest courts get years behind in their cases, as has happened in California and New York, and parties appeal, nbt to secure rights but to secure delay, to get the benefit of the old adage that “time fights for the defendant", with hopes that the opposing party will die, or run out of funds, or become discouraged and give up, then delay becomes an outrage.
The delays which mar the existing administration of justice originate in, and are mad^ possible by, our faulty court administration and our "thoroughly antiquated civil and criminal procedure”. With unification of court organization and simplification of procedure unconscionable delay will be swept away.
The outlook for speedy reform is promising. Already great strides have been taken. On this score the public conscience is aroused. The elimination of intermediate appeals permitting two trials on the facts has accompanied the creation of modern municipal courts and has done away with one of the most flagrant abuses. The modern municipal courts, despite their vast number of cases, are keeping abreast of their dockets. In February, 1917, the New York Municipal Court rendered judgment in a tort claim for an accident which happened in February. It is not unusual for judgment in breach of contract cases to be entered the same month in which the breach occurred.
The intelligent propaganda of the American Judicature Society is clearly pointing to the methods whereby judicial administration can be lifted out of the muddle into which it has fallen; and there is an increasing disposition on the part of the courts, the bar, and the legislatures to make the needed changes.
Tedious proceedings and long delays are not necessary. They are not inevitable or inherent in the nature of our judicial institutions. They can be abolished whenever we so will it.
[This is the fourth of a series of articles reprinted from a work of limited circulation published by the Curnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and entitled “Justice and the Poor”. The articles aye: (1) Freedom and Equality of Justice: The Ideal; (2) Denial of Justice: The Fact: (3) Defects iu the Administration of Justice; (4) The First Defect: Delay: (5) The Second Defect: Court Costs and l ees; (C) The Third Defect: Expense of Counsel. Letters are welcome from renders giving an account of their experiences with the administration of Justice.]
'The Golden Age for April 28, 1920 4$9
LABOR. AND ECONOMICS
Hour to Profiteer
SUCCESSFUL profiteering calls for an elab-orate and efficient, withal invisible and un-■ scrupulous organization. It is not a game that the tyro can break ^into without proper training of conscience and greed. Not every one can find admittance into this charmed circle of Chamber-of-Commerce respectability, where there exists “commercial honor”. The honor of thieves is more worthy of respect than is this pilfering of the pockets of widows and paupers.
However, if one is to become a profiteer, he must dedicate himself to the profession, and learn the way into the sacred precincts. Cleveland, it appears, is able to teach something about profiteering. There is a lake on one side of that city, ready to function for an important part of the profiteer’s art, but lacking in the essential of secrecy; for nothing done upon Lake Erie could be kept from the populace, who are to be profiteered upon, and must not learn the game.
On the far outskirts of the city is a bog traversed by a lonely railroad line, and there it is that the daily “rot” train dumps its burden of eighteen to forty-one carloads. Not that the fruit and vegetables are spoiled, or in any way inedible. They are too gopd to keep—so good that the Cleveland rabble of a million hungry stomachs would gladly buy such perfectly good food. But part of the education of the profiteer is in the art of making away with sufficient supplies to keep the price up enough for a real profit on the rest, and not to educate the common people back to the ancient idea that occasionally there are bargains because there is plenty.
The Cleveland News is to furnish lesson number two in the school of profiteering. According to this publication admissions have been made by prominent Cleveland railroad officials, who do not desire their names made known, presumably because it might interfere with the revenue from the "rot” train or perhaps affect their "standing” with other members of the commer-cial and financial "elect’. In Cleveland it takes four concerns prominent enough to be able to control the situation to profiteer properly in food products that the populace would eat, if they could get them.
The consignees, says the News, are members of what is known in the commission house district and at the railroad receiving stations os "the combination”.
All four members, it is pointed out, very often deal with the same shippers simultaneously, even going so far as to offer special inducements, this lieing done, it is said, for the purpose of giving the impression that there is no secret understanding between them.
In tha case of four carloads of cucumbers that were destroyed the four consignees placed their orders simultaneously, one of the-combination for two cars out of a total of five. When the cars were delivered, however, he accepted only one. That left four cars on the track, all of which were refused, despite the fact, according to the railroad officials, that they were in perfect condition.
