Golden Age, December 21, 1921

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“ee. 21* 1921* VoL LU, No* 59

PtiMieherf mwry other If*] week at 33 MyrlU iw»w, VUF Brooklyn, If. Y, V. S. 4.

Ten Ceata a Copy—11.00 a T«ar Canaria ud Far«L<n Cogntriefl. *UOO

VOLUHK 3

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBEB 91. 1»31

NUMBER &»

CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

LABOR AND

Blr.h of in OH*»rcby..........«,..US

JrpnrtrUbmwi at W^rp^.r. ,,

J>hlliaani21Qg th? HrrrluMW.......

Kiilmp off the Feeble..........——.187 Ah:fr> of th* niiffrrtM -

]n<pcu’« Reeu.lv ............-

".A Time of Trouble Buch aa

•

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Tbr Counterfeit New Era.......

Krmteclge G'eady Intrew*d....„_^„16i Kundarciuuon of Huwtnixy.......,165 FfvcdoHUDii and Monla..___.—.168

A Rt‘tn of Selisbcei*......-

ECONOMICS

World Not Modi Safe far

DcDoerae? ____...._______ . -.. ]fS

End of Workers' Po*t'IT J Everybody ProfilMring ,, r

Priritu Toward Anarriiy

Aged Industrial Workers

Home* (hrned. Rented er Moft-

u-- d

Decadence of Wrt«*»»h—ri

The Worship af Self.

Tbc Apes at Rataa't

Eridenceu at bmp..—.1T3

The End In Plain HabU

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

T~n--'n-7j:io3 AdriQUCW ..............183 Adverihlng ad Mature --- J"*

Industrial Denlopment .................164 Dollar a Mooth Shloa..———176

A hujes Standard of SueceM..........160 ■

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Ob. Ym. War Waa to be •■

Mbit

Bui There tniat be Arnatnents....l72

Back io Barbarism.

A fTerM'Wlde Caiartropbo...—.—.174

The Japanese War-Scare______

EiparlancB tn the Beer War

Froflteen Bunn Lua Europe.---

Purebaaod Poaseaioan Nai BWan

Hbp (hrny Ameries?——.182

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Hiking U>e Desert Rejoice..—164 Gnat American !?—»** 1T1

Barmen Misguided Too.________-____in

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Acmwria at Life—.—.......113 Hur Granite b Pbmed....—,1TG

HOME AND HEALTH

Curing the filet................—...-....Ill The Aacfouinmante at iff

Tb* Profits aT Sm^af_________.—KB

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Great Joy fur mil People Coming

Soon

The Caoe at Our Qroaulng-

Can DMm Sentence Allert.—^—1B4 Justice, Wisdom, Love. Fowu—-114 Whr So Lone a twiayf

JuT h the MornUm....,.....

"Gnat Joy to ail People"-..—.136

Cbrisunas 1621 (toemJ

Adranced Bible Studies......

Tiuca Ware—Tba Broad Way. The

Narrow Wap, The wigh—y n Jit "Broad Road u DamnKtloo"

"The Narrow Wy to Ule"—.138 The Narrow War Mt the Road to

Restitution

Amxlnc Greet — launortalliy Alao u tba Bride...-........—.——-.191

Juvenile Bible Stott——.——HO Christmas Carol 111

HoUaadWi Syna (poem)——111

tomicx emcM; >r4H*K: 34 Cnvim Tarraee. Laaeaatwr Gate. Londan W.

2; Canadian: 270 Dendas BL Toront«. Ontario ; AuafrulaHan : 490 CalUnr BL, Melbonrae, AuatraHu Malt raznlttascaa to TAa ffoldoa Afgb

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Golden Age

Volume III Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, December 2’. 1921 Number 59

The Counterfeit New Era By 0. L. Rosenkrans, Jr.

r K BOUT two decades ago a change came over ~ -Tx this planet, and all life received a new dispensation. The change was accompanied with a succession of great disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, conflagrations, and railroad and steamship catastrophes. As a result many people experienced a vague presentiment that we were in the end of the world; others supposed that our civilization had reached its zenith of development and was commencing to retrograde. But the majority scoffed at the pessimism of the doubters, and hailed the dawn of the twentieth century as the beginning of a Golden Age.

The general public regarded the future with a glow of self-congratulation. It believed that humanity, through its wonderful increase of knowledge, through the remarkable multiplication of mechanical inventions and labor-saving devices, and through their emancipation from old-world superstitions — especially via the channel of New Thought—was ushering in a sort of man-made Millennium, a new world wherein the conditions of life would be pleasanter, saner, more wholesome, and more comfortable than ever before in human experience. The rapid advancement of scientific knowledge so enormously broadened man’s intellectual horizon that the field of his achievements seemed limitless. Life was being revolutionized by the control which man was learning to exercise over the forces of nature; and every new departure in the art of living was such an obvious improvement that it was calculated to exalt man’s self-esteem and to instill in his spirit a corresponding contempt for the primitive methods, ignorance, and superstitions of his forefathers.

Accessories of Life

IT BECAME the fashion to disparage the past and to profess impatience or indifference towards its achievements, but to enthuse over the incalculable advantages of the present. The artificial character of the new age was admirable. The old-fashioned simplicity of life which had prevailed in former times was deplored as crude and barbarous. Men drew a comparison between our complex modern civilization and the rude customs of previous generations, pointing with pride to our huge congested cities, with their towering sky-scrapers, elevated trains and subways, elevators, electric lighting, concrete walks and pavements,'pneumatic letter tubes, and the like. How unspeakably inconvenient and humdrum it would be if we had to dispense with all our latter-day equipment of automobiles, motor trucks, electric signs, movie theaters, electric fans, motorcycles, gas-engines, cream separators. wireless telegraphy, X-ray, phonographs, thermos bottles, rural telephones, rural mail delivery, etc.

