Open Side Menu Search Icon

    Index Downloading...

    Golden Age, October 11, 1922

    Download: PDF — Golden Age, October 11, 1922

    Golden Age—1922

    4iHii.ii riTOaiAetii

    Oct. 1!, 192X Vol. IV, No. SO

    fuljli^Jicd cirery otter

    I ’ •• j week tit ;.x Concord Street, \^/r Brooklyn, A*. y„ V, S. X

    Five C«nt« 4 Copy—£1.00 a Y«ai

    CafiAda ud Foreign Coiuiiria^

    Vol. 4 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1922 No. St

    CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

    LABOR AND ECONOMICS

    The Mammon of Undghtaoaaneaa - - _ _ m

    SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

    Graft an Tnereasing Menace 10 Graft and Cwt of Living 11

    POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

    Beyond the Indue (Part II) 3

    India and the World War 4 Official* too Reactionary ...-S

    Punishments too Severe

    The Mahatma Candbi

    The Poverty of India

    HOME AND HEALTH

    Healing fa all A?es ...

    Drug* Do jioi Cure

    What Doctors Say about

    Drue* .....................-

    Hertiiag in the- Early Ageo 14

    God’s Merkod of Hygiene — 15

    DeuiOuUcic Additions ..._____13

    TaiiuudUt Sorcery .1G

    ’The Sona of Cod**

    Nut all Disease from

    Demon* _____________—___,..IT

    n<?iilir.£ under the Apostate

    Cuuffh ................——

    Slow Fr-fcres* ...________,_...13

    Medical Reforms

    Much Light i-hk’t 1574 -....20

    DrueIcse Heniin; ...

    RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

    A Challenge to World Lea lew

    Besulutaon Adopted by I. B. S. A.

    Mildotis Now Living Will Never Dio —

    Why the Kingdom?

    The Trouble ...

    The Happy Solution .

    ••Lik* li.itn ii"-i the .......

    The Philosophy of Resii-wtiuQ (Port 1) ——2"

    Meauing of ne.’tiritloD ....27 \ t>e Citation of Adsim

    Tree of KnowleJge of

    Good and Evil ..........

    Fai.ie Xh«ritH Cuiifutsd ... 29

    Th a Formation of Eve ..'....29 Knowledge of Adam and

    Eve ................... . -

    Lucifer. Adversary of God

    Gitin's DuboliLjl Plot

    Studies in the of

    Guu' >.,■■.....

    Prt>?J’bed ewr? other We^oerdir at 13 Carrvd Street. HmA.j'G. V ’.....V •' V

    by- u-HiinvoitTH. nr;*;i>r8 aoi Mx-rtlN C’.A\nc; J. Wil..!f.VVKTH...... ». "-‘'f

    Bt*RV!T r. UAKTIN .... F!ix.n-^ '4 *ti .ter WM. F HLTHJINGd V .'*! J-

    Crpirifttri i id propdriflfi. Add?’?'-*; IS ’ Street. Ri^kSriJ. Y., . T < A.

    Ftvw'Cents a (’urf — *!.''« \ VsrtR F«-»»*’cn nfi'irKS : I'rtf.

    Terrace, Lancaster <:•'*►*, I. • tlV. 2' f 'Hrtddi?<n : 2?u [it.?:*; ••. S’. W„

    T-'r-Hito, ; ■ .4 * r!t-'•?••- 5

    St.. .'P»fh«ttrn<». . An^tmlix rfiviirtnP1"#** '!} •• n iu®

    3J '• '’■tijdjx X L

    abler Un Act of March 3. IB’®’

    Golden Age

    Volant* IV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, Oct. II, 1923 Number 8®

    Beyond the Indus (Part n)

    THE East India Company, founded under Queen Elizabeth in 1599, was the beginning of British trade in India. All the other politicians of the world are schoolboys as compared with British diplomats; and by playing one of India’s seven hundred governments against another, and by using one to overawe another, the whole country gradually came under the rule of the Company. In 1.858 the government was transferred from the East India Company to the British Empire. This was a change in title, but not a change in fact; for the government is still in the same hands, and is still administered in the same way as when the East India Company had undisputed control.

    We have before explained that the government of India is really in the hands of the Viceroy or Governor-general, assisted by a council of six persons. Then there are sixteen other persons, appointed by the Governor-general, who may ask questions about what is done with the $600,000,000 which is raised every year, but who may not propose any resolutions. They are, so-to-speak, the Viceroy’s official patters-on-the-back.

    In February, 1921, a new branch of government was opened, the legislative assembly, which has the power to pass laws, after they have been approved by the Viceroy and the British Parliament. This is a native body, the hoped-for nucleus of self-government for the country.

    But India has not much to boast of in the way of self-government yet. For example, the right to sell liquor is a government monopoly, granted to certain individuals on special terms. This is the foundation for many of the great fortunes of t’m I’dtid) IsFs.

    Now suppose some misguided enthusiast in India should start to preach against the liquor traffic. What would happen to him! We can answer this quite clearly; for it has already been tried. In the vicinity of Bombay some persons exhorted the natives to abstain from thje use of alcohol and narcotics. Straightway the government revenues fell off, the exhorters were arrested, riots ensued, and further preaching of the sort was put down by armed force. We wonder whether the missionaries in Bombay ever pray: Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in Bombay even as it is done in heaven,’ and if so what they have in mind when they offer the prayer.

    The seventy native governments of India which have survived adoption, first by the East India Company and second by the British Empire, continue to go through the ceremonies of government; but their rulers have little to do except to weai* brilliant uniforms and jewels to dazzle the eyes of their subjects, and to furnish subject matter for illustrated newspapers and magazines. e

    The Rajah of Pudukota is on the throne that was ruled by his ancestors before Julius Ciesar crossed the Rubicon, but it is safe to say that no rajah of that country ever had as little real power. He is entitled to a naval salute of eleven guns and is considered a great man when he is in full regalia in London. While there he may even be invited to dine with the king at Buckingham Palace, but he would not be allowed to enter any English club in India; for in India the Hindus must be made to know who are their overlords. At least that seems to be the theory.