The purpose of placing the order, when the “combine” had no intention of making use of the entire shipment, was to prevent it from going to any one else, it is said. In this way they had the market in their hands and could dictate prices.
The combination is so perfect, one railroad official says, that the four members even go so far as to share one car of a shipment and refuse the remainder.
He specifies one instance where a Cleveland commission merchant not in the combination he so vigorously condemns, cornered the entire Michigan potato output for a period of weeks on a promise to the shippers to give them ten cents a bushel above the market prices.
“When the shipments began to arrive,” he says, “tha commission man proceeded very promptly to refuse all but a few cars, making the excuse that many lots were specked and otherwise bad. He then made the offer to take over the shipment on speculation, agreeing to give the shippers what he could get. By the time the dickering was completed much of the shipment had rotted, and the shippers got for the rest a price that was ten or twenty cents below the prevailing market price. The commission man, of course, sold at the then current prices. He cleaned up a nice sum of money, while the shippers suffered.”
In the meantime, the railroad official explains, decay of most of the shipments served to keep potatoes on the “scarce” list and made it possible to maintain high prices.
This will do for lesson number two. The profiteers are still out of jail, except a few ones of microscopic importance that retailed a little sugar a few cents above the current price prematurely—that is, before the word was passed among these "men of social and commercial importance” that the time had come for the big raise from ten to twenty cents a pound and for the releasing of the millions of pounds "hidden” in store cellars, barns, warehouses, lofts and buildings of every description and “concealed" so mysteriously that not even the sleuths of the law could “find” them. These were perhaps the same officials that, after war prohibition was in effect* and saloons were then selling drinks in every corner of New York, could not get even a scent of the forbidden liquids—a scandal that, was no sooner ou$ than it was hushed up, because it was openly charged that widespread bribery of sleuths figured in the case. This will do for lesson number three in this course by mail in the elements of the new profession.
The “scarcity” of food has spread from Cleveland to other portions of the world. It was noticeable in Indianapolis, where earloads of fruit rotted in the railroad yards. In New York the sick could not get enough lemons, though truckloads were being dumped into the river. Poor people went hungry in Chicago, while millions of pounds of good food were being destroyed.
The trouble passed the confines of the United States; and in Winnipeg great quantities of eggs rotted in storage warehouses, and had to be scrapped because they were not fit to eat The price had not risen soon enough. It spread like the influenza into Italy, and at Genoa five millinn eggs from America would have decayed on the docks if the government had not seized them and sold them to the people at a fair price.
It touched Northern Europe—“starving” Europe. Tens of millions of pounds of the best kind of food lay deteriorating in bursting warehouses and on wharves, waiting, waiting, for the “killing” that never came; for Europe bought to the limit of her credit through the Allies, and there was neither money nor credit left to pay the tribute demanded by profiteers.
Meanwhile babies died at birth; mothers ill from undernourishment could not climb out of the valley of death of childbirth; little children were swept away in thousands by colds, and other slight affections; and men were not strong enough nor ambitious enough to do a good day’s work. “The food for starving Europe,” says Mr. Hoover, “was bought up by speculators to corner foodstuffs and hold them for the tremendous demands that would rise from Central Europe when the embargo was lifted.” But now Europe must be ‘’helped” with billions of dollars from rich and charitable America; for the people must have the food, and it cannot be had except by buying the hoards of the profiteers. Here endeth the fourth lesson.
It is not to be expected that the graduate profiteer intends to let the people alone permanently, even if he should be checked. What is an education for? Mr. Hoover expects the “D. P's”, the Doctors of Profiteering, to bring on more price climaxes:
‘TTnstable political conditions, a recurring shortage of shipping, a shortage of credit and a combination of either buyers or sellers will tend to create great speculative waves and may inflate prices to a point unendurable to the consumer, or in the reverse direction, unendurable to the farmer."