Transportation Advantages

AN IN V A L I D could now travel not only . in comfort, but in luxury, from an inhospitable to a salubrious climate, reaching his destination in a few days. The traveler might cross barren deserts, rough mountainous tracts, or stormy seas while enjoying the comforts of a first-class hotel; for the hardships incidental to travel were eliminated, and the globe-trotter no longer needed any special ruggedness of character. Rapid transit was breaking down the boundaries between far-off places. It was bringing the tropics, with their bananas and pineapples, near at hand to dwellers in northern cities. The world was more independent of the seasons since the warm regions could supply the northern markets with early vegetables. The contact between city and country was rosily augumented when the automobile became common, and greatly ameliorated and sophisticated the countrypeople’s life and habits, with whom indeed through the medium of agricultural colleges, farm papers, live-stock shows, exhibition trains, etc., old-fashioned, haphazard farming methods had given place to intensive scientific food production. In fact, new dry-land-farming methods were discovered whereby it became possible to reclaim immense areas of wild and hitherto unprofitable bench-land and desert, and to convert into wheat-fields the semi-arid “short-grass” country of the cattle range.

Making the Desert Rejoice

TN THESE regions the rainfall was increased, and its distribution equalized, by the systematic planting of groves and reforestation of watersheds. On the other hand sodden swamps and sea marshes -were drained and made productive through ingenious ditching machines, and sloughs were tiled out. Some naturally desert regions were through irrigation converted into marvelously fertile orchard tracts and truck gardens. It was also found possible to promote agriculture greatly through applied chemistry; and it was believed that eventually the whole texture of the soil would be transformed to the producer’s advantage. Similarly, the weather seemed to be coming under control, since Weather Bureaus were established; and it was predicted that in time humanity would be able not only to foretell atmospheric conditions, but to regulate them to suit human necessities.

Curing the Sick

OTHING, indeed, was impossible to science.

Medicine and hygiene had taken enormous strides. Surgeons were able to perform operations on the hearts and the stomachs of living patients. Bacteriology had revolutionized the . whole theory of disease. Fever-ridden localities were made safe to dwell in by systematic campaigns against mosquitoes, and whole peoples were lifted out of hopeless inertia by the discovery of the hook-worm.

Knowledge Greatly Increased

OUNDLESS appeared the scope of scientific investigation. On the one hand, the telescope and the spectroscope revealed the infinitely great; and on the other hand the microscope the infinitely little. One startling discovery followed another. In the leucocyte was found a private military force in every human body; in the semi-circular canals of the ears, a delicate instrument whereby a man automatically preserved his balance; in the thumb-prints, an infallible identification mark, useful in detecting criminals. Scarcely any field of human activity had been overlooked, and the amount of exhaustive research undertaken was little short of miraculous. The unknown was a perpetual temptation to the investigator; so that practically the whole surface of the planet had been explored, and much of it surveyed. The seas were charted, and their depths sounded. Scientific expeditions were sent out to study deep-sea life, and others to scale the most inaccessible mountain peaks. Both poles had been reached by determined ex- v-plorers. In short, the sum of recent human achievement was so colossal that here and there a shallow thinker hazarded a guess that the pinnacle of human effort had been arrived at But the vast majority regarded the world as merely at the threshold of stupendous changes before which existing marvels would compare as past ages compare with the present

Industrial Development

IT WAS characteristic of the new age that knowledge was systematically given a practical application. Usefulness was the criterion; for the spirit of the age was practical. In fact, it was industrial. The population of the earth was multiplying with increasing rapidity, and the basic problem of life was to supply it with food and other necessities. This increase was partly due to preventative medicine, which diminished mortality from disease, decrepti-tude, accidents, and in infancy. It was also due to the extension of food production and to expanded facilities for transporting and distributing food. It was chiefly due to the same law of mathematics which enables the money-lender to become the master of society—2 x 2 equals 4.

So to supply this rapidly multiplying population the world required an immensely expanded industrial system, and one which was very complex and specialized in its functions, and com- C petent not only to meet the staple requirements of humanity in regard to food, fuel, clothing, shelter, power, tools, and working equipment, but also to gratify the thousand and one luxurious new wants which modern man had learned to regard as indispensables. Since industry had acquired such an elaborate and multifarious character, its functions had to be specialized. The expert was in demand, and the "all-round*’ genius discredited. The ambitious young man planned to be a specialist in some chosen field; and correspondence schools aided in the training of such in all trades and professions.

Standardization of Humanity

SO TEE spirit of the age was to specialize in every important field of human effort. The child of specialization was so-called “standardization”. A machine-driven age learned to value exact results and their exact duplication. Standardized articles could be made by the _ gross, and easily replaced when lost or broken.

Standardized efficiency was easiest to deal with because it would be learned by rule; and all human effort could be measured by rules and reduced to exact formulae. So everything was in the way of being standardized. Intellect was standardized; education was standardized in the the schools; standardized teachers taught their classes out of standardized books, training the young idea how to develop along standardized channels. Likewise the newspapers printed standardized news, and, in concert with the magazines, drama, art world, lecture platform, and pulpit, moulded public opinion along standardized lines. It was easier to deal with a public whose opinions were according to Hoyle; and as industry was tending to consolidate under the control of a few big moneyed interests, it became increasingly necessary to control public opinion in order to prevent friction and to maintain the huge industrial system in smooth and harmonious working order.

Birth of an Oligarchy

SINCE the life-blood of industry is money, the spirit of the age was financial and commercial. Money was the motive power behind all industry, and profit was the goal of every human enterprise. The actual, bonafide rulers of the modern world were not the figure-head kings, presidents, governors, legislatures, and C. politicians, but the bankers, manufacturers, merchants, and “captains of industry”. Two governments, indeed, existed side by side: the civil government, which was a heritage from the past and which was still very useful within its sphere; and an industrial system which controlled the public through the public’s source of livelihood. Ostensibly supreme, in reality the civil government had become subordinate and subservient to a group of moneyed interests that owned and directed industry.

It follows that legislation was framed rather to assist business than to retard it; that the laws were administered to favor the financier and the manufacturer; that professional men found it to their interest to sell their brains and their talents where they were assured of the highest reward. It was also natural that a press which found its greatest profits in advertising space -would be unwilling to offend its best customers, and consequently regulated the output of news to the public in a way least calculated to annoy and upset the operations of “big business”. Similarly colleges arranged their curriculums to conciliate their donors and patrons, disseminating nothing to conflict with their views.