    The Maharajah of Jhind traces his way back through a line of maharajahs that have been ruling the land of Jhind for almost a thousand years. Some of the maharajahs have a million or more subjects: seine of them have palaces that are famous throughout the world; some of them have jewels worth millions of dollars, handed down from their ancestors. But the jewels of many of these rulers have found their way to London, never to return.

    As "money loves money” throughout the earth so “royalty loves royalty,” although most possessors of money and of royalty know, whether they admit it or not, that neither the facts back of the money nor those back of the royalty will bear investigation. The maharajahs are retained on their thrones because it is “good business’’ to have them there. The Prince of Wales is jealously guarded as the future Emperor of India for the same reason. When the city of Calcutta recently turned out to welcome the Prince it was thought expedient to lock up 5,209 persons in the one city before the unalloyed joy over his arrival could be guaranteed. During his visit outbreaks occurred in Bombay, Madras, and Chauri Chaura.

    While the Prince was in India he had the novel entertainment of witnessing the annual pig-sticking event known as the Kadir Cup. The Indian boar is considered the bravest animal afoot; he stands usually over three feet high, weighs 200 pounds, and has razor-like tusks with which he can disembowel a horse or a man in an instant. When overtaken in a hunt the boar will turn upon his pursuers, and the horseman’s chance for the life of his horse or even of himself may depend upon his ability to receive the boar’s charge upon the point of his spear.

    India and the World War

    L'RIXG the war India sent to the front 1,250,000 men, $1,000,000,000 in money, all the expenses of the Indian contingents and millions of tons of food, fodder, army equipment and military stores. The proposition made to the Hindus at the time was the same as was made in America; that the war was a war to end war and to make the world safe for democracy; that greater liberties and better living conditions would surely be their reward.

    Returning from the front, where they had been well-fed, and coming home to want worse than they had ever known, and with the 66,000,000 Mohammedans displeased over the unhorsing of their spiritual ruler, the Sultan of Turkey, it followed inevitably that many of the ex-soldiers were dissatisfied, especially as the promised liberties were not promptly forthcoming.

    Accordingly the Government enacted what is called the Rowlatt Sedition Act (against the unanimous advice of all the Indian members of the council), and as this act is unique in the history of jurisprudence and of liberty, we give herewith a summary of its provisions, which have been widely published. Let it speak for itself; and when you read it try to put yourself in the place of a Hindu soldier who fought in France to preserve the life and the official position of the man that drafted the law;

    1. Any Indian is subject to arrest without warrant and is subject to unlimited detention without trial.

    2. The burden of proof rests upon the accused.

    3. Trial by jury is denied. Right of appeal is denied. "No order under this Act shall be called into question in any court and no suit or other legal proceeding shall be against any person for anything which is in good faith done, or intended to be done under this Act.”

    4. The accused may be convicted of an offense with which he is not charged.

    5. ( The prosecution "shall not be bound to observe the rules of the law of etide nee." In other words, the testimony of dead, absent and non-existent “witnesses” can be used against a suspect.

    6. The accused is denied the right of employing a lawyer or producing witnesses.

    7. The authorities are empowered to use “any and every means” in carrying out the law and obtaining confessions.

    8. The accused is given a secret trial The ninh.d of the procedure and the findings of the trial mar n- t be made public.

    9. The accused is kept ignorant of the names of and is not confronted with his accusers.

    10. Any per.-on (>tca his or her own family) vcLc-tarily associating with an ex-political prisoner mu- '• e arrested and imprisoned.

    11. Any place or home can be smirched "ith’i;: ■ rant.

    Since the war India has been eager to get r. i of her military burdens, ami attention 1ms lu- a riveted upon the military expenditures , m.m more than before. In South Africa, which m a peninsula, eight percent of the government r-v-enues go to the army; in Italy, which is ids-i a peninsula, fourteen percent so to the ;army; In India, three years after the war, tifty-two percent go to the army, and the total taxes of all kinds are fifty percent greater than they were before the war.

    The excuses which are made for this large army expense are not convincing. The commander-in-chief says that the large force is needed to defend the northwestern frontier against the frontier tribesmen. But the London Times says: “The menace from the frontier tribesmen only becomes acute when we pene-

    trate into their territory.” And the Hindus themselves say that the real reason for the

    - large army is to overawe the Hindus and prevent them from getting the things they were promised at the time of the World War.

    Lord Northcliffe, who recently made a visit to India, said that there has been a marked change of demeanor and acts toward the whites by both the Hindus and the Mohammedans, especially on the part of those who were formerly most friendly.

    The New York Times, of June 18th, 1922, goes into the subject of how the estrangement of the Hindus took place. The report is over the signature of E. H. Dickerson, a mining engineer, just back from five years in India. As ’a rule this kind of testimony is reliable. Mr.

    i Dickerson said:

    '•'There is in India a class of Englishmen occupying - usually high administrative posts who belong to au age which they tail to realize has passed away. The Indian army otllcer is almost invariably of this class. He belongs mentally in those ‘kiek-the-nigger days' which existed before the idea of the rights of minor peoples had been brought forth. The men in power during the war in the Punjab, the district in which most of the Indian overseas troops were recruited, were pre-eminently of this class. ...

    “I was present in the State of Mayurbhanj during the uprisings among the Santals, which took place in 1916. After seeing the effect there of overzealous re-• cruiting methods among a primitive and ignorant people, I am inclined to accept the Indian version as correct. [Ue here referred to the unrest in the Punjab • accompanied by riots. The Government attributed the unrest to the gem.ral depravity of the Panjabi, his hatred of British ride, etc.]

    ‘‘As a r<-u’.t of this state of aifairs General Dyer, who ’-as m command of the British troops in Amritsar, can-cd notices to be put up forbidding all public assemblies. A few hours after the posting of the.-e notices • a large crowd of Indians assembled in the Julianwalla Bagh. one of the public squares of the city. It is doubtful if in a population so illiterate the notices were thoroughly understood, or if in the short time since their ’ issue their significance had been generally realized. It

    ’ is also doubtful if any copies of the notice were posted

    in this particular spot where the meeting took place. The crowd was apparently a peaceful one and if armed at all carried only sticks.

