Golden Age, January 19, 1921

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Dop*t miM the impotraut article

W A TT> A TkJ* The Frankenstein jArAllf of CHRISTENDOM

Begihalog in our issue of Feb* 16th

Jan. 19, 1921, Vol. II, Na 35

IS9| Published every other ■Ki « eek at 35 Myrtle Avenue, ^SiJr Brooklyn, 'Ifein Forfc City

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Golden Age

A - JOUR.NAL-OF ■ FACT ' H OPE ■ AN D-CON Vid) ON

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Volumes WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1921 Numbeb35

CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

The Pursuit of Happiness.-SlO

i;jg Brother Bosses............218

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Child Labor Items.

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL Child Health and Educat’n 222 Playing in the Streets.

..228

.222

manufacturing and mining

Mndu^trlT ■ ..............Q Twenty-Dollar-a-Ton Coal..226

Publishing Business....________212 ?

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Forestry and Navigation....213 Elective Power Transm'n..23Q POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

England in Time of Stress........................................................223

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

A Forest-Denuded Land....211

How the Forests are Going 211

Effect Upon Agriculture....212

Timber Losses by Fire........213

Valueless Second Growths 213

Private vs, Public Forests 213

European Foresters Lead ..214 Golden Age Reforestation 214 Forestry Associations Act

ive .................. 22Q

Why Don’t the Farm Hands Stick? ..............................224

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Search for New Sources of Power From the Earth’s Power ...................... 227 Interior ..............-

Water Bower Development 227

Power from tho Winds______227 Wireless Power Transmis-

Power from the Moon........228

Power from tho Sun..........228 AU

HOUSEWIFERY AND HYGIENE

Children in Hospitals........222 The Foster-Mother Plan....222

Children in Institutions....221 More Large Families .

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

Color and Physiognomy______221 In Foreign Lands—Egypt 232

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Advanced Studies in the Plan of the Ages

Juvenile Bible Study............................... ....

Sows, Sheep and Kids (poem)........................................... ...239

Earth’s Only Hope (poem),.... .......

TubJiFheJ other Wednesday at 35 Myrtle Avi”i'h', 11.. ro lL‘ Brooklyn, New York, N. Y., by WCODW ORTH, HUDGlNGS nd MARTIN

CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH......Editor

h-V!'1- MAHTIN .... Business Manager Wk;. 1. HVrjGJNGS......Sec’y md Trees,

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crhe Golden Age

Volume II

New York, Wednesday, January 19, 1921

Number 35

A Forest-Denuded Land

PENNSYLVANIA means literally “Penn’s Woods”, a very good name for what three f hundred years ago was an unbroken forest from h north to south and from east to west. At that * time most of the land from the Missouri River t to the Atlantic Ocean and from the timber line

■_ of Northern Canada to the Gulf was a primeval

* forest, and it is small wonder that the early settlers thought they had more forests than they needed and that the country would never ; amount to anything until these were removed. i‘--f Accordingly, within the next few generations, 1 | almost all of the great bodies of timber in the I country were transferred from public to private , hands; and the people who received these grants, not having more wisdom than their g. rulers, wrought such havoc and destruction in those forests, and are still working to the same end, as to cause those to gasp who perceive what ' the certain result will be.

Less than a hundred years ago a man’s value to the community depended largely upon his 1 ability as a worker in the clearing of land. Great trees that would now be worth fifty dollars each for the lumber they contain were felled and burned where they fell, so that the land they > covered could be utilized for crops worth less 1 than that amount for an entire acre.

; , There are men now living who can remember when black walnut forests in Southern Indiana : were disposed of in this way, which, if now

standing, would be worth a fabulous sum. When the World War came on, the United States gov? ernment found the greatest difficulty in locating enough black walnut to make the stocks required , for the rifles of its soldiers.

The situation that now confronts America is | I that eighty percent of the standing merchant-I able timber is privately owned; and that the • people who own it have no interest in it what-■ ever except to obtain from it, as quickly as

possible, the wealth which it represents, and with no thought of responsibility as to its replacement.

How the Forests are Going

THE annual cut of lumber in the United States is thirty billion feet. One region after another has been cut over and deserted by the lumber interests, and left a wilderness of stumps and underbrush. Only a few years ago one of the principal sources of lumber was in New England. Today fully thirty percent of all the lumber used in New England is brought in from other parts of the country.

New York was also a great lumber state. Today it is purchasing one hundred and twentyeight million dollars worth of lumber per year, and eighty million dollars worth of that amount is shipped into the state from other districts.

Less than a generation ago the Lake States were the greatest producers of lumber in the country. Today it is estimated that these states are paying a freight bill of six million dollars a year to bring in lumber and other forest products from outside sources.

The present field of destruction is in the South. One-half of the lumber now cut in the United States is Southern pine, and experts say that it will all be gone in fifteen years. It is now disappearing at the rate of fifty thousand acres a day. Three thousand Southern mills will go out of business in the next five years because they cannot get the timber to keep on. Already Southern pine is being withdrawn from many points as a competitive factor, and its place taken by Western timbers, resulting in added freight charges which the consumer pays.

To be sure there is still the standing timber of Northern California, Oregon and Washington; but this, too, is going. Trees which have stood for four thousand years are being cut up

to make fence posts, stakes for grape vines, railroad ties, etc.; and they can never be replaced. And then there are the forests on the southern shores of Alaska and the eastern shores of Siberia, the latter already in process of exploitation by American lumbermen.

At present the rate of depletion of the forests is more than twice what is produced by growth in a form suitable for other purposes than firewood, and at the present rate of cutting it is estimated that when boys now ten years of age are sixty years old they will be living in a land from which all the merchantable timber has been stripped. The virgin forests of the United States have already been reduced to one-fifth of their original area.

