Golden Age, May 12, 1920

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12, 1920, Vol. 1, No. 17 FtfblisKed every other ■ircek at 35 Myrtle Avenue, yetr York, N.Y., U.S.A, (Bareuffh of Brooklyn)

Ten Cents a Copy— $1.50 a Year Canada a Foreign Countries, $2.00

Volume 1 WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1020 Number IT

, CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

LABOX ud ECONOMICS Killing th* Gooee_..................-...................—- .......

Comparison of Earnings and Prices of Foods..—„.w..518

SOCIAL and EDUCATIONAL 1 Prohibition at Work............519 Beautiful Hello laic_______

MANUFACTURING and MINING Building with a Gun.—.......523 . .

Tougher Steel........................524 Asphalt from Kentucky 524

1 FINANCE. COMMERCE. TRANSPORTATION

Patents and Business..........525 The Weary Sea Bird

Chain Stores........................528 (poem) ...................-

POLITICAL, DOMESTIC sod FOREIGN - „ A-a— Statistical Religion and

« Law and Order...-...............527 Prcsa.................._...528

AGRICULTURE and HUSBANDRY New Egg Preserver..............529 Killing Cutworms

Chemical Control of Weeds..520 Excuses! Excuses!

SCIENCE and INVENTION

Nitrogen from Air.

.532

right" » Than cork ............531 The Longest Bridges.

HOUSEWIFERY and HYGIENE

Intravenous Medication Approved _____

TRAVEL and

Color and Tone Pitch

Another United States

RELIGION and

God's Inheritance In the Earth.™......-...637

A Word to the Nervous

Some Tried Remedies

MISCELLANY

“Wa’U Go to Jerusalem”....536

Curious Wage Phenomena..536

PHILOSOPHY

The Interebtireh Movement 640

Juvenile Bible Stud/...——.543

Ptibltahed «*«ry ether Wedaesdar at SI Myrtle Arena*. {Gero ef Brooklyn. N» w Ynrt. N. Y.. to WOODWORTH. HUDGINGS end MARTIN

Golden Age

Volume I New York, Wednesday, May 12, 1920 Number 17

KILLING THE GOOSE

WHEN the alien stream flows and ebbs to and from American shores in such a manner that the net gain in immigrants in a year is under 50,000, it becomes a question of importance. During 1919 the number of aliens that left America approached 200,000.

In the five years from 1910 to 1914 the aliens that returned home were 29% of those that came; in the next two years 37%; in the three years to 1919 88%. In other words, in the first period the conditions here suited the aliens so well that only one out of three went back home; in the next period two out of five left us; in the last period seven out of eight have left our shores for other lands.

It is said that many thousands are desirous of going to their home countries, but are hindered by a variety of considerations, including that of getting passports promptly. The number so minded is variously estimated from one to two million, and is reported to be increasing.

America has plenty of money—too much, some students of the inflation problem aver; and the money never would be missed, according to financial authorities, if each emigrant takes with him the estimated average of $3,000. On this basis, the 200,000 wanderers returning in 1919 took with them some $600,000,000. If the tide should rise and reach a million, the money taken away would reach three billion dollars. This sum, if taken in currency, might seriously embarrass even a country having the total money circulation of $5,998,000,000, that which the United States has: for it would be just half th? amount of circulation. If it took the form of foreign exchange, it would create a demand for three billion 'dollars worth of foreign exchange and migfit materially help a situation where London exchange is depreciated some 20%, Paris exchange 65%, and Berlin exchange at least 95%. When the three billion dollars got into circulation in Europe it would help the situation there just as much as a loan -of like amount from America, subject, however, to the drawback that Europe needs, not so much money, as the things that money can buy. But the three billion dollars put into circulation “over there’’ would be acceptable to Americans for purchase of American products, and indirectly would bring Europe some of the things that war-torn region craves.

In former days, when the annual immigration passed a million, the human flood that poured into cities and construction camps was not rich in money, but it brought to this country the kind of riches that a country requires for its growth and development—the same kind that the ebb tide is bearing back to Europe. That wealth was the power of strong, willing bodies and ambitious brains, the wealth that was transmuted into railway embankments, concrete work, good roads, coal from the mines, lumber from the forests, and steel and iron from the mills. Conditions seem now to have changed somehow; for that kind of wealth is getting chary of America, and inclined for the present to flow to South America, South Africa, and may shortly run in trickles, brooks and rivers into other sections-Mesopotamia, Palestine, North Africa, there in turn to be. changed into the permanent form that constitutes the real wealth of a nation. Meanwhile it is estimated that the 40% shortage in things done in tills country is owing in considerable measure to the choking of the flood that in the past created the wealth of America.

Immigration is the goose that lays golden eggs of national wealth. It was expected that after the World War there would be a tidal wave of immigrants and an abundance of the riches that strong muscles create. There seemed every reason why the people of poverty-stricken Europe should come here. Capital would be depleted there, but plenteous here. Mills and railroads would be worn out there, but well kept up here. Money and credit would be scarce in Europe, but abundant here. Is some one killing the goose, and is America not to have the golden eggs, after all?

The lure that drew across the ocean the multitudes that have done the basic work of rich America was, first, the opportunity to make a good living. Many an immigrant knows the disappointment of seeing that the streets of America are not of gold, but like other streets. But the gold was in the mills and the mines, and the aliens went to work with a will to save the little money that would make them rich at home again. And in the palmy days of immigration two out of three decided that America was better than Europe and stayed here to make it their home, with their children and their children's children.

Many came to the Western Continent because within them was the urge of freedom. These people make the true Americans; for was not the nation founded by men and women who braved poverty, hardship and loneliness, to live in an atmosphere not polluted by tyranny and oppression? It is said that these people are not coining so freely as before the war; that Europe is being republicanized and freed from the autocracy of kingship, nobility, wealth and priestcraft; that it is needless to sail three thousand miles for freedom; and last, but not least, that workingmen can get $9 a day in Poland and in others of the newly born nations.