According to this, profiteering is destined to be a good, permanent occupation, which is quite likely if the same individuals as now continue to control politics, shipping, credit, buying and selling. But that is not likely, if heed is to be paid to the voice of the farmer and the worker in politics, who say that they expect to take control of the administration in the old-fashioned American ballot way and to snow in the profiteer, his friends, and the political, financial and ecclesiastical autocrats, in a second “glacial age in North America”. This will be the last lesson of the course in profiteering.
After the profiteer has abdicated the throne and -come down to be one of the common people from whom he sprang, better times will begin to dawn. The day of the ordinary man is at the door. For a while in that day profiteers and their friends will be unpopular. Very likely they may have to suffer some of the "many stripes” of which Christ spoke.—Luke 12:47.
After the San Francisco earthquake rich and poor fraternized for a little while in the sudden leveling. The rich forgot that they had held themselves aloof, and the poor forgave the once proud. In a time when all needed help, all helped one another; and so it will be in the Golden Age when the artificialities that now separate man from man are gone.
For the people and the profiteer this will be the post-graduate course in the school of a life that for apt pupils will never end; for the time will come in the Golden Age when people will no longer have to die. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54)— the God-given victory over imperfection, evil, sin and death.
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL 1 — ..................—___— - r —
Children Must Play
IT IS as natural for children to play as it is for them to breathe, but children should not have this tendency stimulated unduly by parents or others playing wi^h them too much; for it excites their nervous systems more than is good for the little ones.
When the child first begins to play alone its natural tendency, if there is a fire in sight, is to move toward the fire. Hence it is never safe to leave any minor child alone where it can gain access to an unprotected flame. For the same reason the child should never be in a position to get his hands on guns, knives, scissors or razors.
Children should not be permitted to play with toy guns, toy soldiers and other playthings that foster the war spirit. It is impossible in the same breath to teach children "peace on earth, good will toward men” and "war on earth, hate toward men”; for children are not naturally » hypocrites. It is their nature to believe what is taught to them and to act upon it It was our Lord that said to some grown people on one occasion, "Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom”—Matthew 18:3.
The true child is simple of heart, meek, truthful, free from ambition and rivalry, faithful, trusting, loving, obedient, teachable, without guile, indifferent to social distinctions and popular notions; and until he has been spoiled by contact with those who have not these qualities he is a living sermon to every honest adult It is hard to estimate what a horrible place the world would be without the softening influence of little children. It is folly for those who do not love children to think that they do or can love the Lord; and when the little ones come into a home they should be as welcome as the flowers in the month of May.
The natural place for a child to play is out of doors; and the best place is in his own back yard, where he can dig in the earth and do all the other unaccountable tilings we all delighted to do when we were children. Parents who can do so should try to find such homes for their children as will provide the little ones with such yards, even if it makes considerable extra effort on the part of the workers getting to and from their work. It is one of the chief businesses of a city to see that transportation between the workers’ homes and workshops is quick and cheap, so that as many people as possible could have semi-country homes for their children.
AU children love to watch the development of seeds into plants in the spring-time; and every child should, if possible, have a little plot of ground for a garden, even if it be no more than a flower-pot in a sunny window.
In a metropolitan area like New York it is next to impossible for all the children to live out within reach of the country. Hence we find tenement houses overflowing with children, while apartment houses inhabited by the well-to-do are empty of youngsters.
As the proper care of children is a city’s first duty, the apartment house building regulations should provide that a certain percentage of all the apartments should be available for occupancy by children, and all apartment houses of every kind should be built with the correct amount of light and air,, with roof playgrounds and nurseries, and, if of large size, with porches and open air suites. Why allow a hard-hearted and stingy landlord class to rule out children T Such landlords are like the so-called Christians who would class Jesus Christ as an undesirable citizen were he to appear in their midst.
The children of New York city have very few playgrounds; and there are vast areas where the standard fonn of entertainment of the children consists of shooting craps, this sport being less offensive to their elders than dodging trucks, taunting merchants or slapping pavements with slapsticks—pastimes which engage their attention in intervals between gambling.
Considerable efforts are being made to improve the situation. In the summer of 1919 Health Play Schools were organized in five New York city centers, with excellent results, every child showing benefits at the end of the season. The course of training included a daily bath, a lunch, a nap, an afternoon meal of bread and milk, games, instruction in singing, dancing, cobbling, chair-caning, basket-weaving and other practical things, with an outdoor picnic once a week. Regular medical examinations were made.