Impoverishment of Workers

COMMERCIALISM was the underlying principle which pervaded all activity. Theoretically, commerce existed as a medium for exchanging products between different classes of the population for their mutual benefit. Actually, it was always conducted for profit — for private enrichment. As profit was the main consideration, the public interest became more and more subordinated to it This led to a variety of abuses: production was stimulated beyond natural requirements, and to promote sales systematic campaigns of advertising were carried on to “educate” the public into buying, not what they needed, but what was profitable to sell.

Very adroit were the methods pursued to create artificial wants: food was put up in neat, “sanitary” packages and attractive cans and containers, with pictures and decorative labels; and fancy preparations of slight nutritive value were invented to tickle the palate and please the eye. The consumers had to pay for the pasteboard, wax-paper, tin-foil, and lithography. This enhances the cost of living; for the new fashion speedily became popular, especially with the women, so that the old, cheaper custom of selling in bulk tended to disappear. Also many old-fashioned articles of diet which were not so profitable to sell vanished from the market, being superseded by more expensive, up-to-date viands from which the nourishing elements had been largely refined away.

In consequence of this procedure the poor man found his diet more restricted than formerly and his sturdiness impaired. Children grew up anemic from a diet of white flour, white

sugar, polished rice, and prepared breakfast foods.

A Sales-Standard of Success

TN THE same way the greed for profits affected clothing, leather, etc. Instead of durability, the public got goods of shoddy quality, but put in fashionable designs. It was a deliberate policy to produce goods that wore out fast, and had to be renewed frequently by the purchaser, in order to promote sales and to insure a quick turn-over of stocks.

Business success depended on frequent sales. Salesmanship was cultivated to the nth degree, as a fine art; and the salesman was one of the most important members of society. No longer classed with bag-men and peddlers, his position was recognized as eminently respectable. He was an economic factor, and his ability was highly prized, although said ability consisted not so much in intellectual powers of permanent value to the race, as in gifts which were a mix-• ture of unscrupulousness, effrontery, persuasion, false geniality, flattery, a ready smile, and a smooth tongue. The salesman duplicated the courtier of past ages, only his court was the public. His creed was to sell goods, to delude his customers into buying, to ingratiate himself with them by a pleasing appearance.

. As all business was competitive, and as many were anxious to interest the same buyer, armies of men and women existed to perform the act of transfer from seller to buyer. Many of these were commercial travelers who roamed from town to town, living on the fat of the land. As their expenses were considerable and had to be added to the price of their goods, they came to be recognized as largely a superfluity and unnecessary evil, since in many cases it was easy to dispense with them through catalogues and mail orders. But to do so would have deprived an influential class of a comfortable livelihood. So business retained them, although business pretended to be a cold-blooded proposition of practicability.

The truth was that commercialism was a survival of an earlier age, an anachronism. Its soul was competition, and the complexity of modem life called for cooperation. The commercial spirit was not to serve the public by giving value for value received; but, by expert salesmanship and plausible advertising, to cheat

people into making sacrifices and buying what . they did not need and could not afford—to swell profits. ‘

Advertising ad Nauseam

USINESS had great faith in advertising.

The newspapers and magazines fostered this sentiment, because it was very profitable to themselves. Accordingly much space was devoted to flaming announcements of all kinds, ingeniously worded to catch the eye and to hold the attention, and very urgent and positive in their assertion that the reader needed that par-icular thing advertised more than anything else in the world. It was commonly believed that publications were kept alive on their advertisements, merely including the legitimate reading matter as an incentive to the subscriber; and that in consequence the publishers were very careful not to print anything prejudicial to their advertisers' interests, but on the contrary "doctored" all the news to subserve the same, In fact, advertisements were a characteristic feature of the age, the very landscape being decorated with conspicuous, gaudily colored signs, not only on the blank walls of city buildings, but on billboards along railways and country roads, and even on the rocks and the trees. All this added a peculiarly sordid and mercenary touch to the scenery.

This universal respect for salesmanship and advertising was a potent influence in permeating the modem character with a spirit of insincerity, falseness, and deceit, which came to be so well recognized that whatever was uttered publicly was apt to be stigmatized as selfish propaganda. In vain the public might crave facts. All manner of artful propaganda was afloat in the world; for whoever had a scheme to advance, a reform to block, or a defense to make before the public, hired an expert to prepare an elaborate argument, which was circulated widely among the people. Indeed, it was the profound convic- Qj tion of the business and professional classes that the public was enormously credulous and susceptible to ingenious sophistries; and that al-almost any satisfactory result could be obtained by clever talk and a pretense of frankness.

Dehumanizing the Producers

AS A matter of fact the public was gradually . being enlightened, and was learning to be suspicious of propaganda. The interests that

sought to control public opinion were coming into disfavor. The enormous expansion of industry had not proved an unmixed blessing. Depending as it did on an unlimited supply of cheap labor for its successful operation, industry had reduced a considerable part of humanity to machine-tenders — a vast army of skilled and unskilled workmen who worked incessantly with scant leisure and a bare livelihood, who manipulated the wonderful mechanical contrivances which supplied the world’s - multifarious new wants, enabling a few to riot ~ in superfluities while the workers themselves were restricted to the barest necessities. Between this mass of workers and the handful of employers the gap was constantly widening, the tendency of industrialism being to separate society into two classes: a few who owned nearly all the wealth, and the great majority who had little, besides their strength and skill, to call their own.

It was becoming apparent that industrialism was a system of slavery; for the vast fortunes it created were used to manipulate the markets to pile up more stupendous fortunes. This wealth was used to control the courts and the schools and the press. The worker enjoyed small benefit from the luxuries and conveniences he created, and yet had no chance to escape from his unrewarded toil. In fact, the very system which afforded him a livelihood was yearly making that livelihood more precarious by increasing the expense of the necessities of life. The greed of his employers was insatiable. Not content with contributing to the meagerness of his comforts by supplying him shoddy clothing and unnutritive food, they were rendering his lot fairly unendurable by demanding a perpetually higher rate of speed in his labors. Cunningly they had got their heads together and coined the shibboleth “efficiency”, which -r meant, stripped of all disguises, speeding-up the work. So every year a greater degree of efficiency was required of the workers, the same being justified on the ground of economy and increased output.