The feeling is rife here that America has not been as thoughtful for the stranger in her midst as she might have been. The people here have been so busy making their own living, and having their own good time, that they have forgotten the lonely, queer figure on the back street —quite regardless that not seldom the stranger was possessed of education, talent, ability out of the ordinary that would make him an acquisi-tion~4p any group. On the whole the man from across the water was a man to he shunned, because—"Well, he isn’t in our set”.

But the past is to be ‘‘bygones”, and now. at last, the alien is to be made "one of us”. He is to be m^do ihto an American. Ho is to bo taught English.-iStatistics recently compiled show that he is 80% as substantial a citizen as any one, 15% Socialistic, and 5% a mentioner of overthrow of government. Now he is to be made to feel the big-brotherliness of the people here. Not that he is to be welcomed into any American home, but Americans are to be sent into his home—circular distributors, notice- servers, literature carriers, slummers, paid uplifters, English teachers and—spies; for must not the 20%' or at least the 5% be “rooted out of the land”?

Great, say some, was the blame of the foreigners! They came to this country of liberty and equality to find every door closed socially. They were guilty, says the National Security League, of the following “removable causes”:

“1. They did not learn the English language, and so could be deceived oftentimes by the vicious of their own race [the u%].

“2. They congregated in foreign quarters and did not learn American ideals, so they did not know of the opportunities of advancement.

“3. They spent their time talking over the grievances of the old land, and were thus led astray by revolutionary propaganda not needed in America [the 1-5%].

“4. They sent their money to other countries instead of building up their homes here [about 30%].

"5. They did not realize that if any injustice is being' done to any in the community, there is a law to which to appeal for the righting of the injustice” [see articles on “Justice and the Poor”].

Incidentally, if the foreigner got to living with native Americans, the priests found that they could not hold him in “the church,” as they are unable to hold the children and grandchildren of immigrants. For if, for example, the alien miner in a coal region should become Americanized, he would not believe that the priest could “change him into a pig’. And the eternal salvation of the foreigners, and of church revenues, depends on eternal ignorance of America and American ideals. To a large extent this influence is responsible for the stunting of aliens as regards the high ideals of the land to which they have given themselves. For fresh immigrants constitute the chief additions to Bomanist membership, and a stoppage of the flow would affect the plans of the hierarchy.

Means are planned for regulating the immigration tide. Government regulation of immigration would seem to those in authority as essentia] as of food, railroads and trade. Care is to be taken not to restrict the flow in a manner to hinder business. According to the Textile Review the proposed rules are to cover:

The complete suspension of all labor immigration for two years or more.

Regulation of immigration then on the basis ‘ , of a certain percentage allowed from each 'country, by which from 3% to 15% as many immigrants may be admitted as there are al. ready aliens here of that nationality. This will make admission a privilege, it is hoped. The percentage, with other matters, will be set annually by an immigration commission.

Immigration officials are to be sent to the countries whence immigrants seek to come, to keep foreigners from starting who might be kept out on arrival.

Standards for citizenship and naturalization . are to be raised, and a wife’s citizenship is to be separate from her husband's.

Laws discriminating against certain nationalities are to be repealed, so as to remove pres, '■ ent causes for animosity from the Japanese, Chinese and others. Besides, Chinese and Japanese labor will help out in the industries of ■ the country. This will do American labor little harm, if the immigration commission is controlled by persons appointed by or in sympathy with working men; for the percentages will be controlled and varied to suit shifting conditions. If the farmers and workers vote themselves into *’ control of the administration in November, this X feature would be certain not to interfere with the interests of American labor.

A thoroughly restricted immigration would dissipate or destroy something for which America has over stood. This country has always been a Mecca for the oppressed and for those persecuted for religious or political reasons. It would be a distinct loss to humanity and to American prestige among liberty-loving people for such a thing to happen. But the drift may be sensed in the now-forgotten veto by the President on the immigration bill of January, 1917, - when the veto message ran:

’•'The bill exempts from the operation of the literacy tost all aliens who shall prove to the satisfaction of the proper immigration officer or to the Secretary of Labor that they'are seeking admission to the United States to avoid religions persecution, in the country of their last permanent residence, whether such persecution be evidenced by overt acts or by laws or governmental regulations that discriminate against the alien or the race to which he belong^ because of his religious faith. . . . 'Phis provision separately and in itself renders it unwise for me to give my assent to this legislation in its present form.*7

r . . The principle of a special welcome to the oppressed, in the provision objected’to in the veto, has been one of the foundations of American ideals; its negation 300 years ago might have excluded the little band that sailed from religiously inhospitable ingland to Massacnn-sett’s then unknown shores. In the hands of Roman Catholic officials the administration attitude would effectually debar any sincere adherents to their faith who might not have been welcome in their home country, and would cast many Jews back into the fires of the persecutions from which they fled.

In foreign lands the word is being passed around that alien workers had better endure the troubles they have than fly to others they know not of in America. It is said'that this country is being quite well advertised as very reactionary, as a place which seekers .after freedom would do well to avoid until distrust of and agitation against foreigners abates. Something like this has happened several times when American conditions were temporarily unfavorable. Immigrants stopped coming in a measure during the Civil War, after the Chinese exclusion act, after the contract labor law, and during various industrial depressions. It is thought that fully a million and a half may not merely forbear coming, but actually leave the country. This may create a serious condition, when the (country is short 4,000,000 workers for the normal development of industry and construction.

The Straus Investors' Magazine says:

“If we are no longer supplied with the yearly million of new-come immigrants, who formed this class from year to year, one of two things will happen: either thin work will be done by a class of native-born workmen who will tend to form a separate class of casual workers— which past events show would be a serious economic and social danger—qr we shall not have enough men to do this kind of labor, and new development work will be seriously crippled. No one can be certain as to what will come, but it is certain that serious consideration must be given to the question, and it will be generally agreed that everything possible should be done to make this country attractive, under proper restrictions, to the better class of new blood from abroad.