Effect on Wood Industries

WHEN the timber is cut off from a district many of the chief industries of the community perish. Factories cannot operate profitably when their raw materials must be brought from afar, and so it follows that in the wake of the lumberman there are not only idle sawmills but idle box factories, furniture factories and other wood-working establishments.

When a region such as New England has three hundred million dollars invested in the wood and forest industries, and employs in this connection some ninety thousand wage earners, it becomes a matter of immediate interest to the whole of New England as to what is to be done when the forests are all gone. Douglas fir from the Pacific coast is already coming into the \ew England market, but nobody supposes that the New England wood industries can face modern competition and pay freight charges on raw lumber transported four thousand miles.

Effect on Publishing Business

ALTHOUGH the country might be just as

• happy and just as well informed without some 'of its large publishers, yet we could not be certain that in the cramping down of the publishing business the least deserving publishers, those who have done most to mislead and deceive the people, might not find ways to continue, while the most deserving would go to the wall. In any event, if things keep on in the lumber industry the way they have been going, we hid fav tn find out what will happen; for someth mg sure to happen before very long.

The United States uses one-half of the world’s supply of white paper, amounting to 5,500,000 cords of pulp-wood yearly. The woods suitable for paper manufacture are chiefly spruce, poplar and balsam firs. The newspapers of New York City alone consume the equivalent of over nine thousand spruce trees daily.

The consumption of print paper in the United States has increased one hundred and fifty-six percent since 1898, while the cost of print paper has increased over six hundred percent. No new paper-mills are being built. There is no use to build them; for they would not be able to find the raw materials with which to operate.

It is estimated that the supply of woods suitable for paper manufacture will all be cut off from the Lake States in eighteen years, and from New York and New England in seventeen years, while Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina are worse off. Some of the principal paper concerns have already fortified themselves against the day of reckoning by purchasing large blocks of timber in Canada.

Effect on Agriculture

TN CONSENTING to the cutting off of timber J- in the semi-arid regions of Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico, the inhabitants of those states have sinned against their own souls. The tree was and is their greatest friend, and now that it is too late some of them are beginning to find this out.

Stretching his branches into the sky the tree caught the rain on leaf and twig, and carried it downward by branch and trunk, and deposited it in the sponge of decayed leaves at his feet. Slowly it trickled down into the ground, and became a fountain for the little stream which supplied the vineyard and orange grove in the valley below. He even picked up water from the fogs, as may be discerned by the wet ground beneath a tree on any foggy morning. He sheltered the vegetation from the hot winds of the desert. His value in the conservation of water, and the consequent prevention of floods, is estimated by experts as worth as much as sixty dollars per tree per year—the interest on a thousand dollars.

With the cutting away of the timber in these sections, which has been encouraged .and prose-

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cuted as vigorously as elsewhere, the result has followed that the rains which do fall, and which are the very life of the inhabitants, pass away at once in great torrents of water that have widened water courses to ten times their former width, thus not only wasting the water which the fruit grower must have if he is to continue in business, but actually destroying much arable land that until recently produced a profusion of fruits, flowers, grain and vegetables.

Effect Upon Navigation

WE HAVE not the data at hand to write intelligently on this phase of the forest problem, but it is a serious phase of the question nevertheless. The time was when the flow of our great rivers was fairly constant, and this was due to the retention by the forests of much of the water that fell in them in the form of rain and snow. Now we are accustomed to hear of frequent great floods, and many routes of river transportation have had to suspend because the water-courses they once traversed are now so irregular in volume as to make navigation difficult or positively unsafe or impossible. Saginaw, a Michigan port once thronged with vessels, is now high and dry since the timber was cut off. The forest-denuded lands of the Adirondacks have washed down into the uppei* _ Hudson River to such an extent as to form

mud-flats below Albany, where only a generation ago was fairly deep water.

Timber Losses by Fire

THE loss of timber by forest fires in the United States is estimated at from twenty to one hundred million dollars annually. The area burned each year by these fires totals ten times the, devastated region of France after the World War. As the country gets more thickly settled the forest fires, instead of becoming fewer, tend to increase in number.

The states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri average about seventeen thousand forest fires per year, with an average loss per fire of about four hundred dollars. Three of these states, North Carolina, Louisiana and Texas, have organized arrangements for fighting these fires.

The National Government until recently expended the modest sum of two hundred thousand dollars per year on a forest fire patrol. It seems -to us a wise investment of the money; but after - -the World War, which cost the country , over . J fifty thousand million dollars, the House com- / mittee which had this matter in hand had a ” sudden fit of economy and reduced the appropri- ' ation to seventy-five thousand dollars per year.

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This would hire about two dozen first-class ]men. ' No wonder the Department of Agriculture has ' issued a call for volunteers to report forest fires! .