Killing Off the Feeble

A CURIOUS fallacy obsessed the public mind that industry needed to be speeded up to a break-neck pace in order to insure adequate production of commodities. Conversely, the worker who refused to speed up was a criminal against society. The public ignored the constantly recurring phenomenon of over-production and hard times. Secure in the conviction that the law of supply and demand governed the markets, it supposed that glutted warehouses meant cheaper goods. Few understood that cold-storage plants and refrigerator cars enabled the wholesalers and the commission men to create an artificial scarcity, whatever the crops might be; or that frequently crops were systematically bought up and destroyed in order to maintain high prices. So the speeding-up of labor was condoned and approved by a public which believed that somehow this directly mitigated the cost of living. It was justified on evolutionary grounds. Evolution progressed by eliminating the unfit, leaving only the fittest members of the stock to survive and supply posterity. It was a blessing to destroy the unfit and thus to insure a sturdy stock of human beings for future years.

Certainly the speeding-up of industry rapidly wore out the unfit, shunting the weak, the worn-out, the slow, and the elderly into the scrapheap. The result was to discredit age among the workers, and to encourage and exalt youth. Experience and skill counted for nothing in the elderly worker’s favor; for industry was perpetually inventing new machines whereby one boy or one girl operator could do the work of many expert craftsmen, and do it better. So age became an object of contempt, and disrespect for their elders was rife among the young, whose “young blood” was petted and admired by the powers that ruled the industrial world. The young worker mocked the slowness and failing powers of his elderly competitor. But a time came when the young worker found himself by thousands out of work and ignored by the class that had employed him. So industry was driven at top speed, and labor found its tenure in the means of subsistence constantly growing more precarious. It was inevitable that a strong undercurrent of discontent existed among the workers, of which radical agitators took advantage to spread their insidious doctrines of socialism, communism," syndicalism, and anarchy.

The employing class sought to nullify the effect of these doctrines by counter propaganda. But education now being general among the masses, the old-time appeals to their credulity and ignorance no longer swayed them. Virtuous platitudes excited their derision; romantic, sentimental clap-trap left them apathetic. In an age whose spirit was palpably self-interest, self-interest was the only argument which was recognized as valid; and the worker had come to believe that his interest and that of his employer were diametrically opposed.

The Accoutrements of ‘'Efficiency”

TpHE speeding-up of industry was reflected in every phase of latter-day life. The world seemed to develop a veritable speed-mania. People of the leisure classes congratulated themselves on living the “strenuous life”, complacently over-burdening themselves with work, and denying themselves the requisite rest and relaxation for frazzled nerves and fatigued brains. All life was hurry. Business men w’orked and worried themselves into nervous prostration, and sought relief in violent sports and exercises whereby they acquired arterial sclerosis and valvular heart troubles. Pleasure was pursued with frenzied haste, taking the forms of "joy-riding’’, the dance craze, rapid motion, and excitement of various kinds. Even the music, the popular “jazz”, was a sort of delirious ecstasy of jumbled chords.

Writer after writer endorsed this speed fallacy; and much specious nonsense was written, counselling elderly men "how to keep fit at fifty” —most of the advice consisting mainly of systems of violent exercise. The assumption was, apparently, that humanity's darling sin was slothfulness! Meanwhile nervous diseases increased .alarmingly. Sanitariums and asylums were crowded • with the debris of a strenuous age. Suicide was frequent, even among children. The drug habit grew apace, especially after alcohol was . legally outlawed. The outskirts of society were crowded with prematurely broken-down derelicts, who could not stand the pace of latter-day “efficiency”.

The Profits of Surgery

i "TT-.E dawn of the New Era there had been any amount of self-congratulation among penpip wh.n ihinight themselves supremely fortunate to live in an age of such extraordinary advantages and opportunities. They were fond of contrasting the proficiency of the modern medical profession with the uncertain methods of the past, when a physician’s diagnosis was largely guesswork and his remedies sheer filth or poison. Far different from this day of careful analysis and pains-taking preventative methodsCertainly in the field of medicine, surgery, and hygiene a remarkable progress had been made, whereby the race received incalculable benefits. Unfortunately, though quite logically, the commercial spirit had entered here also; and in many instances the impelling motive of a physician was not the welfare of his patients, hut anxiety for profits. So gross abuses existed. Physicians took advantage of the fears and worries of infirmity to extort ex-orbitant fees, to produce artificial illnesses, to operate for imaginary diseases. The profitable phases of surgery were connected with operations; and so certain maladies were widely advertised as extremely prevalent, and the knife resorted to on the slightest occasion. The public was cajoled and intimidated into making operations fashionable, the preponderance of "safe” operations enlarged upon, and the resultant shock to the system glossed over.

But the zeal for profits was .scarcely subordinated to scientific enthusiasm. Surgeons loved to operate, to increase their knowledge and experience. The patient was apt to be regarded less as a fellow creature than as an interesting _ “subject”—a living cadaver. In the wonderful’ hospitals of the time, startling disclosures brought to light unbelievable - abuses which awakened a transient horrified public interest when it heard of helpless foundling children being deliberately inoculated with loathsome diseases in order that the progress of the disease might be watched and studied — that wealthy patrons might benefit by the results of these investigations. There was a great or ' cry raised when some dog-lover rescued his friend from the vivisectionists and exposed their experiments with dogs and guinea pigs. It was even hinted that the baby-farms, which existed on part of the output of maternity hospitals, were under suspicion — perhaps con-tributed their quota for experiments. An abyss of horrible possibilities seemed to yawn beneath these exposures. But the revelations were suddenly hushed up, and it was rumored that powerful interests had so commanded.