“Although we have viewed with some alarm the large influx of foreigners, especially of the more ignorant classes, still it has always been, a source of national pride that so many of the oppressed peoples from all over the-world should find in 1 his country the opportunities.and attractions which they could not find elsewhere. We have prided ourselves on being a haven for the oppressed and a land of opportunity for the,ambitious. Wc sec no reason why this should not be as much true at present as in the past. But now immigration seems practically to have stopped, if the tide has not set definitely the other way.”

This country may soon have to give profound attention to the fact that another virgin country of vast extent and of at least as great natural opportunity for the ambitious worker is now beckoning to workmen, to the poor and oppressed all over the world. The New York World is sponsor for the statement that conditions in Russia are good for working people, and that the poor there are probably better off than they have ever been. Perhaps the tide of the world’s ambitious workers which has long flowed America-ward, is about to turn to the exploiting of another Mississippi Valley, to the development of another Rocky Mountain region, to the settlement of another Great Plains—in Russia and Siberia. If so, this country would do well quickly to make the stranger within its gates feel once more that America is the land of

opportunity and freedom for him, to make the alien feel that this is ‘’home”, that he is welcome here, and is to find, not hard-hearted taskmasters, but genuine friends in mill, shop, store and home. .

America will open her heart to the stranger ■—but it will be in the Golden Age. In those days no matter who steps down the gang plank, he will be made to realize that he has fallen among more than friends—among brothers; for it is not far off when the realization will come of a law spoken thousands of years ago, "The Lord your' God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible [to evil doers then], which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward; He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment; love ye, therefore, the stranger."-Deut. 10:17-19.

Comparison of course of average weekly earnings in New York State factories with the course of retail food

prices in the United States. ‘Drop in January due to fueMosing order January 18 to 22, 1918. QThat in November due to closing of factories on November 11, 1918, Armistice Day.

•/ Siatutia aad fafarmatioa of lie York StiU fadu&iU CaMi'uitt)

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Prohibition at Work

ROHIBITION has grown into the dignity of an institution, like the Constitution, of which it is now a part. It has been functioning for some months, and an appraisal of the workings of the new institution is of interest.

Like other changes, this permanent drought has injured certain industries and destroyed others. Grape culture languishes, as does that of the hop. The billion invested in the liquor business fortunately is not entirely gone, but what is left is directed into more useful channels, if the alteration of breweries into soft-drinks factories can be called useful. Other adjuncts to the industry have taken leave. No more does the Keeley cure flourish, and homes for inebriates have been turned into other kinds of homes —a benefit doubtless in the existing scarcity of homes for the people. The police industry is apprehensive, as the arrests lessen and police > commissioners decide on a decreased personnel.

Genius wilts, and the poetry business may suffer a relapse; for what would Poe have done without his daily potations? Swinburne was V fortunate that England was his habitat; for* according to the poet Sadachi Hartmann:

“That the soul uplift and inspiration without which no great work is ever achieved, comes from some stimu-< * lant; that our hidden self, our subconscious mind, can rise to no great endeavor unless so influenced; and that to the masters in art and letters alcohol has given this psychic impetus is a matter of history.”

Concluding, he says, in language as plain as a mental alcohol mist:

“And so, granting that for some the plaudits of the . crowd give the needed kick to their sleeping talents, that to others the psychic reaction comes from the expectation of immortality for their embryo achievements, to many more the awakening of genius can only be accomplished by the magic that lies in the cup. This prohibition will deprive the world of art and letters of many a song from the soul from which the umbra might be lifted by the warmth that comes with imbibing.”

Too bad! Perhaps somewhere outside the three-mile-^ limit a sanitarium for genius may yet be provided.

Worse yftt, the coal strike was due to prohibition, according to the British press. And ; still darker:

“Prohibition preceded the revolution in Russia, and prohibition in the United. States preceded the biggest attempt at revolution yet made in that country.”

. Perhaps for the first time the Russian people got out of their government-fostered befuddle-ment and began to think. Are the British newspapers and the powers of reaction afraid that America sober will begin to use her brain? And what will one of the great religious denominations do without its saloons?

The American people, so say the calamity howlers, are irritated over the new institution. According to one writer:

“The compulsory abstention from spirituous liquors is the subject of daily conversation. A sudden change in the habits of the average citizen, particularly when enforced against his will, is bound to cause irritation and evoke protest.”

A pledge was signed all over the country:

“Believing that the. Constitutional Amendment passed by Congress and ratified by a majority of the States is an infringement upon my personal liberties, I hereby pledge myself to vote against any candidate for public office, regardless of party affiliations, who favors its enforcement.”

The habits of some of our elder brethren have suffered a ruthless break, as bad as when the supply, of “dope” is cut off from the morphine fiend; for King Alcohol belongs in the same drug category as Queen Morphine, Princess Opium, and the rest of the Vice family.

The Wall Street Journal is authority for the suggestion that prohibition may practically ruin the American shipping industry:

“Steamship men are pessimistic as to the future quality of sailors on ships trading with the United States. No sailor wants to sign up for a trip here if he can possibly help it. The pick of the sailors in the trans-Atlantic trade is now signing up to go to South America. Prohibition enforcement caused a near riot recently on a ship in Boston from an Italian port which was manned by an Italian crew., Under the ship’s articles the crew was entitled to be furnished a daily ration of rum. The customs officials under the new law were obliged to require the captain to Real up all liquors while in port, forcing the ship to violate its contract with the crew, with results that can well be imagined. There is no expectation that any member of that particular crew will ever sign up for a trip to the. United States again.”