At Christmas time special efforts ate Jnade to bring some sunshine into the Eves of the most needy. In New York a pathetic incident of child life happened in connection with a Christmas festival in one of the armories, arranged by the Police Department. Seven thousand children were invited, to whom presents were to be given. The 7,000 came; and with them, as a perfectly natural sequence, 7,000 other children that had not been invited. The armory was divided into sections, and at first the children were crowded into the places that had been assigned to them, those from the same specified precincts all being put in a certain place.
This was all very well until the entertainment began; but as soon as the two dozen clowns engaged to entertain the children began to march around the armory the 7,000 preferred and the 7,000 common broke all the bonds restraining them and started after the clowns. All barriers and rules were broken down, and in a few minutes that armory was one of the wildest spots on earth.
Knowing that they had come there to receive presents, and realizing that in the mixup somebody was liable to get to the place where the presents were being given out before they could get there themselves, each child tried to beat the other to the end of the room where the representatives of Santa Claus awaited their visitors.
The result was that 7,000 of the non-elect showed themselves warriors of equal ability with the 7,000 of the elect. Individuals of both classes fought and scratched each other for the possession of dolls, toys and packages. Many received gifts only to have them torn from their arms by other youngsters. When the police tried to separate groups of combatants, some of them were considerably mauled by the youthful warriors. The police had to clear the armory in the effort to restore order, and it took the reserve of six precincts fifteen minutes to perform the task.
About English Children
HERE recently appeared in The Golden Age an article on the working conditions of English children, the data for which was drawn from an extended and supposedly reliable article in The London National News. We now have further information. Mr. J. Hemery, of London, having personal knowledge of matters treated in the News article, writes us:
Ma. EmTor: Tsi Golden magazine is v*ty welcome here. It is a refreshment to the mind not only because it is unusual in style and matter, but because it is so clean and because it so evidently looks at things from the Bible's viewpoint. If I might offer a criticism I would say that if more British items were given, the magazine might be more acceptable to the British subscribers; for at present the atmosphere is almost wholly American. 1 notice that you have made a beginning, for you have given us in your issue of February 18, No. 11, some British items, and it is really this that causes me to write. I refer you to your article “English Child Slaves” on page 327.
Someone has misled you rather badly. Without doubt the labour conditions in this country in tune past have been such as to bring shame to the faces of good men and women, but conditions have materially changed, though no doubt the spirit of greed in some parents and some employers is unchanged. When I read your article I asked a friend, a Manchester cotton merchant, to give me the facts respecting child labour, and his reply is:
“The half-timers under 12 years of age are not allowed to work in the mills. Both girls and boys are allowed to work full time from 13 to 14, according to the town. Tn Oldham boys cap commence at 13—in Manchester at 14; girls at 13 to 14 years of age. In the weaving section of the cotton trade there are no half-timers at all, and almost immediately the age for full timers both girls and boys is being increased to 14 years. Half-timers whether boys or girls work 24 hours per week and girls are paid 10a. (O. I.R.) and boys 12s. When working full time they work 48 hours per week, and their wages are about 30s. When merely learning, say for six to eight weeks, they are paid 5s. per week.
“Newspaper and errand boys, half-timers, ages 12 to 14 years, earn from 7a. to 10s. per week.
“Boys of the age of 14 are employed by the various Kailway Companies from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m., with an hour for dinner: these earn about 24s. per week.”
You will see that now there are no such young children working in the mills as stated in your article, also that the week's pay is not on so miserably low a scale as you state. I do not know how many half-timers are employed in the towns of Manchester and Warrington: perhaps your figures are correct as to the number of these: ,The point I would make is that they are not paid such miserable rates. The writer had a turn at this now nearly 50 years ago. When only 11 years old he had to get up at 4:45 a. m. so as to start work at 6 o’clock. As half-timer he worked 36 hours per week for the sum of 2 s. 6d. Things are now somewhat improved, as the enclosed note shows. Child labour is not now optional; the law of Parliament is obligatory.