Speedomania and Morals

IT WAS part of the education of a latter-day 'public to be taught that whatever defects the social organization possessed, were tempor-

ary merely and would eventually be eradicated; but that in the meantime they were excused as necessary steps in the evolution of humanity. Through evolution the world was steadily improving, and eventually would be a better and happier place to live in through the weeding out of the unfit, and the continued improvement of the selected stock. It was severe on incompetents to be born with identical yearnings for life and happiness such as their more fortunate brothers and sisters possessed; but it was the > law of progress for them to be cast on the dunghill and used for fertilizers by the winners. You may pity the victims, but your success in life requires you not to neglect to take advantage of their weakness, lest you become as they are. All life is a struggle for survival, and in the New Era the struggle is peculiarly rigorous. In the future, after the defectives are eliminated and absorbed, when this strenuous period of transition is passed, all humanity will doubtless become humane, benevolent, altruistic. Humanity will then have adapted itself to the new conditions of life. In the meantime, speed up! For the swifter the pace of life, the more acceleration to the process of evolution, and elimination of the unfit, and the sooner the goal attained—the Ultimate Good.

Under this obsession the world considerably mended its gait. It moved with such celerity that it ran away from most of its age-old moral traditions and safe-guards. It distanced the old-world standards of honor and honesty, justice and fair-play, magnanimity and compassion, self-restraint and fair-dealing, duty and self-sacrifice. Even a recognition of these as virtues had somewhat tempered the public character in Christendom; but when the public repudiated their sacred character, the effect was plainly evident. Youth lost its respect for age; children became disobedient; family loyalty became exceptional; gratitude was a pretense; women despised their natural traits of modesty’, gentleness, and pity, and cultivated boldness, impudence, and a swaggering arrogance of carriage.

A Reign of Selfishness

m I IE age did not openly advocate'looseness of morals, but the latter was the logical result of its repudiation of the traditional moral restraints. Of course the old-time virtuous platitudes were still unctuously repeated where it was considered that they might serve to cover actual iniquity or to soothe the over-driven worker when he showed signs of insubordination. The press also printed reams of advice from time to time, exhorting the public to practise thrift, industry, sobriety, chivalry, or what not. But it frequently occurred that these same virtuous platitudes so transparently revealed the selfish inspiration beneath as to deceive nobody, but served to confirm the public conviction that “everything was graft nowadays". Disinterestedness was at a discount, and all pretense of it received with incredulity by a cynical public. Nevertheless the public attitude did not deter well-fed idlers from writing indignant homilies against the laziness and extravagance of the toilers; and popular evangelists cursed and raved in the pulpit in the effort to convince poverty of its exceeding sinfulness. But their urgings fell mostly on deaf ears, the general public having arrived at the conclusion that any person was a deluded fool who sacrificed any opportunity for self-interest or enjoyment. It was a wasted effort to urge duty on a person who believed that the only duty he owed was to himself.

So a general moral laxity prevailed, into which the amusement dealers entered and stimulated by sex-problem plays, risque novels, suggestive pictures, immodest feminine apparel, equivocal dances, lascivious songs, and movie films which were an incentive to immorality and crime. A contributing factor to this moral decline was the so-called "emancipation of women”, whereby they came to mingle promiscuously with men in nearly all public life, entering practically all the occupations — except sheer brute labor — as man’s competitors. The evil consequences of this were manifold, and threw all society into confusion. Working for lower wages, women took the jobs of men with families ; and in hard times, when thousands of men were out of work and begging on the streets— ex-soldiers and men with dependent families— married women who were assured of a comfortable living without work displayed a callous indifference to their sufferings, selfishly taking their jobs in order to earn pin-money for their extravagances. The old home life with its refining influences and atmosphere was subverted. Flats and apartments were the rule; and childhood received its moral training in public—in the schools and public amusement places —

rather than in the privacy of the sacred family circle.

Decadence of Womanhood

1\4" AILxilAGE was largely a matter of con-venience. Woman no longer honored and obeyed the husband, but disputed his claim to be her “lord” and the head of the house. So bickerings, quarrels, and divorces were frequent; and it was common for young women to entangle elderly men into matrimony to secure a subsequent divorce, on perhaps the flimsiest excuse, and to force the discarded husband to pay a fat alimony. Woman in her assumption of equality was jealous of man, and systematically undermined her children’s reverence for their father. No longer respecting man, woman affected toward him an air of indulgent superiority, stressing the weakness of his character, and pretending to regard him as a grown-up boy.

In imitation of their mothers, children grew up wilful and disobedient, with enormous vanity, a propensity for malicious mischief, and a contempt for moral principles. In fact, children developed an unholy, goblin-like sophistication; and in lieu of innocence their countenances registered the hard, selfish, evil traits of grown-ups. Many were embryo criminals, and one tiny burglar rode to the scenes of his housebreakings on a little tricycle. Child immorality became rife; for little girls aped the airs and the deportment, as well as the dress, of their mothers and shamelessly sought by ogling and flirting to attract men. So, being unprotected by their innocence, some became a prey to morons; and others, to vent their spite and pique at some fancied grievance or out of sheer appetite for notoriety, brought false accusations of moron assaults against men. Perhaps some men were tempted by little girls: for latter-day woman had lost much of her natural feminine charm through the hardening process of public life. When woman first aspired to equality with men she promised, on receiving this coveted

i and reform and purify the evils

of society; but the consummation of her ambitions proved her to be as selfish, greedy, unscrupulous, dishonest, and impure as the men. So men lost a large measure of their chivalrous regard for women; and an increasing number of them were glad to refrain from marriage, arguing that to marry was to enter an intolerable servitude with no adequate home comfort and solace in return.

The Worship of Self

WHEN the New Era dawned, many people who had become skeptical of orthodox theology substituted in lieu thereof altruism, or the love of humanity at large. This was a grand, big-hearted, high-sounding sentiment very flattering to the self-esteem. A man might be a swindler or a rake in his personal relations, but condone the same in his own opinion by his abstract love of all mankind. His injuries to individuals he could justify to his conscience by pretending that humanity would benefit in the sequel. Altruism, however, made its appeal to only a certain intellectual type, the average man. and more particularly the average woman, required something more concrete to build their faith upon. To supply this want, New Thought emerged from the Orient and spread with marvelous rapidity all over Christendom. The fundamental principle of New Thought is mental, or will culture. It is based on Hindu pantheism, and teaches the incarnation of the human wilL That is the central fact in existence, so the primary duty of a human being is to develop his will. That duty being performed diligently, a multitude of moral transgressions are thereby condoned.