Several of the states have their own forest ■ ..ire commissions. The State Conservation Com- -> mission of New York has fifty-four stations for J the observation of forest fires, fifty of which are equipped with steel observation towers. During the season of 1919 these stations in the Adiron- -dacks and Catskills reported 266 forest fires the " total damage of which was kept down to $3,825, i about fifteen dollars per fire. This shows that • forest preservation in mountainous regions is a , ■ possibility. •

Valueless Second Growths ;

HDHE fact that there is some woody growth on -*■ cut-over land gives a false impression. The f new growth is frequently slow-growing, crooked, or valueless because of its variety. Thus in t Minnesota hundreds of square miles of wonderful white and red pine, that the Almighty placed • there long ago for the use of us savages, have ' been replaced by bird-cherry and fire weed; in the South the matchless yellow pine has given place to the worthless black-jack oak; Pennsyl- _ vania’s majestic forests have been replaced by scrub oak; New England’s forests have been largely followed by inferior woods of gnarled < and ugly shapes. 2

Private vs. Public Forests

WHEN the practice of giving away the nation’s timber lands had been found unwise, and before it was entirely gone, the Gov- r ernment reserved one hundred and fifty-five ' million acres of timber, all in the western ; mountains. These public forests are being pro- 7 tected from fire, as well as can be done by the skimped appropriations; the timber is used as 'j; called for by economic conditions, and the cuL ting is conducted by such methods as to leave s the land in favorable condition for the next crop of timber. Only three percent of the country’s . jga current timber supply comes from this source.

In 1911 the Weeks bill, appropriating eleven million dollars for the purchase of forest lands at the head of navigable streams, became a law; and in carrying out the provisions of this law the United States has come into possession of about one and one-half million acres in the Eastern states—not very much when the size of the Country is considered, but something, nevertheless.

There is not much chance that the Government can accomplish anything worth while in attempting to recover from its owmers the standing timber now in private hands, although bills are now up before Congress attempting something of the sort. We may as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that the present owmers will proceed to cut off the timber now7 on their lands; and we may as well understand, too, that they will do nothing toward replacement.

The growing of a forest is a long-time investment. Lumbermen are ufiwilling to stand the cost of planting trees which they do not expect to see come to maturity. Forest profits are slow, in spite of the fact that they are sure, and that they come from lands which are not profitable for other purposes. Therefore it would seem that here is one thing in wffiich communal ownership is better from every point of view than private owmeiship. The people as a wffiole can well afford in the interests of the people as a whole to make any investment w7hich is necessary to their well-being.

European Foresters Lead

IT IS to be expected that in the older countries across the sea this matter of forestry w7ould have more attention than in a young country like America. Hence we find that in the countries of central Europe it has been the custom for a long time to ent only the mature trees and to plant a new tree for every one cut. Thu^ their woodlands bear a perpetual crop, their arable lands are not encroached upon by floods, and the waters carried in the streams are constant in their flow.

We have mentioned in The Golden Age the little village of Orsa, Sweden, in which there are no taxes because the communal forest provides all the income necessary to sustain the government of the municipality. Other communities approach this, and more are planning to do so.

The city of Zurich, Switzerland, controls

2,840 acres of land planted to forest, from which -the annual sales of firewood and timber are ■ sufficient to bring the city a net income of twenty thousand dollars a year. Not only does -this forest provide a perpetual income ta the V city, but it perpetuates the supply of water, ? prevents floods, snow slides and earth slides, ? protects the birds, game and fish, and provides a healthful playground for all the inhabitants, ; young and old.

The forest area of France is the same as the \ forest area of New England. Its v’ood-using y industries furnish employment to about eight -times as many persons as the wood-using in- ; dustries of New7 England, yet the forests of . France are so skillfully managed that-at the outbreak of the World War she was progres- ’• sively building up her forest resources, while ~. New7 England w7as progressively destroying hers. Moreover, at the outbreak of the war France v7as importing less lumber from outside E? than was New7 England. '

French and English forests both suffered ' ‘ terribly in the demands which w7ere suddenly made upon them by the war, but they do not n intend to remain forestless. England proposes to plant over a million acres of forest in the next forty years, spending about two million < dollars per year in the w7ork.

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Golden Age Reforestation

GREAT works of reforestation will be the ’y? order of the day in the Golden Age. Men will know that earth is to be their everlasting home, and they will plan together to make it a. ’ beautiful and desirable habitation. Notice what tin1 Prophet Isaiah has to say about the matter: "3 “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fit tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the i; myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a ' 7

name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be ■ 1

cutoff.”—Isaiah 55:13. ' "fi

“I will open rivers in high places? and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of w7ater, and the dry land y springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness 7y, the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle and the oil tree;

I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know7, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this.”—Isaiah 41:18 - 20. yA

MEN are endowed with an inalienable right . . . the pursuit of happiness—so runs the Declaration of Independence. Whoever seeks to restrict this right is an enemy of man. Any one that hinders the people, particularly the poor and needy, in the pursuit of happiness knows nothing of true Americanism, is worse than a seditionist, is guilty of a high crime against humanity.

There exists today, in one aspect of the situation, a conspiracy of Big Business, the politicians, and the ecclesiastics, which in effect keeps the common people from this inalienable light—the pursuit of happiness.

Prior to the creation of the existing system of banking, before the World War, the control of credits in the United States was sporadic and ineffective, working in a loose way through national, state and private banking institutions. Now credits are directly subject to the control of, and are immediately responsive to, the regulations dictated by the Federal Reserve system of banks, which exercises the power to regulate credits locally and nationally. By raising the Tate of interest on credits or by restricting the amount of credits to be granted, this system regulates the amount of money with which business concerns may be permitted to do business, both nationally and locally. It has power to cause prosperity or depression to whole sections and to the entire nation, as well as to individual concerns. Whether the Federal Reserve system proves a blessing or a curse depends upon the beneficent or the harmful use of its powers. Misuse of its privileges would immediately raise the question of its fitness to survive. It may always be regarded an open question whether it is safe to entrust to a small group of men such vast and unrestricted power over the weal of the common people.