    “Carried away by the fear of a general uprising, General Dyer closed the outlets to the square with his troops, opened fire with machine guns and did not cease until 380 persons had been killed. This was followed by the bombing of outlying villages from airplanes and the enforcement of degrading indignities upon the public. Indians were permitted, for example, to pass certain streets only on their hands and kneea.”

    In The Golden Age, Number 15, for April 14, 1920, we discussed the Amritsar incident at some length. The shooting was not done with machine guns, as stated by Mr. Dickerson. General Dyer stated that the door to the place where the lecture was being held was too small to admit them or he would have used them. As it was he had to be content with shooting 1^650 rounds of ordinary ammunition. On the witness stand afterward he admitted that martial [law had nut been extended to the suburb where- the shooting occurred, and that he had done nothing afterward for the relief of the 3,600 who were injured. He also admitted that the crowd was unarmed and might have dispersed peaceably if he had ordered it to do so. He was complimented by his commanding officer, awarded a pension of £900 per year and presented with a testimonial of £30,000—something near $50 apiece for each man, woman and child slain by his orders.

    Officials Too Reactionary

    Ma. P. Tennyson Cole, writing to the New York Times, March 13,1922,seems to confirm the thoughts last expressed, that the recent trouble in governing India is due to mediaeval policies on the part of officials. He said: “After long residence and intimate knowledge of all classes of people in India, I may confidently assert that reforms of a social and economic order, directed toward a complete departure from the traditional methods of British Indian officialdom, would do more to pacify the native population than any measure looking toward secession from the British crown. It is the perpetual state of subjection in which the natives of all castes aVe held by the assumption of superiority of race, always evident, in the attitude and long established practices or the governing officials, that kindles ani-mo-ity and intensifies racial prejudice.”

    The New York World gives some particulars, in its issue of June 3, 1922, taken from a speech of Pundit K. Satanam, showing this lack of kindness toward the Hindus by some .who, for the time, have them in their power:

    “The brutal way in which wme of the volunteers of Rawalpindi were treated so late as the end of March, where they were first soundly beaten and then dragged by the legs with their shoulder and head trailing along the ground until the hair was rubbed off, recalls some of the horrors perpetrated by the police officials in martial law days in Amritsar for the purpose of extorting a confession from the hapless victims.

    « -tv QOLDEN AGE *.«

    "What is worse still, the police seem to take a delight in offending the religious susceptibilities of the people they arrest; sometimes a Koran or a Bhagavad Gita is beaten with a shoe, sometimes a Sikh is pulled by his beard (as was brazenly admitted by a European police officer in the court of Mr. Keough the other day), and sometimes the Sikhs are tied together by the hair of the head.”

    There has recently been a change in the Secretary of State for India. It is in the London office that the policy that is to be used in the government of India is formed. Of the retiring Secretary, Mr. Montagu, it is said that he has been long opposed to blood-and-iron methods of government. Of his successor, a Tory, it is said that he is uncompromising, high-minded, well-meaning, zealous, very able, and possessed of great wealth and a cantankerous disposition. It is said of him that unlike most public men, instead of attempting to solve difficulties by means of quiet discussion, he prefers to go with hammer and tongs for those who are opposed to him. What he will do for India remains to be seen. The description that is given of him does not sound any too encouraging.

    Punishments Too Severe

    TxlE punishments which have been visited on political offenders in India during and since the war have been very severe. In one province in the Punjab alone, 596 people were tried by court martial within the past few years, many of them lawyers, editors and other prominent Indians. Seventy-three of them were sentenced to death, 204 to rigorous imprisonment, and 147 to the Andaman Islands for life.

    The treatment accorded to prisoners in India is about the same as in Rhode Island, Florida, Persia, and other semi-civilized communities. The Indian Jails Committee has recently published a report describing the cages with their trapdoors in the floors in lieu of toilets, their sleeping-boards in lieu of even the plainest beds, and has acknowledged that the Rhode Island method of ‘'standing handcuffs,” wherein the prisoner's wrists are handcuffed to a staple or to a bar of his cell door, is liable to cause serious results. The report says: ‘‘The long period of enforced standing may be injurious, because of the possible danger of having an epileptic fit while thus handcuffed to the wall.”

    In the transportation of prisoners recourse is had to the Florida system of the bell-chain, wherein at night all the prisoners are fastened together to a bell-chain which is itself attached to a staple fastened in the wall or ground. The committee denounces the Florida system as barbarous and recommends that it be prohibited except as a strictly temporary measure; which means that the jailers will use it whenever they feel like it. The report says:

    "The use of the bell-chain makes it very inconvenient for a prisoner to answer the calls of nature while thus fastened, by a chain, which also secures the whole row of men in the same barrack, while obviously all considerations of decency are impossible under such conditions. We were told that, on the occasion of an epidemic, such as the recent outbreak of influenza, the evils of the bell-chain were particularly noticeable. If a man fell ill at night, it was impossible to remove him without unchaining the whole row dr barrack; and cases occurred where dead men were found alongside the living.” .

    The conditions in the Andaman Islands are worse than on the mainland. The Islands are fever-smitten and the death rate is very high. There are no schools or religious teachers or resident officers on the Islands; merely a group of overseers whose duty it is to see that the required amount of labor is performed.

    It will be remeq^ered that 147 prominent Hindus from one province were sent to the Andaipan Islands for life. These men were men of high character, whose dr fine was that they were patriots, lovers of their fellowmen, longing for and working for a better government. The conditions into which these men of high character are plunged in the Andaman Islands is revealed in the following excerpt from the Indian Jails Committee's report:

    “He was then released into a community in wh:<--h there was not more than one woman to six men. and in which all the restraints- supplied by the ca>te sy.-tem were absent. He was left without any moral guidance, and without any of the domestic and family influences which to a large part of mankind supply some of the chief inducements to respectable conduct. The public opinion round him was thoroughly corrupt, and if by this time he retained any desire to live a moral life he received no assistance from the system of society in which he found himself. It was hardly to be exp-cted that a population so trained and recruited could lie tit for successful colonizution.”

    “Like the men, the women members of the colony are convicts. Marriages, known as local marriages, are allowed between the self-supporters of the two sexes. In the year 1918, there were only 233 female self-supporters as compared with 1,304 male self-supporters. ... As might have been expected, the result of such a disproportion of the sexea has been wholesale immorality on the part of the women.”