Other industries are affected, or are liable to

lx*, by prohibition. Millions of workers from foreign lands, who have been accustomed to wine or beer, consider America a less desirable place to live in than it was, and emigration on a huge scale is hinted at. It is more the infringement of personal liberty and the fear of further restrictions by sumptuary laws than a longing for liquor that actuates millions of people. The lengths fanatical extremists may go to may'become a real menace. Already a small army of prohibition spies is asked for, some of whose deeds have had headlines in the press in sensational affairs. The matter goes into the citizen's castle, his home; for rulings are in effect that fruit juices and ciders come within the law if they contain over one-half per cent of alcohol, and violation of this ruling carries the same penalties as though it were the regular manufacture or sale of stronger liquors. Let the farmer and the housewife beware lest their canned or bottled juices begin to “work"; for the one-half percent limit is quickly reached. Any home may be searched for such "liquors”; and under conditions where the owner is unpopular, information might at any time be lodged that would cause the distressing publicity of a “raid”, if nothing worse.

From every direction come reports of beneficial effects of prohibition. In ten Massachusetts cities the arrests dropped 80%, from 4962 to 805 within a month. Springfield enjoyed a decline, of 85% in crime. Similar figures are given out in Cincinnati, Baltimore, Chicago and New York. Accidental and suicidal deaths have fallen off. The promised increase in drug fiends has not yet materialized, though there are indications that it exists. The jail at Lowell, Mass., was closed and twenty employes found better work. The Taunton, Mass., jail has no inhabitants. In Columbus, Ohio, the city prison has been vacant. Mouses of correction are being closed. Atlantic City has averaged not over one arrest a day.

The parole breakers and wife-beaters have quit. The police are relieved at the sudden lessening of the dangerous features of their work: for, according to them, the Saturday night “^ruhks" no longer have to be rounded up and tended "until sober, the singing victim and the pathetic crying “jag’’ are no more, the dreaded “fighting drunk” has turned pacifist, the drunken flirt no longer tries to charm the ladies, and the profane and “wild-west” “drunks”

are not found. Accidents are diminished. The police have less to fear from the intoxicated chauffeur and truck driver. Mine operators no longer chart the homes of workers causing dis- < ?

astrous accidents, only to find them grouped ‘ about the local saloons. Railroad managements : sleep more sweetly; for the danger of holocausts is practically over, as far as they may be attributable to drink.

The health of the people is bound to manifest improvement. Mortality and disease statistics will not be available till the end of the year, but ’ t the absence of alcohol as an irritant and dead- . >

ener of tissues should cause a betterment in the bodily condition of millions of former addicts. The burden is lifted from the families of men that once spent their money for drink, and I

mothers no longer dread the possibility of their >

boys having their careers ruined by influences ! impossible to control. If the Golden Age Were here and the whole world had the new institution in force such a scene as was reported in a London dispatch could not have happened:

“Virtually the entire male population of the village' of Lagrana, Spain, was in a state of helpless intoxication for three days recently, the fishing industry and all other work being at a complete standstill. Owing to the stormy weather a number of cases'of spirits laden on incoming vessels had been washed overhoard. The casks were , • picked up by villagers, who assembled in a building and consumed dozens of bottles of* brandy, rum and other ’ spirits. At the end of six hours the crowd was found lying about the floor in an unconscious condition.”

In some respects these Christians might learn lessons from the heathen; for it is certain that nothing more discreditable was ever seen in a settlement of American Indians. -

Yet there is a powerful political reaction to get the country hack toward the condition of ? Lagrana. The issue raised, however, is not the direct one of pro-liquor, but that of personal liberty, and with considerable justice. There was seldom a drunken man who would not volubly protest his personal right to drink and > to get drunk, regardless of the personal rights of his family, his employer, and other people transgressed upon by his condition. But the new ; issue goes to the roots of freedom. As ex-Mayor ' Raymond, of Newark, puts it:

"Thore is a tremendous wave of reaction against , ’ prohibition from one end of the land to the other. lam ■ ' not interested in any candidate for nomination who does ; . not .stand openly and valiantly for the personal liberty of the American citizen. Let us demand candidates for t

President and Vice-President who not only stand for this, but believe it and are real men enough to say so.”

The “dry” question got promptly into the courts; and Rhode Island took the lead with a preferred suit to test the constitutionality of the new institution, saying that she ‘'desires to sue the United States on the ground that the Prohibition Amendment takes away the right of that sovereign State to regulate her own affairs, and to appeal, too, on the ground that when Rhode Island ratified the Constitution originally she did so with a reservation that she would control her own affairs". “States rights run mad,” was the comment of a Southern editor on the Rhode Island "dry” argument.

However, ther$ are powerful interests, from Wall Street to the Vatican, back of the movement to destroy prohibition. Eminent lawyers are employed, and even the Supreme Court is reported to have promised to rush a decision on the Eighteenth Amendment. Governors of States are lined up with the “wets,” promising the people that everything will be done to irrigate the desert as quickly as possible. State legislatures are passing obviously unconstitutional laws providing for 3% and 5% liquors, so great is the scramble to be found on the “right" side of the question whether again to start the people toward the degradation and distress of a drink-sodden nation.

And why! The matter has developed into a elean-cut religious issue. On both sides the armies a re-falling in to line. The Roman Catholic Church, to whose members 85% of the saloons, breweries and distilleries belonged, through its bishops denounces any candidate for office who has the temerity to have dealings with the prohibitionists. A thousand Protestant clergymen of New York State, signed a statement that “New York State is the danger point in the whole nation, and New York City is the danger point in the State” in the “tremendous struggle now .on for the retention, protection and enforcement of. prohibition”.

The Christian Advocate puts the

shoe right on and openly admits that the prohibition-amendment movement is a political affair of ^he Protestant churches, saying:

"It has scarcely been a generation since the Protestant bodies of this country drew together and formed the Anti-Saloon League for the defeating of the liquor traffic. That was a form of federation unknown up to that time among religious bodies. But the leaders of the churches had fought single-handed the enemy of the home and church and state. They had made small progress. They needed to get together. One grand frontal attack by the united bodies of Protestantism could not only make a dent in the armor of John Barleycorn, but put him down and dispatch hint. That policy had been demonstrated as of the most profound wisdom. The Anti-Saloon League, representing the combined efforts of the [Protestant ] Christian churches of America, has performed its function to the great delight of all good citizens.”