It is an inalienable right of the people to enjoy the fullest measure of prosperity and consequent happiness possible under given circumstances. This means that the people have the right to prevent the harmful activities of any that may, with great power, bring about a less degree of prosperity than might have existed were all to cooperate fully and freely for the promotion of prosperity. Those that hinder the

The Pursuit of Happiness

people in their opportunity to have work, wages, and the enjoyment of the fruit of their hands are public en inies. •

Evidence exists to the effect that Big Business, working through the great politicians, and with the clergy as silent accomplices, are qarry-ing out a gigantic conspiracy through the, Federal Reserve Bank system, the object of the conspiracy being to restrict the employment and consequent happiness of many of the common people,

During the World War, as a result of the larger wages earned by a considerable portion of the working people, labor began to enjoy a greater measure of freedom from the restraints caused by fear of unemployment. Labor grew in independence and in arrogance, as financial circumstances began to look easier. The workers in great numbers effected a partial escape from economic bondage. They participated in a larger measure of enjoyment of the things making for happiness.

Big Business termed their enjoyment of more of the good things of life “an orgy of spending”, and likened labor to “a drunken sailor” in expenditures, which of course, were all right for those accustomed to abundance. Big Business became displeased at labor’s growing independence, at its increasing- “intractability”, at the enhanced difficulty of keeping labor “in its place”. Labor, however, being ninety percent of the population, believes that its province is to run the country, and that the under-one-percent of bankers should restrict themselves to their proper place of taking care of money entrusted to them, and not usurp the management of everything in sight.

Big Business long ago determined that the time was coming when it would have to “teach labor its place”. Seemingly in the pursuance of this purpose, a leading American Association of business men some months ago was reported in the public press as determined to “make labor eat out of its hand”. The ultimate object in view evidently was the preservation of Big Business’s “inalienable right” to the pursuit of happiness, which was in danger of some limitation, should the seeming abundance enjoyed by labor continue too long.

Following this decision, and apparently as

logical steps in the execution of a definite plan, the following moves have been made:

There came last summer from the Federal Reserve system a sudden edict that credits were to be restricted by the local banks. This diminished the amount of capital available for use by merchants and manufacturers, who found it necessary immediately to diminish the extent of their business operations. An incident was the sudden announcement of bargain prices by stores a few months ago wherein many Golden Age readers obtained “bargains” which now would be high-priced.

Farm products, never unduly high at the farm, were reduced in price in several ways. Loans to farmers promised through the much heralded Federal Farm Loan System were held up by legal action by political office-holders against the making of such loans; an impasse was reached which is not yet cleared up; and in the meantime the farmers, the most deserving class of the citizenry, have been denied the credit facilities freely granted profiteering manufacturers, miners and merchants. As a result of attacks by the Department of Justice upon the great packers to cause them to lower their prices, the prices paid farmers were cut to a ruinous extent, the farmers being unorganized and unable to protect their interests. After covering immense speculative operations in exports of farm and other products to Europe by Big Business, the domestic prices of the leading farm staples, wheat, corn and other grains and of cotton were permitted to fall to below the.cost of production, putting millions of farmers face to face with ruin, and bringing home to the farming fraternity the fact that they, too, must abstain from politics and “keep their place”.

Attacks have been made upon trades-unions of miners, steel workers, and railroaders, in part through an unjustified use of a war measure, the Lever Act, to cripple their efforts to obtain higher wages and the better working conditions so badly needed, especially in the steel industry. An industrial court scheme, fathered in Kansas, which in effect enslaves the workers by tying them to their tasks, has been industriously promoted by chambers of commerce and other henchmen of Big Business, “to teach labor its place”. In innumerable instances working people have been effectually restrained from “pursuit of happiness” by such measures.

Assaults have been made upon Socialists and A others to render them odious, east them out of' places to which they have been duly elected by -the franchise, and to prevent them from spread- -ing among the citizenry the facts about the current interferences with inalienable human rights. A

The public press is being systematically employed to deceive the reading public, to exalt the -enemies of the common weal as friends of the i people, to misrepresent truth-tellers as enemies of the state, and to cause the people to fear or A despise their true friends, the purpose being to <bind the minds of the multitude, the more effectively to bind their activities. A

Legitimate business enterprises and ambition-. ” have been impeded by restricting of credit at the banks, as suggested foregoing, by hindering the transportation of material needed in manufac- w turing processes, and by sowing discord among employes to break them up into mutually suspi-clous groups. >

Big Business and the politicians have ne- 'A glected one of the chief causes of trouble—the inflation of the currency in circulation. This, j? instead of decreasing, is steadily rising, the average per capita being $59.48 on November 1, .. 1920, as compared with $55.84 six months ago, and $54.77, $55.76, $48.76, $43.00, $38.48 and $35.50 on the first of the successive Januaries.A for a number of years back. Only as the volume' y of currency in circulation is reduced can per- A manent progress be made in reducing the cost '' of living, on the principle that when the people A as a whole have double the amount of money to _; spend they pay twice as much as before. r A;

By these and other restraints upon the opera- -J tion of industries, the object has been attained, -and is now well under way, of throwing labor out of work in sufficient numbers to make all -> feel anxious about their living, thereby render-4 ing them less independent, permitting them fo A enjoy less of the good things of life, and making - J them more “tractable”. In every part of the V country workmen have been discharged, and immediately hired back at two-thirds or even half "'3 the former wage—glad to get that. It is considered good policy by Big Business to impoverish the poor still more, to force them into halftime employment and otherwise to reduce their. earnings. Months ago this sinister power said-A that it would bring about in every city bread lines and soup kitchens, knowing that the result-

ing poverty and distress, and especially the fear of Big Business would “make labor eat of its hand”—-figuratively and literally.