New Thought was the inspiration for a host of new cults, which differed from each other merely in their various systems for stimulating and developing will-power. Practically all the old-time churches tacitly accepted New Thought, which was eclectic enough to endorse all the latter-days’ fallacies of evolution, the survival of the fittest, altruism, optimism, eugenics, euthanasia of degenerates, sterilization of criminals, efficiency, the strenuous life, race suicide, etc. Any hobby could be ridden with a New Thought bridle.

The most popular New Thought cult was Christian Science. This was the form which appealed most to women, since it was based on a false chain of reasoning, so shallow as to be easily exposed, but appealing to woman’s innate curiosity respecting occult mysteries, her secret craving for unlawful powers, besides the universal longing for good health which Christian Science, like other faith-cure cults, catered

to by persuading its dupes that they themselves possessed latent psychic powers which were destined ultimately to rid the'world of disease.

The Apex of Satan’s Empire

HP HIS, then, is the picture we have of the New

Era: a world which tacitly acknowledged no god superior to the human will; a world wherein selfishness was justified as commendable ambition; a world working and playing in a frenzy of hurry, drugging itself into obliviousness of J/ts own rapid decadence by the false doctrine of evolution, ostrich-like shutting its eyes and ears to the signs of impending ruin, and calling this fatuousness “optimism”; a world steeped in artificial excitements and riotous pleasures, heedless of the frightful squalor of its own slums, frivolously preoccupied in sports when on the brink of a cataclysm, madly speeding up production to clog the whole system of industry by over-production; a world filling up with human debris that could not stand the mad pace, but nevertheless so horribly afraid of degenerates that it was prepared to sanction eugenics, euthanasia for its own monsters, and sterilization of criminals; a world that preached philanthropic platitudes while permitting the factory girl to eke out her starvation wages by prostitution; a world that built public playgrounds and suffered the exploitation of child labor; a world that vented public indignation in sporadic outbursts of reform, but allowed the organized packing-house interests to feed it diseased and putrid meat, and was honeycombed by the social evil in a new and terrible form called the “white slave traffic”, whereby young girls, scarcely mature, were kidnapped or enticed away from their homes into a life of hideous shame and ruin; a world wherein a small percentage of the population revelled in , superabundance, supported by the toil of multitudes; a world where magic Aladdin palaces contrasted with festering slums; a world which sought to make child-bearing a fad among the wealthy by the shibboleth “race-suicide” as an example to the poor, whose unregulated spawning, though it aggravated their own misery, insured to industry a perpetual supply of hunger-driven slaves; a world whose nervous stamina, judgment, and self-control were being sapped by an insidious creeping malady—en-docrinopathy— which affected all classes, and which was caused by over-stimulation of the ductless glands by the unnatural character of modern life; a world, finally, that was beginning to show symptoms of universal paranoia. Such a world was the New Era before the twentieth century was two decades old.

Oh, Yes ! War Was to be Impossible

TXTHEN the new dispensation h$d been inau-» » gurated, and optimism was preached as a public duty, it was the fashion to believe that all life was going to be remodelled and that the world would be a safer and pleasanter place to dwell in than ever hitherto, and that humanity would enjoy’ undreamed-of felicity. War would be preposterous in such a complex, intricately organized society, where nations were bound together in a marvelous integration of finance, commerce, industry, and intellect. The safety of international business demanded international tranquillity. Any war in the future must of necessity be economic and financial; brutal, barbarous militarism must be relegated to oblivion.

Already the newspapers referred to “rate wars”, stock-exchange “battles”, campaigns of advertising, and the like. The children of the future would shudder as they gazed uncompre-hendingly at the relics of militarism in the museums, would wonder at the obsolete equipment for deliberately destroying human life. War was unthinkable; for had we not a Hague Tribunal, not yet functioning very well, it is true, but an omen of glorious promise for the future?

The wiseacres smiled sarcastically at the armament rivalry between nations and at the periodic rumors of war. It was all sheer graft and propaganda. Of course preparedness was urged by the agents of interested parties, because big army and navy appropriations meant fat contracts for battle-ships, armor-plate, guns, and torpedoes. Army and navy officers were pensionaries of the Steel Corporation or of the Krupp interests. The army and navy club was subsidized by the big financiers. None knew better than did these same financiers that war would seriously disturb business and must be averted at any cost. None were so well aware war must be financed; and the financiers could successfully block any actual outburst of war, if they were so minded.

But There Must Be Armaments

THE only tangible excuse for the existence of armaments was for them to serve as an international police, to prevent piracy and wreckers, to guard light-houses on lonely barbarous coasts, to blow up derelicts that endangered navigation, to overawe savage tribes, and to reinforce the civil authorities when labor strikes threatened to precipitate civil commotions and when property was menaced, or when atavistic mobs, in defiance of the law, dragged criminals out of the jails to lynch them. A real utility existed in such an international police, and this was demonstrated in the fact that female globe-trotters had penetrated, alone and unescorted, into the tropical fastnesses of cannibal kings and returned unmolested, protected by the white-man’s prestige and the awe inspired by his punitive expeditions. Indeed, it was said that the remote wildernesses of our planet were safer to visit than were certain of our great cities, where the worst criminals lurked in ambush for the unwary, and where organized gangs of thugs sometimes fought pitched battles in the streets and alleys. It was essential to supplement the civic police by the more potent arm of military police, to deter the degraded denizens of the slums, the unassimilated and alien elements of our civilization, from surging out in an hour of desperate enthusiasm to attack and plunder the opulent districts, whose glittering riches perpetually tantalized them.