Thus has Protestantism been enticed under the guise of doing good with political tools, into what amounts to the same kind of union of church with state that they so loudly denounce in their Romanist brethren. As says the Washington correspondent of the Boston Transcript:

“Consider first that the Anti-Saloon League is the cleverest, shrewdest and most efficient political machine ever built up in this country. I do not question the perfect right of all of them to advocate and fight for prohibition, nor their right to insist on enforcement of the eighteenth amendment. I am merely dealing with political tendencies that may have to do with our larger liberties. And I suggest that if the Anti-Saloon League, with all its vast power, is the political arm of the organized evangelical churches, and at the same time controls the [Protestant] church organization, then we have in effect a combination of church and state in control of government, and that combination always has been and always will be a menace to liberty, no matter what church it happens to be.”

And the Protestant churches intend to make further use of their political machine. The AntiSaloon League has finished what these churches set out to do under that name. In the same editorial quoted above, the Western Christian Advocate continuing intimates the further direction that the activities of this organization Mull take, under another name:

“Now comes another alignment of the churches of Protestantism under the organization of the Interchurch World Movement. There is a coining together to organize for a task that has been approached by the denominations singly. In that capacity they have met with comparative failure. Their responsibility was too large for any one of them to carry alone. What one of them could Christianize America? Could any two of them work the Christianizing of the heathen world? Could any groun of them undertake successfully a program of reconstruction that would be ample for the nations when the peoples of the earth are staggering under the heaviest load of doubt and uncertainly they have ever carried? The organization of the Anti-Saloon League was eminently providential. Time has vindicated its claim. The same method has been used in the formation of the Inter ch arch World Movement. We are trusting that this is of God also. The churches get together for the purpose of leading one united drive against the forces of ignorance and the resurgence of paganism. Federation and alliance and cooperation and a united leadership mean the solving of the problems that have hitherto checked our progress. Time will vindicate our faith?’ There is much more to this prohibition movement than appears on the surface. Very likely the men back of it mean well, and most of them seem sincerely desirous of doing great good. But anything approaching a union of church and state, such, for example, as a church in politics, has invariably created worse evils than it cured, as the Anti-Saloon-Interchurch zealots will discover. Theirs is not the method that will bring the Golden Age. Rather they would hinder it, if such a thing were possible; for it is coming, and coming on time.

Beautiful Belle Isle By b. e. Rockhoff

ELLE ISLE is Detroit's playground, not because it is the only park the “city dynamic’’ has, but because on Belle Isle, or “The Island”, as all Detroiters call it, are found all the necessary conditions for the thorough enjoyment of the out-of-doors, be it a stroll through the woods, a boat ride, bathing or athletic sports, and at the same time there are to be found all the modern conveniences of the city.

Belle Isle is located on the Detroit River opposite the foot of East Grand Boulevard, with which it is connected by a bridge. It is easily reached by street car, auto, or ferry boat.

The Island is over two miles long and about a half mile broad, and its area is over seven hundred acres. By the process of filling in, the city is adding four hundred acres more. Near its center a boulevard extends from one end to the other, and a good road surrounds it, besides which there are many shady lanes and by-paths. Tlie^principal ways on the Island are not its boulevards and roads, however, but its waterways. There are miles and miles of canals with grassy banks, which connect with two lakes and also with the river. The beautiful bridges spanning the canals do much to add to the charm oj the scenery.

On band concert nights a most unusual sight is to be seen. A band-stand is built on a bridge over one of the principal lagoons; and while the sweet strains of music float out on the air, thousands of people are sitting idly in their ornate canoes, piled high with embroidered and >. many colored cushions, while other thousands are seated in their autos on shore and other thousands of less fortunate ones occupy the benches on the canal banks or sit on the spacious' lawns. The encore is a deafening medley of tooting auto horns and screeching sirens.

A trip around the island reveals many things of interest as well as the great variety of means for enjoying out-door life. There is the Casino . with its broad verandas filled with chatting people sipping sodas. Then there are the domed horticultural building, the aquarium and the zoo, where many of the wonders of God's creation in plant and animal life may be seen. There are the yacht club, the boat clubs, the bathing beach, athletic fields, recreation buildings, picnic grounds and real woods with wild flowers, birds and squirrels. The squirrels are very tame, and even some of the birds will vie with the squirrels in getting peanuts out of our hands. No doubt, when man’s present destructive instincts are overcome and animals are no longer ’ hunted, they will all be tame.

As we skirt the river we see the never-ending procession of watercraft passing. Great and grim freighters, sedate passenger steamers, and gaudy excursion boats with bands playing and flags flying, and now and then a dignified private yacht will slip quietly by; and darting in and out among all these are the little popping and snorting speed-boats. A greater tonnage passes Belle Isle each year than enters the harbors of New York, London and Hong Kong combined.

Even in winter the Island is Detroit’s playground. Broad expanses of white snow replace the green lawns, and skaters with sweaters and caps replace the hatless, shirt-sleeved canoeists.

Probably no city in the* world can boast of such a park; for it is wholly devoted to outdoor pleasure. The Island is entirely separate from the mainland and is kept solely for the purpose of giving Detroit people and their guests real outdoor fun at all seasons of the year.

In the Golden Age Belle Tsle will no longer enjoy its present unique distinction; for then even the desert shall blossom as the rose and all the solitary places shall be made glad. A perfect people, with perfect health and happiness amid perfect surroundings will then enjoy life everlasting, as a result of the death of our Lord.

MANUFACTURING ^mYmINTNG~~ '

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Building With a Gun

HIS gun shoots, not bullets, but cement, and is reported to do certain work in building operations more cheaply and quickly than anything hitherto. It was first tried in 1910, gradually improved, and now is a recognized method of good building construction.