Coupled with Big Business in this unholy conspiracy against the welfare of the people have been the great politicians, duly elected to office and sworn to defend the interests of the public, but actually placed by Big Business where they could “do the most good”. The ecclesiastics have aided the conspiracy by silence, or by advising the people to endure without attempting ' to assert constitutional rights, or by denouncing friends of the people who were seeking to rouse a sovereign people to their danger and to cause them to seek again such a kingly independence as was expressed nearly a century and a half ago by the forebears of many of the people: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are en-' dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of ‘the governed”. To paraphrase, the true friends of the people, ‘appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name of the common people, solemnly publish and declare, That the Common People are, and of right ought to be, free and independent of Big Business, the Politicians, and the ambitious Clergy; that they are absolved from all subservience to the aforesaid Unholy Trinity, and that the state of partial servitude to them is and ought to lie totally dissolved; and that as free and independent people, they have full power to do all lawful acts and things which independent people may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’

Big Business ought to be the servant and handmaid of the people, not their master, and in this relationship ought to operate for the benefit of all the people at a reasonable profit. ' It ought to conduct business operations at the maximum capacity possible without ever needlessly restricting them. The public press ought to become, not agencies for blinding the people, but N-E-w-s-papers. The politicians ought to serve the best interests of all the people. The dergy ought to give up the impossible attempt to serve God and Mammon, and serve Him alone unto whom they are set apart, comforting the hearts of the people, guiding them with the Word of God, minding spiritual things and avoiding the earthly and fleshly things which pollute their holy office and drag them down.

Otherwise the divine pronouncement that was made to the Hebrew people and church will apply to the Christian people and their churches. It is not too late, but haste must be made:

“Behold, as the elay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel [ Christian people of America].- At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom-, to pluck up, and to pull down,-and to. destroy it: if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repei 1 i. of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah [Christian people], and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem [adherents of the Unholy Trinity], saying, Thus saith the Lord: Behold I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. And they said, There is no hope [of our changing]: but we will walk after our own devices, and we. will every one do the imagination of his evil lieart.”

If “Christian” America through its leadership in the Unholy Trinity answers the divine appeal in the foregoing manner, then the words of the Lord for them will be as follows:

“Because my people hath forsaken me, they' have burned incense [put forth their best endeavors] to vanity [things of no eternal worth] % and they have caused them [the trusting common people] to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths [such godly paths as the early Americans took], to walk in paths [like war, profiteering, and oppression], in a way not cast up [not high and noble]; to make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; everyone that passeth thereby [in memory of it] shall be astonished, and wag his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face [favor] in the day of their calamity.”—Jeremiah 18: 6 -17.

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Big Brother Bosses

A WONDERFUL movement—seemingly—is spreading among American employers. In their relations with workers they are no longer to be the “cruel taskmaster”, but the Big Brother. After the wage-scale has been suitably depressed through recent credit restrictions and the hard times engineered through the Federal Reserve Bank system, the worker is to be made to appreciate that his boss is really his long-lost brother and that harmony is to reign in the industrial family. No more exactions from people “over” the worker, no more driving by unsympathetic foremen, no more discourtesy, no longer the lack of consideration for human welfare that has marked the industrial past; but it is to be as man to man, as Christian to Christian, if you please, and all is to be on the upgrade toward heaven on earth—except that wages are no longer to be unduly raised, the sad past having been buried, the hatchet entombed.

So read the new proposals of employers to workers, in confidential booklets “just between us”, wherein a new gold-plated proposition is set before the workers. In every concern, under the imminent dove-like Republican administration of affairs — which has just had the ground cleared by lowering prices, days’ work per week, and wages and by “reducing” workers in one of the most cruel though artificial spells of hard times known in the country —a Company Plan is to be submitted in the interests of peace and harmony, “law and order”, and so on. Under this plan an “association” of employes is to be organized. It is to have many attractive features—insurance, cafeterias, pensions, hot coffee, smoking rooms, rest rooms, employes’ monthly journal, tennis court, annual workers’ picnic, plant hospital, company doctor, maybe a corporation priest and pastor—though this is not mentioned—the right to be “heard” in differences over w’ages or working conditions, and some of the other “welfare” sugar-coating, that in not a few plants the workers have long paid for out of the difference between their pay and the wage they should have had.

The great employers say, “We must have satisfied employes”. They claim to be willing, nay anxious, to pay “a fair wage for a fair day’s work”. They aver that they desire to “do” their

workers good. Their speech is to the effect that they intend to rectify all “real” grievances the 5' employes may have. They profess willingness -to let their “help” have the “privilege” of col- ". lective bargaining over wages and working conditions. They say that always in the past they have been fair and square with the workers. They > are glad now to have their people organize into - \ an association limited to the one plant or con- vs cern. Where there are laws governing wages j and working conditions the employers state that -- ? they desire to observe and keep the laws in a -Jj fair and above-board spirit. They say they are willing for any employe to continue his membership in any union, but of course prefer him to be in the local association. They announce that they will do nothing to coerce, intimidate or compel any worker to join the company associa- S tion, or to give up union membership. They are “magnanimous”, and will subject no one to evil or harmful influences for his attitude toward the Big Brother proposition. "

Inasmuch as when men apply for work, they 4 are judged not by what they say they can and J will do, but by what they have done, so it is but ■ fair to place in the balance the employers’ past, . v their deeds in this connection, and their present .3 promises. " A