    All are aware that it is necessary to send missionaries to India, but not all appreciate fully why they are needed. It is necessary to have them so that they can assist the Christian officials of that land to treat the natives in a Christlike manner. But the Manchester Guardian seems to intimate that they were a little short of missionaries recently when some prisoners were being Idaded into box-cars to be taken to the nearest jail. The Guardian feels sure that there will be an investigation of the matter. It may result, as in the case of General Dyer, in a letter of commendation, a pension and the gift of a large fortune for the one who did the loading. The report proceeds:

    “The Government of Madras states that an investigation is being held into a deplorable ‘occurrence in which sixty-four Moplah prisoners lost their lives? From such derails as are available it would seem that they were crowded into one or more closed railway vans and died from suffocation. It is clear, at any rate, that a party of a hundred rebels taken in the difficult fighting in the Malabar area were entrained last Saturday at our base, Tirur, for the nearest available gaol, at Bellany, and that when the train stopped at midnight after an eighty mile journey, fifty-six were found to be dead. Another eight have died since. A full investigation is promised How came it that in the security of an unmenaeed base the transport of prisoners or anyone else could be so fatally mismanaged? Were the prisoners without any sort of guard who could note their, plight ‘and .have it remedied? These questions investigation will no doubt answer, and the guilty will be punished. But however rightly we act after the harm ia done, our reputation for wise and decent executive work in India is again imperiled at a moment when it needs all the strength it can get. The Moplah rebels had lost the sympathy even of these Nationalist leaders whose teaching had helped to inspire their crazy outbreak, but of course this suffocation disaster will be used to make martyrs of the dead prisoners throughout all India.”

    A British official document shows that the practice of giving prisoners the third degree prevails in heathen India, the same as it does in Christian America. Instances are on record in the United States where prisoners have been tortured into insanity and into suicide by anarchists who were on the government payrolls and who were supposed to be government officials. But we never heard of anything quite so bad in America as the following account taken from a British official resolution:

    “A woman named Gulab Bano waa convicted early - in 1908 [six years before the World War began] upon her own confession of poisoning her husband, and sentenced to be hanged. She appealed to the chief court and the story of the case came out. On the evening of June 7 she complained to the matron of the jail that the police had maltreated her. The hospital attendant' was summoned and to him Gulab Bano made a statement to the following effect: ‘I was hung to the roof by the police in my village during the investigation, with a rope in my legs and a baton smeared with green chillies was thrust [into her viscera]/ The civil surgeon after examination reported that he found her ‘terribly inflamed and ulcerated, a condition which, in my opinion, could have been caused only by an assault similar to that described by the prisoner/ The chief court acquitted the woman, but she died of fever. And the executive branch of the British administration, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab himself, exonerated the police by high-handed methods.”

    The Mahatma Gandhi Episode

    STUNG by the Dyer massacre at Amritsar and other cases of cruelty, some of which we have mentioned, a lawyer named Gandhi in the fall of 1920. inaugurated a movement for home rule in India which has caused and is still causing the British administration great concern.

    Mahatma Gandhi was born in Gujarat province,. Bombay, 53 years ago, was educated for the legal profession in London and settled in Johannesburg, South Africa, where within a few years he acquired a legal practice bringing him in $15,000 a year. His earnings, as fast as made, were devoted to charitable work among the Hindus who form a large part of the population of that part of South Africa. For championing the cause of the Hindus in South Africa he was jailed three times.

    In the fall of 1920 he issued an open letter addressed “to every Englishman in India” in which he pointed out that for twenty-nine years he had cooperated with the British government in every way in his power, having imperiled his life on four occasions in various military campaigns, but that the Amritsar massacre and the reward of its author had been too much for him. He reviewed Britain's appropriation of India’s means of livelihood, the excessive military expenditures, the expensive civil service, the disarming of the natives, the traffic in liquors and opium, the repressive legislation, the degrading treatment of the natives and the oft-repeated injustices; and he urged reforms, a better Viceroy and a greater effort at doing as they would be done by. He then, on behalf of-his fellow countrymen and in the effort to bring about a restoration of Indian rights, advocated the following program and had it approved by a vast congress of the Indian people:

    1. Boycott of government titles and honorary offices;

    2. Boycott of government functions, such as levees and durbars;

    3. Gradual boycott of educational institutions controlled wholly or in part by the Government, and opening of national institutions instead;

    4. Gradual boycott of law courts by lawyers and litigants and institution of private arbitration courts;

    5. Boycott of legislative councils by both candidates and the electorate ; .

    6. Boycott of recruiting of clerks, soldiers, etc., for service in Mesopotamia;

    7. Boycott of foreign goods;

    8. Promotion of home industry.

    At length, though having done not one thing of a revolutionary character, he was arrested and, on March 12, 1922, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on the charge of sedition. He now sleeps on a board, is allowed no papers, is always forced to stand in the presence of the jailer (though scarcely able to stand at all) and is allowed only one visitor every three months. One of these visitors says of this man who is bearing such treatment because of his love of his fellowmen:

    “He turned up to me with a smile of welcome, the typical head of the idealist; the skull well formed and finely modelled; the face narrowing to the pointed chin. His eyes are deep, kindly, and entirely sane; his hair is greying a little over the forehead. He speaks gently and well, and in his voice is a note of detachment which lends uncanny force to the strange doctrines that he has given up his life to teach. One could not imagine him ruffled, hasty, or resentful. Not the least part of the moral supremacy in his crusade is his universally-known willingness to turn the other cheek to the smiter. From the first it must be realized that consciously his teaching has been influenced by that of Christ, for whom his admiration has long been the almost dominating feature of his spiritual life; and probably the external character of his daily activity has been modelled also upon Him.”

    It is not unlikely that this locking up of Gandhi may do more for the Hindu people than his liberty would have done. It is such things that make people think, and thought is a precursor to action. The Young India Association of New York claims that in India there are now 200,000,000 people that are with Gandhi heart and soul. They point out that the India of today is not the India of a century ago: and that although there are only 16.000,000 of the population that can read and write, yet many of these 16.000,000 are men of intelligence, liberal education and wide influence among the Hindu people. It is their hope, and it is our steadfast belief: that the darkest day of India’s dark history is past. They* look for a better government; we know that the government of the Perfect One over ail the earth is now but a matter of relatively few months. Come, Lord Jesus!