Least of all things does the cement-gun look like a gun, but more like a partly conical tank over a cylindrical fireplane, with a hose coining out near the bottom. The cement and sand are mixed dry, and blown out through the hose to the point of application. Just as the mixture reaches the nozzle, water is introduced into it, and water, sand and cement are blown together on the surface which is to*be covered with cement. The particles of sand act as tiny rammers to condense and compact the cement already attached to the surface. After ramming the cement to the unusual density that characterizes the cement, or gunite, as it is termed when applied by this method, some of the sand rebounds and drops to the ground. After application the substance quickly hardens in position.

The strength of cement put on with a cement gun is extraordinary, being three to five times as strong as cement laid by the ordinary hand method. It is a perfect process for applying cement to old surfaces; for there is no difference in strength between the body of the cement and the line of application. When one section is joined to another, the joints are as strong as the rest. The reason is that the cement is shot with a pressure of 35 pounds to the square inch, and penetrates the underlying surface. Of course, the surface to be cemented is first thoroughly cleaned with the cement gun, used as a sand blast.

On^of the first uses of gunite was in the fire and rust protection of the heavy steel in the lower levels of the great New York Central Station in New York. The columns and girders were coated two or three inches deep with the cement afia cost of about 15 cents a square foot. The work-is permanent because the cement is so dense and adheres so closely to the steel that moisture cannot reach the metal, a result unattainable with paint or concrete. The steel work in the famous Woolworth Building in New York is also protected with gunite. ■

The new cement is successfully employed in putting a cement exterior on houses. What are practically solid cement walls are quickly built up with the cement gun, walls that are moisture proof and have no joints, seams or surfaces^ subject to disintegration. Unlike ordinary concrete walls the porous wooden forms used in pouring concrete walls are needless. Only one light back wall is necessary; the wire netting, or other metallic reinforcement is placed properly over the wooden background and the gunite shot at the surface. In an hour a solid cement wall can be built out to a thickness of several inches, then scraped or smoothed down, and finally • finished with a thin waterproofing or ornamental layer of white or colored cement, resulting in a building of Unusual attractiveness and solidity. Brick, tile, stone and wooden buildings may be resurfaced by the new process.

It often happens that stone, brick, or concrete walls or foundations in exposed positions wear away, or deteriorate to a depth of several inches or more. The cement gun repairs such wear and tear quickly and economically, and it has been employed on worn bridge abutments, foundations, cement piles, and the surfaces of dams and sea walls. Gunite may be seen protecting the stone sides of deep railroad cuts. It covers the sides and walls of mine passages. It protects the shafts and timberings of mines and of structures where there is a fire hazard. It furnishes a waterproof lining to the canals and ditches of irrigation systems, and to leaky reservoirs. Protection is furnished in chemical works against the corrosive action of chemicals. Ships are built with it. Coke ovens and blast furnaces are repaired with it. Its uses, in time, will become innumerable.

For ages the world has been looking for the ideal building material and the ideal building method. Perhaps in gunite and the cement gun lies the great forward step in the building industry; for in the Golden Age ten homes must be erected to one now, and when people are planning to live forever, as 'will ultimately be the case in the good age coming, houses must be of the most permanent character—such structures as are built of extremely dense hard and durable products of the the cement gun.

As the timber supply becomes more and* more depleted it is fortunate indeed for a needy world that cement comes forward as a suitable substitute for building purposes.

Toucher Steel

STEEL is variously defined on the bases of the amount of carbon in the iron’and of the qualities of the alloy; for steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. As usually manufactured, steel has lacked in uniform consistency, causing uneven wear and strength; or in strength it has lacked the hardness or toughness requisite in the often rapid operations of efficient modern manufacture. The effort has been made to produce steel that would possess the proper quality to fit it for certain lands of work to which iron was unequal. Purer and more uniform steel was finally made by the crucible and electric processes.* Harder, stronger or tougher steels were produced by alloying the basic steel with certain metals. An immense variety of experiments were made, and certain alloys of steel survived as the fittest, and are widely known among steel men. Among the best known are nickel steel, vanadium steel, chrome steel and tungsten steel.

During the war, when expense cut less figure than with a country legally at peace, a formerly - neglected element, molybdenum, was alloyed with steel, with gratifying result. In the past molybdenum had gained a bad name on account of its associates: for with it there had been certain impurities that ruined the steel with which the molybdenum was mixed. When further experiments were made with pure molybdenum, the alloy of molybdenum-steel was found to be remarkably tough. Plates of this alloy might be quite thin and yet impenetrable to bullets, so the British tanks were encased in molybdenum-steel, against which machine-gun bullets streamed without effect at 30 foot range. In the United States the crank-shafts of the Liberty motors were reported to be made of this alloy. So tough is it that a cold axle was twisted six times around without breaking or showing cracks.

The^ future of this alloy depends on the price and the siipply: for during the war it ranged from $4 a pound up—a price too high for peace purposes. It may find a place in various parrs of automobiles, trucks and airplanes, where great toughness is indispensable at any price.

As the day of preparation for the Golden Age advances, progress is made to an unbelievable extent in every line of endeavor that is not fettered by limitations of thought and research. When the shackles of the past and the present are all broken, the advancement'that will appear everywhere will be astonishing.

Asphalt from Kentucky

ENEZUELA and the asphalt trust are the . thoughts that flash when asphalt is mentioned. It is new to think of this sticky blackness -as a home product. But in Edmons"on County, on the Nolin River, some 70 miles south of Louisville, the Kentucky Rock Asphalt Company is blasting asphalt rock at the rate of 1,000 tons a day.

Once there were in Edmonson County the sands of a dried-up sea, which instead of forming into ordinary sandstone, became impregnated with petroleum. The volatile oils have long since evaporated, but the heavier constituents remain, in a bed of rock dozens of feet thick.

Now that the country is about to embark on good-road building running into the billions of dollars, there arises a hungry demand for such asphalt as Kentucky can supply. There is an immense quantity ready for the dynamite. The preparation is simple. The soil covering of rock bed is swept away by hydraulic nozzles throwing water at 140 pounds pressure. The blasted rock is broken and pulverized, and is then ready for use.