In many instances employes have not been permitted to read or to take with them for care- A. ful consideration the company booklet on the i Big Brother scheme, being expected to be satis- • tied with oral statements. Employes complain that they have been browbeaten and intimidated . by petty officials. They have been threatened with evil in a variety of ways if they did not “go ~"t along”. Employers have for years back tenaci- f ously fought employes in any attempt by the latter to improve wages and working conditions. They have ignored the wishes of workers. They have positively refused to confer with them on 'A differences affecting such matters. They have pronounced fair innumerable schemes which the workers have declared unfair. When laws existed governing the settlement of disputes they a| have ignored important provisions of the laws. When decisions and interpretations have been vjg issued they have twisted these into something far different from either the spirit or the letter. They have failed to keep former promises. They tSj

have gone counter to the tyings of boards of have always sought to destroy them, and to this arbitration and other agencies designed to in- end have employed every conceivable means, sure fair play. They have crushed former at- Lately they have attacked the unions through tempts of employes to organize or have sought the United States Department of Justice and

unsuccessfully to crush existing organizations in the making. They have kept paid agents and other spies in existing organizations. They have caused their spies to rise to prominent positions in union circles. They have bribed union officials to induce employes who would have won to accept terms insuring ultimate defeat. They have prevented the exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech, press and assemblage. They have “framed up” union leaders and sent the innocent to prison. They have suborned witnesses and paid for perjury which convicted innocent men of even murder. They have corrupted judges, legislatures and public executives to act against poor working people.

All these things, and many more, have been done by employers in connection with their dealings with the workers. Not all employers have done all these things, and some have done none of them, but only a few have repudiated the evil acts of other employers. It is the same men that have thus conducted themselves and are now coming for ward with the Big Brother offer. They that have lied in the past will now tell the truth. They that have dealt dishonestly will now be above-board. The deceitful are become truthtellers. The unfair are honorable. Persecutors have turned benefactors. Law breakers are suddenly filled with law and order. Wolves are lambs.

Practically all the advancement made by Workers in wages and conditions of work have come through the trades-unions. Bitter experience has taught unfair employers that combat with national unions may result disastrously. Inch by inch the unions have raised their members out of the slough of low pay, up to the high place held by American workers. Employers who have kept unorganized employes beaten down to earth, have had to grant improvements in pay to the same workers when organized in national unions—pay that has meant well-being and happiness, thrift and comfort to hundreds of thousands of homes. In some instances, this power has been perverted by lawless union leaders, which is wrong, but not more so than the lawlessness of unfair employers. Employers dislike and often dread the great unions. They

through state officials, and paralyzed some of the efforts by working men to improve their Ji pay. They have sought the destruction of unions generally by bringing on hard times, with Y the thought that when tens of thousands of men ■ are out of work, it will be easy to bring down the power of the workers in order the further to £ establish their own. They believe that they can -L< beguile some workers by a show of beneficence; "J and in order to catch them and weaken the morale of the unions generally, the employers y come forward smilingly with the Big Brother . proposition in one hand, and in the other, behind the back, a dagger for the national 4

unions. There may be some prospect of the ■ ?-s Big Brother scheme finding acceptance in some \

concerns. Perhaps many may take it up. At <

least it may be expected that a more or less general offering of this proposition may bp J made throughout the country.

Such a move on the part of Big Business is ? not without precedent; even in Bible times there is recorded such an incident with its outcome: tp

“King Zedekiah [suggestive of the big poli- > ticians] had made a covenant with all the [work-ing] people ‘ which were at Jerusalem [then in trouble with the Babylonians, the moye being made in hope of getting a little relief} to pro-claim liberty unto them; that every man [em- L ployer] should let his manservant and every * man his maidservant [male and female em- ** ployes], being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess [corresponding to Christians today] go free; that none [of the employers} should serve themselves [exploit them] of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother [evidently an old-time Big Brother proposition]. Now when the [financial] princes, and all the people, which had entered into the [Big Brother] covenant, heard that every one j should let his manservant, and everyone his maidservant go free [have a greater measure of < economic freedom] that none should serve them- - ~2 selves of them any more [sounded like a millen- , -nium coming], then they obeyed, and let them go [joined the B. B. movement]. But afterward a they turned [as might have been expected from employers who were oppressors], and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return [the B. B. scheme evidently

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was not intended to last], and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.”— Jeremiah 34:8- 11.

Undoubtedly the Big Brother idea is much closer to the Golden Rule than former methods and is what ought to prevail in every industry from president and directors down. If it were made in good faith, it ought to succeed; but being made by men with such a record as many of the large employers have, the outcome will be the same as with the ancient “Big Brothers” of Jeremiah’s day. If the present movement rang true and were “100 percent American”, all wool and a yard wide, no doubt many troubles that are surely coming might be averted. But because the men back of the movement know better, the Big Brother plan will bring them only the greater disfavor from God when it is dropped, and the words that God spoke through the old prophet 2,500 years ago will apply again in the modern replica of ancient history:

“Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel [of Christendom too, professedly]: I made a covenant with your fathers . . . saying, At the eud of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew [today, a fellow Christian], which hath been sold unto thee [by the existing economic system]; . . . but your fathers [employers of the past] hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear [employers used to work poor people sixteen hours a day regularly]. And ye were now turned [in the Big Brother movement]’ and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty [economic] every man to his neighbor; and ye had made a [Big Brother] covenant before me in the house [the churches] which is called by my name [Christian]. But ye turned and polluted my name [by dropping a kindly arrangement entered into in God’s name] and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty, at their pleasure [if they wanted to make the arrangement], to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and handmaids. Therefore thus saith Jehovah [and He says it again today] : Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith Jehovah, to the sword, to the pestilence [now raging in Europe], and to the famine [made inevitable through unfair treatment of American farmers].”—Jeremiah 34:12 -17.