    The Poverty of India

    FAR down below all the political unrest in

    India, at the present time, there are in evidence a great social unrest and a vast economic upheaval, which are being caused by the awakening of the poor in India to the sense of their own perpetual misery and age-long oppression. It is very difficult indeed to fathom the poverty of India; and only those who go in and out among the village people daily, and who live their own lives close to the lives of the poor, can understand what their poverty means and from what overwhelming wants and difficulties they suffer.

    The present political movement differs in this respect from all others that went before it—it has reached the masses. These masses in India

    By C. F. Andrews (India)

    understand very little regarding the Khalifat question (the restoration of the temporal power of the Sultan of Turkey, “spiritual” head of the Mohammedan faith),,even when they are Musselmans. They also have a very vague idea of what Swaraj (self-government) means, and what it really implies. But the chosen leader of the present movement. Mr. Gandhi, has deliberately taken poverty for his own lot in life. He is a poor man. today, one of the poorest of the poor. He has lived, for his whole manhood and middle age (since he was a y’oung barrister in Johannesburg and gave up his practice), as a poor man among the poor; possessing nothing in the world and going about in a peasant’s dress, eating a peasant’s food, and walking everywhere barefooted as a peasant does, traveling in railway trains in the third class compartments, just as the villagers travel, sharing all the discomforts and miseries of the peasant classes, both in South Africa and in India itself.

    In South Africa, I have lived with him, among the Tamil indentured laborers (who had been brought out originally to work on the sugar plantations) when they were engaged in the Passive Resistance struggle. I have seen the supreme self-denial of his daily life. What wonder, then, that the villagers of India should have awakened from their dull, poverty-stricken. joyless routine of daily toil into a fresh atmosphere of new hopes and new aims and new desires, when one, whom they call in reverence “Mahatma Ganvlhi,” came among them, and when for the first time a leader, who lived among them as one of themselves and was prepared to die for them, came to rescue them?

    The awakening has taken different forms. The first has been that of a revolt against the oppressive and illegal exactions of the landlords. In India, these oppressions and exactions have been going on for centuries. They include “forced labor” of every description. Now on all sides we see economic movements springing up among the peasants, in which they band themselves together and reject these fore-ed exactions and these tyrannies of the landlords.

    • Second, the political movement itself has taken into its own program the removal of all “untouchability." There are more than fifty millions in India who are still outside the pale of society altogether, and who are called "untouchables.” These are now being accepted into society; and the change, if it comes about, will mean nothing less than a great social revolution. A parallel change in the Occident would be that of the acceptance of the Negroes into white society in America.

    Third, among the poor of India, in recent years, the government-fostered drink and drug habits have been increasing with great rapidity. Therefore there lias been, in close connection with the political ferment, an almost desperate attempt to stop the ravages of drink and opium and to make the life among the poor in India “dry.”

    Last of all, the increasing poverty of the villagers of India is said by the leaders of the political movement (and there is much to justify their assertion) to be due to the fact that, while in India in days gone by, the village community was self-supporting, supplying itself not only with Tood, but also with cotton cloth, which was hand-spun and hand-woven, now in these modern days the village life can be selfsupporting no longer. Cheap Manchester cotton goods have destroyed spinning and weaving industries in the villages, and thus have left to the villagers only one leg to stand on instead of two legs, one lung to breathe with instead of two lungs. For Indian village life is peculiar in this respect, that the long dry season year by year, during at least six months, before the monsoon comes, is a time when agricultural operations are at-a partial standstill. A very great amount of time is wasted by the villagers, if they have no subsidiary industry with which to occupy themselves. In the olden days the villagers would be occupied all the year round; for, when they were not out in the fields they were engaged at the loom. The new political movement which Mr. Gandhi has inaugurated, aims at bringing back to the villagers these home industries of spinning and weaving.

    It is the same problem which Lady Aberdeen and otliers successfully solved for the Highlanders of Scotland and for the islands off the Scottish coast, where the villagers were idle during the long winter nights, and were too floor to exist by agriculture alone. The famous homespun Scotch tweeds which they now spin have prevented many Scotch peasants from being forced by hunger to emigrate. Mr. Gandhi hopes that the introduction of homespun cloth once more into popular taste, throughout the length and breadth of India, will bring back prosperity to the villages. He is insisting that educated and uneducated alike should take to homespun dress, and thus should supply funds directly to the villages instead of merely sending money out of the country to Manchester.

    It may be asked: What success has the new movement attained? The answer is that in certain directions the success has been phenomenal. It may be safely said that the poor in Indi.n have awakened in a manner that has been quite inconceivable before. “Untouchability-’ has received a shock, although its stronghold is not yet taken. The drink and drug traffic has been set back in a remarkable manner, as the Government drink and drug revenues dis-dose. The import of Manchester cotton goods last year fell to about one-half its usual amount; and though this may be partly accounted for by bad trade, yet this new movement in favor of home industries has also had its salutary effect.

    At the present time, in the North of India, we are faced with what may, in the end, result in a “peasants’ revolt.” For, in spite ot‘ the most earnest preaching and practice of nonviolence on the part of Mr. Gandhi, already there have been outbreaks, which have ended in bloodshed. The landlords seem to have learned nothing; and a new tenancy act has only increased the peasant dissatisfaction throngh-out the country. This act was passed by the landlords in the new councils, in the teeth of liberal opposition.

    Thus the signs are still dubious. On the one hand, in the awakening of the peasants we may witness with hope the dawn of a new age. On the other hand the evils lie so deep, and the oppressions of the past have been so firmly rooted, that a peasants’ revolt involving, bloodshed may still be feared, if the forces of enlightenment and freedom cannot gain their momentum with sufficient promptness and carry the landlord classes forward toward a peace- -ful economic revolution.

    * Graft an Increasing

    ONE of the greatest dangers to our “Christian” civilization is the constantly-increasing number of grafts and of grafters. It is dangerous, because insidious and far-reaching.

