Golden Age, October 24, 1923
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Ill ■ ..........
Contents of the Golden Age
Labor and Economics IThe Anthracite Settlement
Herrin and the Press......
Mining by Convict Labor . .
Child Labor Outrage
Big Business In Frisco
•“Treasures roa the Last Dats"
Filling the Bag
Legalized Tactics.......
Rumblings of the Coming Storm ............. 50
Earth's Rightful King .7.........
Conditions in England
Political—Domestic and Foreign Further Items or Cubbent Interest
Speculating with Public Money
World-Wide lawlessness
League of Nations Defied
Mussolini's Brands of Bravery and Anarchy
Wall Street Gobbling Mexico
Transcontinental Air Mall Service .
Agriculturr and Husbandry Waste Land—Growing or Fruit
Scuncr and Invention A Lesson in Volcanology
Vesuvius and Plsanello
Etna, Stromboli, Popocatepetl, and VUlarlca
Lassen and Katmal
Celebrated Volcanic Explosions
Religion and Philosophy The Golden Age Prospect (Acrostic)
God Is!
Words or Lite
An Optimistic View
The Bible or the Creeds
Studies in “The Hasp or God*’ . . . . k.
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The Golden Age
▼•lune V
Brooklyn, N. Y.r Wednesday, October 24, 1923
Number 107
A Lesson in Volcanology
THE most popular theory regarding volcanoes is that they are gigantic boilers. Into some cave far beneath the earth’s surface a quantity of water finds its way. The cave may have a roof miles in thickness, but its floor is the molten interior of the earth. Steam is generated. The aperture through which the water entered becomes sealed by molten rock pouring into it, by a slight earthquake, or otherwise. The steam gets hotter and hotter. The potential energy of superheated steam confined in the cave at length becomes great enough to force an opening, either the old one or a new one.
When the opening takes place, no one can tell what will issue from the caldron. Steam there may be, a little; but a boiling geyser of molten rock, inconceivably hot, may reveal itself. What issues forth may be so volatile, so superheated, as to turn into dust the moment it comes into contact with the air. The result of a single volcanic eruption may be to change the climate of the whole earth for two years following.
There is a connection of some sort between volcanic activity and rainfall, and the connection seems to work both ways. In a volcanic region a heavy rainfall may cause a quiescent volcano to resume operations; and when the operations are resumed, they may be the cause of unusual quantities of rain over a large area.
It occurs to us, from the evidence at hand, that a few active volcanoes scattered here and there over the earth’s surface, accomplish a good work. They eject quantities of infinitely fine dust into the upper air, and these dust particles become nuclei for raindrops. Quite possibly the renewals of volcanic activity noted within the past two years are a definite part of God’s plan for causing such changes in earth’s climate as will make for a more general watering of the dry places. The latest efforts of scientists for causing rain in dry places have been along the line of ejecting fine dust into the air from airplanes. It would be interesting if it transpires that the Lord is going to do all that is necessary along this line, using volcanoes to do the work.
Vesuvius and Pisanello
WHEN the subject of volcanoes is mentioned the mind instinctively turns to Vesuvius, the world’s best-known volcano, situated in one of the garden spots of the globe, and in a place easy of access. Near the great city of Naples, Italy, an electric railway runs to within 250 yards of the crater, and tourists take the adventurous risk of going not only to the summit but even to a considerable depth within the crater.
Vesuvius has a basal circumference of thirty miles. Its height is 3,800 feet. There is no record that it was active until 63 A. D.> when many surrounding cities were damaged by an earthquake, and subterranean caves were probably created which have been responsible for its frequently recurring activities ever since.
The greatest recorded eruption of Vesuvius was in 79 A. D., when the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried in volcanic ash. The decorations on the walls of Pompeiian houses which have been unearthed reveal a shameless licentiousness and debauchery among its inhabitants.
Near the edge of the Vesuvian crater the Italian government maintains an observatory established for the express purpose of watching volcanic phenomena. The observatory is connected with Naples by telephone. In a time of eruption, some years ago, when the people about the base of the mountain were alarmed for their safety and for the safety of their homes, they were calmed by the reassuring messages which came to them from the edge of the flaming abyss. The volcanologist encouraged the people with reasons to believe that the eruption would do no great damage, and reminded them that volcanic ash is one of the best of plant foods. At the time he sent these messages the observatory was completely hidden from view in smoke and fire.
When Vesuvius was active in 1921, note was taken of the fact that the Spring of the year, especially the month of April, seems to be the favorite time for the beginning of operations. Professor Maladra, the present volcanologist at Vesuvius, attributes the outbreak in the Spring of 1923 to the heavy rains which fell in February of this year. It was a considerable time after the rains before the outbreak occurred. During the interval we may suppose that the volcano was literally getting up steam.
While much of the western coast of Italy gives evidence of volcanic origin, Vesuvius, until 1920, was the only active volcano on the continent of Europe; but in October of that year Mount Pisanello, in the Apuan Alps, near Carrara, also became active.
Etna and Stromboli
MOUNT ETNA, on the island of Sicily, is much larger than Vesuvius and more destructive. Its height is about 10,875 feet. A railway seventy miles in length ascends in spiral form to the summit. Sections of the railway frequently require to be rebuilt
Since the year 476 B. C. eighty eruptions have been recorded. In that of 1169 A. D. 15,000 persons lost their lives; and in that of 1693 A. D. 60,000 persons perished. In the eruption of 1879 molten lava poured from 100 different mouths. Greek mythology mentions Etna repeatedly.
The length of the eruptions varies greatly. That in 1614 lasted ten years, that in 1911 only ten days, while the eruption in 1908 lasted only eight hours. Professor Ottorino Fiore, volcanologist at Etna, predicted that the eruption this year would last two weeks; and his prediction seems to have come true.
The whole slope of Mount Etna is intensively cultivated. Hence every eruption, while it brings more volcanic ash to enrich the soil, also brings destraction in its wake. The one in June of this year destroyed four villages, and made 30,000 people homeless.