On the road the pulverized asphalt rock is laid over a broken-stone or concrete base or upon an old brick or cobble street. It patches holes and worn spaces in old asphalt streets and avenues. Worn-out macadam streets become like new when surfaced with it. Heat is not used, but the powdered stone is spread nut and rolled cold under the ordinary road-rollers.

Ten years ago no one would have thought of making successful use of the asphalt of the Kentucky field: for as mere asphalt it is not usable. But sudden call for better roads immediately brought into favorable attention this remarkable, because already prepared, road material. Mother Earth has within her bosom many like treasures, which as field after field of opportunity opens up in the Golden Age, will come forth for the good of man.

I FINANCE-COMMERCE-TRANSPORTATION I

Patents and Business

PATENT is a kind of government insurance on the reward of ability; This definition took form before the day of big business. Now it is stated that the 17-year limit upon a patent is something to protect the public against the rapacity of patentees. Still another explanation is that a patent is a device for keeping the public from getting the benefit of a patentee’s improvement—this owing to the proneness of “important" corporations to buy up patents to keep the new idea from displacing their own products. Again, a patent is a plan for letting piratical competitors know exactly what you are doing, so that they may cover the market before you can.

Whatever a patent may be, the present crisis, with its perplexing flux in the elements of the entire social order, seems to call for a new appraisal of the patent situation and a fresh arrangement suited to the interests of both the ■ inventor and society.

There are seven objections to the present patent grants:

First,in a competitive system of manufacture and trade, a monoply such as is obtained through a patent is inharmonious with the general arrangement. Under the New Zealand patent law any one is permitted to manufacture the article patented, but each manufacturer ' must pay the inventor a royalty. This in most instances gives the inventor a larger return than under the American law, because he receives a profit on the product of many factories in contrast to the limited profit obtainable in the average inventor's little shop. The public immediately obtains the benefit of the inventors skill on a scale commensurate with the real importance of the device.

Second, by the present system great and important businesses may be disturbed, injured or ruined by the appearance of a new invention. This difficulty is inherent in the nature of things —a new ‘device must displace an inferior one. But by the New Zealand plan, a business that might otherwise be injured could add the new invention to its line of products, and both it and the inventor secure the benefit of his ingenuity.

Third, patents now cause an endless amount of litigation, the incentive to which would disappear under the New Zealand plan, because the fear of injury to established business would not exist, and the patentee could collect his royalties through a simple application to the proper government bureau, which would compel an accounting and settlement on a just basis.

Fourth, patents now benefit the capitalist at the expense of the inventor. This is so great an evil that many persons of genius are kept from troubling themselves until good inventions, on account of the probability that they will get nothing for their pains. The new plan would help the capitalist and insure a proper return to the inventor of any really beneficial invention, for some one would be bound to take up the manufacture of anything new that promises to yield a profit.

Fifth, the present patent system sets no limit to what the public may be obliged to pay for the use of a good invention. A capitalist in exclusive control of an invention for which there is a great natural demand, may extort almost any sum from those that desire to use it; but under the proposed method every meritorious device would promptly be made by many concerns and the price would become subject to the law of competition, and a government bureau would determine equitably the amount the inventor is to receive as his share of the proceeds.

Sixth, there is now no penalty for the non-use of an invention, and many a useful article is kept off the market to protect existing vested interests that would be injured by its appearance. The new plan would make the use of an article subject entirely to the good judgment of experienced manufacturers as to the probability of sales being made with a new invention.

Seventh, the present patent law enables the owner of a patent to boycott other inventions. This is because of court decisions that a patentee may prescribe what other devices may or may not be used in connection with his device. Under this law many an improvement or minor appliance of great use in connection with existing articles is kept out of the market. It is plain that the adoption of the New Zealand patent law would eliminate this evil at a stroke.

Other improvements suggest themselves in connection with the proposed change in th$ patent situation. There would be no objection to giving an inventor a life interest in his invention, or a term interest to his surviving wife or dependent children; for the chief interest of the public, i. e., the opportunity to have unrestricted use of an invention, would be provided for. The poor inventor would be especially encouraged, and would doubtless give the world the benefit of his inventiveness, made the more active by the spur of poverty. Capitalists would help genius in return for a share in the royalties. There would not be so many piratical patent lawyers, and there might be fewer millionaires, a calamity over which there would be few tears shed. The courts would be lightened of the burden of innumerable patent cases; for every case would be heard and settled merely by proof properly submitted before a regular government bureau. The present tendency toward the use of new inventions in secrecy would cease.

Something like the New Zealand patent system may be looked for in the better arrangement of the Golden Age. It will not be true as now that inventors as a class will have to say, “T have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain” (Isaiah 49:4), but rather they “shall long enjoy the work of their hands; they shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble”.—Isaiah 65:22, 23.

Chain Stores

ARD ns it is for a business that has to go under when some great improvement emerges, the improvement is a forward step, if beneficial to the common people. The small stores have decreased greatly in importance and many have quit since the advent of the chain store, but the latter is a benefit to the public.

Anything based on righteous principles that keeps down the cost of living is in the public interest. The chain stores, except where they have taken to profiteering, sell goods cheaper than the ordinary small store. They purchase in immense quantities at the lowest possible figure, ffheir overhead cost is small. They have a quickjturiiover of capital, so that the same capital is used several times a year in buying new goods, and the profit per sale can be correspondingly less. The average profit in the chain stores is about ten cents on the dollar sold.

Prior to the war the chain stores specialized exclusively in goods for the poor, but since then they have expanded their field and are providing cheaper- goods for other classes forced by the high cost of living to economize in their expenses.

The principal chain stores with their capital- . izations are:

F. W. Woolworth Company--------.$62,500,000

United Drug Company_...45,000,000 S. H. Kress & Company...™.............15,740,000

Jones Brothers Tea Company----14,000.000 .