When the confusion and obscurity have • cleared away and the Golden Age has come, it J will be plain that the time of trouble beginning -•? in 1914 and now having some years to run, was A; not brought about by the workers, nor by the -so-called Reds, nor by those who, faithful to the \ spirit of liberty, have exposed existing evils -f'

for their betterment, but by the same kind of " 73

people that according to the Bible precipitated p trouble upon ancient Jerusalem when it was sacked by the Chaldeans; namely, the financial .0 princes, the clergy and the great politicians of the day in each instance. These men had the power to make things better, to remove causes for divine disfavor; they even did remove one ■ great cause of God’s wrath—oppression of the poor—and quickly, with supreme contempt for r the Divine Being and for right and justice, kindness and goodness, retraced their steps, proving that they knew better and acted in will- ' j ful disregard of what they knew they ought to do. It might be hoped that a better course would be followed in the twentieth century; but human nature is unchanged, and it will obvi- 3 ously be necessary for “important people” to learn still more lessons at God’s hand.

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Forestry Associations Active

THERE are a great many intelligent, active and patriotic men who are now giving much attention to forestry problems in the United .’J. States. They have their associations and conventions at which all of the subjects touched on in this issue, and many others, are discussed at ' great length. They know that something must •« be done and done soon. They know, for exampie, that American forests are being removed /I two or three times as fast as they are being replaced, and that there is not a seedling tree b planted to one in ten thousand of those cut downs -

New York State already has a communal holding of about two million acres of cut-over lands which it will endeavor to transform into a ', valuable forest. Michigan also has appointed $ ; commission to study the problem, ' J5

There is a bright side to the forestry ques- -

tion; and that is that a young, thrifty, planted -’N forest, handled under the now well-known principles of scientific forestry, will produce in a -bs given time a far larger crop of timber than an old established one, and after once established ......

will return an income of ten percent per year. ’‘3

Children in Hospitals

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MOST human beings cause considerable excitement twice in their lives, once when they arrive and once when they leave. Nowadays many of them arrive in hospitals, and this plan has much to commend it. However, there are some disadvantages also; and one of these • is that where there are so many youngsters all of one size they occasionally get mixed. Sometimes the tags come off, and in the general mixup it is not always certain which baby ■ belongs to whom. It is feared by those who know that sometimes young mothers have carried away from hospitals babies which they prized highly, but which did not really belong to them,

In some hospitals the nurses are required to keep a strip of surgeon’s plaster on the back of each baby, with its name written thereon. A new plan has been suggested, proposing the compulsory recording of the finger prints of all babies as soon as possible after they are born. There seems to be no objection to this. The finger prints of every human being differ from those of every other, and these finger prints never change, but remain the same from the cradle to the grave. It is pointed out that if a finger print of Charlie Ross had been taken at his birth he would probably have been identified in later life, and that if finger printing were general there would be no cases of persons lost through lapse of memory. It is said that in one year recently sixty persons classed as unidenti-. fied dead were identified by finger prints.

An encouraging indication of the essential goodness of the human family, despite the many illustrations of meanness and depravity which abound, is to be seen in the great interest taken in the perpetuation of the life of children. In the United States, during 1919, the decrease in the mortality of children in the largest cities, over previous years, ranged from 8 percent to -• 24 percent. This was due, in part, to the fact that there was almost no unemployment in the country during that period.

Desperate efforts are being made to save as many as possible of the children of Europe, especially the new babies, it being understood that for many of those born during the war there is little hope that they can be made into

strong, healthy, self-supporting men and women. The Children’s Bureau of Lower Austria has thirty thousand children under its protection^ in the care of 2,500 volunteers. This Bureati. gives special protection to children born out of wedlock, of whom there have always been great numbers in “Apostolic” Vienna.

The condition of the children of Eastern Europe is so pathetic that when Harry Perel-stein, a furrier of New York, visited the Ukrainian district as a member of the American relief expedition, he brought home with him, as permanent members of his family, nine little orphans that he did not have the heart to leave. God bless Harry Perelstein for his nobility of heart! Mrs. Perelstein must not be forgotten, either; for much of the burden of the care of . this brood will fall upon her.

Reverting again to the condition of children in hospitals, there seems to be abundant evidence that in most cases of acute sickness the children are better off in a hospital than elsewhere, because the hospital possesses the necessary nursing skill and appliances to care for really sick babies. But as soon as an infant or young child is convalescent, almost any other place is better than a hospital.

Children in Institutions

EXPERIENCE has proven that an institution is the very worst place for children. Those who know the most about institutions, and who give their experience in the medical magazines, point out that in these institutions it is almost certain that infants and young children will be inadequately fed and that they will be subjected to repeated attacks of infectious diseases which they, of all children, are least able to withstand.

The statistics bear out these conclusions. In the State of New York it was found that during four years the death rate of infants under two years of age, throughout the state, was only one-fifth that of the State institutions included in the same areas. Moreover, about one-half of all the children under two years of age that are discharged from the institutions of New York State go out as corpses.

Of 14,525 children under two years of age

‘discharged from the institutions of the State of New York during the years 1914 to 1918, the number that went out as corpses was 6,583; and out of a total of 12,437 of these children that Were discharged, within one year from the time they were received at the institutions, 6,503 went Out as corpses.

The Foster-Mother Plan

NOBLE-MINDED physicians who have made experiments on a large scale have proven that the best place to put an ailing child, one that is not downright sick with an acute attack of some disease, is in the arms of a mother; or, if the little one has no real mother, then in the arms of somebody who has the true motherly spirit, a foster-mother. It has been found that personal loving attention has a therapeutic value, and that it does babies good to be handled.