It is pathetic and exasperating to read that when the lava stream from Etna was approaching the town of Linguaglossa the parish priest had the inhabitants kneeling bareheaded in front of a statue of "Saint ^Egidius,” offering the saint flowers and lighted candles if he would stop the flow of lava. Natives of an adjoining town halted a procession which was carrying a staff of this particular saint, so that they could stop the lava from reaching their own town; and the police had to separate the' combatants.
The volcanologists had agreed that the lava flow would stop short of Linguaglossa, and it did. But the saint got the credit of stopping it. If the staff and the statue of our friend JEgidius are so effective as lava stoppers, why not take him up in an airplane and shove him off into Etna itself, and thus stop the lava before it gets started 1
The flow of lava in 1923 was slow, but was thirty feet deep, and in places was said to have run up-hilL It was so intensely hot that trees and vegetation burst into flame ninety feet away from the stream. The explosions as the lava reached bodies of water could be heard seventy miles away. Instruments registered 940° temperature. The damage was estimated at one hundred million lives, about $24,000,000.
Unlike the volcanoes that experience intense paroxysms of activity followed by long periods of repose, the volcano of Stromboli, in the Mediterranean Sea north of Sicily, offers an example of continuous activity. Standing alone in the sea, it is visible at night for a hundred miles, its ever-lighted fires tinting the clouds and sky with a rosy glow which has led to its being known as "The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean?’ The lower portions of the mountain are fertile and inhabited.
Popocatapetl and Villarica
POPOCATAPETL in the Aztec language means "smoking mountain.” Its height is 17,783 feet, which is considerably more than that of Mont Blanc; and it was long reckoned the highest mountain in North America. It has since yielded the palm to Mount McKinley, in Alaska, however.
Within the throat of the crater, which is over two miles in circumference, it is estimated that there are 148,000,000 tons of sulphur, the supply of which increases at the rate of one percent annually. In 1904 a New York capitalist purchased the mountain from its Mexican owner for a half-million dollars. From time imme-morial the natives have ascended the mountain to obtain sulphur.
It is nearly six hundred years since Popocatepetl has been on the warpath, although there was a mild eruption in 1802, and there were perceptible vapors above the crater in 1909. For the last three years it has been slowly waking up. In January, 1920, great fissures appeared around the crater, and poisonous vapors arose. In December, 1920, four daring Americans ascended, although the mountain then was in mild eruption. They found that the small lake which formerly filled the center of the crater had disappeared. A year later the volcano was throwing up smoke, fire, and stones that could be seen a hundred miles, accompanied by noises that were as unpleasant as those made by a jazz band. On the sides of the mountain it used to be a favorite sport to sit upon a goatskin and slide 5,000 feet to the base of the snow-line; but in January, 1922, all the snow went off for the first time within memory, disappearing in roaring torrents poured down the arroyas.
About the time Popocatapetl began to awaken, San Miguel, a small supposedly extinct volcano, burst in twain, belching forth ashes, dust and streams of hot water mixed with sulphur gases, killing 200 Mexicans and utterly wasting one of the most fertile valleys in Mexico. The river in the valley disappeared, leaving the land without water.
In May, 1921, after a series of earthquakes in which fifteen mountains dropped, some of them 150 yards, disclosing peaks that had previously been hidden from sight, the top of the snow-capped volcano Villarica blew off, ejecting pumice and ash over one of the most picturesque sections of Chile. During the excitement a river 300 feet wide completely disappeared, and a big lake overflowed its shores.
Lassen and Katmai
ALL America was much interested a few years ago when Mount Lassen, in the southern part of Shasta County, California, became eruptive. The eruption did not amount to much, however. For excitement along this line we have to depend upon the geysers of the Yellowstone. In August, 1922, in that region, a quiet mud pool suddenly began operations and is now the largest geyser in the district, throwing a column of steaming hot mud and rocks three hundred feet into the air.
One of the most tremendous volcanic eruptions in history was that of Mount Katmai, Alaska, in 1912. Prior to that time, Kilauea of Hawaii was considered the largest active crater on earth. Kilauea’s depth i^500 feet; Katihai's depth is 3,700 feet, its width three miles. When Katmai blew up it broke up an area of fifty square miles, from which hot gases and molten material are even now flowing. The column of steam was conspicuous one hundred and fifty miles away.
When the top of the mountain blew off, the force was so great that every part of it was reduced to finest dust The explosion was heard eight hundred miles distant. Two thousand miles away, the fumes tarnished brass; and at that distance, linen hung out on the line to dry was so eaten by the sulphuric-acid content as to fall to pieces on the ironing-board. Four hundred miles away the acid raindrops caused stinging burns wherever they fell on face or hands. Ashes a foot deep fell a hundred miles in all directions, and within the whole area of the ashfall stygian blackness prevailed for sixty hours.
A hole was blown into the ground where Mount Katmai once stood, within which all the buildings of Greater New York might be placed fifteen times over. During the ashfall the darkness was such that a lantern could not be seen at arm’s length. No lives were lost, however. The district is virtually uninhabited, and there was sufficient warning to enable those in danger to escape.
Dust from the volcano fell 1,500 miles away. Government officials made careful estimates which showed that six and a quarter cubic miles of earth were ejected by the eruption. The fine dust carried into the upper atmosphere formed a haze which so reduced the intensity of sunshine as to cause the cold Summer of 1912 throughout the northern hemisphere. All great volcanic explosions have been followed by pronounced drops in temperature, the world over. During that Summer, the dust veil interfered with the work of the astronomical laboratories and, it is estimated, absorbed ten percent of the sun's heat.
The millions of cubic feet of carbon dioxide given off by the explosion constitute food for plant life, and are an indispensable basis from which all human foods are built up.
Kilauea and Mauna Loa
ILAUEA (Hawaii), "the world’s safest volcano,” is almost as well known as Vesuvius.