    Most people look upon graft as connected with politics only; yet it reaches to every line of business and to every calling. Some years ago a business friend found himself in a quandary. A short time before he had made money on some work; and, as usual, he offered a percentage to the architect in charge. It was indignantly refused; and he was given to understand that the client always pays for an architect’s services. Aly friend found himself between the old and the new. There was work in the office of another architect, but he did not know which course to follow; for if he offered a percentage. it might be looked upon as an insult, and if he did not, there would be the chance of losing the work.

    Another man, of the new style architects, for whom I recently worked, declared that he had to fee them all and to make many expensive changes and improvements in homes of architects, for which he never presented a bill. One piece of work, with which I was connected, called for goods from a particular jobbing house; and the architect would permit no substitution. The goods could have been bought directly from the manufacturer for twenty-five percent less; and that amount had to be added to the price of the work in order that the man in charge might get his profit. The added cost which the architect got also increased the usual

    Menace By John Buckley

    percentage, both of which the client had to pay. In another job on a Western college, the contractor, at the request of the man in charge, added a sum of money to the estimate; and it was agreed that the cash was to be paid to the architect. It is needless to state that both parties to the agreement were crooked.

    Ask any traveling salesmen in any line of business; and they will tell you that it is a part of their business to know whom they must fee, ’ and to whom it would be unsafe to offer the percentage of graft which is being looked upon as necessary as tipping.

    From the State of Georgia, several years ago, a wealthy farmer sent produce to commission houses in New York and Philadelphia. He was not satisfied'with some of the returns from New York, and after a shipment he took the train north. On arriving in the city, he went to the commission house, where he was unknown, saw his goods put up for sale, and bought them, receiving a bill of sale. He then went to his home in the South, and waited returns, which, when made by the merchant, were but half of what he had paid them. A young man who was a bookkeeper in a commission firm in this city told me that the firm that he worked for followed this form of grafting regularly.

    In the city where I live, the city ordinances set the price of a sidewalk gasoline station permit at one dollar; yet a friend was forced to pay $400 for such a privilege.

    The laws say that a building permit shall

    *«•“ »•193-' • Du QOLDSN AGE «

    cost two dollars, and that was the price before the war. Today, the price is multiplied many times. Repairs of any kind require a permit, and the price is optional with the building com-- missioner, which gives a wonderful opportunity for graft.

    Option money in a large sum is placed on a land sale. The prospective purchaser says that he will build a large and expensive apartment house, if he does not have to pay too much graft. In a time when we need both housing and work, the deal may fail on account of graft.

    At present, the mayor receives a salary of about the wages of his chauffeur. He spends thousands to secure the election, and is able to pay his bills. Business men about town know that, during certain administrations supplies must be bought from friends of the official. Every line of business has its graft for which the public as consumers must pay.

    Every graft, whether it be in housing, transportation, or industry, increases the cost, and whether you know it or not, you must pay your share. The workman who loafs on his job is as much a grafter as any other. He increases costs, that he may gratify a lazy inclination. The increase of cost is augmented at each handling; it is taxed at its estimated or its cost value, and the tax added to the price. Most people do not pretend to be better than their neighbors, and what usage tells them is right and proper is for them the standard that will govern their actions.

    The first principle of business is to buy low and sell at a profit; and whether it be in land, produce, cattle, or a manufactured article, we feel elated when we make a good trade; and the more we make on the transaction, the better we feel about it. Who is there among us who when offered a good chance will say: “No; it is worth more. I will give you double.” Such an action would indicate to most people mental incapacity, and they would think that the party should be in an asylum.

    GRAFT ANO COST OF LIVING

    On every hand we find graft adding to the cost of our living. Excess war profits, which the Government is trying to recover, the people have paid for, and must continue to pay. Price-boosting is put on every human need and has created a desperate condition for millions.

    To the toiling thousands, for whom there is no graft, there appears to be little merit in honesty. “Honesty may be the best policy”; but the reward seems a long way off — and the grafter does not have to wait until after death. Graft, public and private, will kill any improvement of method that may be proposed in the administration of affairs; and we shall continue to grope for prosperity, which to most of us is always just around the comer.

    The initiative and referendum we cannot get. The grafters do not want it. Government ownership or control existing graft will kill; and the sham battles of tariff and reform will continue to be fought, under the leadership of the controlling politicians. Meanwhile graft undermines our natural honesty and destroys belief in an all-wise Providence. Men say that no one but priests and rulers of old ever saw God; and when driven to the wall, men have— and men will—take a chance and forget that there is to be a future. We must either kill graft and substitute, improved methods, or it will kill us. But to change the methods and customs that it has taken centuries to formulate will require a desperate remedy; and the remedy is on the way.

    We are told that in order to save ourselves we must support the impoverished nations of Europe, and we have also learned that there is- no form of waste in the world that we shall not eventually have to pay for. We are paying, and will continue to pay, for the ravages of that war in increased taxes—which means increased cost of living and rentals, and loss by unemployment and hard times. A chart in the Literary Digest, compiled by experts, shows that the only part of the country which is blessed with good times, is the fashionable coast section, in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. The solution of our difficulties we are told by business men, is to lessen the cost of labor, that we may compete with the lower-priced European labor. In other words, we must give up our American ideals, and adopt a European standard of living. Let the American mechanic, who is forced to pay from $35 to $50.for housing, tell us how it can be done in a time of housing shortage when each month brings a dread that the rent will be raised.

    A key to an important one of our difficulties was struck by Woodrow Wilson before he became president. He declared his intention <o abolish the Lobby. He learned Inter that the Lobby was greater than any president, and that the money power that it represented was too well entrenched to be attacked. Andrew Jackson defeated the State Banks, but it was at a time when the money interests were not so well organized as at present. Chief Justice Brewer said many years ago that “the Chicago Stock Exehsnge had wrecked more lives, caused more suicides, and ruined mere homes, than the Civil War.” The Lobby represents the greatest money interests of the country, and other countries, and no president or politician dare attack or oppose it. It influences or makes our laws, and there is no force in the country to oppose it. The time will come when the people will be ’ forced t<> take the matter in hand, but it is not yet, and o.dy desperation will lead them to take the issue.