What you have to say about Deansgate as a centre of child labour is quite out. Deansgate is a Manchester business street which may for this purpose be compared to New York's 23rd street.
~~ MANUFACTURING ANdViNING ~"j
American Manganese
MANGAN ESIG is a hard, gray, brittle, lustrous metal which has no value In the arts by itself, and which is never found in nature except in combination’with other elements, but which is exceedingly valuable in the manufacture of steel, its presence in small amounts adding to the hardness, tenacity and elasticity of the metal. While the steel is molten, the manganese is added to it in the form of an alloy known in the steel industry as ferromanganese or spiegeleisen.
When the war became imminent, the Government sensed the possibility that the destruction of shipping by submarines would make it difficult or impossible to obtain from abroad the manganese upon which the steel industry in America has hitherto depended. Thereupon it took stops to encourage domestic production.
The foreign sources of the ore, in the usual order of the value-of imports, are Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica, England, Russia, Mexico and Argentine. Small quantities have also come from Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Portugal, Japan, Australia and South Africa. The domestic ores cannot compete in quality or cost with the foreign ores.
The development of manganese properties in the United States produced shipments from Minnesota, Nevada, Montana, Michigan, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Virginia, Arkansas and Arizona, listed in the order of their importance as producers. Much of the production was at a loss. In some instances there was a little temporary profit, but the business is now at a standstill and with no bright future.
Throe things have combined to demoralize the American manganese industry. In the first place, on account of its relatively poor quality, there would have been no demand for the domestic ores except for the war. In Die second place the great wTar contracts have all been filled or cancelled and the production has continued until there are great quantities piled up at the mines for which there is no adequate market. In the third place, and most disastrous of all, four or five years of normal steel production will exhaust the manganese resources of the country.
An effort is being made to assist investors in American manganese properties by putting a protective tariff on imports of the manganese ores of other countries.,
When needed, something to take the place of manganese will surely be found. The all-wise Creator in forming the earth knew just what things man would need. In the Golden Age these will be developed by metallurgical processes of which the wisest engineers of our day have little or no knowledge.
England and the Gold Standard
XCEPT on paper, the gold standard is a thing of the past in every country in the world. Before the war, all paper money in England was redeemable in gold except five-pound notes, or notes of larger denominations. At the outbreak of the war the gold was called in; and by the middle of 1919 paper money-to the extent of $1,700,000,000 was in circulation, or $15 in paper for every gold dollar that was in the vaults. In the fall of 1919 British one-pound notes were worth 15% less than gold in the open market; this is as though, in the United States, an American paper dollar was worth but 85 cents. Since then the situation lias become worse in this respect.
Inflation has produced the same results in England that it has elsewhere. In 1914 the English sovereign was worth more than twice, in purchasing power, what it is now worth. As a consequence, those with fixed incomes, especially in view of the larger income taxes, find themselves in greatly reduced circumstances.
There is one mitigating circumstance in connection with the impoverishing of the great landed proprietors, and in the breaking of their magnificent estates up into smaller parcels. The economic result will be to make the rural population largely independent land owners, and mure of the soil will be devoted to productive purposes. This levelling process, while regrettable from an esthetic point of view, is nevertheless a necessary part of the work of the Golden Age. The mountains and hills of society, the prominent ones, are being brought low, and the valleys, the lowly and depressed ones, are being lifted up. Thus the whole surface of the sym-
bolic earth is being made level for the inauguration. of the long-promised Messianic kingdom. The levelling work most go on, and is going on.
Lloyd George says that in whichever way England tries to go she is in a fog. Lord Curzon, viewing the world as a whole said:
'Tn looking to the future nothing geerns to me more certain than that a time of great double and unforeseen developments lie before the nations of the world. I doubt very much whether as the result of the war we have succeeded in pacifying Europe. But whether we have done so or not, it is quite certain that for some time we shall not secure stability in Ama. The breakup of the Busszau and Turkish empires has produced a vacuum which will take a long t^Tna to fill by orderly and settled oonditinna,” ,
Improved Car Refrigeration
ANEW system of ear refrigeration that shows great economies over older systems has been invented by C. W. McCoy, of Spokane, Washington. In old systems the cold air is administered from the ends of the car, and the storage tanks in which the ice and salt are kept are not insulated. The result is that about 20% to 25% of the storage capacity of the car is consumed by the tanks, and the cars have warm air strata in the top, and especially in the top center, near the doors, where deterioration or loss is almost sure to occur in hot weather.