The crater covers an area of 2,700 acres, and is eight miles in circumference. In the center of the crater is a lake of boiling lava 1,000 feet in diameter. There is a good automobile road leading almost to its edge. This is made possible because the walls of the crater have been broken down on one side.
A writer in the Chicago Evening Post, describing a visit into the crater of Kilauea, says:
“A descent into the crater of Kilauea lends a certain, awful majesty to fear. Despite the assurance of one's guide that ‘there’s no danger K one can scarcely suppress the desire to scream with terror as he makes his way over the shaking floors of scarce-cooled lava, with unnamed horrors beneath; past redhot rocks and hissing vents; across yawning abysses to the very brink of creation! Man, in the face of this manifestation of mightiness, is small beyond qH expression, a mere dot or cipher in the eternal scheme of world construction and destruction.”
Prof. T. A. Jaggar, Jr., the Government volcanologist at Kilauea, is making a careful study of volcanoes and earthquakes. The Hawaiian Islands are a good place to conduct such a study. Of the several active volcanoes there, Kilauea is most favorable for study on^account of the broken crater. At a favorable place in the crater rim a doorway is being cut which will enable scientific investigations to be carried on much closer to the volcanic fires than is possible elsewhere. In the lava lake of Kilauea the surface rises and falls with the tides of the sea, the movement ranging from one to four feet.
The three greatest active volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands are not located upon the island where Honolulu is situated, but a hundred and fifty miles to the east on the island of Hawaii, the largest of the group. Kilauea is 4,040 feet high; Mauna Kea is 13,805 feet high, and is the loftiest peak in the Pacific Ocean. Mauna Loa is 13,675 feet high and at times maintains a lava river 300 feet high. It is estimated that this lava stream travels from the mountain top to the ocean in one hour, a distance of twenty miles.
On the island of Maui, the crater of the extinct Haleakala, 10,082 feet above the sea, is unusually well preserved. On the island of Oahu the extinct crater of Palola is used as a reservoir by the city of Honolulu. The volcanic fires of Kilauea have limitless possibilities for supplying light and power.
Celebrated Volcanic Explosions
MONG the noteworthy volcanic explosions of history is the eruption of Asama-Yama,
Japan, in 1783. Rocks flew in all directions, one of which, measuring 264 feet by 120 feet, fell into a river and formed an island. So much dust was ejected by this explosion that a dry fog covered the entire earth for months, greatly reducing the temperature. The sun was invisible for some time after rising and before setting.
In 1815 Tomboro, in the East Indies, exploded, ejecting fifty cubic miles of earth into the air. This was the greatest volcanic explosion ever known. At a distance of 850 miles, volcanic ash fell to a depth of two feet. The next year, 1816, is known as the year without a Summer, due to the interception of the sun's rays by the dust which still persisted in the air.
In 1883 Krakatoa, another East Indian volcano, exploded, ejecting three and two-tenths cubic miles of material into the air. This explosion although only half as great as Katmai was much more violent. The dust particles were blown so high that it required two years for them to settle down to the level of the highest clouds. The explosion was heard at a point 2,968 miles distant, where it sounded like the distant roar of heavy guns. Barometers showed that the air wave circled the globe seven times before it became too faint to be detected. Two years after the eruption, there was still a twelve percent loss in the sun’s power, due to the dust yet remaining aloft. i
It is self-evident that in volcanic eruptions alone the Almighty has in His power a force with which He can change the climate of the whole or any portion of the earth at wilL How. puny is man! "
Items of Current Interest
The Anthracite Settlement
ONE more crisis in the anthracite coal indus
try came to an end at Harrisburg, when Governor Pinchot, early in September, succeeded in bringing about a two-year truce between the miners and the operators. There are only 310 anthracite mines, all of them in the northeastern part of the one state of Pennsylvania; yet they supply fuel to one-half of all the homes in the United States. Their stoppage, even for a day, means the withdrawal from market of about a thousand tons for each mine, and the enforced idleness of an imaginary freight train forty miles long, with all its engines and cabooses. The stoppage this year was for twenty days; hence the train was eight hundred miles long before it got under way.
That a cessation in the production of anthracite coal amounts in effect to the murder of thousands of persons was brought out by Governor Pinchot in his statement that during the months of January, February, and March, 1923, in the state of Pennsylvania alone, there were six thousand more deaths than in the same three months of 1922. In the period first named there Was a coal shortage, while in the other period coal was plentiful.
By as clever a political move as was ever made in America, the federal Government shifted the responsibility from the national administration at Washington to the state administration at Harrisburg. Had Governor Pinchot failed to bring about a settlement, the national administration could have evaded some measure of blame; and as Pennsylvania is a Republican state the Republican party would supposedly have Buffered little.
Had Governor Pinchot failed to bring a settlement by agreement, he could still have tried to put into operation in Pennsylvania some kind of compulsory work plan, which would perhaps have operated the mines under a sort of glorified peonage system. The Republican party could then have claimed for putting this power into Mr. Pinchot’s hands such glory as would have been advisable under the circumstances. Where such a move was popular, the party could have claimed credit for it; where it was unpopular, Mr. Pinchot could have been blamed tor it. We understand that the Courts, and prop
io
erly, we think, have repudiated Governor Allen’s Kansas Industrial Court. He went too far.
Mr. Pinchot has gained a large place for himself by succeeding in bringing about a settlement. Moreover, he has stoutly claimed that the increased cost of sixty cents a ton made necessary by the settlement ought not to increase the cost to consumers by even one cent. He cites the fact, well known by all who have given the subject attention, that the operators have been making great profits, profits out of which they could well spare ten cents of the sixty cents, and that the wholesalers and retailers could well spare the remainder. He has called a council of the governors of the anthracite-using states to see whether plans can be devised to prevent the disproportionate rise in the prices to consumers which always follows a small rise in cost. Meantime, coal has gone up.
One thing the money powers will not at all permit is a lessening of their profits. The operators had no sooner emerged from the conference than they began moaning about how the increased prices which they must now charge would seriously restrict the anthracite market. Thus they are discounting in advance all that Governor Pinchot will try to do to keep coal prices at their present high level.