    The Mammon of Unrighteousness Bj e. w. French

    I HAVE been reading the Golden Age for two years and have accepted everything • that has been printed in it except the article written by John Buckley on “Who Gets the Money?” Samuel Gompers says that we should do something to prevent unemployment. The question is: How are we going to do it under a money system? Neither Samuel Gompers, John Buckley nor any one else can do any tiling to prevent unemployment so long as we have money as a medium of exchange.

    Money causes greed, murder, prisons, asylums, misery, broken hearts, and death. It it strange to me, that as wise and progressive as the people think they are, they do not find out that they would be a million times better off without money than with it. Money calls for lawyers, judges, politicians, real esta'te men, landlords, office employers, bankers, insurance agents and companies, policemen, militia, soldiers, tear and trouble in general.

    Why under the sun does not some one that has leadership or a press advocate a moneyless world, and do away with all this terrible crime and misery that is imposed upon the people? Why does not some one back Edward Bellamy's book, “Looking Backward,” and put it oat to the people, in the libraries and schools, and in magazines like the Golden Age, and educate the people up to such a system, showing them what it is and how much better off we would all be under such a system as Mr. Bellamy explainer!?

    I can safely say that as long as the people have money as a medium of exchange, the old world will never progress. It will go down and down, and the people will he crushed in the mad stampede for that terrible thing, money. I do not think that as long as we have a money system Christ himself would like to come back to such a miserable, degenerated class of nobodies as we are. The Golden Age talks about millions now living will never die, but the people will first need to be relieved from the grievous burdens that crush them.

    I believe in the prophecies of the Bible, but if the prophecy just mentioned is carried out we must make a big change in our system and do it quickly; for we are in the time of trouble.

    We had a conference of our smartest, brainiest men in Washington, trying to straighten out the conditions of the United States and of the rest of the world; and where have they got ’ to? What have they accomplished? What can they expect to accomplish under a money system? *

    • The more people that come on the earth the harder the problem of a money system is to solve. What a blessing it would be if we were all “broke,” and had an industrial army in place of going around begging for a job and starving and depriving our little babies of the necessities of life.

    Just think! Actually millions of people are now begging for a job; whereas we should all be compelled to do our part towards providing for the world's needs. 1 do not care about myself so much, for I am a man; but I do pity the poor, unfortunate working girl or woman.

    It makes me ashamed of the human race to think that we would elect to the head of our government men who in turn never get any tiling done for the good of humanity, but just enact a jumble of laws and more laws, and finally bring about another war to kill off some more of the young men and make many more orphans and widows and millionaires.

    Here’s to the Golden Age; and may it ever progress. I wish there were a million more magazines just like it.

    Healing in All Ages

    IX THE greatly increased light now shining on all subjects many have seen the fallacy of drug medication and have gained some knowledge of a better way of treating disease. We are now convinced that the giving of drugs is a part of the old order of things under the rulership of his satanic majesty, Prince Lucifer; and feel it our duty to denounce the practice. And this is as it should be. Every lover of truth and righteousness is in duty bound to expose error and to oppq^e evil and unrighteousness; but in so doing he should be careful to attack error and not the individual who is still holding to it.

    It is perfectly proper, and in line with our duty, to condemn the methods of healing in vogue during the administration of Satan, and to point to the better way now due to be known. But we violate the spirit of charity and of a sound mind if we condemn the medical man himself for giving drugs. The majority of them do the best they can with the amount of “light” in their possession, and are as honest with their patients as their patients 'nil permit them to be. They have done much, and continue to do much, to still the fears and soothe the pains of a suffering humanity as yet very incapable of appreciating any better method of healing.

    It was not so long ago that we were also firm believers in the magic of drugs, and we did not acquire our present knowledge of a better way in an instant or because we were criticized and condemned for not knowing better. The majority of physicians in all schools of healing are kind-hearted and self-sacrificing and give much of their time, money and knowledge without any hope of reward; and they must at all times contend with-humanity when it is at its worst.

    DRUGS DO NOT CURE

    The medical man knows that drugs do not cure disease. He is well aware of the fact that all cures are wrought by the latent vitality within the body of the patient; and he prescribes the drug to deaden the patient’s sensibility to pain, to stimulate some inactive organ, or to purge the body of some obstruction.

    “It’s a very good rule in all things of life, When judging a friend or a brother,

    Not to look at the question alone on one side, But always to turn to the other.

    By J. W. Gilbert, V. L. D.

    We are apt to be selfish in all of our views, In the jostling, headlong race,

    And so, to be right, ere you censure a man, Just ‘put yourself in his place’.”

    The giving of drugs is as much, if not more, the fault of the patient as of the physician. Our pains and aches are the result of transgressions of the laws of life, due to ignorance and the “lust of the flesh.” The majority of us are creatures of feeling rather than creatures of sense, being influenced by emotion rather than by the reasoning of a sound mind. In our search for happiness we follow the lines of least resistance and accept the mode of living customary with our family, friends and neighbors, or that part which appeals most to otir own senses.

    Our way of living, of eating, drinking working, and playing gives us pleasure; and we have no desire to change it. We are loath to believe that it can be injurious to us, and we resent any intimation that it may be. When we become sick, and are in pain, we’ think only of relief from that pain and welcome the method that will relieve it most quickly, so that we may return to our old way of living. Very few of us have any real desire to change our mode •of life, but all of us very much desire to escape the unpleasant results of that mode of limi.g.

    Drugs relieve our pains by making us ummi-scious of them or by calling upon our vital reserves to rid the body of the poisons have laid us low. For this reagon all of us h;r'» been, and many still are, believers in the ma_:e of drugs, worshipers of roots, barks and her! -, continually seeking absolution for dietetic sins by the purchase of drug-store indulgences, and always more willing to take a mysterious “something” from a box or bottle than we are to mend our ways.

    Very early in his-experience the doctor learns this trait of humanity; and soon he comes to the conclusion that he can accomplish more good by humoring his patients than by antagonizing them, even though he sometimes deceives them by administering harmless breadpills or colored water instead of the “powerful” medicine they feel that their particular case demands. The real point of attack, then, by those who are already enlightened, should be the ignorance of the patient

    is

    The modern medical man is already in possession of much of the light now shining on health subjects and is giving less drug medication than ever before, and many of them have given it up altogether and have taken their stand with the reformers. When the general public becomes sufficiently enlightened on the subject, all medical men wall be compelled to do likewise.