Experience in the boarding out of children in selected districts of Yonkers and Morristown (suburbs of New York city) has shown that if a woman has motherly instincts and fairly healthy children of her own, children will thrive better in her care, even if there is a certain amount of dirt and disorder about, than they will in hospitals or the homes of immaculate housekeepers who are unmotherly. There is no substitute for love in the life of a child, or in the life of a grown person, for that matter.

There is a certain class of infants that when placed in institutions results in 100 percent of deaths. These are what are known as “chronic cases of extreme atrophy” (a wasting condition). When boarding places for these children were found with good motherly foster-mothers it was found that forty-six percent were saved. These foster-mothers have been paid $18 per month per baby, plus the cost of the best milk, though higher prices are anticipated hereafter.

Child Health and Education

IN ORDER to get along in the complex life of modern civilization children must be educated, and yet no amount of education can compensate for the loss of a child’s health. It is a great problem to know how to deal with the undernourished children of whom we now have ip the United States many millions. It is impossible for an undernourished child to concentrate on his studies for even a few minutes without fatigue, and as soon as a child exhibits symptoms of tension and over-fatigue his school hours should be reduced.

It would be highly desirable if all the undernourished could be cared for by private tutors, who would regulate their educational loads individually, but unfortunately these are the very ones whose parents cannot afford to send them to tutors. They must be educated in the public schools or not at all.

Under the circumstances, the best arrangement for such children is to have them sent home at the morning recess, and to require them to take rest and refreshment before returning for the afternoon session. Long sessions are very harmful to such children, putting drains upon their constitutions which they cannot meet.

Not infrequently it happens that a child that is undernourished, and therefore does not get on in school, accomplishes more in a half day in school than when required to attend for a full day. In an instance mentioned by an investigator of this subject it was noted that when the child went to school a full day he made no gain in weight, but when his school session was made a half day he gained two pounds in three weeks.

Playing in the Streets g

THE boys and girls of New York city have to play in the streets, because there is no other place for most of them to play. In recognition 5? of this a very fine arrangement has been made, effective during the summer season, of closing sections of certain streets to vehicular traffic J

between the hours of 3 and 8 P. M., and during J?

the vacation season between 9 A. M. and 8 P. M.,' - J so that the children may have a safe place to play. Eighty-nine such sections were opened during the summer of 1920. . i

The fact that a boy has to play in the streets does not mean that he is a bad boy. The Sage Foundation found this out not long ago. They printed a survey of one of the poor sections of New York, and with it a picture of Willie McCue, « labeling the lad, “The Toughest Kid in Hell’s Kitchen”. The boy was a poor boy, and his parents were poor; but it happened that he was -4S a good boy, a choir boy at that, and when he reached young manhood he sued the Foundation Y for slander and was awarded $3,500 damages.

The police and the fire departments of New York city are quite indulgent, as they should

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be, in their treatment of the poor children of New York during hot weather. The kiddies around almost any fire house can be soaked from the - hose on any very hot day; and in some sections gigantic shower baths have been arranged, covering considerable areas of certain streets, into which the children can run at certain hours of the morning, afternoon and evening and be soaked as much as they like.

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Child Labor Items

LXST July a little girl in New York city, eared taker of three little brothers and two sisters while her parents went to work, committed suicide by jumping from a third story window. She had had some differences with one of these children and anticipated a beating when her father came home. Try to picture, if you can, the burdens that were piled upon that child’s body, mind and heart.

- The New York State Industrial Commission ■ reports finding in White Plains, a suburb of New York city, during the summer of 1920, scores of children from 4 to 13 years of age, who should have been playing in the open air, engaged—in the interest of wealthy chatelaine manufacturers—in the work of stringing beads at four cents per thousand beads. The work is tedious, involving eye strain, and yields the little workers only about $2 per week for a full week’s work.

The District of Columbia has no truancy law; and statistics show that of the 55,000 children in the District only 43,000 are attending school. It has had a child labor law, but not a good one, ■ and virtually all the women’s clubs of the District have been laboring for a new law. When the new law came up before Congress, fixing a minimum of 15 years for the employment of children, a minimum of 18 years for girls in hotels, apartments, theaters and places of amusement, 18 years for boys in quarries, tunnels and tobacco warehouses, and 21 years for girls as telegraph messengers, the board of governors of the local Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association sent representatives to oppose the bill. They are welcome to this free advertisement.

On the other hand to encourage boys and girls as real farmers, the New York State Bankers’ Association, in 1920, offered prizes of calves,

boars, gilts, rams, ewes, hens and roosters, to the boys and girls doing the best work along -certain agricultural lines, as shown ’by the exhibits at the State Fair held at Syracuse in the -Fall. _______________

England in Time of Stress

• By Robert Barham (London)

Mr:. Editoi:: Things are gradually working to ' a head in England. The efforts of the capitalist press to weaken the power and influence of labor by the Bolshevist alarms still sway the majority of the professional and commercial classes to support the Government, but the ranks of the labor party and the tradesunions are rapidly increasing in numbers.

The London Town Council has decided that at • all the Council's affairs, such as band performances in the park, etc., the “Red Flag”, the Socialist song, shall be substituted for the British national anthem. This same municipal authority has taken other drastic steps. It has sanctioned the permission of Sunday games in the Council’s parks, and ordered that all employes must become trades-unionists or leave their employment. J

In the heated debates at the London Town and Borough Councils on the matter of Sunday games, it became apparent that the average labor man is losing all faith in religion and professed churchianity. Religion is being weighed according to the attitude of its professors; and . the attitude of the clergy during the war, and the consistency of that attitude with their profession, is a hard problem for the average man to harmonize.

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