Mining is Unsanitary
HE common people are continually between the upper and nether millstones. They
would like to see the miners get enough so that they can live in decency and comfort. The anthracite miners are not overpaid. Many mines are worked on a contract basis, the contractor receiving all that is paid in excess of a living wage. There are miners in Scranton who, because of this, travel long distances back and forth to their work in other districts, so that they may escape'the lower wages and inferior working conditions of Scranton itself.
Miners living in Scranton who have averaged $6.50 per day elsewhere claim that in Scranton, under the conditions that have obtained, $4.50 would have been about the best they could have done. $4.50 a day, at present prices, is not much to receive for risking your life every day, working in the dark, in the wet, in the grime, in the gas, and in a place where there are no toilet facilities. Some of the old mine workings, because of the latter sanitary item, are places which no man would enter but for necessity of gaining a livelihood. Probably the operators would say that the miners would not use the toilets if they were provided; but perhaps they are mistaken.
A thing which in the minds of Scranton residents has created a bad impression of the honesty of operators is that formerly there were great mountains of culm, millions of tons of coal waste, for which the miners never received a cent. Honest people were glad, rather than sorry, when they saw the operators washing this culm and selling every particle of coal which it contained, even down to the size of rice; but they are not glad, and they are not happy now, when they see these operators deliberately mixing the black and worthless rock that remains with freshly-mined coal and sending it all over the country to sell at $10 to $20 per ton to honest people. The thing is being done openly, with nobody sufficiently interested in the welfare of the people to intervene.
Governor Pinchot urged upon President Coolidge that the findings of the United States coal commission on profits and costs in mine operation and in wholesale and retail distribution should be made public in great detail at once. He also suggests turning on anew full light on the rates charged for the transportation of anthracite coal with a view to their reduction. These suggestions are timely.
Herrin and the Press
THE coal commission has already published some interesting and indeed remarkable findings. One of these is in respect to the scenes of horror in Herrin, Illinois, where twenty-six non-union miners were murdered and no punishment for the crimes could be obtained, even though six of the non-union men were marched through the paved streets of the city on the way to the cemetery where they were executed, and the population knew about it and witnessed the tragedy.
For this state of affairs the commission blames the labdr-hating public press in the following language:
"Nobody can tell how much this had to do with the failure to punish the members of the mob. It was the storm of protest that swept through the public press of this country. It was the condemnation of the union, the union officials and the public officers. It presented the common aspect of a stranger interfering in a family row. The commission, of course, cannot say what might have been the result if public opinion had waited until the courts had either attempted or refused to discharge their duty. But the whole economic life of the county puts it beyond peradventure that when an indiscriminate assault on the union and the people of the county was made it rendered the punishment of anybody impossible in that county ”
Mining by Convict Labor
TN THE states of Alabama and Tennessee, the Steel Trust and three other mining concerns manage to prevent coal strikes by hiring the convicts of those states to work their mines. These convicts can avoid flogging by producing one ton of coal per day the first month, two the second month, three the third month, and four tons per day the fourth month.
After they have produced four tons per day they may work the remainder of the time until quitting time and receive the same wages for excess coal produced as is paid to free men for the same work. They earn considerable money in this way. The state physician determines which men may be relieved of the responsibility of working underground.
Formerly these convicts slept in bunks two high, and no heed was paid to the question of cleanliness. Now, in Alabama, they must bathe after coming out of the mines, and they do not have to sleep in their working clothes, as was once the case, and as still is the case with the convicts working on the roads.
Child Labor Outrage
IN A few more months it will be just a hundred years since the tailoresses of New York city organized the first woman’s labor union. Since then women’s labor unions have abolished the sweat-shop in the clothing industry. Women and men workers still have much to do before ideal labor conditions will have come.
In Mississippi more than one-fourth of all the children ten to fifteen years of age are at work; Rhode Island works one-eighth of its children; California, Washington and Oregon work only three percent of them. But in the United States as a whole there are more than a million of these little folks at work. Congress has twice tried to prevent this child labor, but in both instances the Supreme Court held that the laws were unconstitutional.
Since the Supreme Court made its last decision that Congress cannot legally prohibit or limit child labor, the slavery of American children has been on the increase. Recently the Department of Labor discovered nearly a thousand of them in Newark and Jersey City engaged in what amounts to work under sweatshop wages and conditions. In Waterbury, Connecticut, because of this ruling, there are eight times as many child workers as a year ago. Tuberculosis is common among child workers.
Since the Supreme Court made its last decision a frail girl of ten years, tubercular, was found in Jersey, hard at work making rompers for talking dolls. She had but recently been operated upon to remove a needle which she had swallowed while at work. One of the standard jobs for such little folks is the linking and wiring of rosary beads. Which is right under the circumstances, Hail Mary, or Bloody Mary? The pay runs from four or five to as high as ten cents an hour. It thus appears that by working hard all day these little folks could possibly earn the price of one meal in the cheapest and dirtiest of restaurants.
There are 1,350 children working in the shrimp canneries on the Gulf Coast. The flesh of their hands becomes raw and sore from the shrimp acid and from shrimp thorns run into their hands. One little girl reported that she used twenty-five cents worth of alum per week in order to keep her hands in such condition that She could continue her work. In the beetfields of Michigan and Colorado the children get so fatigued that they weep and moan and are unable to eat.
Supreme Court and People
HE Supreme Court and the people of Amer-ica are in a predicament An examination of the proceedings of the convention which framed the American Constitution shows that the convention never contemplated that the Supreme Court should have the power to nullify acts of Congress.
This prerogative has been usurped, and it‘is believed that the usurpation could be ended by an act of Congress demanding that it should end, and instructing the President to carry out the decrees of Congress in this regard. Constitutional amendments have also been proposed to accomplish the same ends; but they are harder to procure, and slower.