    As evidence that the medical men themselves are aware of the shortcomings of their profession, we present the following opinions of a number of leading physicians:

    ■- WHAT THE DOCTORS SAY ABOUT DRUGS

    “How rarely do our medicines do good! How often do they make our patients really worse."—Dr. Ramage, F.R.C. “Nine times out of ten our miscalled remedies are absolutely injurious to the patient.”—Prof. Jamei-son, of Edinburgh. “The effects of our medicine upon the human- system are in the highest degree uncertain.” —John Mason Good, M.D.,F.R.S. “All our curative agents are poisons, and as a consequence every dose diminishes the patient’s vitality.”—Prof. Meigs. Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa. “In most cases our patients would be safer without a physician than with one.”—Prof. A. Clark, New York city. “The administration of powerful medicines is the most fruitful cause of derangement of the digestion.”—Dr. Coggswell, Boston, Mass. “We have done but little more than multiply diseases and increase their fatality.” —Dr. Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia, Pa. “Every dose of medicine is a blind experiment upon the vitality of the patient.”—Dr. Bostwick, author of “The History of Medicine.” “The older physicians grow, the more skeptical do they become of the virtues of medicine.”— Prof. Stevens of the New York College of Physicians. “All medicines wlTich enter the circulation poison the blood in the same manner as do the poisons that produce the disease.”—Prof. J. M. Smith, M.D. “Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the remit of which taken collectively is far more fatal than useful to mankind. Water, air and cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopia.”—Dr. Covissart, Paris, France. “I charge that whereas the first duty of a physician is to instruct the people in the laws of health, and thus prevent disease, the tendency has ever been toward a conspiracy of mystery, humbug and silence. I urge that they have encouraged superstition and humbug by the germ theory of disease. I do not question the existence of micro-organisms; but they are the result, not the cause of disease. They are scavengers; their legitimate work is to clean out the sewers of our bodies, wherever there is decay, pus, or decomposing matter; these little life-savers are doing their work of neutralization, sanitation, purification; they feed upon eifete and decaying animal matter; they are beneficial helpers to an important end.”— Alexander M. Ross, M. D., F. S. L., of England./‘I have practised medicine in this city for thirty years, and I state to you that I have no confidence in it No man can tell when he gives a drug whether it will bring relief to the sufferer or hasten his death.”—Dr. R. M. Davis, Chicago, HL

    Doctor Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, England, considered the highest of all medical authorities, tells us why the doctor prescribes drugs. In an article on medicine written for the “Encyclopedia Americana,” he makes the following statement: “The psychical method haAalways played an important, though largely unrecognized, part in therapeutics. It is from faith, which buoys up the spirits, sets the blood flowing more freely and the nerves playing their part without disturbance that a large part of all cure arises. Despondency, or lack of faith, will often swing the stoutest constitution almost to death’s door; faith will enable a spoonful of water or a bread pill to do almost miracles of healing when the best medicines have been given in despair. The basis of the entire profession of medicine is faith in the doctor, his drugs and methods.”

    HEALING IN THE, EARLY AGES

    The history of medicine begins, not with Hippocrates, so often called the “father of medicine,” but jnst a little way outside the Garden- of Eden. Fear, sorrow, pain, disease, and death began when perfect man was driven from his perfect home and deprived of access to the trees of life. Within that Garden home there was in its perfection every food required for the perfect sustenance of humankind. In the “cursed,” uncultivated earth outside there were only undeveloped foods—fruits that consisted of a stony heart or seed kernel surrounded with sour and bitter woody pulp and a thick skin (like the nuts of our day, which may well be Edenic fruits from which the “curse” has not yet been lifted; the peach is an example of what can be done along this line by proper cultivation) —the farinaceous seeds of grasses and the herbs of the field. Everywhere were those thorns and thistles that were to so increase man’s labor. Overworked and undernourished. man’s health must fail; and weakness, disease and dearth become his portion, and that of his descendants.

    The practice of sorcery and the dividing of roots survived the Noachian deluge and became essential elements in the religions of all nations not specially instructed by .Jehovah. This came about very naturally. Before the deluge that canopy of “waters above the firmament” had hidden the heavenly constellations from man’s view; after the deluge they became for the first time visible from the earth. What more natural than for man to suppose these were the “sons of heaven” who had taught his forefathers in antediluvian days, and to think of them as still influencing the destinies of the human race? Pagan religion, beginning thus in simple star and sun worship, later on developed into mythology.

    With the ancient Chaldeans, as well as with later pagan peoples, it was thought that pain and disease were caused by some malign influence of the gods, as a manifestation of their displeasure, or by a demon who entered the body and maltreated the affected part. The remedies for disease naturally consisted of prayers and sacrifices to appease the wrath or gain the aid of the gods and incantations to exorcise the demons. One of the “spells” used by the Chaldeans was as follows:

    “On the butter which is brought from a pure stall, The milk which is brought from a pure sheepcote. The pure butter of the pure stall, lay a spell; May the man, the son of his god, recover;

    May the man be bright and pure as the butter, May he be white as this milk.”

    This “spell” was one of the remedies of the “orthodox” system of medicine of the day, which was accepted by the inhabitants of the world of that time. The priests of that day were also the physicians, as were, in a later day, the magicians, witches, wizards, charmers and necromancers referred to in Holy Writ.

    These ancient beliefs persist in various forms among the pagan inhabitants of the world in our own day, and in modified forms among the least advanced members of so-called Christian nations, who rub warts with stolen meat and carry horse-chestnuts to ward off rheumatism.

    god’s method of hygiene

    When Jehovah, after calling Abram from the land of the Chaldeans and his own people, established a nation that was to be under His speed supervision, He also established a “new” religion and a method of healing, which was rather a method of preventing disease by the observance of certain sanitary and dietetic laws revealed unto them through the great lawgiver Moses. By these laws they were to live and retain their health. And having thus provided for them, Jehovah forbade their engaging in any of the practices of those nations not under His care, saying to them in one of the laws He had given them, “There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18: 10, 12) Through the prophet Isaiah Jehovah adds: “Should not a people seek unto their God?” —Isaiah 8:12.

    …