The truth was that society feared an intestinal disturbance more than any prospect of ruptured international relations. Nations were too enlightened and too interdependent to indulge in mutual suicide. The barbarians were tamed and docile, and at any rate in no position to cope with modern armaments. But every nation harbored within itself a large element of the population which economic conditions had precluded from participation in the general progress—a class that were virtually savages in point of mentality, and that derived such iivfiiy’from civilization that, given a favorable opportunity, it was conceivable that they might rise up and try to overthrow'it. Moreover, every year made it more apparent that the vast army of workers upon whom industry depended for its motive power, who were the despised sub-stratum of society, and yet its indispensable foundation, were seething with discontent. Life was getting too hard for them.

Preachments of Demagogues

TN FORMER times, being ignorant clods, this class had toiled blindly, reconciled to their lot by a fatalistic conviction of its necessity. Now-the public schools had flooded their dark minds with enlightenment, and they began to question the justice of a system "which reduced them to endure such a disproportionate share of the pains and fatigues of production in return for such an inadequate reward.

The more intelligent of the malcontents became the leaders and evangelists of a new gospel of economics, which promised the workers* control of the machinery of production, the overthrow of Capital, and the founding of a new society wherein everyone performed a fair share of labor and was rewarded an equal share of the products of labor. In this new society the mechanic would fare as sumptuously as the banker, the day-laborer might, ride to the job in a six-cylinder car, the shop-girl could wear diamonds and ostrich feathers, and the soft-handed “parasite” in his top-hat and frock coat would be put to cleaning streets and hauling garbage to the incinerator—it was all the really useful work his flabby muscles fitted him to do. Such Utopian promises, when glowingly portrayed to toilers by cunning agitators, made a powerful appeal. Not infrequently the aforesaid orators themselves had no more than an academic experience with manual labor, being educated people who for one cause or another were dissatisfied with their failure in life and, blaming this to the false system of society, desired nothing better than to wreak their spite on a society w’hich had not properly appreciated them, by engineering its overthrow. So they preached revolution to the workers, hoping and expecting that in the new communistic society which would emerge from the "ashes of the old”, they "would personally shine out as organizers and leaders. Consequently they plotted inde-fatigably to instill what they were pleased to call “class consciousness” in the proletariat and thereby to widen the rift between Capital and Labor.

Alarms of the Oligarchs

AT FIRST the moneyed interests ignored the

, disaffection of their “hands". Highly conscious of the power which money conferred and ' of the corresponding control they exercised over the instruments of public opinion, as well as their close connection with the civil government, they regarded the mutinous mutterings from below with contempt and continued, as usual, arbitrarily to exercise their inalienable right to hire and to fire. But when the workers began to organize into unions and to achieve solidarity, the employers learned by sad experience in repeated strikes that their only safety lay in counter-organizations and in prejudicing public opinion in their favor against a proletarian movement which was becoming dangerously embarrassing.

So when all labor seemed on the point of consolidating itself into One Big Union, the various big industrial concerns made common cause, exerting themselves to the utmost to prevent it They even went to the extreme of enrolling armies of special deputies, gun-men, and strikebreakers, armed with high-power rifles and machine guns, and equipped with armored cars and launches. Their industrial plants were protected by barbed-wire entanglements and iron palisades charged with electrical currents. The gunmen, who were drawn chiefly from the criminal classes, really constituted private bodies of mercenary troops. Habitually lawless, they responded readily to their employers’ orders to provoke trouble, and by their wanton outrages against the strikers and their families, excited the latter to retaliatory violence. Of this the employers seized advantage to call for intervention and protection by the civil government. So little industrial wars broke out here and there, generally terminating in the defeat of the ■workers.

Evidences of Decay

THE civil authorities habitually cooperated with the employers, though ostensibly neutral. So when mobs of the unemployed assembled, demanding work during hard times, they were dispersed by the clubs of policemen, “s a p p e d” by self-constituted vigilantes, or d ’ ‘ ih torrents of water from fire-hose. Bui. yeai- by yeai industrial antagonism increased. and the signs were multiplied of an approaching crisis, until statesmen as well as students of sociology regarded the future with foreboding.

In spite of the accumulating portents, the average man continued fatuously to believe that the world was steadily growing better and better. His sublime confidence in human destiny through evolution remained unshaken. But students of social problems were less sanguine of the future. Certain defects of the age were too glaring to be ignored. Among them the horrible packing-house exposure shocked and nauseated a public whose stomach was more susceptible than was its heart. The prominence given the Thaw trial, and the surprising avidity with which all classes consumed each salacious item of news, was a revelation of the moral leprosy which had infected the world. Again, the whiteslave prosecutions, which brought to light -a vast, organized business of vice under police protection, disclosed to society how insecure were its foundation when they were beginning to rot from the bottom up.

Manifestly there was something rotten in a society where vice could flourish so alarmingly and where graft was so universal; for with all its pretended zeal for purity the age was fertile in graft, even philanthropy being found to minister to it. Organized charity appropriated two-thirds of. the public’s donations to the comfortable livelihood of the charity officials, dispensing only the residue to the deserving poor. Naturally these charity officials were anxious to discourage the public from indiscriminate giving, explaining that alms bestowed haphazard by untrained charity were apt to fall into undeserving hands.

Reformless Reforms ■

ROM time to time social students exposed the defects of the age, and occasionally instigated the public to clamor for reform. But the public zeal for reform seldom accomplished the results sought. Generally the legislatures pacified their constituents by appointing a commission, which conducted a solemn investigation of the alleged abuses. In this way the tax-payers’ money was squandered, deserving colleagues gratified with fat salaries, and the public interest allowed to evaporate during a tedious investigation, the results of which were published at great length in official reports which no one read.

Sometimes the reform was prosecuted to a successful conclusion, only to supply a greater abuse. Thus, when the Red Light districts were abolished, segregated vice scattered itself over the whole community; so the painted inmate of a house of ill-fame disguised herself as a working girl of loose character, and contaminated other working girls by her intimate association. Finally, when the women secured the triumph of Prohibition, and the sale of alcoholic beverages was made illegal, various poisonous concoctions of wood-alcohol appeared and were sold illicitly at fabulous prices. These beverages sometimes punished the imbibers with death or blindness.