Judge Ford, of the New York Supreme Court, in an article in the New York American, declared that "courts are the ‘Hindenburg line* of intrenched plutocracy,” and quoted Thomas Jefferson on the courts as a "subtle corps of sappers and minprs working underground to undermine foundations of government as formed under the Constitution.”
He quotes President Jackson as having said that “it is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill as it is of the Supreme judges.”
Shorter Hours and Cooperation
HE American Rolling Mill Company, Middletown, Ohio, reports that in various departments in their business, in which the eighthour day was substituted for the'twelve-hour day, the men are in better condition physically and mentally and seem to be much happier and of more value to their homes and to the community at large; also that in the one depart-'ment where the men were lukewarm about the change before it was made, they are now delighted with the change and have been able to add sufficient bonus to their guaranteed wage to earn almost as much in eight hours as they formerly did in twelve. In other words, by considerate treatment their efficiency has been increased.
The makers of Ivory Soap now guarantee their employes full pay for full-time work for at least forty-eight weeks a year; they have a profit-sharing plan, pensions, life insurance and employe representation. All these blessings will come to the employes of the Steel Trust some time, and they will be still happier than they are now. The old idea of big business that the only way to happiness is to make big profits, no matter how the men fare, is one of the greatest mistakes ever made.
The people as a whole are entitled to a large and ever larger share in the industries and their profits. As the inventions of the past become the tools of today, they should come more and more under the control of those who will use them for the benefit of the people. The largest number of people that each employer can benefit in a large way is his own employes,
Biff Business in Frisco
TN SAN FRANCISCO the banks are squeez-ing the labor unions through the contractors.
The contractor must employ non-union men or such men as the banks permit him to employ, or he can get no material of any sort—cement, brick, lumber, plaster, rock, iron, steel, lime, anything.
The banks carry on this scheme through an Industrial Commission, so-called, which virtually every business man in the city has been compelled to join, and which is busily engaged in teaching the building trades to youths in the briefest time possible.
These quickly-taugfit youths are being used to swell the ranks of labor and to break the monopoly which master plumbers and others have maintained for years. The labor unions have appealed to the federal government to investigate the situation.
San Francisco probably got its idea from the similar organization of banks, newspapers, and business men in Los Angeles, called the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. This 'Association has succeeded in making Los Angeles an open-shop town to such an extent that there has not been a successful strike in the city in fifteen years.
The Association claims that this has had most to do with the extraordinary growth which Los Angeles has had in that time. Practically all the employers in the city are under an agreement not to sign any contract with their men or to deal with any union. This makes the employers absolute dictators.
Los Angeles is not an industrial city; its residents are principally from the East, small business men that have made some money and have sought Los Angeles for a home; hence the ease with which the Association’s program has been carried through.
Every employ^ that gets blacklisted by the Association's secret service force may as well leave Los Angeles; for he cannot find work there. Whenever there is a Strike the Association sends to Kansas City or Chicago and brings in all the help needed to take the strikers' places.
Profito-Pairioiism and Taxes
ERHAPS the most patriotic class of people in the country is big business, if we let them tell it. They are the first to shout for war, if there is to be a war, though they never go to war themselves, if they can help it Business il so good during war times, and there is such an opportunity to make millions, that they cannot get away from their “essential industries.,<' So they stay at home and work for the Government for a dollar a year and for themselves at a million dollars a year.
But when the war is over, and the boys that were to die are moldering to dust, big business is not so patriotic. We do not have reference to the Bonus Bill now, but to the fact, admitted by all the Government experts in the income tax service, that they have constantly to watch their wealthy contributors.
Business was good in 1922; there was a surplus on June 30, 1923, of $300,000,000, instead of the predicted deficit of $823,000,000; but the internal revenue fell off until it was less than half that of 1920. Moreover, in 1923 there were refunds of $123,992,820 collected as income tax in previous years. The New York World says that “every now and then some expert drops out of the Internal Revenue Department and becomes miraculously rich as a professional adjuster of cases.” What a field for clever lawyers!
Speculating with Public Money
ENERAL WOOD reports that business in the Philippines has been bad, and that the government bank there has made so many bad investments that if it were a private institution it would be closed. The bank invested in sugar, oil and coal businesses, none of which was profitable to the government No doubt somebody else has reaped or will reap a reward from these investments after the government retires from them. That is the way it generally works. It seems next to impossible to find those who will work as hard for the people as they will for their own pockets.
General Wood says of the management of the National Bank investments:
“They were carried out without regard to sormd busk neas principles and oftentimes without investigation, Monejs were advanced without proper security and ths affairs of the bank conducted with disregard of sound business methods and at times with disregard to the rules of common honesty.”
Thus do we teach the untutored Filipinos how to govern themselves.
The General says that "the huge investments in the sugar industry in certain provinces have resulted in benefits to a comparatively small number of people.” That is the way things go everywhere. That is one of the principal reasons why the desire of all nations is for Christ's kingdom, so that the benefits will flow forth to all the people equitably and not to a favored few who happen to be personal friends of those in power.
The ex-president of the bank and three other ex-officials are now in jail, thinking it over. No doubt in the end they will want Christ's kingdom, the same as those who suffered through their misguided attempts at sudden riches.
The Divorce Evil
IN AMERICA any man or woman who tires of his life partner may run away to another state, perhaps two to three thousand miles away, gain a residence, and after a little time bring suit for divorce against the deserted mate on the ground of desertion or abandonment, with a fair chance of success. The federal government has interfered during recent years in so many things with which it had no proper right to interfere that it seems to us here is one thing in which it might interfere, so that men of little or no principle might at least find it harder to abandon the helpless victims of their perfidy.
SIR AUCKLAND GEDDES told the graduates of George Washington University that he doubted if ever before in history was the future for so many nations and so many individuals as dark as it is today. Without a doubt he is right. He holds that there are three essentials of civilization: Beauty (the maintenance of cleanliness, order and comfort) ; service (the desire to assist others, regardless of who they are); and truth (unwillingness to participate in or to profit by anything that is not right). These and other similar expressions stamp Sir Auckland as a great man.