S. S. Kresge Company.................12,000,000

McCrory Stores Corporation --------—6,178,900

Total___$155,418,900

This is a vast capital; but it is probable that there is no equal sum so usefully employed, outside of the gigantic cooperative systems of Great Britain and the Continent.

The profits of the businesses expressed in dividends on common stock, are quite reasonable, certainly nothing that could be objected to as profiteering, as follows: Woolworth $8, United Drug $7, Kresge $6, Kress $4, and Jones Brothers $2; an average of about $7, the average being high because of the higher earnings of the larger businesses. Actual earnings, part of which were not paid out in dividends, were in 1919: United Drug $17.50, Kresge $15.61, Woolworth $12.43, Kress $7.45, McCrory $5.25, Jones $1.01. The Jones dividend of $2 evidently represents two years’ profits. The real profits on the business were much greater; for much of the common stock does not represent money invested, but good will or other intangible elements that sometimes go to make up wealth.

Businesses of this character, which make a reasonable profit, are a distinct asset to the present social order. They or something like them may characterize the immense emporiums of the Golden Age, when populations will be five to ten times what they are now.

The Weary Sea Bird

‘"The weary sea-bird goes to sleep On tossing waves,

Untroubled by the storm, the deep. In trust that saves.

‘Tt is the hollow of thy hand That shapes its nest.

So. though I may not understand, .

Make me to rest”

The Golden Age for May 12, 1920 .

| POLITICAL-DOMESTIC AND~FOREIGN ~[

Law and Order By Newton T. Hartshorne

IN THE physical universe law is inexorably enforced; but it is clear that the Creator is still at work, involving an apparent though not real disorder. All things are gradually responding to the laws of the universe.

In the spiritual world there is also disorder, apparently the result of disrespect for authority—the gratification of selfish desires of individuals, regardless of the rights and interests of other people.

This seemingly chaotic condition is due, not to a lack of ability to control on the part of the Creator of all things, but to unfinished conditions in construction, the same as in the construction of a house. To the observer who does not know the plan of the finished structure which the builder is working out, there seems to be disorder. The condition of disorder in the spiritual world is analogous to the condition of disorder in the physical world.

In human history we have an up-to-date record of the two final stages in the process of construction of this planet. The finishing touches will have been made when the polar ice-caps "will have entirely melted.

In the spiritual social, political, economic and religious world we have an up-to-date record of the final changes in its construction; and the final touch will have been made when gratification of self at the expense of others, and to their detriment, will have been eliminated and when the law of love for the Creator and for fellow man will prevail in every heart. The abolishing of chattel and wage slavery and of the rum traffic is a prominent phase of this constructive process, now nearing completion, the consummation of which is now coming within the range of our'mental perceptions.

The polar ice-caps, which at their maximum, just after the Noachian deluge, approximated in area 11,000,000 square miles, have now melted to an are$ approximating 7,000,000 square miles. Ice is a niarked devitalizing agent; and these vast areas'of ice were the agents which shortened human life from duration of nearly 1,000 years before the deluge to 70 years, more or less, after that event.

As the area of ice diminishes, vital energy (and prolonged life) follows; and when all the ice on the planet has melted, as it will in the not distant future (ice on the planet being abnormal, normal conditions are steadily asserting themselves), human vitality will not only be gradually restored to what it was before the deluge, when men lived nearly 1,000 years, but to far greater vitality; for even before the deluge a devitalizing agent (a dense cloud shutting off the sunlight) prevented the development of normal vitality. Organic life does not reach normal conditions in constant shade. Hence we perceive that never since Adam has the human race known normal conditions. For 1,656 years it lived in the shade; and for 4,344 years it has lived, chilled and benumbed, in the glacial age, at the close of which we are living.

All of New England, thence west along the same latitude to the Pacific, varied by thermal conditions of air currents and altitude—all was under ice hundreds of feet deep. The vital belt where conditions of life were then most favorable was located in Guatamala. But when the north wind blew from off the vast ice-fields, frost and even snow in summer must have resulted ; and when the south wind blew from the near equator the heat must have been excessive and the sudden changes from one extreme to the other racked the human body. This explains the reason why a cave, during that period, was a very comfortable and healthful residence, and why the next best was a stone house with walls four feet thick, such as the prehistoric buildings found in that latitude in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The caves in Europe were all inhabited for centuries.

Formative processes are slow; and physical formations pass through many stages before final crystallization to the strata which are the bones, so to speak, of the planets.

Tn the spiritual world the same age-long processes go on; and by what he sees going on or by what he meets in his personal experience no man can tell what will be the ultimate formation of which he is only an insignificant fraction, as pliable now as clay. He is as absolutely ignorant of his ultimate state as is the horse or the cow,

unless he has access to the book in which history past, present and future is given, by which the Creator of ail tilings takes man into his confidence and shows him the facts.

This Book may be before the man all his life and he may even read it every day; but without faith in it, the Book is merely a collection of paper, covered with printed words that mean nothing fo him. He has no real access to it.

Though in that Book it is repeatedly stated, and logically demonstrated, that the normal condition of man is eternal existence, as agelastingas the granite strata of the planet, yet he sees* himself only a part of the sticky mass on the shore of time. The records in earth strata and fossils combined with human historic records, also of biological and chemical research, all demonstrate the unerring accuracy of this standard authority—the greatest, most comprehensive and concise encyclopedia extant.

A careful and pains-taking study of this great Textbook, not from the narrow standpoint of theological technique woven about one passage or group of statements to prove some denominational creed, but taken as a whole—a painstaking study of it in connection with what we find in secular history and with the events we see taking place today—discloses to us the fact that we are near a great focal point in the creation of the physical and spiritual universe —the consummation of the age, the greatest epoch since the Noachian deluge, the momentous point of time fixed by the great Creator, when for, the first time since the creation of Adam those who comply with certain conditions named ‘ : in this authoritative Book will enter the normal

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