The new system takes advantage of the scientific principle that warm air rises and cold air falls. The tanks for the ice and salt occupy no part of the loading space of the car, and they are insulated, on the principle of the Thermos bottle, so that no appreciable loss occurs from radiation. The brine of the tanks is made to circulate automatically, by valves so adjusted that the movement of the car insures the flow. The pipes conveying the brine traverse the ceiling of the car, resulting in uniform chilling.
This A-B-C system, as it is called, can be applied to all existing cars at low cost, and affords a double service; namely, uniform and economical heating in winter as well as refrigeration in summer. As a refrigeration car it hauls 25% more product with an ice consn-mption ranging from 50% to 70% less. Tests have been made in every branch of the perishable freight industry, and it has been proven that the new system requires only about half the re-icing of other cars and will result in a saving of millions of dollars a year in foodstuffs as soon as it can
be applied to all cars in the service. It has been adopted by the three Canadian transcontinental lines and by Wilson and Company, packers. Its adoption by all other railway lines and packers is only a matter of time.
In a run from Chicago to Jacksonville this new system used 4,200 lbs. of ice and 504 lbs. salt, at a cost of $6.32, as against the use in an old style car of 11,000 tbs. of ice and 1,230 tbs. of salt, at a cost of $19.45. *
In a run from Calgary, Alberta, to Boston, it used 8,400 lbs. of ice as against 15,000 lbs. for an old style car. When opened, the temperature on top of load between doors was plus 14° > Fahrenheit, ten degrees better than old-style.
Among the records established, attention is directed to the following: Shipment of fresh fish from Prince Rupert, B. to New York in ordinary Great Northern Express ear. Time in transit, nine days. Re-icing en route, one. Total ice consumed, including initial icing, 5,200 lbs. An even temperature of 36° was maintained and the condition of the fish at point of destination, was declared by the consignee to be perfect.
Heating test over Canadian Pacific Railway, from Vancouver to Montreat Tim a consumed in transit, eighteen days. Contents of car, Japanese Lily Bulbs and Bottled Preserves. Reheatings in transit, four. A temperature of from 45° to 50° was maintained-
Shipment of mixed chilled fresh meat, Chicago to Jacksonville, Fla., covering a period of seven days and ten hours, no re-icings in transit. Total ice consumed, 3,400 lbs. An average temperature of 30° was maintained. Meat unloaded at Jacksonville in first-class condition.
The Great Northern Railway moved a car of apples from Wenatchee, Wash., to Chicago, and because of reduced ice consumption and increased loading capacity, earned $130.37 more than an ordinary car could earn.
We give space to this invention, because it is in line with the spirit of the times, greater efficiency, better food for the people, more of it, and at less expense. All this is moving toward the Golden Age, the time when food will be abundant, wholesome and ready for man's use in a perfect or nearly perfect condition. We wish the enterprise well and hope it does not fall into the hands of those whose only interest in their fellow men is to gouge them of the last dollar and the last cent that is possible to obtain.
FINANCE -COMMERCE -TRANSPORTATION J
British Railways
WHEN the railway men’s unions were first recognized by the railways in Great Britain, in 1907, the membership was but 95,000; now the membership is 400,000. The railway strike last fall was taken as a struggle between labor and the government; and for a time the situa-Ition, with 1,000,000 men out of work because of it, was so alarming that one excited man paid $500 for the use of an automobile to enable him * to get from London to Plymouth so that he could catch a boat and get out of the country. Another offered the same amount for like service, but the offer was refused because in the meantime the government had assumed control of the supply of gasoline. The strike cost the British Treasury £10,000,000. There was comparatively little disorder, however, as the offers of volunteer service were overwhelming, and enough trains were moved to prevent any con-; siderable suffering.
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