THE International Police Congress held its 1923 session in Vienna. It seeks to bring about closer cooperation of all police institutions to stem the tide of criminality which grew out of the World War. The task of police officers is becoming ever more difficult. The criminal of a generation ago traveled on foot; the modern criminal travels in a high-powered car. The policeman of a little time ago swung a dub; today his gun is in plain sight, ready for instant use.
Vienna was the scene of an anarchistic attempt to kill Judge Rutherford a year ago. The city at that time was under the control of Roman Catholic authorities. In the great concourse in which the anarchistic onslaught was made there was not a policeman on hand, though the meeting was one of the greatest ever held in Vienna. We wonder whose power it was that kept the police away from that meeting, and whose power it was that incited the riot.
TULSA, Oklahoma, is a town which often figures in Ampri can despatches as a place where mobs are frequent and where regard for the law is at a low ebb. Tulsa was the scene in 1918 of several attacks by officers of the law upon unoffending Bible Students; later it was the scene of a terrible race riot in which large numbers of innocent Negroes were slain.
Now it is in such evil state that the Governor of Oklahoma has been forced to suspend the state constitution in Tulsa County and to place the whole county under martial law, with a view to breaking up the mob violence and floggings which in recent years have given Oklahoma, and especially Tulsa, such a bad name.
ANOTHER center of lawlessness in America is Georgia, where it is usually directed against the Negroes. Of late it has turned against the whites in the city of Macon, several men having been flogged, one of them so ill with tuberculosis that his life is despaired of. The flogged men are given thirty-six hours to leave town or be slain.
One of the men warned of a forthcoming flogging is a lieutenant of police of Macon, who has promised that there will be some sudden deaths in Macon when his turn comes.
DISTRICT Attorney Banton of New York City is about to begin an investigation respecting the employment of professional gunmen by Union officials and employers. He is authority for the statement that “it is a common practice, when trouble breaks out between employers and unions, for somebody on one side or the other to employ gunmen against the other side” One of these gunmen was recently killed by an opposition gunman while he was in the company of a detective at one of the police courts.
NEW YORK and Brooklyn each had an Italian mob on September 3rd, crazed because the police would not permit them to parade the streets with statues of Saint Rosalia. Forbidden by the police they rushed to a rectory in Brooklyn, calling out to the priest, “You have more power than the police. If you give us the order, the police will let us parade.”
As far as carrying Saint Rosalia in the parade is concerned, a bundle of rags would have been every bit as effective; and as far as the priests actual power in this country is concerned, it is on a par with that of Saint Rosalia. These Italians have the idea that they are still in Sicily. They have something to learn.
IT SEEMS unfortunate that it is so, but the way the law stands only 300 Australians can come to the United States each year to settle, but 30,000 Italians can come. We have nothing against the Italians; they are industrious and honest and make good Americans, but they have to learn our language and to forget a lot of nonsense about what Saint Rosalia and other saints can do for them. But the Australians are not thus handicapped. Moreover, and that is the unhappy part of it, the Australians do not like the situation in which they find themselves. They threaten a graduated embargo on American goods, which they consume in large quantities, as a partial offset.
Moreover, some Australians like a nip of “firewater'’ at their meals and they do not like to have their ships sail dry all the way from Vancouver to Sydney merely because they touch at the Hawaiian Islands enroute. But they might as well learn to get along without the liquor now; for the prospects are that they will have to do so when the Lord’s kingdom is in full control And that will not be long now.
League of Nations Defied
S THE World War grew out of the assassination of an Austrian archduke, so another and greater and final conflict may arise from the assassination of the Italian officers serving on the Albanian Border Commission. Italy seeks expansion east of the Adriatic Sea. Largely to please her, a mythical country of Albania, adjoining Greece on the Adriatic, has been in process of formation, or attempted formation, for some ten years.
Greece and Italy were attempting to definitely fix the borders of this supposedly independent Mussulman state; their interests conflicted; the Italian delegates were suddenly killed; Italy blamed Greece and issued a twenty-four-hour and then a five-hour ultimatum imposing such severe conditions as would be hard for any country to accept.
Greece accepted most of the conditions, but sought modification of others, whereupon Italy seized the unfortified island of Corfu (forty miles long, population 225,000), the key to the Adriatic Sea, and killed fifteen, and wounded fifty Armenian orphan refugees housed in an old fort, in a bombardment that was unresisted and entirely unnecessary. Other islands in the vicinity have been seized since.
Italy refused to pay any attention to her treaty obligations covered by Articles 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 of the League of Nations Covenant, and the League, that monument of hypocrisy, did not, as required, “sever all trade and financial relations and prevent all intercourse between their own nationals .and those of the offending state and between that state and the nationals of any other state, whether a member of the League or not.”
It thus becomes once more apparent that the strong members of the League pay no attention to their League obligations, and that the League itself does nothing to back up its own obligations. In other words, the League is as though it were not Greece and Italy are both League members.
It was as inter-allied officials, acting under the direction of the Council of Ambassadors, representatives of the Supreme Allied Council of the League, and not as officers of their country, that the Italian officers were serving on the Albanian border commission. They were three miles over the border into Grecian territory ■when slain, but had a right to be there. The nationality of the assassins, or the cause of the assassination, is unknown.
Mussolini** Brand of Bravery
IN REFUSING to recognize the League of Nations, and in precipitately murdering the fifteen child refugees at Corfu, the government of the anarchist premier of Italy, Mussolini, has done as might have been expected of it Even the New York Times, which apparently approved Mussolini’s ruthless destruction of Italian liberties, says that "the reviver of Roman imperialism ought to be reminded that Cfesar, though not wholly blameless in his public life, never assaulted a cripple."
Mussolini is absolutely heartless, or he would remember that Greece is exhausted from a disastrous war, is bankrupt, and is struggling to continue the support of a million refugees hitherto largely accomplished by American aid. He wanted over $2,000,000 indemnity, all of which, if paid, would in effect be food taken from the mouths of refugees.