Insecure Security

THERE was one class of the community that human self-sufficiency, exposing the thinness of found the world growing worse instead of veneer of civilization. The humanitarian

better, so far as his personal circumstances were concerned. This was the indigent worker whom the multiplication of machinery and the increasing pace of labor had crowded out of industry. At a time of life when his faculties were waning, he found himself dependent on occasional jobs and, worse than all, witnessed the cost of living steadily rising. Indeed, even people of a comfortable though moderate income were reduced to a lower standard of living, and had to learn to abstain from little luxuries to which they were accustomed. The cause was the diminishing purchasing power of the dollar, - which shrank from year to year—an extraordinary and disconcerting phenomenon for which a legion of writers on economics offered ingenious explanations, the most plausible being that gold was now produced more cheaply than hitherto and so was becoming plentiful. The class of moderate means that had invested their savings in annuities bearing a low rate of interest, expecting to be assured of a comfortable though modest income for life, were confronted with the necessity for hunting work in their old age, to supplement an income whose purchasing power had been more than cut in half.

Back to Barbarism

UP TO the last hour the general public of the New Era were steeped in false security. Suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, de-ctrnefion overtook. them; and their complacent 'continence was rucfeTy shocked. The armament race had grown intolerably expensive; it was cheaper to fight and force the issue. Socialists had claimed that the proletariat was not interested in the international commercial rivalry, which was an affair of the three great moneyed groups of the world; and that in a showdown the common people would hoist red flags and refuse to mobilize. But the war demonstrated that the people’s interests were most vitally involved in the success of their governments; for a manufacturing nation with a population vastly in excess of its own agrarian resources was of necessity dependent on foreign markets for its alimentary supplies. It was quickly discerned by the public that the situation meant-win or starve; so the people threw their whole enthusiasm into the war.

The war was a monstrous disillusionment to

principles for conducting modern warfare were abandoned, and a reversion to the barbarous methods of antiquity took place. A policy of systematic ruthlessness was justified as military necessity, and every principle of equity and ethics was violated if deemed expedient for military success. The sanctity of non-combatants was no longer respected; for the civil population was classed as the third line of defense, whose industry sustained the men in the trenches, and so it was legitimate warfare to strike behind the lines at the defenseless civilians. It was proven that in a practical industrial age war was no longer a stately pageant to be conducted with lofty courtesies and mitigating amenities. It was a most intense and serious business, wherein chivalry and honor were out of place and where every energy must contribute to the one purpose—to win.

A World- Wide Catastrophe

qpHE World War shook civilization to its core.

* The world-wide integration of finance, commerce, education, customs, and arts which existed prior to the war was torn apart The nations had been assembled truly into a homogeneous scheme whereby a disaster to one immediately became a world-wide catastrophe. The war severed the harmonious international . relations, revived ancient antagonisms, exaggerated class grievances, ruined the industries of whole populations, piled up colossal national debts, and immeasurably augumented the already insupportable burden of taxation. It left in its wake a new spirit of bitterness, apathy, distrust, and discouragement It engendered a spirit of lawlessness and of contempt for the institutions of government. Its duration witnessed the destruction of multitudes by famine, pestilence, and the sword; its close left communities facing starvation. Every government was embarrassed by an enormously increased burden of expense, and with industry almost at a standstill had an unemployment problem to solve, as best it might, with out-of-work allowances and soldier bonuses. Some of the belligerents were virtually bankrupt, and a currency inflation of alarming proportions threatened imminent financial panic.

Meanwhile the undercurrent of discontent abroad in the world was aggravated a thousandfold. Old national enmities were revived. . Racial and religious movements agitated. In-- dustrial disputes grew more bitter. The cost of living soared to undreamed-of heights. This was the appalling climax of the New Era.

“A Time of Trouble Such as Never Was”

THE time of trouble foretold by our Master and the Prophets had overtaken an iniquitous world. The first throe entangled human institutions into inextricable confusion. During the lull that ensued civilization commenced to give way at every point, like a rotten fabric. Slowly and painfully the world strove to repair the tattered fabric of credit, exchange, and intercommunication. Every effort at readjustment seemed to result in new complications. Every calamity seemed to be a world-wide psychological phenomenon. The mounting spiral of living costs and wages was- universal; so was the epidemic of strikes and lockouts; similarly the slump in the market affected the whole world with business depression, industrial stagnation, and unemployment.

Nevertheless, reconstruction was preached, and a false security fostered. Faith in the future was urged, and optimism insisted on. At the most critical time which civilization had ever faced, the press systematically perverted the news, minimizing the gravity of the situation, sedulously striving to revive the public interest in toyu and trifles, in sports and scandals, so that they might remain oblivious of the world’s „ collapse. Every effort was put forth to tide over the crisis; for it was considered that time was the principal factor needed to enable the world tonsettle down into its old ruts after the terrible shaking up just experienced.

World Not Made Safe For Democracy

DURING the war a common saying was that the world would never be the same again after the war was ended. Glowing hopes were entertained that it would be a better world, wherein many of the worst defects and abuses of the past would be conspicuous by their absence. But the sequel disclosed that the powers in control were zealously endeavoring to restore and rehabilitate the old order of things with as little change as possible, in direct opposition to the popular wishes. In fact, apparently, the effect of the war seemed to be to strengthen the classes in control and to weaken the position of the proletariat, which during the war had been encouraged to contribute its utmost exertions by the promise of a larger share in the management as well as the rewards of industry. During the period of fictitious war-prosperity, when labor was at a premium and when unparalleled high wages elevated the worker to a standard of living previously beyond his reach, the workers as a class awoke to a realization of their power; and the general public awoke to a realization of its helplessness in the face of a widespread mutiny of the workers.

Great coal strikes exposed great cities to privations and distress hitherto unconsidered. Paper-mill strikes confronted the public with an acute shortage of that commodity indispen-sible to all the business of modern life. Electrical-workers’ strikes plunged cities into darkness. Police strikes were taken prompt advantage of by criminals to indulge in orgies of robbery and destruction. Worst of all, transportation strikes threatened to tie up all industry and, by cutting off their channels of food supply, to starve out the populations of the great cities.

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