As excuses for the violence at Corfu, Italy points to the American occupation of Vera Cruz; and for her virtual ignoring of the League of Nations she points to similar violations of the League’s wishes by France in the Ruhr, by Poland in Vilna and by Yugoslavia. Britain occupied Corfu, against the wishes of its inhabitants, for a full half century upto 1864.
Oddly enough, a month before the Italian forces occupied Corfu an Italian warship visited the island, and squads of Italian marines. covered every part of the forty-two miles length of the island on foot, while their officers scoured the roads by automobile. Possession of Corfu by Italy makes the Adriatic Sea an Italian lake.
Mussolini has definitely decided that Italy shall withdraw from the League of Nations if that august body tries to see that justice is done to Greece. Greece appealed to the League for relief, but in vain. The only excuse for the existence of the League is to protect and help the weak nations when they are oppressed by the stronger.
Mussolini’* Brand of Anarchy
AT KANSAS CITY, Mo., on the 31st of August, a federation of liberty-loving Italo-Americans very properly adopted resolutions denouncing the effort to transplant to America the Mussolini brand of anarchy. We quote their resolution:
"The Fascist! dictatorship in Italy has completely destroyed constitutional government and has outlawed all labor unions and labor political parties that do not subscribe to its nefarious creed, wantonly and traitorously murdering thousands of men, women and children, and imprisoning in filthy medieval dungeons over 60,000 men and women without charge or indictments.”
Mussolini is an ardent Roman Catholicfand covets and receives the support of the papal system in his efforts to spread his brand of anarchy throughout the world. Fascism© is growing in every Roman Catholic country. Afi the Roman Catholic church has never hesitated to’support war where it thought that it might possibly gain something thereby, so now it is ready even to support a brand of anarchy with the same end in view.
Perth Amboy, N. J., is a strong Roman Catholic town. Recently the citizens of this town, some of them, beat and stoned knights of the Ku Klux Klan engaged in the innocent pastime of parading streets which as long as they behaved themselves they had as much right to parade as anybody.
The Klan thereupon demanded the protection of the law, a thing to which they were entitled, and which should have been theirs without demand. Klansmen have been attacked recently in Binghamton and in Steubenville, and one was killed in Pittsburgh.
We are not Klansmen, but we demand for Klansmen all the rights in this country that Roman Catholics and others enjoy. In Perth Amboy within recent years priests have incited mobs to break up free Bible lectures which contained nothing offensive to any truth-loving person.
We are tired of seeing the Boman Catholic fifteen percent of the population of this country trying to control the other eighty-five percent by every means in their power, politically and legally, and then resorting to anarchy when they cannot gain their ends in any other way.
We cannot but fear what will happen to the fifteen percent if many of the eighty-five percent turn into Klansmen; and from reports which reach us it seems not unlikely that something of the sort is on the way. The Klan limits its membership to native-born Protestanta.
Wall Street Gobbling Mexico
FROM the assassination of Carranza, in May, 1920, to August 31,1923, the United States Government did not recognize the Government of Mexico, although Mexico has had an orderly government during all that time. The difficulties which have kept the two countries apart have been of a financial nature.
As soon as the New York financiers could properly get their hands on Mexican income there was no difficulty in arranging recognition. This has now been accomplished and a boom in Mexican securities follows as a matter of course.
Mexico is a treasure house, one of the greatest stores of natural wealth on earth, and hence a goal of high finance. There is a saying in Mexico that Mexico can produce anything from a pine tree to a pineapple.
Mexico is today the only country in the world that is on a strictly metallic basis, only gold and silver money being in circulation. Up until now Mexico has had no “national bank of issue,” and the people have known nothing about paper money.
Wait a little; and you can be confident that when the new "national bank of issue" planned by the New York financiers has gotten into operation there will be lots of beautiful printed money afloat in Mexico, and a good share of the gold and silver now there will be under the control of the Wall Street wizards.
Transcontinental Air Mail Service
OR some time now the United States postoffice department has maintained air mail service between New York and San Francisco, the flying taking place only in the day time. The rate of postage is twenty-four cents for each half ounce. The equivalent of a thousand trips across the continent has been made without a fatality.
On August 21-24, after sixteen months’ preparation, all-night flying was inaugurated on a plan which enables the mail plane to leave New York at noon, and arrive at San Francisco the next evening. Chicago is reached the first evening, Omaha at midnight, Cheyenne at daybreak, Salt Lake City at noon. The route is via Bellefonte, Cleveland, Bryan, Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte, Cheyenne, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Salt Lake City, Elko, and Reno.
The all-night service was maintained four days, after the airway course between Chicago and Cheyenne had been carefully laid out, lights and signals set, emergency fields located and supplies distributed. After the results have been carefully analyzed the all-night service will be maintained for a month, and then again carefully analyzed. In time a reasonably regular all-night service will no doubt be maintained It staggers the imagination to think of leaving New York at noon and landing in San Francisco the next evening.
THE ZR-1, 962 feet long, weight 75,000 pounds, Uncle Sam’s largest dirigible, completed her trial trip of thirty miles, September 14, the next day thrilling the inhabitants of New York and Brooklyn, then turning her nose toward Philadelphia, going at a speed of a mile a minute as gracefully as a soaring eagle. The crew consists of nine officers and twenty-two petty officers. With four of her six engines going she made a trial speed, while traveling with the wind, of forty miles an hour.
ANOTHER cantilever bridge 207 feet in height, is in process of construction across the gorge where the Niagara River rushes at the rate of twenty-three miles per hour toward the whirlpool. The excavations for the new bridge abutments are being made by the aid of a gigantic steam shovel that was lowered over the edge of the cliff. The earth and rock from the excavations are being dumped into the river, which carries them away as though they were so much sawdust.
The first time the Niagara gorge was spanned was by a New York boy named Homan Walsh, about seventy-five years ago. After eight days of effort he succeeded in flying a kite from bank to bank. The kite string was used to haul a heavier line and subsequently a cable. Passengers were carried in an iron basket on the cable for several years.
Other cables were added; then came sidewalks and at length a railway bridge, over which the first locomotive crossed March 8* 1855. For many years this bridge, the old Suspension Bridge, was the only bridge across the river. It was replaced in 1897 by a steel arch bridge, and there are now two other bridges across the chasm, besides a cable basket over the whirlpool
“Treasures for the Last Days” By Victor Schmidt
FROM Croesus to this day the idle rich have filled their coffers with the wages of the common people. The toiling masses have labored for, fought for, and died for these oppressors. The hardy Lydians were forced to work in tribute mines and upon the banks of the Pactolus that Croesus might become the rich man of the ancients. After their ruler was defeated by Cyrus they were absorbed as part of the Persian Empire, and this was a cruel yoke. The greedy satraps under Cyrus placed an almost unbearable system of taxation upon the subjects. The best men physically were called into the army to fight for the king, so that all lands from the Indies to the Hellespont did obeisance to the mighty Cyrus. But too greedy, he broke the spirit of his people. The masses became disheartened by years of servitude and oppression. An unjust war was waged against the Massagetee; a battle was lost, and the king was killed.
As Cyrus did, bo many rulers since
Have crushed the very souls that bore them up.
The hoplites of the Grecian army were culled from the laboring masses and were forced to spill their blood that riches might be heaped up for their king. Phalanx after phalanx was sacrificed upon the battlefield before the Greeks became disheartened and disgusted with their rulers. The ruddy-faced plebeians of the Tiber also were zealous in collecting talents for the Csesars, and almost every sea and river of Europe *drank the blood of Roman stock that the coffers might be filled. But these hoodwinked Romans also woke up one day to the fact that they were fighting for the wrong king, and they stopped fighting.
We cannot overlook the noble and commendable spirit of loyalty in the hearts of these people to their kings, and that spirit lasted as long as they put confidence in their rulers as public benefactors. Time and again, however, history has revealed that their rulers, with few exceptions, were their oppressors. Those who would rule well have been forced to beat their swords and shields in music to the tune of pr6-teg6s. The people, lulled -to sleep by this strange music, have been tramped upon and almost crushed. At times they woke up and have wreaked a frightful vengeance upon their overlords, only to be shifted from one yoke to another. In desperation they sought one king, then another, but often found themselves tossed from the hands of an autocrat into the daws of a despot
Oh, for a king of the people I
The masses were unable to extricate themselves from bondage, and the drama of oppression went on. The proletariat of France were almost overwhelmed by the heavy exactions of Louis XVL Under him were about a quarter of a million favored nobles and clergy. They owned half of the soil of France, the castles, chateaux, and buildings of note. They squeezed out of the peasants three-fourths of what they earned. Such an exacting system of revenue was imposed that one could not pass over a road with a sack of grain without paying toll The peasants in the rural districts at timea lived on bread made of ground acorns, bark and bran. The working people, pitiable dumps of tattered rags and despair, were huddled together in cellars and dingy rooms which literally stank. Twenty-three million squalor-stricken, threadbare, starving wretches were having their souls ground down to support a handful of sluggards in luxury. But the question is, Did they wake up! They did. As in a nightmare they rose up like madmen; seizing clubs and flails they slew the oppressing nobility and clergy, set on fire the chateaux of their former landlords, and hurried the king and the queen off to the scaffold. The conflagration spread and in a very short time all Europe was in the throes of bloodshed.
Let no one casually read of the French Revolution; for that was but a side-show to the one that is sure to come, if our leaders—preachers, financiers, and law-making bodies—do not "right about face” and serve the interests of our common humanity instead of trying to reestablish normalcy in feathering their own nests; for they all should be the servants of the people. 'At no time in past history has there been such wide oppression of the people. The burdens placed upon the backs of the poor are far greater than at any other time. Far more people are involved to intensify the final cataclysm. The people will stand oppression until their lives and their dear ones are in jeopardy. Even then, at times, they resign themselves to the lot of death, when not confident in their ability to extricate themselves; but this is not the case when tens of millions are pitted against a paltry few. Armies spring up in a single night,' weapons of all kinds are seized in an instant, and they run like madmen to their prey.
Filling the Bag .
THE Great War served the money kings of the world well to tighten the bonds of servitude upon the already hungry masses. And not. satisfied as yet, they seem determined to perpetrate their project until the people have been drained. A few figures will serve to show how the profits of big business have increased by leaps and bounds. The following concerns exceeded their profits over previous years by the amounts named:
American Woolen Company_____316% over 1914
American Ice Company________393% over 1914
American Fruit Company 547% over 1914
May Department Stores________174% over 1915
Pacific Mills (Flour)____________218% over 1915
Manhattan Shirt Company______275% over 1915
Endicott-Johnson (Shoes) ——353% over 1915
Com Products Refinery________
.639% over 191S
Burna Brothers ((Wl) -
_ 72% over 1916
American Linseed Company____
.780% over 1916
Amoskeag Mfg. Co. (Linen)—.
.811% over 1917
Cluett, Peabody Co. (Collars)—
-175% over 1918
In 1919 the worker received 4.7 % of the price
on each yard of blue denim produced, while the mill owner received 24.74% of the price on the same yard as his profit The wages of the workers in denim could have been doubled in 1919, and still the manufacturers’ profits would have been double the percent received by the workers. In another industry, the canning of corn, the labor cost increased 22% between 1918 and 1919, but the canners’ profit increased 256%. Also in the iron industry, the labor cost of making a ton of iron increased from forty cents to eighty-six cents; but the price of the iron itself rose from $15 to $30 per ton from 1916 to 1919.
The super-profits of big business per annum from 1916 onward have been approximately $4,800,000,000 per annum. The workers during the same period of time lost each year in wages because of the deterioration of the dollar $4,717,440,000, or nearly the exact amount of the profits of the corporations.
The companies listed below in 1922 voted the corresponding stock dividends:
The Brown & Sharp Mfg. Co__16,000%
The Davi? A Brown Woolen Co 3,233%
…